Phil Rosenzweig likes criticizing other people. He is usually correct. Still, at his worst, he is highly selective in his criticisms. Rosenzweig seems starstruck by CEOs and their dodgy pronouncements. He happily agrees with dubious advice from top managers. He shows a bias towards a bias to action. Yet, he gets out his microscope when…
Decision-Making In The Real World
Phil Rosenzweig is a contrarian. You can tell he enjoys disagreeing with people. The Halo Effect was a great read that targeted strategy researchers. His new book , Left Brain, Right Stuff, is an attack on decision research. It focuses on decision-making in the real world. Positive Comments The book has many good points and…
Understanding The Topics In Consumer Research
The Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) reached forty years old in 2015. To help the celebrations we conducted an analysis of the topics featured in the journal over the years. For many journals, you can use the keywords supplied by the authors. The downside of this is that authors may use fashionable words wanting to…
Who Do Consumer Researchers Study?
To celebrate its 40th anniversary the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) is publishing a couple of articles that look at what consumer behavior researchers study. The first is by Justine Rapp and Ronald Paul Hill which considers who do consumer researchers study? The second is by a team I was part of. More of which…
Price Discrimination And Seniors
Peter Shawn Taylor discusses price discrimination and seniors. He argues for the abolition of seniors’ discounts. There is probably a discussion worth having over where to target government benefits. Do rich seniors get benefits that might be better targeted at younger people? I think this can be the case (although senior poverty remains a major…
Mapping Social Networks With NodeXL
Today I’m taking a slightly different tack. I’m recommending software. This allows researchers and managers to go about mapping social networks with NodeXL. The good news is that this is software that is an add-on to Excel. (Sadly it only works with the Windows version). It is easy to use, and if you already know…
Who Are The Vital Links In A Network?
When studying a social network one interesting question concerns: Who are the vital links in a network? Who connects everyone together compared to who could you remove without much difference to the network? Vital go-betweens may not be the most important in terms of their own characteristics or achievements. Yet, they take on greater importance…
The Denseness of Social Networks
What can we find out from the denseness of social networks? Individual Versus Network Characteristics Researchers often study questions focused upon the individual. For example, we might want to know if a consumer has been influenced by an advertisement. Alternatively, we might assess what sort of skills are useful for a salesperson to possess? There…
Sales And Consumer Protection
Peter Shawn Taylor discusses sales and consumer protection. He criticizes the Canadian Competition Bureau “for going after retailers for discounting too often” (Taylor, 2015). The piece was interesting. Sadly, Taylor’s arguments were unconvincing. Sales And Consumer Protection I’ll focus upon the general arguments rather than the specific cases. I cannot comment on the specific details…
Antifragility
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is clearly worth listening to. His idea of antifragility is useful. But he seems determined to alienate people. His book, Antifragile, is sprawling and confrontational. He uses it to settle a long list of scores with famous names. Those who disagree are not merely wrong. Instead, they are portrayed as cartoon villains…
