Experiential marketing: bridging the gap between value creation to customers and value capture by firms

An already voluminous literature addressing the value of marketing to the firm has, until now, fallen short of expectations. In a context in which marketers have increasingly been challenged to prove their worth, the scholarly attempts to demonstrate the value of marketing to the firm have stumbled to reach unquestionable results. Part of the problem may lie in the lengthy and twisted chain of effects from marketing actions to marketing performance outcomes. Between inputs and outputs lie numerous uncontrollable and often confounding external factors, such as the actions of customers, competitors, and other market agents. The problematic operationalization of such complex market structures impelled researchers to analyze fractions of this web of effects rather than attempting to study overarching conceptual models in full. Prior empirical research has typically considered either the impact of marketing actions in the marketplace or the consequences to the firm of the behaviors of customers and rivals. There is still a gap in the literature of an all-encompassing end-to-end demonstration of how specific marketing inputs can drive specific marketing outputs unequivocally contributing to organizational performance. This thesis addresses the issue of marketing as a value-capturing corporate function through its determinant role in managing value-creating exchanges with customers in the marketplace while hindering competitors from appropriating it. Our research suggests that experiential marketing may bridge the gap between value creation to the customer and value capture by the firm. In particular, our findings show that marketing-crafted valuecreating online shopping experiences may predict value-capturing marketing performance outcomes with the mediation of superior customer-level marketing performance. Thus, our results suggest that experiential marketing may offer an opportunity to bridge the gap between "give and take," value creation and value capture, and demonstrate how relevant the contribution of marketing to the firm's value rising can be.Uma já volumosa literatura abordando o valor do marketing para a empresa tem até agora ficado aquém das expectativas. As tentativas para demonstrar a valia do marketing para a empresa não têm conseguido alcançar inequívocas demonstrações de como o marketing pode ter uma contribuição relevante para a apropriação de valor pela empresa. Parte do problema reside na longa e sinuosa cadeia de efeitos ligando os estímulos de marketing aos resultados do desempenho. Entre uns e outros existem inúmeros fatores externos, incontroláveis e perturbadores, tais como as ações de outros participantes no mercado. A investigação empírica anterior tem tipicamente estudado ou os efeitos the ações de marketing no mercado, sobretudo nos clientes, mas também nos concorrentes, ou então as consequências para a empresa dos comportamentos dos clientes e rivais. Consequentemente, há uma lacuna na literatura de uma demonstração abrangente de como determinados estímulos de marketing podem conduzir a efeitos específicos precursores do desempenho da organização. Esta tese equaciona o marketing como função de captura de valor para a empresa através do seu papel determinante na gestão de trocas de valor com clientes, em paralelo com o impedimento aos concorrentes de se apropriarem do valor criado. A nossa investigação sugere que o marketing experiencial pode estabelecer a ligação entre criação de valor para o cliente e captura de valor para a empresa. Em particular, os nossos resultados mostram que experiências de compra criadoras de valor para os clientes em ambientes digitais podem conduzir à captura de valor para a empresa através da mediação de desempenho de marketing a nível de cliente. Portanto, os nossos resultados sugerem que o marketing experiencial pode ser uma grande oportunidade para preencher a lacuna entre “dar e receber”, criação e captura de valor, e mostram quão relevante pode ser a contribuição do marketing para o valor da empresa

Entropy statistics as a framework to analyse technological evolution

No abstract

ICT, search behavior and market outcomes

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) help to reduce transaction costs in several ways. The study of this phenomenon and the resulting economic consequences are the underlying common theme in the four subsequent chapters of my dissertation. Each of them is a self-contained paper that contributes to the field of Industrial Organization. In particular, I contribute to the study of two important phenomena that arose as a consequence of the ICT-enabled reduction in transaction costs, which modern societies have seen over the last two decades: electronic commerce (E-Commerce, in what follows) and (commons based) “peer production

Leveraging the physical network of stores in e-grocery order fulfilment for sustainable competitive advantage

This work draws on the results obtained from a qualitative multi-case study carried out on a sample of retailers with a significant presence in the United Kingdom e-grocery market. Using the resource-based view model, the study determines whether operating an e-grocery channel, by leveraging the existing network of stores, yields a sustainable competitive advantage. The findings show that the network of stores is clearly the primary conduit through which e-grocery retailers offer a wide assortment of products, perishables and non-perishables, to a large geographically dispersed population, while meeting their high expectations of faster and on-time delivery. It offers e-grocery practitioners a different avenue of reflection in the exploration of the trade-offs between fulfilment responsiveness, last mile operation costs, and a seamless customer experience. The stores act, in egrocery operations, as enablers of various other tangible or intangible benefits that translate into a sustainable competitive advantage. This is particularly important in the e-grocery market, where the physical space and handling requirements comprise significant costs that are difficult to recoup from delivery charges at levels acceptable to customers. Stores, as part of e-grocery retailing, maintain offline or pure online channels, and have implications in transportation and the overall value proposition of e-grocers.Colleges of Economic and Management Science

Demand Management in E-Fulfillment

Internet retailers are in a unique position to adjust, in real-time, the product and service offering to the customer and to change the corresponding prices. Although this flexibility provides a vast potential for demand management to enhance profitability, standard practices and models to support the decision makers are lacking as of to date. This thesis aims to contribute to closing this gap by systematically investigating demand management approaches in e-fulfillment. We identify relevant novel planning issues through an in-depth case study at a Dutch e-grocer. We focus particularly on attended home delivery, where the Internet retailer applies delivery time slots to coordinate the reception of the purchased goods with the customer. The main levers to manage customer demand in such an environment are the offered time slots and the corresponding delivery fees. The Internet retailer may apply both of these options, slotting and pricing, at different moments in the sales process, either off-line prior to the actual order in-take or real-time as demand unfolds. The thesis presents several decision-support models for time slot management, both forecast-based and in real-time. The computational studies on real-life data demonstrate the viability and the merits of these methods. The results show that a more dynamic and differentiated demand management approach can lead to considerable cost savings and revenue gains