The abundance of social data and the constant development of new models of personalized suggestions are rewriting the way in which consumption is experienced. Not only are consumers now immersed in an information mediated context - decoupled from physical and socio-cultural constrains - but they also experience other consumers and themselves differently, embracing the prescriptions of a technological medium made by algorithmic suggestions and software instructions. A single case study of a social shopping platform in its start up phase has served as the empirical object of this thesis. The company investigated represents a typical case in the field of data driven consumption. The case has been conducted following the company’s infrastructure design and implementation for over a year. The analysis of the case has revealed the distinctive computational logic embedded in the platform system. The system uses the data produced by user selection as representation of consumer choice. On this account it structures social and individual consumption patterns and computes personalized suggestion. This study shows that technological information and software systems disassemble traditional practices of consumption and reassemble consumers in new and unseen ways. The research investigates technology’s role as a medium, by exposing and deconstructing the processes through which data aggregation and personalization mechanics reconfigure discovery, selection and experience of fashion. This thesis illustrates how consumption is now produced on the basis of social data structuration and how consumers are constructed out of data assemblages. Consumers select products they are suggested to like or expected to buy reacting to what social media platforms construct, compute, and fed back to them. Personalization allows consumers to see themselves as individual against the background of a computed sociality. Ultimately thus, the study discusses the impact of computational consumption as individuation process, considering its implications for consumer identity articulation and marketing practices.

This thesis explores the management of social media networks through a specific interpretive lens. It views social media as networks organised for information production and managed through the development of complex data structures and underpinning technological solutions. The development of social media networks chiefly characterised by the open and distributed participation of many diverse individuals through the intermediation of specific technological solutions – seems to give shape to new organisational forms and data management practices, impacting in many domains. Despite vivid interest in these participatory organisational forms, we do not fully understand how social media technology is leveraged to organise member communities, standardising processes and structuring interaction. In this research I build on the case of PatientsLikeMe, a prominent and innovative social media network constructing medical scientific knowledge through the data-based contributions of its open and distributed member base. By drawing on the findings of an intensive, participatory case research, the thesis makes a contribution on several levels. The thesis demonstrates that the management of social media networks is characterised by the need to achieve steady, reliable and comprehensive production of information and associated data collection by means of complex data architectures and user reporting. I illustrate these conditions by highlighting the challenges that characterise the development of a system able to engage productively with the member base and by describing the mechanisms and techniques through which the organisation seeks to address them. Data and data structures figure prominently throughout the research as organisational devices of critical importance for the management of social media networks. The thesis also indicates and comments on the implications of these innovative modes of organising knowledge production. It finds that social media support considerable innovation in the arrangements by which scientific knowledge can be produced, with a consistent inclusion of once marginalised actors in data management practices, and elaborates on effects on the relationship with research institutions and professions. At the same time, the thesis shows that social media technology, because of the challenges and strategies associated with information production, ambiguously supports the project of a wider inclusion that it seems to afford at first sight. Finally, the thesis claims that developing social media gives rise to specific techniques of construction and governance of the social, and the associated kinds of sociality where socialisation, computation and the production of knowledge objects are inextricably enmeshed.

This research is concerned with processes of choice in consumers and models of consumer behaviour. It also envisages a broader contribution towards economics in general to clarify how preferences in economic agents arise and change. The research question is: “are the models and factors of evaluation predicted by experts applicable to real cases?” Factors of value and evaluation processes will be observed in real world participants and in everyday behaviour. The results will be compared to models found in the consumer research literature. The fieldwork will focus on a single activity carried out by a sample of consumers: shoe buying behaviour. The first set of data is drawn from 11+11 open ended interviews of participants chosen in the two complementary groups of experts and consumers for the purpose of construal identification. The second stream of data relies on an ethnographic approach that involves recording first-person experiences by use of a miniature camera applied at eye-level, or “subcam” (17 participants). The recordings are analysed in order to reconstruct the choice processes through content analysis of events. The third stream of data in the research is produced by means of replay interviews conducted on those same participants who produced the subjective recordings (selection of 12 participants). Using a first-person ethnographic method allowed: (i) A more exact tracking of the actions involved in the choice process versus standard participant observation or in-shop surveillance cameras, (ii) intersubjective post-hoc account of the recorded activity and, (iii) elicitation of reflective rationalization from the participants in narrative form. The material collected at this step underwent a special kind of process analysis involving memory registers. Findings suggest the need to re-rank factors typically considered for choice in consumer behaviour. A fundamental rebalancing of weight must be attributed to habits versus rational evaluation as long-term factor of choice. Equally short-term factors, like emotions and attitudes, acquire distinctive significance in connection with environmental cues that are susceptible to trigger their repetition in future shopping episodes. The contribution to methodology is twofold. The empirical component extends the use of firstperson ethnographic methods to self-reporting of consumer activities in addition to introspective and survey methods. Activity reconstruction led to amending consumer behaviour models by including the influence of social environment found in installation theory.

