The Impact of Geographic Proximity on What to Buy,How to Buy,and Where to Buy: Evidence from High‐Tech Durable Goods Market*

Social contagion effects due to geographical proximity refer to the social effects wherein the behavior of an individual varies with the behavior of other individuals who are geographically close. Although the influence of such effects on consumer choices has been established in several contexts, much of the extant studies have focused on its effect on consumers’ decision of whether to buy a new product or adopt a new innovation. There has been no systematic examination of the influence of geographic proximity on other aspects of consumers’ product buying process such as what to buy (i.e., brand choice), how to buy (i.e., the channel), and where to buy (i.e., retailers). Such effects can matter significantly in high‐technology and durable goods markets and therefore, it is critical to understand the scope of these on consumers’ choice of retailers and channel as well. Drawing on literatures from word of mouth effects, ecommerce, and consumers’ perception of risk in their purchase process, we develop a set of hypotheses on the effect of geographic proximity on consumers’ choices of what to buy, how to buy, and where to buy. Leveraging a microlevel dataset of purchases of personal computers, we develop brand‐, retailer‐, and channel‐related measures of proximity effects at the individual consumer level and estimate a joint disaggregate model of the three choices that make up a product purchase process to test these hypotheses. Our results indicate a significant contagion effect on each of the three choices. Furthermore, we find evidence of a greater effect of geographic proximity on inexperienced consumers—those who are new to the product category. Our results thus help develop a holistic understanding of the influence of social contagion effects on consumers’ decision making.     

服务定制情境下选项的战略呈现:呈现框架对消费者选择的影响

在服务定制情境下,企业可以采用两种不同方式让消费者定制服务包:呈现完整服务包让消费者从中删除不想要的业务(减法式);呈现基本服务包让消费者选择添加所需附加业务(加法式).本研究考察了这两种不同的选项呈现方式对消费者心理反应和选择行为的影响,分析了业务类型与呈现方式之间的交互作用,通过以移动通信服务为背景的实验发现:(1)相对于呈现基本服务包来让消费者进行"加法"定制来说,消费者在完整服务包基础上进行"减法"定制时会选择更多数量和更高总金额的附加服务;(2)选项呈现框架与业务类型之间具有显著的交互作用.相对于减法框架,在加法框架下,实用型业务会比享乐型业务更有可能被选择;而在减法框架下,享乐型业务会比实用型业务更有可能被选择;(3)在减法框架下,消费者的反应时间更长,感知到的决策乐趣更高,对决策结果更不易后悔.但是,两种框架下消费者的心理冲突和决策难度没有显著差别.基于上述研究发现,作者讨论了本研究的理论意义和应用价值,并围绕企业如何通过有效的服务业务组合和战略呈现来创造利润提出了管理建议.     

Expanding the Reach of Participatory Risk Management: Testing an Online Decision‐Aiding Framework for Informing Internally Consistent Choices

This article presents research aimed at developing and testing an online, multistakeholder decision‐aiding framework for informing multiattribute risk management choices associated with energy development and climate change. The framework was designed to provide necessary background information and facilitate internally consistent choices, or choices that are in line with users’ prioritized objectives. In order to test different components of the decision‐aiding framework, a six‐part, 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment was conducted, yielding eight treatment scenarios. The three factors included: (1) whether or not users could construct their own alternatives; (2) the level of detail regarding the composition of alternatives users would evaluate; and (3) the way in which a final choice between users’ own constructed (or highest‐ranked) portfolio and an internally consistent portfolio was presented. Participants’ self‐reports revealed the framework was easy to use and providing an opportunity to develop one's own risk‐management alternatives (Factor 1) led to the highest knowledge gains. Empirical measures showed the internal consistency of users’ decisions across all treatments to be lower than expected and confirmed that providing information about alternatives’ composition (Factor 2) resulted in the least internally consistent choices. At the same time, those users who did not develop their own alternatives and were not shown detailed information about the composition of alternatives believed their choices to be the most internally consistent. These results raise concerns about how the amount of information provided and the ability to construct alternatives may inversely affect users’ real and perceived internal consistency.     

