A relação entre preço e posicionamento de produto nas prateleiras de varejo ainda tem espaço para descobertas na literatura de marketing. O objetivo central dessa dissertação foi identificar o efeito do posicionamento de produtos levando em consideração o seu preço e a escolha do consumidor; mais especificamente o efeito positivo do posicionamento lógico de preços (i.e produtos posicionados do menor ao maior preço nas prateleiras) na escolha final, facilidade de escolha e número de unidades vendidas. Dois estudos foram feitos em busca de resultados, o primeiro sendo um experimento online, no qual escolha e facilidade de escolha foram estudadas a partir do posicionamento de preço. O segundo estudo foi um experimento de campo, no qual unidades vendidas foram verificadas através do posicionamento de preço. Os resultados encontrados em ambos os estudos indicam que o posicionamento de produtos a partir de uma ordem lógica de preço afeta a escolha do consumidor, embora não através da facilidade de escolha, e, mais ainda, afeta positivamente a quantidade de produtos vendidos. Contudo, verificou-se que o posicionamento a partir de preço não tem como consequência a facilidade de escolha. / The relationship between price and product positioning on retail shelves still has room for breakthroughs in marketing literature. The main goal of this dissertation was to identify the effect of product placement, taking into account its price, and consumer choice; more specifically, the positive effect of product placement by a logical positioning of prices (i.e. products positioned from the lowest to the highest price on the shelves) on the final choice, choice easiness and overall number of units sold. Two studies were conducted to search for these results, the first one as an online experiment, which studied choice and choice easiness from price positioning. In this first study was found that there is a positive relation between logical price arrangement (i.e. positioning products from the cheapest to the most expensive one) and consumer choice. However, price positioning does not significantly affect the ease of choice. The second study was a field experiment, in which the overall number of units sold was verified through price positioning. The results found in both studies indicate that the positioning of products from a logical price order affects consumer choice, though not through easiness of choice and, moreover, positively affects the quantity of products sold. Yet, it has been found that considering primily price to choose a shelf position does not have as consequence easiness of choice.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo principal investigar o papel da co-produção como antecedente do controle percebido e a influência deste na satisfação. Informação e escolha de reembolso também são investigadas como potenciais antecedentes do controle percebido, uma vez que co-produção, informação e escolha são consideradas, respectivamente, formas de controle comportamental, cognitivo e de decisão. O controle comportamental refere-se a uma influência direta do indivíduo no ambiente. O controle cognitivo refere-se à interpretação de um indivíduo sobre um evento e tem o ganho de informação como um subtipo de controle. O controle de decisão representa a oportunidade de escolher entre diferentes tipos de ação. Esses três tipos de controle são considerados capazes de aumentar a percepção de controle dos consumidores. Acredita-se que o aumento de controle percebido, por sua vez, é capaz de elevar os níveis de satisfação dos consumidores. Sugere-se ainda que a auto-eficácia e o desejo por controle poderiam influenciar a relação entre controle percebido e satisfação, implicando em maiores níveis de satisfação quando consumidores apresentam maiores níveis de auto-eficácia e de desejo por controle. Dois estudos experimentais de desenho fatorial e intersujeitos foram conduzidos para testar as hipóteses formuladas no capítulo de fundamentação teórica. O primeiro estudo contou com a participação de 97 estudantes de uma universidade brasileira, manipulando co-produção e informação na oferta de uma viagem de férias, enquanto que o segundo contou com 90 estudantes de uma universidade francesa, manipulando co-produção e escolha de reembolso na oferta de uma escrivaninha. A análise dos resultados mostra que co-produção, informação e escolha de reembolso influenciam positivamente a percepção de controle e que esta, por sua vez, afeta de maneira positiva a satisfação. Os estudos não apresentaram suporte para as hipóteses envolvendo moderação da auto-eficácia e do desejo por controle na relação entre controle percebido e satisfação. Esses resultados possuem implicações gerenciais e acadêmicas que são discutidas no capítulo de considerações finais, abrindo espaço para futuras pesquisas sobre o tema. / The main purpose of this research is to investigate the role of co-production as an antecedent of perceived control and the latter’s influence on satisfaction. Information and refund choice are also investigated as potential antecedents of perceived control since coproduction, information, and choice are considered as behavioral, cognitive and decisional control, respectively. Behavioral control refers to an individual’s response which may directly influence the environment. Cognitive control refers to an individual’s interpretation of an event and it presents information gain as a control subtype. Decisional control represents the opportunity to choose among different courses of action. It is considered that these three types of control may enhance consumers’ perception of control. The increase in perceived control, in turn, is capable of raising consumers’ satisfaction levels. Moreover, self-efficacy and desire for control could influence the relationship between perceived control and satisfaction, such that higher levels of satisfaction when consumers exhibit higher levels of self-efficacy and desire of control. Two experimental studies with factorial between subject design were conducted in order to test the hypotheses formulated in the theoretical background chapter. The first study had the participation of 97 students from a Brazilian university, manipulating co-production and information on a vacation travel’s offer, while the second study had the participation of 90 students from a French university, manipulating co-production and refund choice in the offer of a writing desk. Results show that co-production, information, and refund choice positively affect the perception of control, which, in turn, positively affects satisfaction. The studies do not support the hypotheses related to the moderation roles of selfefficacy and desire for control on perceived control and satisfaction relationship. In the last chapter, we discuss managerial and academic implications, making room for future research on the theme.