In value creating contexts, customers often have to be clear about the roles they are required to perform (Kleinaltenkamp et al., 2012; Bitner et al., 1997), and may be required to develop their knowledge and skills in order to participate (Hibbert et al., 2012). This typically necessitates the ability to use and integrate resources in exchange encounters containing social and economic actors (Kleinaltenkamp et al., 2012; Hibbert et al., 2012; Arnould et al., 2006; Sheth and Uslay, 2007) to co-create value for each other (Vargo and Lusch, 2008; Payne et al., 2008). This research adds to the burgeoning literature on customer resource integration that calls for more insights into the roles of customers in creating their own value (Hibbert et al., 2012; Kleinaltenkamp et al., 2012; Arnould et al., 2006). This can help firms to develop an appreciation of the customer value process and design co-creation activities that can support their customers’ capability to create value (Vargo, 2007; Vargo and Lusch, 2004; 2008; Sheth and Uslay, 2007; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004; Payne et al., 2008; Frow et al., 2010). The research has indicated that customers learning styles in do-it-yourself activities reflected learning styles represented in experiential learning theory (ELT) (Kolb, 1984). ELT stipulates that individuals learn by experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting. Knowledge is seen as a transformation of experience along two continua: (1) how individuals best grasp experiences (i.e., concrete experience versus abstract conceptualisation), and (2) how individuals best transform experiences (i.e., reflective observation versus active experimentation). The study identified five distinct learning styles adopted by DIY members, which differ along these two continua and are reflective or active-orientated. Adhering to existing typologies, these were labelled as Diverging, Assimilating, Converging, Accommodating, and Balancing styles and helped shape customers’ learning self-management and self-regulation processes and use of learning resources.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which aims at enabling organisations to realize a customer focus is believed to be useful and has risen to the agenda of many organisational strategies. It can be seen as an approach to marketing that has its origins in Relationship Marketing (RM). In Hong Kong, CRM has been gathering attention from attorneys, accountants, merchants, bankers and financial advisors. However, there are few studies specifically investigating the factors that may influence the adoption of CRM. In order to bridge the gap in understanding, an exploratory study utilising in-depth interviews was conducted. A conceptual model was developed in order to deal with the two major objectives in this research 1) to investigate the factors which lead organisations to adopt CRM; and 2) the impact of CRM on the organisational performance. The conceptual model was tested with the relevant hypotheses, using a survey method by mailing questionnaires to the organisations of services industry in Hong Kong. Important findings from the examination of research objectives were discussed with regard to their implications for researchers and practitioners. Analysis results supported that attributes of innovation proposed by Rogers’ (1995), attitude towards change, market orientation, innovation orientation, perceived accessibility of IT solutions, competition intensity and desire of customer intimacy were the antecedents of CRM adoption. Also, it was discovered that information utilisation would be a possible mediator between CRM adoption and the performance. Finally, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and business performance was found to be influenced by CRM adoption. Limitations of study were reported together with recommendations for future research programmes.

IT innovation is allowing enterprises to find new ways to harness the power of information assets for decision making. This thesis presents three econometric method applications to marketing and management decisions. The first chapter empirically studies retail network product assortment decisions under uncertain underlying demand parameters using structural estimation. I use detailed data from a beverage vending machine network in Tokyo and find that agents increase the expected total revenue of the network by 19.6% than the baseline, where 12.3% is attributable to learning from the sales data, and 7.3% is attributable to agents’ informative initial belief. However, it is below the revenue when the demand parameters are known, which is 45.5% higher than the baseline. Furthermore, if the principal company could precisely process the sales data, the expected total revenue could be 39.6% higher even if the initial beliefs are no more informative than the rational expectation. The last observation indicates that there are some costs for the principal associated with the development and utilisation of sales data processing capabilities. The second chapter studies the causal effects of product recommendation by conducting a field experiment using many vending machines in railway stations that programmatically offer recommendations for consumers after recognising their characteristics via a built-in camera. We study the effects of recommending popular products and unpopular products, and ask how the effects differ across times of day and consumer characteristics. We find that both popular and unpopular product recommendations increase vending machine sales and choice probability of recommended products. But unpopular product recommendations cause opposite effects in the morning. The negative effects are mainly from male customers in crowded vending machines. We attribute the decrease in morning vending machine sales to the congestion created by recommendations. We conjecture that the negative effect on choice probabilities in the morning is because of social pressure from the surrounding consumers. In the third chapter, I derive a necessary condition for stochastic rationalisability by a set of utility functions with a unique maximiser, which I name the strong axiom of revealed stochastic preference (SARSP). I propose a test of rationality based on the SARSP that allows for any type of heterogeneity. The test can be implemented at low computational cost. Monte Carlo simulation shows that the test has an empirical size below the nominal level and relatively strong power.