Conditional Influence Diagrams in Risk Management

This paper introduces conditional influence diagrams into risk management. A contaminated-site cleanup involving two stakeholders is used as a hypothetical case study. The treatment choices must satisfy several conflicting objectives. Any decision made by one stakeholder will affect the choices of the other stakeholder. In building the influence diagrams for each of the stakeholders, the logical relationship of all relevant factors is determined and the values of these factors are analyzed. The influence diagram for each stakeholder is conditional on the options available to the other stakeholder. The influence diagrams are, then, used to evaluate the possible choices of each stakeholder based on decision options of the other stakeholder. These results are analyzed using game theory methods to gain insights useful to risk management and to demonstrate how mutual trust and cooperation can lead to decisions benefiting both stakeholders.     

Consumer preference analysis: A data-driven multiple criteria approach integrating online information

Multiple criteria approaches can assist the product manager to know the consumer preferences in the context of e-commerce. Consumer preference analysis explains what aspects of a product affect and how they affect a consumer’s purchasing decision. This issue plays an important role in e-commerce platforms from its relevance in marketing decisions such as advertisements, recommendations and promotions. In this regard, we propose a data-driven multiple criteria decision aiding (MCDA) approach to integrate online information, such as explicit (e.g., reviews and ratings) and implicit (e.g., clicks and purchases) feedback from consumers. However, MCDA approaches present a critical challenge that even an experienced product manager could find it difficult to pre-define the criteria on which a product is evaluated. To address this issue, our proposed approach first utilizes text-mining techniques to assist the product manager identify the criteria, and then determines and collects the relative importance of the criteria and their values. Given the criteria information, we use a sampling process to provide two indices, the consumer preference index and rank acceptability index. The first index helps in prioritizing the pairwise comparisons of products, while the second one helps in deriving a default ranking list for first-time-registered consumers. We record the products viewed by consumers and generate their preference information in the form of pairwise comparisons for analyses within an aggregation-disaggregation paradigm. We also provide a representative value function to help the product manager gain insight into the preferences. Finally, we describe how a real-world application including the product manager and consumers exploits the proposed approach on an e-commerce platform to take a large step toward aiding more realistic and data-driven multiple criteria decision making.     

决策的约束及有效决策的制度安排

决策面临决策问题选择、决策项目分析和可行方案搜寻等三个约束,任何方面的缺失都导致决策失当。决策者本身的因素、外部对决策者的影响对决策次序和议事日程产生影响,组织结构化形成知识层级进而影响组织知识、组织内决策博弈和治理结构等因素决定决策分析的效果,方案集的“关闭”损害了方案集的完备性,直接决定了方案的性质以及选择。有效的决策需要社会资本的支持,需要决策制度保障。     

异质品双渠道供应链下制造商的渠道决策研究

研究由两个制造商、两个零售商以及消费者组成的双渠道供应链，制造商的最优产品分销渠道策略问题，通过构建Stackelberg主从动态博弈模型，分析制造商在不同渠道选择下的产品质量水平及定价决策，消费者三种不同渠道偏好下渠道竞争和品牌竞争激烈程度对制造商渠道选择均衡结果及帕累托最优选择的影响，以及对产品质量水平、产品价格、制造商及零售商利润的影响.研究表明：品牌和渠道双重竞争下，两种竞争之间存在相互作用的关系，并共同影响制造商最终渠道选择，制造商通过权衡价格决策的后动优势与消费者渠道偏好对其利润的贡献选择是否开辟双渠道，产品价格与产品质量水平正相关，与产品的替代率负相关，产品质量水平对渠道价格的影响程度等于消费者对该渠道的偏好程度.当消费者偏好某一渠道时，制造商可在该渠道上的产品采取优质高价策略，但渠道上产品性价比降低，当品牌竞争越激烈，产品价格越低，对制造商和零售商的利润挤压越严重.     

Fair Processes for Societal Decisions Involving Distributional Inequalities

We investigate fair processes for societal decisions that involve different risks and benefits to different groups. A fair decision-making process is particularly important for decisions such as siting hazardous facilities. We experimentally evaluate the impact of alternative decision processes on the final choice of hypothetical facility sites and the resulting benefit and risk distribution to groups. The experimental task required choice among many alternative sites for a hazardous facility. Sites differ by the distribution of risks and benefits to each of two communities, and in the attractiveness of the sites to each community. Subjects were divided into three groups: individuals who judged the best site in the role of arbitrators, pairs of negotiators with one person representing each of the two communities, and trios who identified the best site in the role of a siting jury. We found the choices of negotiating and siting jury groups tended to emphasize the communities'preferences compared to the individual arbitrators who tended to focus on balancing the distribution of risks and benefits. Also, undergraduate psychology students, regardless of the dispute resolution mechanism, tended to display more emphasis on the risks and benefits, and graduate business students tended to focus more on the communities'preferences.     

