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,

For a Fee: The Impact of Information Pricing Strategy on the Pattern and Effectiveness of Word-of-Mouth via Social Media

With the new realities of the digital age, print newspapers are experimenting with different pricing models for their online content. Using NYT’s paywall rollout as a natural experiment, our study finds that a firm’s information pricing policy influences the pattern and effectiveness of online word of mouth (WOM) in social media. Using difference-in-difference-in-differences analysis, we find that implementing a paywall (i.e., charging for the content which was earlier available for free) has a disproportionate impact on the WOM for popular and niche articles, creating a longer tail in the content sharing distribution. Further, we find that the impact of WOM on NYT’s website traffic weakens significantly after the introduction of NYT’s paywall. These results show that information pricing strategy has implications for product and promotion strategies. The study offers novel and important implications for the theory and practice of strategic use of social media and information pricing strategy

Solving chicken and egg dilemma in online platform startup: value proposition in focus

Objectives Over the last decade, platforms have disrupted the way that brick and mortar businesses usually operate. Their success is phenomenal with striking example of Ebay, Google and LinkedIn but their failure rate is admittedly high as well. The ultimate benefits of such business depend largely on the interaction between multiple sides of the market through a common platform. How to drive initial liquidity to the marketplace and get both sides on board (chicken-and-egg dilemma) is the very first challenge to any platform startups. Addressing the gap in extant literature which neglect the importance of what values perceived by sellers and buyers during the user retention process, this research aims to design a benchmarking system with value proposition in focus that will assist new platform owners in realizing the parallel measurements of success and picking up the best practices to solve the chicken-and-egg dilemma. Thus the study focused on the following research questions: (1) What are different types of e-marketplace based on its value proposition to buyers and sellers? (2) What are effective strategies and business tactics to overcome chicken and egg problem in each type of e-marketplace? Methodology The research utilized qualitative multiple case study approach to help yield rich data on such complex research structure. Three case companies were selected based on criteria obtained from literature review, taking into consideration its availability of data on studied topic. The data was mainly collected from companies’ resources, reputable media discussions and academic analysis. Narrative approach was deployed to analyze available information. Findings The research findings categorized platform businesses into three categories: Growth Platform, Value Added Platform and Innovation Platform. Each of these platforms corresponds to a set of business tactics and strategies that help it to overcome the chicken-and-egg dilemma. Regardless of categories, the three cases used a combination of strategies and gave high priority to testing out its services with marquee users which is in agreement with the lean methodology that has become popular among startups as well as incumbents towards innovation. In addition, the result showed that platform transition is possible between the three categories in different phrases or expectedly with different values brought to users

Tetrahedral business design framework

Comment mieux représenter des structures d'affaires de manière holistique pour fins d'analyse? La réponse offerte par cette autoethnographie analytique est le ± Tetrahedral Business Design Framework ¿. ou Tétraèdre, qui tente de satisfaire trois objectifs : (1) être retenu pour faire partie du dialogue entre experts et gens d'affaires. (2) s'adapter à divers contextes d'affaires et (3) être approprié fidèlement par ceux et celles qui y ont recours. La thèse présente et compare plusieurs cadres conceptuels émanant de la théorie des organisations, de la gestion stratégique des organisations et des modèles d'affaires. Le Tétraèdre s'articule autour de quatre concepts fondateurs: ± Character ¿ (ce qu'est la structure d'affaires), ± Stakeholders ¿ (les gens, groupes et organisations qui la constituent), ± Offer ¿ (les raisons pour lesquelles des parties prenantes y participent), et ± Création ¿ (ce qu'y font les parties prenantes). Ces quatre concepts sont représentés sous forme de pôles liés les uns aux autres, formant un tétraèdre avec quatre faces liant trois pôles, six arêtes liant deux pôles et douze flux unidirectionnels représentant ce qu'un pôle apporte à un autre pôle. Les faces sont : ± Craft ¿, ± Community ¿, ± Prosperity ¿, et ± Team ¿. Les six arêtes, appelées dyades, sont : ± Compétition ¿, ± Coopération ¿, ± Exchange ¿, ± Trust ¿, ± Value ¿, et ± Web ¿. Les douze flux sont : ± Alignment ¿, ± Bundling ¿, ± Contribution ¿, ± Defence ¿, ± Engagement ¿, ± Feedback ¿, ± Gain ¿, ± Learning ¿, ± Network ¿, ± Orchestration ¿, ± Rôle ¿, et ± Threat ¿. En somme, le Tétraèdre est constitué de vingt-six éléments distincts, chaque face étant constituée de trois dyades et chaque dyade étant constituée de deux pôles et deux flux. Quatre études de deux industries et de deux firmes de ces industries permettent de mettre à l'épreuve le Tétraèdre : d'abord une étude de l'industrie du comic book et celle d'un studio de services créatifs. Suivent une étude de l'industrie du bois d'oeuvre au Québec et celle d'un remanufacturier de Québec. Des réflexions finales et des pistes de recherches futures viennent clore la thèse