This dissertation contains three theoretical essays on the functioning and the organization of over the counter markets. The first paper, "Is Time Enough to Alleviate Adverse Selection?," considers a dynamic adverse selection model in which sellers pay a search cost to find a new buyer. I uncover a relationship between adverse selection and the magnitude of search costs. Interestingly, small search costs may increase the severity of the adverse selection problem, ultimately leading to a lemons market. A market design intervention may mitigate adverse selection and promote full market participation. Conditional upon an adequate level of information disclosure, a per period market participation tax, coupled with a final rebate once a seller trades, introduces a credible signalling device. The second paper, "Peer Monitoring Incentives via Central Clearing Counterparties," studies how the novel introduction of mandatory clearing for over the counter financial assets may affect dealers’ incentives to monitor each other’s. The design of the loss allocation rules is crucial. To maximize peer monitoring incentives, a higher share of losses should be payed by surviving members with a greater trade exposure to the defaulting dealer. In practice, this mechanism can be implemented through variation margin haircutting. If all members should contribute, equilibrium outcomes may be inferior to what can be achieved without clearing. The third paper, "Learning and Price Dynamics in Durable Goods Markets," is joint work with Min Zhang. We set up a dynamic model with two key features: first, agents enjoy heterogeneous use values, and later resell the good; second, prices do not incorporate all available information. Informational frictions slow down learning, and affect price movements asymmetrically in high and low aggregate demand states. Learning and the resale motive are the predominant force for durable goods with short resale horizons, slow time-varying aggregate demand, and similar use values among buyers.

Investigating a range of commonly asserted characteristics relating to British family firms, this study concluded that, although they retained ownership and control and did not adopt mass-production, no persuasive evidence was found to suggest that the family managers of L. Gardner and Sons behaved unprofessionally or irrationally during the first eighty-seven years of the firm?s existence. Analysed from the perspective of markets and workplace industrial relations, it was found that the Gardner family managers coped reasonably well with most of the macroenvironmental shifts that occurred between 1955 and 1975. However, two serious errors were made: the first, which caused a short-term loss of revenue and a long-term loss of market leadership, was a result of negligence, the second stemmed from an outdated authoritarian approach to industrial relations that resulted in intense discord in the workplace, alleviated only after the management was replaced by a more astute and enlightened regime. A third error occurred after Gardner was sold to Hawker Siddeley, a large British industrial group, in 1977. Based on a perception that Gardner's plant was outdated, the new owners invested in expensive computer controlled manufacturing systems, and increased the volume of subcontracted components, strategies that caused disruptions to production schedules, eroded quality standards, and failed to improve output. As a result, Gardner's superlative reputation for reliability and service became tarnished and its market share plummeted. In 1986, when mounting trading losses became unacceptable, the firm was sold-on to a competitor and production effectively ceased. This thesis asserts that, as a family firm, Gardner traded profitably and provided incomes for thousands of employees for more than a century. Moreover, the sale to Hawker Siddeley conferred wealth on the family shareholders and financial security on their descendents. Gardner was not therefore, a failure either between 1898 and 1955, or before 1978.

Market oriented behaviours have been found to be important predictors of business success across a wide array of studies. Despite their potential importance, research into market oriented behaviours in the joint venture (JV) context is very scarce. This study represents a novel attempt to address this gap by examining a set of antecedent factors which arises from sources outside a traditional firm’s boundary. An extensive review and synthesis of the market orientation and JV literature yielded a set of context-specific antecedent factors relevant to the JV’s relational context. In accordance with the perspective offered by the transaction cost theory, a system of hypotheses about the effects of these antecedent factors on JV’s market oriented behaviours was developed. In order to test these hypotheses, empirical evidence was collected by means of a mail survey to international joint ventures operating in the coastal regions of mainland China. A sample of 191 JV firms was collected as a result. Following well established procedures for scale development and purification as recommended in the methodology literature, the scales were critically trimmed and reviewed for their psychometric properties. The conceptual model was tested with a structural equation model. Results suggested that a number of context-specific antecedents are in fact important determinants of JVs’ level of market oriented behaviours. In addition, the linkage between market oriented behaviours and market performance was also successfully established.

Despite being more common than innovation, little is known about the strategies involved in imitative market entries and the capabilities enabling their executions. Drawing on the Resource-based View and Competitive Dynamics perspectives, the study examines the role of marketing capability, technological capability and absorptive capacity in aiding technological firms to engage in successful imitative market entries. The research also examines the relationship between strategic types and resources as well as the relationship between resources and capabilities. Finally, the research investigates the role of capabilities as determinants of entry timing, relative product advantage and relative price, which in turn influence product performance. The research provides important managerial and theoretical implications. First, the integration of the RBV and Competitive Dynamics perspectives provides a richer explanation of the heterogeneity in firms’ performance. Second, the findings show that firms’ strategic orientation determines the level of marketing and R&D resources. Third, the interaction between technological capability and marketing capability accelerates imitative market entry. Fourth, technological and marketing capabilities have a U-shaped relationship with market entry. Finally, the present study found marginal support for the prediction that entry timing, relative product advantage and relative price increase the likelihood of product survival. The U-shaped relationship observed between technological and marketing capabilities with market entry illustrate the double-edged sword nature of capabilities. Although strong technological and marketing capabilities facilitate firms’ swift entry into the market for some, for others they may cause them to be trapped in existing product, lock them in with existing customers and prevent them from being receptive to the new opportunities in the environment. Finally, because marketing and technological capability interaction is significantly related to earlier entry and earlier entry is associated with a higher product survival rate, managers considering an imitative market entry need to invest in the development of these two capabilities.