Understanding the choice behavior of customers is crucial for effective service management and marketing in the hospitality industry. The first purpose of this dissertation is to examine the differential effects that cognitive, affective, and sensory attributes have on consumer hotel choice. The second purpose is to examine the moderating effects of consumer choice context on the relationship between the cognitive, affective, and sensory attributes and hotel choice. To achieve these two purposes, this dissertation includes the design of a choice experiment to examine how cognitive, affective, and sensory attributes predict consumer hotel choice using multinomial logit (MNL) and random parameter (or mixed) logit (RPL) models. For choice experiments, the main objectives are to determine the choice attributes and attribute levels to be used for the choice modeling and to create an optimal choice design. I used a Bayesian D-optimal design for the choice experiment, which I assess from the DOE (design of experiment) procedure outlined in JMP 8.0. The primary analysis associated with discrete choice analysis is the log-likelihood ratio (LR) test and the estimation of the parameters (known as part-worth utilities), using LIMDEP 9.0. The results showed that the addition of affective and sensory attributes to the choice model better explained hotel choice compared to the model with only cognitive attributes. The second purpose is to examine the moderating effects of choice context on the relationship between cognitive, affective, and sensory attributes and hotel choice. Using a stated choice model, respondents were randomly divided into two different groups and asked to evaluate their preference for two differently manipulated choice sets. For this purpose, it is necessary to include interaction effects in the choice model. This study identified the differences among choice criteria based on two different contexts. Among eight interaction effects, four interaction effects with the contexts -- price, comfortable, room quality, and atmosphere -- were statistically significant on hotel choice. The findings provide hotel managers with important insights and implications in terms of target segmentation, product development, and marketing communication strategy. / Ph. D.

Throughout the last few years, Flygskam, a norm against air travel, has grown steadily in Sweden due to its emissions. Flygskam is a Swedish word referring to the shame that follows air travel since it runs counter to the norm behavior. This thesis investigates the effect of Flygskam on demand for domestic flights in Sweden using synthetic control and panel data for 2003-2019. The results indicate that Flygskam seems to affect the domestic passengers in Sweden, estimated to be approximately 22% lower in 2019 than the counterfactual, significant on a 1% level.

The purpose of this study is to investigate and gain a better understanding of the consumer's point of view of visual sustainability communication with a primary focus on eco-labels on food products. The study will further look into if an environmentally conscious consumer has the ability to make sustainable choices with the guidance of food packaging information. The aim of this study was to answer the question through a questionnaire survey and in further in-depth interviews with comparative visual analysis material of food packaging: Does an environmentally conscious consumer have the ability to make sustainable choices with the support of food packaging information? Based on data collected from the survey and the interviews there are many pitfalls for the consumer when choosing sustainable products because of a number of heuristics that are taken into account. Price and brand still play a big role in purchasing decisions. However, this study showed that there is a desire to act more sustainably. It also showed that there is a need for a new perspective of sustainability and how it is presented on food products. Eco-labels are of great importance, but as for the conclusion: the consumer needs more information to know whether sustainability claims are true or not.

