Response to Hanako Ikeda's paper

Proceedings of the International Colloquium between the Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University (Japan) and the Institute of Education, University of London (UK): 25 March-26 March 2008 Clark Hall Institute of Education, University of Londo

The effects of "order" and "disorder" on human cognitive perception in navigating through urban environments

This paper investigates how “order”, “structure”, and “disorder” of street layouts are perceived when navigating through an urban environment. It builds on the assumption that a mixture of “order” and “disorder” might be a key factor for the quality of understanding within an urban context and that an “ordered” environment tends to be more intelligible when broken up by an irregularity occasionally. Knowledge about urban layouts can be accrued by the traveller in different ways: From static viewpoints, from top-down maps, and in travelling through the scenery. Cognitive processes that are involved in organising information about the structure of the built environment are known to simplify and schematise information. Such a “mental map” creates an image of the city, helps in memorising it and facilitates wayfinding tasks. Wayfinding experiments and investigations into the configuration of street networks have so far supported the understanding of movement behaviour and given insight from different perspectives on an urban environment. This paper will attempt to relate two aspects - configurational and sequential experiences of navigation (along a route) - to each other in using a methodological framework that allows for comparison of quantitative measurements and findings from both fields of research. The centre of attention will be the perception of “order”, “structure” and “disorder” from both perspectives: From “above” and from “along within” an urban environment. A virtual movement experiment with pre-chosen routes through six city samples is expected to provide meaningful empirical data with view on the perception of both configurational (view from above) and sequential (moving through scenery) embodiments of “order” and “disorder”, thereby introducing a methodological approach that applies string code computation in the spirit of probabilistic information theory

Judicial Education: Pedagogy for a Change

Canadian judges have maintained a steadfast, long-term commitment to judicial education. Through teaching one another, judges renew their vision over time, and more concretely, address their concerns and challenges today. Since its inception in 1985, the National Judicial Institute (NJI) has sought to be a partner and a resource to judges and Courts in a shared endeavour to create relevant, practical, and effective judicial education. Working together, the NJI, judges, and Courts have built a “Canadian model” of judicial education widely respected and emulated

Credence Goods in Online Markets: An Empirical Analysis of Returns and Sales After Returns

While e-commerce sales continue to grow, product returns remain a key risk for online retailers’ profitability. At the same time, credence goods such as sustainable products become increasingly important in retailing. This study aims to combine these two developments and empirically investigates the effect of credence goods on product returns and sales after returns in e-commerce. Furthermore, we assess how third-party assurances can help organizations to positively affect customer behavior and reduce product returns of credence goods. Our research is based on unique data from a large-scale online field experiment with 35,000 customers combined with data of more than one million past transactions of these customers. Surprisingly, the results reveal that credence goods are associated with lower product returns than experience goods. Adding a third-party certificate to the online product description helps to reduce product returns and increase sales after returns. We find that customer relationship strength and price consciousness act as boundary conditions for the certificate to reduce product returns. Our research contributes to signaling theory and extends IS literature on product uncertainty and returns to the field of credence goods. Furthermore, we provide relevant insights for e-commerce practitioners on how to manage sales and returns of credence goods

GENERATING CONSUMER INSIGHTS FROM BIG DATA CLICKSTREAM INFORMATION AND THE LINK WITH TRANSACTION-RELATED SHOPPING BEHAVIOR

E-Commerce firms collect enormous amounts of information in their databases. Yet, only a fraction is used to improve business processes and decision-making, while many useful sources often remain underexplored. Therefore, we propose a new and interdisciplinary method to identify goals of consumers and develop an online shopping typology. We use k-means clustering and non-parametric analysis of variance tests to categorize search patterns as Buying, Searching, Browsing or Bouncing. Adding to purchase decision-making theory we propose that the use of off-site clickstream data—the sequence of consumers’ advertising channel clicks to a firm’s website—can significantly enhance the understand-ing of shopping motivation and transaction-related behavior, even before entering the website. To run our consumer data analytics we use a unique and extensive dataset from a large European apparel company with over 80 million clicks covering 11 online advertising channels. Our results show that consumers with higher goal-direction have significantly higher purchase propensities, and against our expectations - consumers with higher levels of shopping involvement show higher return rates. Our conceptual approach and insights contribute to theory and practice alike such that it may help to improve real-time decision-making in marketing analytics to substantially enhance the customer experience online

HOW ONLINE CUSTOMER REVIEWS AFFECT SALES AND RETURN BEHAVIOR – AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS IN FASHION E-COMMERCE

The goal of this study is to get a better understanding of the relationship between online customer re-views (OCRs), product returns and sales after returns in online fashion. Furthermore, we generate deeper insights about the moderating role of mobile shopping usage, product involvement and brand equity in this context. We answer our research questions by empirically analyzing a unique data set from a European fashion e-commerce company. This study links a wide range of transaction data (2.5 billion page clicks, 46 thousand different products, 700 brands, 40 product categories, 72 million sold and 33 million returned items) with a large set of OCRs (0.9 million). Our results show that positive OCRs can lead to lower return rates, higher sales after returns, and better conversion rates. Consider-ing higher search costs on mobile devices, we reveal a weaker impact of OCRs in the mobile than in the desktop sales channel. Furthermore, in line with involvement theory, we see a significant impact of product involvement in this context such as the influence of positive OCRs is stronger for high-involvement products than vice versa. Moreover, we find support for statements from brand signaling literature, that OCRs matter more for weak than for strong brands

Measuring consumers' engagement with brand-related social-media content: development and validation of a scale that identifies levels of social-media engagement with brands

The main purpose of this study is to develop a scale to measure consumer's engagement with social media brand-related content. The reported scale (CESBC) comprises three dimensions: consumption, contribution, and creation. Qualitative techniques were used to generate an initial pool of items that capture different levels of consumer engagement with social media brand-related content. Quantitative data from a consumer survey (=2252) was then collected in two phases to calibrate and validate the ensuing scale. Results confirmed the structure and psychometric properties of the CESBC. As expected, each subscale is significantly correlated with nomological network constructs, i.e., brand equity and brand attitudes

THE IMPACT OF CEOS’ TECHNOLOGICAL FRAME ON ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY AND THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF DIGITAL BUSINESS CAPABILITIES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

The information systems (IS) literature elaborates on how firms develop organizational agility based on organizational capabilities to sense and respond to rapidly changing environments. However, the underlying mechanism of how companies and their chief executive officers (CEOs) understand and implement digital technologies to foster organizational agility is lacking. The technological frame concept provides an impetus to explain the process by which CEOs’ sensemaking of digital technologies influences organizational agility. Our paper draws on the individual-level perspective of the technological frame concept and proposes a mediating role of digital business capabilities, composed of digital strategy, digital integration, and digital control. Our quantitative research design is based on findings derived from 386 German CEOs and confirms that CEOs’ technological frame influences organizational agility through digital business capabilities. Thereby, we expand the concept of the technological frame on the individual level and contribute to the IS literature by revealing the mechanism of how CEOs’ sensemaking influences organizational agility