网店信息呈现的框架效应对消费者购买决策的影响研究

目前有关在线消费者购买意愿的研究，绝大多数是基于实验统计的方法，分析影响消费者购买决策的因素，网店信息呈现的框架形式往往仅作为其中的关键因素被一些研究提及并加以验证。但是，"形态各异"的信息到底如何影响消费者心理进而影响到他们的决策？商家如何从消费者心理的微观层面来设计信息呈现策略，从而增强其购买意愿？目前关于此的研究尚不多见。本研究从前景理论的决策参考点视角，以价格因素为例，一方面，通过情境实验，验证了价格信息的不同呈现框架对于消费者购买意愿的影响作用；另一方面，在利用情境实验界定了消费者心理价格参考点的基础上，通过决策模型的构建和计算，从微观层面分析了不同价格信息呈现框架下，消费者购买选择大相径庭的原因。研究结果表明：（1）在风险框架下，相对于用不确定的语言来描述商品价格信息，确定性语言描述会使消费者的心理价格参考点和购买意愿更高。（2）在属性框架下，相对于用负面的语言来描述商品信息，正面的语言描述更能提高消费者的心理价格参考点和购买意愿。（3）在目标框架下，相对于强调购买行为可能给消费者带来的收益，强调不购买该商品可能给消费者带来的损失更有助于消费者的心理价格参考点和购买意愿的提高。基于上述研究结果，作者围绕网店如何有效的呈现信息提出了管理建议，并讨论了本研究的理论意义与应用价值。     

正负试看效应下网络视频平台的内容提供策略选择

基于网络视频的消费行为特征,在正负试看效应下建立了考虑消费者学习成本和预期认知的网络视频平台收益模型,分析不同情况下的平台收益和策略选择。研究发现:当平台不提供免费试看时,若消费者学习成本较小,付费策略的收益大于免费策略的收益。当平台提供试看时,若学习成本较大,正负试看效应下平台提供试看的收益均大于不提供试看的收益。试看效应为正向时,若学习成本较小,平台应该选择付费策略;若学习成本较大,平台应选择试看策略;若学习成本适中且预期认知较高,平台应选择免费策略。试看效应为负向时,无论消费者预期认知和学习成本如何变化,平台均不会选择试看策略,但提供试看不一定为最劣选择。此外,当消费者预期认知较低且学习成本较小时,负向试看效应下的平台收益大于正向试看效应下的平台收益。     

Preeradication Vaccine Policy Options for Poliovirus Infection and Disease Control

With the circulation of wild poliovirus (WPV) types 1 and 3 continuing more than a decade after the original goal of eradicating all three types of WPVs by 2000, policymakers consider many immunization options as they strive to stop transmission in the remaining endemic and outbreak areas and prevent reintroductions of live polioviruses into nonendemic areas. While polio vaccination choices may appear simple, our analysis of current options shows remarkable complexity. We offer important context for current and future polio vaccine decisions and policy analyses by developing decision trees that clearly identify potential options currently used by countries as they evaluate national polio vaccine choices. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature we (1) identify the current vaccination options that national health leaders consider for polio vaccination, (2) characterize current practices and factors that appear to influence national and international choices, and (3) assess the evidence of vaccine effectiveness considering sources of variability between countries and uncertainties associated with limitations of the data. With low numbers of cases occurring globally, the management of polio risks might seem like a relatively low priority, but stopping live poliovirus circulation requires making proactive and intentional choices to manage population immunity in the remaining endemic areas and to prevent reestablishment in nonendemic areas. Our analysis shows remarkable variability in the current national polio vaccine product choices and schedules, with combination vaccine options containing inactivated poliovirus vaccine and different formulations of oral poliovirus vaccine making choices increasingly difficult for national health leaders.     

多属性隐式变权决策分析方法

为克服多因素变权决策方法的内在缺陷,基于Belton 和Gear提出的B/G-AHP层次分析原理给出了一种隐含式的多属性变权决策建模思想,并运用该思想给出了一种多属性变权决策新方法。它相对于多因素变权决策方法具有三方面的比较优势。其一,依赖的变权偏好信息直接由决策者给出,因而能够克服决策分析者对决策结果的主观武断性影响,更好地反映决策者的真实偏好。其二,不会受到由因素的属性值转化为偏好值所额外引入的主观测度偏差的干扰。其三,对决策者主观判断可能存在的误差予以了旨在弱化其影响的优化控制。数值分析表明新方法拥有较好的变权能力,并且相对于已有方法能够给出更易为决策者所接受的评价结论,因而具有较好的应用有效性。     

