Temporally Designing the Consumer Experience: Three Essays Examining the Influence of Time Architecture on Consumer Behavior

How can the temporal aspects of the consumer experience be strategically constructed and communicated to improve consumer behavior and decision-making? This dissertation advocates for the explicit and systematic integration of time as a determining factor in consumer experiences, presenting three essays investigating different dimensions of time architecture, the temporal design of a consumer experience: temporal sequencing of planning prompt nudges (Essay 1), temporal partitioning of initial charitable contributions (Essay 2), and temporal duration of contemporary online promotions (Essay 3). Essay 1 explores how the timing of planning nudge delivery impacts intervention effectiveness in tasks containing an optimal “early bird” deadline (i.e., after which benefits of task completion diminish). Results from three studies find that planning prompt nudge reminders delivered after the optimal deadline are significantly more effective than control reminders but offer little benefit when implemented before the optimal deadline. These findings call for 1) strategic temporal management of planning prompts and 2) increased research exploring the ideal timing of nudge delivery. Essay 2 investigates how temporal aspects of giving perpetuate donor support. Consistent with an anchoring account, results from five studies demonstrate that prior donors who initially give a recurring time-dispersed gift (e.g., monthly $10 gift for 12 months) subsequently donate less than those who initially give a one-time lump-sum gift of the equivalent total amount (e.g., single$120 gift). Several approaches for offsetting recurring donors’ later reduced giving are tested and implications for charities are discussed. Essay 3 questions the degree to which contemporary instantiations of online time scarcity promotions (e.g., one-hour flash sales with countdown timers) can be presumed to operate in ways theoretically and empirically consistent with foundational demonstrations of time scarcity marketing tactics, which largely predate modern online retailing and predominantly involve offline contexts (e.g., printed newspaper ad). Results from 26 new studies find that present-day online time scarcity promotions may not be as effective as generally assumed, consistent with the argument that these promotions represent a novel theoretical and empirical phenomenon. Together, these essays demonstrate that the temporal design of a consumer experience can promote or undermine traditionally accepted marketing practices, thereby warranting systematic investigation and proactive management

Increasing Access to Food: A Comprehensive Report on Food Supply Options

Access to food is one of the most important aspects of a healthy, sustainable community. Grocery stores and other suppliers can serve as an economic anchor to provide social benefits to communities. Unfortunately, many communities do not have convenient and/or affordable access to grocery items, particularly fresh produce. As part of Virginia Commonwealth University\u27s Fall 2019 graduate course on Urban Commercial Revitalization, class members researched 13 retail and other food access options, which are described in this report. Each chapter covers a food access option and provides basic information that will be useful to individuals, organizations, or government agencies that wish to attract and/or develop grocery operations in their communities

Proactive food waste prevention in grocery retail supply chains – an exploratory study

Purpose Regarding the retail internal supply chain (SC), both retailers and research are currently focused on reactive food waste reduction options in stores (e.g. discounting or donations). These options reduce waste after a surplus has emerged but do not prevent an emerging surplus in the first place. This paper aims to reveal how retailers can proactively prevent waste along the SC and why the options identified are impactful but, at the same time, often complex to implement. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow an exploratory approach for a nascent topic to obtain insights into measures taken in practice. Interviews with experts from retail build the main data source. Findings The authors identify and analyze 21 inbound, warehousing, distribution and store-related options applied in grocery retail. Despite the expected high overall impact on waste, prevention measures in inbound logistics and distribution and warehousing have not been intensively applied to date. Practical implications The authors provide a structured approach to mitigate waste within retailers' operations and categorize the types of barriers that need to be addressed. Originality/value This research provides a better understanding of prevention options in retail operations, which has not yet been empirically explored. Furthermore, this study conceptualizes prevention and reduction options and reveals implementation patterns

Public-private partnerships in agricultural research: an analysis of challenges facing industry and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research