The advent of the Internet has not only enabled traditional brick-and-mortar retailers to open online channels, but also provided a platform that facilitated consumer-to-consumer information exchange on retailers and/or products. As a result, the purchasing decisions of today's consumers are often affected by the purchasing decisions of other consumers. In this dissertation, we adopt an interdisciplinary approach that brings together tools and concepts from operations management, economics, systems dynamics and marketing literatures to create analytical models in order to address a dual-channel retailer's optimal demand shaping strategy, through e-commerce advertisement efforts, store service levels, and pricing, in this new environment. Our findings show that the retailer's optimal demand shaping strategy, in terms of store service levels and e-commerce advertisement effort, critically depends on the product's e-commerce adoption phase. We also show that in the presence of higher operating costs for the store channel compared to the online channels, a channel-tailored pricing policy always dominates a uniform pricing strategy. Our work sheds light on the benefits of channel integration for multi-channel retailers. We show that the retailer can leverage the online channels to provide in-store pricing and inventory availability information in order to enable a more transparent shopping experience for consumers, and this strategy results in a "win-win" situation for all parties. / Ph. D.

We study the optimal resource portfolio for a price-setter firm under a consumer choice model with supply and demand risks. The firm sells two products that are vertically differentiated, and has the option to invest in both dedicated and flexible resources. Our objective is to understand the effectiveness of the two hedging mechanisms, resource flexibility and demand management through production differentiation, under demand and supply risks. We show that the presence of consumer-driven substitution does not always reduce the need for the firm to offer differentiated products. In particular, when the firm faces demand risk and differential production costs, it might invest in the flexible resource and offer differentiated products for a wider range of parameters. Interestingly, more uncertainty (in the form of additional supply risk) does not always make the firm more eager to adopt a hedging mechanism. This depends on the relationship between resource risks, product attributes, and resource investment costs. On the other hand, when the firm invests in the flexible resource, this never completely replaces the dedicated resources, and always results in a "diverse" resource portfolio. While this happens in the supply risk setting mainly due to resource diversification advantage, it also happens in the demand risk setting due to the vertical differentiation between the products. Finally, in the absence of differential production costs, demand management by itself (without resource flexibility) becomes powerful enough to hedge against the demand risk, but not the supply risk, due to the additional resource diversification benefit of the flexible resource in the latter setting. / Ph. D.

Recent work in the area of retail financial services marketing almost invariably cite the deregulation of national and international financial markets as a major reason as to why financial institutions have a need for better knowledge of their customers' behaviors and needs. Among the most sought-after information are better ways to segment and target the market, that is, how do groups of households behave with regards to their savings and investments, why do they behave in certain ways, how can we reach them and how do they respond to marketing activities? In this thesis we will attempt to shed light on some salient aspects of the first two of these four questions.Three of the papers in this volume are based on the segmentation of the market for retail financial services based on different financial strategies, as expressed in households' portfolio choices. In the first two papers, such behavioral segmentation is carried out on data from samples of Swedish and Dutch households. Issues concerning the stability of segmentation over time are also highlighted. The third paper is also focused on the concept of heterogeneity, but this time as expressed by different agents within the individual household, the question being whether the marketing researcher needs to collect data from both spouses in family households. In the fourth paper behavioral segments are used as domains to examine differences in human intertemporal discounting. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

Information Technology as a Challenge for EU Law Google - Abuse of Dominant Position within the EU Abstract Google is primarily an ad-centric platform-based ecosystem and its services are daily used by millions of consumers, many without any monetary compensation. However, despite this undeniable benefit, due to its anti-competitive conduct (abuse of its dominant position) within the EEA, the European Commission had to intervene and impose fines and remedies on Google in order to restore competition on the merits and cease further consumer harm. The objective of this thesis is to establish, whether it was the conduct of Google which caused consumer harm, in qualitative terms of diminishing consumer choice and stifling innovation, or whether it was the allegedly interventionist approach of the European Commission, established through the remedies stipulated in the analysed decisions, which caused it. To reach this objective, firstly, the economic realities of multisided platforms are explained in Chapter 1. Afterwards, in Chapter 2, the specification of consumer harm in the digital markets coupled with the factors which influence consumer harm are discussed. Then, in Chapters 3 to 5 three separate analyses of three separate decisions on Google's abuse of dominant position are presented - namely - Google...