Designing Products for Adaptability: Insights from Four Industrial Cases

Developing products that are more easily adaptable to future requirements can increase their overall value. Product adaptability is largely determined by choices about product architecture, especially modularity. Because it is possible to be too modular and/or inappropriately modular, deciding how and where to be modular in a cost‐effective way is an important managerial decision. In this article, we gather data from four case studies to model effects of firms’ product architecture decisions at the component level. We optimize an architecture adaptability value (AAV) measure that accounts for both the benefits of more architecture options and the costs of interfaces. The optimal architecture prompted each firm to rearchitect an existing product to increase its expected future profitability. Several insights emerged from the case evidence during this research. (i) Although decomposing an architecture into an increasing number of modules increases product adaptability, the amount of modularity is an insufficient predictor of the adaptability value of a system. AAV, which also accounts for interface costs, provides an improved measure of appropriate modularity. (ii) Managers can influence the path of architectural evolution in the direction of increased value. This influence may diminish but does not disappear as products become more mature. Also, modularity and innovations coevolved, as the new modularizations suggested by AAV optimization prompted and guided searches for further innovations. (iii) When presented with the concepts of options, interface costs, and AAV, the firms’ designers and managers were initially skeptical. However, in each case, the modelers were able to rearchitect an actual product not only with increased AAV by our model (theoretical improvement) but also with actual future benefits for their firm. Postproject reports from each firm confirmed that the AAV modeling and optimization approaches were indeed helpful, equipping them to increase the adaptability, cost‐efficiency, lifespan, and overall value of actual products. The evidence suggests that firms can benefit from designing products for adaptability, but that how they do so matters. This study expands our understanding of modularity and adaptability by illuminating managerial decisions and insights about appropriate approaches to each.     

The Value of Improved National Exposure Information for Perchloroethylene (Perc): A Case Study for Dry Cleaners

Opportunities to improve our information about risk continue to arise and lead decision makers to indirectly address the issue of the value of improved information through resource allocation decisions. Statistical decision analysis techniques provide an analytical framework for valuing information explicitly in the context of regulatory decision making. This paper provides estimates of the value of improved national estimates of perchloroethylene (perc) exposure from U.S. dry cleaners in the context of EPA's recently promulgated National Emissions Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) with emphasis on exposure information. Consistent with the NESHAP decision, we relied on EPA's technology and economic assessments. In this first cut analysis, estimates of the exposures of workers, consumers of dry cleaning services, and the general public are probabilistically characterized to reflect uncertainty about exposure and potency. We consider the net benefits of the different control options by assessing the associated changes in the total annual population risks and valuing them in monetary terms, with no constraints placed on maximum individual risks. The results suggest that the expected value of perfect information (EVPI) about potency exceeds the EVPI about exposure. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate how the choices of the valuation parameters and distributions used to characterize uncertainty in the model affect the estimates of the value of information.     

基于消费者显著性偏好的双边平台转换成本和定价策略研究

针对消费者对转换成本和价格属性具有显著性偏好的实际情况，基于显著性理论对垄断双边平台企业的转换成本和定价策略问题进行了研究。研究发现：1)在显著性偏好非对称型市场上，对价格敏感的一方收取的价格最低，对高转换成本的一方收取的价格最高，而在显著性偏好对称型市场上，平台的最优价格位于非对称型市场之间，但是对价格敏感型市场收取的价格低于转换成本敏感型市场的价格。2)在高转换成本的市场，平台利润最低；低转换成本市场平台利润最高，而混合型情况的最优利润位于这两者之间。该研究结论说明平台企业应该采取措施来降低用户加入平台的转换成本，从而增加利润，这与现实的案例研究结论相吻合。     

考虑策略型消费者和退货的零售商定价和订货决策研究

考虑策略型消费者对产品估值的异质性和无缺陷退货行为，应用理性预期（RE）均衡构建了两期决策模型，引入产品的耐用性参数，得到了允许（不允许）无缺陷退货两种模式下零售商的定价区间和订货策略。研究发现，产品的耐用性越弱，零售商可制定的价格越高；高类型的消费者越多，零售商定价越高；产品折扣率越低，第二阶段购买的消费者越多；零售商允许消费者无缺陷退货时，消费者退货成本越低，零售商定价越高。在两种模式下，产品定价与其耐用性程度呈负相关，当产品具备高度潮流性特征时，不允许退货更占优势；随商品耐用性程度的提升，允许退货带来的优势逐渐明显，而且退货成本越低，允许退货优势越强；随产品耐用性参数增加，允许退货缓解策略型消费者消极影响的作用愈加明显，退货成本越高，缓解越有效。本文合理刻画了策略型消费者的行为，考虑了消费者跨期决策中产品耐用性的影响，同时考虑了现实中广泛存在的消费者无缺陷退货行为与零售商的退货补贴政策，从而为零售商的定价和订货退货决策提供了理论参考。     