"Public-private partnerships offer potentially important opportunities for pro-poor agricultural research in developing countries. Yet in the international agricultural research community-and with regard to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) itself-we see few examples of successful public-private partnerships, and fewer examples where such collaborations have contributed to food security, poverty reduction and economic growth. This study assesses the opportunities for, and challenges to, creating and sustaining public-private partnerships between the international agricultural research centers of the CGIAR and leading multinational, research-based agribusiness companies. The study hypothesizes that the willingness and ability of public agencies and private firms to enter into partnerships are constrained by fundamentally different incentive structures; by insufficient minimization of the costs and risks of collaboration; by an inability to overcome mutually negative perceptions; by limited use of creative organizational mechanisms that reduce competition over key assets and resources; and by insufficient access to information on successful partnership models. The study methodology is based on interviews and discussions with key stakeholders and a wide review of the literature on public-private partnership. Tentative findings suggest that while incentives and perceptions do differ between sectors, sufficient common space exists or can be created through incentive structuring to facilitate greater partnership. However, both public- and private-sector partners inadequately account for and minimize the costs and risks of partnership. Similarly, partners discount the need for brokers and third-party actors to manage research collaborations and reduce competition between sectors. Finally, partners are operating without sufficient information on existing partnership experiences, lessons, and models, potentially contributing to a persistent or widening gap between sectors.intellectual property, Agricultural biotechnology, Research and Development, Property rights, Multinational firms, Collaborative research, Public-private partnership,

Ratios and benchmarks as tools for local food hub decision-making: a comparative case study

Food hubs, or local food aggregation and distribution businesses, are triple-bottom-line firms that play an increasingly important role in connecting small and mid-sized farmers to wholesale and retail markets. This paper explores how food hubs can use their financial data to identify and address strengths and challenges in their operations. We propose a “dashboard” of key metrics and benchmarks for food hub managers, and apply it a comparative case study of four food hubs over three years of operations. We compare and contrast the liquidity, cash flow, efficiency, solvency and repayment capacity of the four cases, and analyze cross-cutting themes. We find that although the food hubs varied in their business structure and composition of sales outlets, they all faced the challenges of limited working capital, labor inefficiencies, high debt-asset ratios, and limited profitability. Some firms were able to break even below the $1 million sales level typically cited as a food hub breakeven point, but still struggled to maintain positive profits, suggesting that they remained in a “breakeven” phase even as they grew. All of the food hubs owned relatively few fixed assets and used relatively little term debt from outside sources. Modest net worth and small total asset size left each firm vulnerable to insolvency in years of negative profit. However, with bootstrapping techniques such as renting or sharing equipment and collecting payments quickly, in general they used their assets efficiently. We evaluate the usefulness of our metrics and benchmarks in analyzing food hubs, and offer suggestions on how recordkeeping could be improved to make financial analysis easier. Finally, we return to the literature to make recommendations for managers on resolving challenges seen in the metrics, including problems with cash flow, solvency, labor efficiency and turnover, inventory management, and pricing

Nonprofit organizations: financial reporting, auditing and earnings management

In deze dissertatie wordt de financiële rapportering van nonprofit organisaties bestudeerd in het licht van de 'resource dependence theory'. Er wordt nagegaan in welke mate afhankelijkheid van subsidies een invloed uitoefent op de kwaliteit van de jaarrekening (gemeten via een 'compliance' index en via resultaatsturing). Daarnaast wordt ook het effect van audit op de kwaliteit van de financiële rapportering onderzocht in het licht van het concept van coercive isomorphism, een deel van de neo-institutionele theorie. In het vierde hoofdstuk worden de determinanten van nonprofit audit honoraria geanalyseerd, opnieuw met aandacht voor de effecten van subsidiëring. In een laatste onderzoekspaper wordt nagegaan of bepaalde subsidies aanleiding kunnen geven tot agent-principaalproblemen tussen de raad van bestuur en het management van de nonprofit-organisatie

A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent

The magnitude of the food waste problem is difficult to comprehend. The U.S. spends $218 billion a year -- 1.3% of GDP -- growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is never eaten. The causes of food waste are diverse, ranging from crops that never get harvested, to food left on overfilled plates, to near-expired milk and stale bread. ReFED is a coalition of over 30 business, nonprofit, foundation, and government leaders committed to building a different future, where food waste prevention, recovery, and recycling are recognized as an untapped opportunity to create jobs, alleviate hunger, and protect the environment -- all while stimulating a new multi-billion dollar market opportunity. ReFED developed A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste as a data-driven guide to collectively take action to reduce food waste at scale nationwide.This Roadmap report is a guide and a call to action for us to work together to solve this problem. Businesses can save money for themselves and their customers. Policymakers can unleash a new wave of local job creation. Foundations can take a major step in addressing environmental issues and hunger. And innovators across all sectors can launch new products, services, and business models. There will be no losers, only winners, as food finds its way to its highest and best use