The are any number of marketing metrics. (We said 50+ in the first edition of our book. That worked for us. After all, we couldn’t be bothered to count them. There are much more than 50). An obvious question is, therefore, which metrics should we bother to calculate? What is the value of any metric?…
The Problem Of Researchers Giving Advice To Managers
Translating academic research into advice for managers is a tough skill. I really don’t think we value the skill enough. We hope that researchers will effortlessly translate quality research into quality managerial advice. There seems little reason to believe this. Many otherwise excellent researchers giving advice to managers are not at their best. Researchers Giving Advice To Managers Barbara Kahn’s Global…
How Managers Decide
My second delve into Richard Thaler’s Misbehaving concerns managerial decision making. How managers decide is a massively important topic. Equilibrium Conditions Don’t Describe Any Point In Time Economic models often study equilibrium conditions. These apply where no manager will want to change their decision. Given they model this some academics seem to think that this describes…
Researchers, Teachers, And Incentives
What do we know about researchers, teachers, and incentives? Market For Stars Roger Martin, former Dean of the Rotman School at the University of Toronto, worries about the future of business schools. I absolutely believe that if business schools don’t take action in the next five years, we are looking at a GM scenario. Some 90% of…
Understanding Canadian Electioneering
Tom Flanagan’s Winning Power is an impressive piece of writing. This is because it combines academic research with practical knowledge of campaigning. Flanagan worked for a variety of “Conservative” parties. This is in addition to being a professor which has given him great experience to draw upon in helping with understanding Canadian electioneering. Positioning And…
The Gauntlet Of Attacks On Behavioral Economics
Richard Thaler‘s Misbehaving may be one of my favorite academic books. The author packed the book with interesting thoughts, covers numerous important ideas, and even is amusingly candid about his colleagues. Over the coming months, I’ll occasionally cover his key points (see here and here). In this post I’ll discuss “the gauntlet”; a list of predictable…
Being Wiser Through Less Happy Talk
Sunstein and Hastie in Wiser have produced a useful book. They discuss being wiser through less happy talk. Group Decision-Making Many elements of their text will be familiar to those who read popular decision-making books. That said, the ideas are well explained and practically applicable. The added interest is that Sunstein served in the Obama…
Confusion About Individual Rationality and Market Outcomes
Amongst marketing scholars there is a lot of confusion regarding individual rationality and market outcomes. There is also plenty of blame to go around for the confusion. Marketing’s Two Groups Who Politely Ignore One Another In marketing we have bifurcated into two groups. Psychologically trained scholars often suggest that economically trained scholars all believe in…
Fitting Marketing Messages To The Circumstances
Fitting marketing messages to the circumstances is a critical skill. There isn’t a perfect message irrespective of context. People Hate Marketing As a marketing professor, it is always fun to hear how people hate marketing. Sometimes people: A) simply only really hate bad marketing. B) don’t appreciate that marketing is broader than selling/advertising/communications. Of course,…
Judging The Performance Of Marketing Academics
I enjoy measures of academic productivity. Many of my colleagues are suspicious. To be fair, they often have reasonable concerns. Judging the performance of marketing academics is hard. Many measures are of debatable accuracy. Still, I don’t see that as a reason to give up on them. Without measures, we are left with subjectivity. The Problem…