Decision making in the newsvendor problem: A cross-national laboratory study

In this paper, we conduct a laboratory experiment using the classic newsvendor problem to examine cross-national differences in inventory ordering patterns between Chinese and American decision makers based on a theoretical examination of the role of the Doctrine of the Mean in Chinese decision making. Drawing on the theory of context-dependent preferences (specifically extremeness aversion), we also revisit the flat-maximum hypothesis of Bolton and Katok [12], i.e., “thinning the set of order options leads to newsvendor decisions that achieve a higher proportion of maximum expected profit.” The results show that the “pull-to-center” effect is more prominent for Chinese than Americans, i.e., average order quantities of Chinese subjects are closer to the anchor of mean demand than those of American subjects. Furthermore, we find that thinning the set of order options such that the optimal order quantity is a middle option, not an extreme option in the choice set, leads to better performance in newsvendor decisions, which complements the flat-maximum hypothesis.     

Flash Flood Risks and Warning Decisions: A Mental Models Study of Forecasters,Public Officials,and Media Broadcasters in Boulder,Colorado

Timely warning communication and decision making are critical for reducing harm from flash flooding. To help understand and improve extreme weather risk communication and management, this study uses a mental models research approach to investigate the flash flood warning system and its risk decision context. Data were collected in the Boulder, Colorado area from mental models interviews with forecasters, public officials, and media broadcasters, who each make important interacting decisions in the warning system, and from a group modeling session with forecasters. Analysis of the data informed development of a decision‐focused model of the flash flood warning system that integrates the professionals’ perspectives. Comparative analysis of individual and group data with this model characterizes how these professionals conceptualize flash flood risks and associated uncertainty; create and disseminate flash flood warning information; and perceive how warning information is (and should be) used in their own and others’ decisions. The analysis indicates that warning system functioning would benefit from professionals developing a clearer, shared understanding of flash flood risks and the warning system, across their areas of expertise and job roles. Given the challenges in risk communication and decision making for complex, rapidly evolving hazards such as flash floods, another priority is development of improved warning content to help members of the public protect themselves when needed. Also important is professional communication with members of the public about allocation of responsibilities for managing flash flood risks, as well as improved system‐wide management of uncertainty in decisions.     

Reasoned Decision Making Without Math? Adaptability and Robustness in Response to Surprise

Many real‐world planning and decision problems are far too uncertain, too variable, and too complicated to support realistic mathematical models. Nonetheless, we explain the usefulness, in these situations, of qualitative insights from mathematical decision theory. We demonstrate the integration of info‐gap robustness in decision problems in which surprise and ignorance are predominant and where personal and collective psychological factors are critical. We present practical guidelines for employing adaptable‐choice strategies as a proxy for robustness against uncertainty. These guidelines include being prepared for more surprises than we intuitively expect, retaining sufficiently many options to avoid premature closure and conflicts among preferences, and prioritizing outcomes that are steerable, whose consequences are observable, and that do not entail sunk costs, resource depletion, or high transition costs. We illustrate these concepts and guidelines with the example of the medical management of the 2003 SARS outbreak in Vietnam.     

考虑消费者渠道间需求异质性的BOPS服务模式下生鲜品零售定价策略

针对同时拥有线上和线下销售渠道的生鲜零售商,考虑消费者在渠道间的需求异质性,研究其采用BOPS服务模式后的定价策略。在建立线上线下同价策略模型的基础上,提出线上、线下单一渠道折扣策略以及面向BOPS顾客的折扣策略,进一步设计了联合定价策略,并利用数值实验加以验证和扩展。研究表明:线上渠道折扣与线下渠道折扣策略在有效性上互斥;配送成本适中且配送比例较高时,面向BOPS顾客的折扣策略优于其他两种折扣策略;消费者对折扣的敏感度越高,BOPS折扣策略的适用范围越广,优越性越明显;联合折扣策略可以在更大范围内提升零售商利润。