Socioeconomic disparities in life outcomes is a widely observed occurrence. In particular, low socioeconomic status (SES) has been related to a variety of behaviours that tend to perpetuate or even exacerbate the conditions that individuals of such social standing are already facing. The last two decades have been marked by a growing number of studies seeking to disentangle behavioural differences associated with one’s socioeconomic status that fuel the persistence of these differences. This Doctoral thesis joins the discussion by investigating a subset of behaviours associated with low SES. Three empirical chapters and one literature review seeks to answer the following questions: first, what are the consumer behaviour patterns exhibited by low SES individuals? Second, how do poverty-related thoughts influence consumption of (un)taxed temptation goods? Third, what is the effect of perceived individual control on intertemporal preferences? And fourth, how does salient socioeconomic status affect intertemporal choices regarding effort? Chapter 1 overviews literature on socioeconomic status and consumer happiness. We discuss channels through which low SES can impact consumption decisions and present main behavioural patterns of low SES consumers. Low SES has been found to have a significant impact on dietary patterns that include consumption of fruits and vegetables, foods with high calorie content, as well as consumption of temptation goods like alcohol, tobacco, and sugar-sweetened beverages. Moreover, low SES individuals also tend to engage in status-signalling behaviours, despite the scarcity of financial resources. We discuss how SES can delineate consumer happiness, in particular, regarding experiential and material goods. Finally, we review evidence on socioeconomic disparities in satisfaction with product-specific characteristics and health care as well as consumer loyalty. Chapter 2 presents an empirical investigation of the intersection between socioeconomic status and consumer behavior. In particular, we study demand for temptation goods such as alcohol, tobacco or high-calorie foods. One of the most conventional ways that governments control the consumption of these products is through taxes; however, a growing body of research shows the presence of numerous behavioral biases that might prove such fiscal policies less effective. One of these biases is related to financial worries - a concept familiar to deprived individuals. Previous studies have shown that increasing worries shift attention towards pressing needs, potentially at the cost of forward-looking decisions. We run an online experiment in which we manipulate financial worries and ask participants to choose between necessities and temptation goods in the experimental market. We also randomly impose taxes on temptation goods for a subset of participants. Results suggest that under financial worries and no taxes participants demand less temptation goods and this effect is stronger for lower income individuals. However, when taxes are introduced and financial concerns are salient, lower income participants do not react to taxes. This suggests that, on the one hand, financial worries can protect against over-consumption of temptation goods when there are no tax changes; however, low income consumers can be hurt the most when additional taxes are implemented. Chapter 3 investigates another psychological occurrence - a feeling of control - and its impact on intertemporal preferences. Generally, low SES individuals have less chances to exert control in their lives compared with high SES people. If perceived control has a substantial impact on the intertemporal choice, these disparities may have a long lasting impact that might make it harder to move up in terms of social status. In an online experiment we manipulate the feeling of control by asking participants to remember a certain situation. We vary control in terms of level - not having control vs being in full control – and type – being in a situation involving other people or a non-social situation. Afterwards, we ask participants to make intertemporal allocation decisions - either regarding a monetary experimental budget or a number of real effort tasks. We find no evidence of present bias in monetary discounting for either of the control treatments. Results are different for effort discounting: on aggregate level, participants in this condition reverse their preferences more often as they choose to perform more tasks sooner when the decision involves only future points in time, but less when the decision involves also present. Moreover, we find evidence of significant present bias in the low control condition. Allocation decisions are mediated by emotional states activated in the feeling of control manipulation: for money condition, the strongest mediator is the feeling of fear, while for effort discounting it is sadness. Overall, the results suggest that although recalling a situation of (no) control does not influence intertemporal allocation decisions regarding windfall money, it can impact decisions about the allocation of effort. Chapter 4 continues the discussion on intertemporal preferences and socioeconomic status. It is a well established that low SES is related to impatient behaviours. While many works have analyzed psychological channels which mediate this effect, such as cognitive load, stress, emotional affects, and self-control issues, this work seeks to test whether the mere salience of one’s subjective SES has an impact on intertemporal preferences regarding effort. In an online experiment, I prime participants on their SES and ask to make effort allocation decisions. I find that priming affects only low status participants: this group made more present-biased choices by postponing effort to the future even if it mean higher workload. No effect was found for nonprimed low SES participants or higher status individuals in both treatment and control groups. I conclude that even a mere act of making SES salient in your mind can have an adverse effect to low SES individuals by pushing them to postpone work to the future.