Market-based Recommendation: Agents that Compete for Consumer Attention

The amount of attention space available for recommending suppliers to consumers on e-commerce sites is typically limited. We present a competitive distributed recommendation mechanism based on adaptive software agents for efficiently allocating the 'consumer attention space', or banners. In the example of an electronic shopping mall, the task is delegated to the individual shops, each of which evaluates the information that is available about the consumer and his or her interests (e.g. keywords, product queries, and available parts of a profile). Shops make a monetary bid in an auction where a limited amount of 'consumer attention space' for the arriving consumer is sold. Each shop is represented by a software agent that bids for each consumer. This allows shops to rapidly adapt their bidding strategy to focus on consumers interested in their offerings. For various basic and simple models for on-line consumers, shops, and profiles, we demonstrate the feasibility of our system by evolutionary simulations as in the field of agent-based computational economics (ACE). We also develop adaptive software agents that learn bidding strategies, based on neural networks and strategy exploration heuristics. Furthermore, we address the commercial and technological advantages of this distributed market-based approach. The mechanism we describe is not limited to the example of the electronic shopping mall, but can easily be extended to other domains

Opportunity Knocks: An Economic Analysis of Television Advertisements

Certain aspects of advertising–especially on television–are not easily explained with conventional economic models. In particular, much of the imagery and repetitive thematic content seen in advertisements suggests it is "psychological" in nature, as opposed to "informative". To understand the economic rationale for incorporating such material, we develop a theory of preferences in which information about threshold payoffs induces sudden shifts in demand. These threshold payoffs are best understood in the context of human evolutionary history. Furthermore, the presence of threshold payoffs in consumer preferences gives firms incentive for providing threshold-type information. To examine the use of threshold-related content in television advertisements, we look for this con- tent in a sample of 370 television advertisements. We find considerable evidence that advertisers make strategic use of threshold-type content in television advertisements. Specifically, threshold-related content occurred in 83% of food and beverage advertisements for children and in 71% of advertisements for general audiences. Furthermore, the threshold-related content in children’s food and beverage advertisements occurred with statistically greater frequency than factual content, which isn’t true for food and beverage advertisements for general audiences

The Role of the Mangement Sciences in Research on Personalization

We present a review of research studies that deal with personalization. We synthesize current knowledge about these areas, and identify issues that we envision will be of interest to researchers working in the management sciences. We take an interdisciplinary approach that spans the areas of economics, marketing, information technology, and operations. We present an overarching framework for personalization that allows us to identify key players in the personalization process, as well as, the key stages of personalization. The framework enables us to examine the strategic role of personalization in the interactions between a firm and other key players in the firm's value system. We review extant literature in the strategic behavior of firms, and discuss opportunities for analytical and empirical research in this regard. Next, we examine how a firm can learn a customer's preferences, which is one of the key components of the personalization process. We use a utility-based approach to formalize such preference functions, and to understand how these preference functions could be learnt based on a customer's interactions with a firm. We identify well-established techniques in management sciences that can be gainfully employed in future research on personalization.CRM, Persoanlization, Marketing, e-commerce,

Understanding new venture market application search processes: A propositional model.

Technology-based ventures are confronted with complex decisions on how to apply their technology platform in highly uncertain and ambiguous market environments. Based on four case studies, a dynamic decision model is developed in which we highlight the similarities between the search and learning processes in venture development contexts and in new product development contexts. This entrepreneurial search and learning process is understood as consisting of sequences of episodes – characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity - and scripts – i.e. approaches to market application search. The model implies that a venture's adaptability - i.e. its ability to move efficiently and effectively between these episodes and their related scripts - influences its survival.Case studies; Decision; Decisions; Learning; Market; Model; Processes; Product; Product development; Research; Sequences; Similarity; Studies; Technology; Uncertainty;

Evolution of Supply Chain Collaboration: Implications for the Role of Knowledge

Increasingly, research across many disciplines has recognized the shortcomings of the traditional “integration prescription” for inter-organizational knowledge management. This research conducts several simulation experiments to study the effects of different rates of product change, different demand environments, and different economies of scale on the level of integration between firms at different levels in the supply chain. The underlying paradigm shifts from a static, steady state view to a dynamic, complex adaptive systems and knowledge-based view of supply chain networks. Several research propositions are presented that use the role of knowledge in the supply chain to provide predictive power for how supply chain collaborations or integration should evolve. Suggestions and implications are suggested for managerial and research purposes

Impacts of agricultural trade and market liberalization of food security in developing countries: comparative study of Kenya and Zambia

The introduction of agricultural reforms has debatable effects on food security in developing countries. This research investigates how such effects influenced maize supply in two developing countries which were among the first to introduce agricultural reforms. Conclusions from the research suggest that agricultural reforms led to mixed results. This may be attributed to the sometimes stop-go nature of reform implementation. The mixed results are reflected in the weak maize output response to price changes. Overall country economic conditions, state of agricultural development can be attributed to the pace of response, hence effect on agricultural supply. Elasticity of maize output to changes in price and acreage are strongly significant in maize output for the case of Kenya. Both restricted models of maize production suggest that prior to the introduction of reforms acreage, prices and alternative crops were more elastic when simulated with Zambian data than with Kenyan data.food security, agricultural reforms, elasticity of supply, International Relations/Trade,