A Theory of Size and Product Diversity of Marketplaces with Application to the Trade Show Arena

Markets involve the exchange of information and products between buyers and sellers in marketplaces created by market organizers. This paper develops a theory to explain the differences in the size (number of participants) and diversity (range of products displayed) across these marketplaces. We assume that successful transactions require information transmission between parties calling for investment in time/effort. Two key factors affect this process of information interchange: diminishing marginal returns to effort encouraging diversification and congestion cost resulting from participant overload. We study a sequential model of interaction between buyers, sellers and marketplace organizers. Organizers choose the number and nature of marketplaces to organize, and set entry fees for them while buyers and sellers make participation and effort allocation decisions. We show that participants' breadth of product interest, their buying and selling intensities (i.e. how frequently they are likely to engage in future product transactions) as well as the technological innovativeness of the industry have important influences on the size and range of product diversity in the marketplace. We apply this model to the industrial trade show arena to explain differences in trade show types (horizontal with broad product focus vs. vertical with narrow product focus) across industries. Empirical tests of several propositions derived from our model provide an encouraging degree of support for our theory. Our analysis identifies several industries that appear to be underserved by one type of show or the other, suggesting possible future opportunities for organizers.

Informants in Organizational Marketing Research

Organizational research frequently involves seeking judgmental data from multiple informants within organizations. Researchers are often faced with determining how many informants to survey, who those informants should be and (if more than one) how best to aggregate responses when disagreement exists between those responses. Using both recall and forecasting data from a laboratory study involving the MARKSTRAT simulation, we show that when there are multiple respondents who disagree, responses aggregated using confidence-based or competence-based weights outperform those with data-based weights, which in turn provide significant gains in estimation accuracy over simply averaging respondent reports. We then illustrate how these results can be used to determine the best number of respondents for a market research task as well as to provide an effective screening mechanism when seeking a single, best informant.screening;marketing research;aggregation;organizational research;survey research

Race Religion: Exploring the Intersections of Race and Religion and the Implications for Student Affairs Practitioners

As student affairs professionals it is axiomatic that social identity plays a significant role in the lives of students. In college, many students enter the most intense stages of their developing social identities and, within the profession, we provide space for students to discuss and explore. However, this willingness to discuss seems to end where students’ religious identities begin. As a result, students with a faith-based identity explore their non-religious identity to the exclusion of their religious identity. The following article explores the interdependence of racial and religious identities and the importance of welcoming that duality into student affairs discussions. This investigation is based on two studies of African American students and the role religion plays in their identity development. The concept that race and religion play an intersecting role in social identity is then applied to student affairs to generate ideas for including religion in identity building practices and programs

Institutional Forecasting: The Performance of Thin Virtual Stock Markets

We study the performance of Virtual Stock Markets (VSMs) in an institutional forecasting environment. We compare VSMs to the Combined Judgmental Forecast (CJF) and the Key Informant (KI) approach. We find that VSMs can be effectively applied in an environment with a small number of knowledgeable informants, i.e., in thin markets. Our results show that none of the three approaches differ in forecasting accuracy in a low knowledge-heterogeneity environment. However, where there is high knowledge-heterogeneity, the VSM approach outperforms the CJF approach, which in turn outperforms the KI approach. Hence, our results provide useful insight into when each of the three approaches might be most effectively applied.Forecasting;Electronic Markets;Information Markets;Virtual Stock Markets

Graduate Student Styles for Coping with Stressful Situations and Their Effect on Academic Achievement

The study was to examine the types of stressful situations that graduate students encounter, to delineate styles for coping with these situations, and to determine if these coping styles affect academic achievement. Three populations were used: Group I consisted of 22 graduates of the Clinical Psychology program at Eastern Illinois University (EIU), Group II consisted of 11 dropouts of the Clinical Psychology program, and Group III consisted of 23 currently-enrolled graduate students in the Psychology Department. It was anticipated that there would be a significant relationship between graduate students\u27 coping styles and their academic achievement, and that Type I (competent) and Type II (less competent) graduate students would have different coping styles for stressful situations. All subjects completed a questionnaire which included a cover letter outlining instructions, an information sheet, 26 descriptions or stressful situations, and rating scales for each situation. Analysis was based on the subject\u27s age, number of years out of school, self-rated competency scores, undergraduate cumulative grade-point average (CGPA) scores, and ratings (responsibility, certainty, anxiety) of three types of stressful situations (academic problems, interpersonal problems, fate-failure) obtained from the questionnaire. For Group III, a Pearson Correlation was used to investigate the relationship between subjects\u27 CGPA scores and the variables of age, number of years out of school, self-rated competency, and ratings of coping styles for stressful situations to determine a relationship between the measures and CGPA scores. For Groups I and II, six t-tests were run to determine differences between groups on the measures of age, number of years out of school, self-rated competency scores, and CGPA scores in order to establish a basis for differences in coping styles among graduate students. Results indicate that graduate students\u27 coping styles are not significantly related to academic achievement, and there was not a significant difference between graduates and dropouts to determine a difference among graduate students for comparison of coping styles

How and Why Decision Models Influence Marketing Resource Allocations

We study how and why model-based Decision Support Systems (DSSs) influence managerial decision making, in the context of marketing budgeting and resource allocation. We consider several questions: (1) What does it mean for a DSS to be "good?"; (2) What is the relationship between an anchor or reference condition, DSS-supported recommendation and decision quality? (3) How does a DSS influence the decision process, and how does the process influence outcomes? (4) Is the effect of the DSS on the decision process and outcome robust, or context specific? We test hypotheses about the effects of DSSs in a controlled experiment with two award winning DSSs and find that, (1) DSSs improve users' objective decision outcomes (an index of likely realized revenue or profit); (2) DSS users often do not report enhanced subjective perceptions of outcomes; (3) DSSs, that provide feedback in the form of specific recommendations and their associated projected benefits had a stronger effect both on the decision making process and on the outcomes.Our results suggest that although managers actually achieve improved outcomes from DSS use, they may not perceive that the DSS has improved the outcomes. Therefore, there may be limited interest in managerial uses of DSSs, unless they are designed to: (1) encourage discussion (e.g., by providing explanations and support for the recommendations), (2) provide feedback to users on likely marketplace results, and (3) help reduce the perceived complexity of the problem so that managers will consider more alternatives and invest more cognitive effort in searching for improved outcomes.marketing models;resource allocation;DSS;decision process;decision quality

Graduate Student Styles for Coping with Stressful Situations and Their Effect on Academic Achievement

The study was to examine the types of stressful situations that graduate students encounter, to delineate styles for coping with these situations, and to determine if these coping styles affect academic achievement. Three populations were used: Group I consisted of 22 graduates of the Clinical Psychology program at Eastern Illinois University (EIU), Group II consisted of 11 dropouts of the Clinical Psychology program, and Group III consisted of 23 currently-enrolled graduate students in the Psychology Department. It was anticipated that there would be a significant relationship between graduate students\u27 coping styles and their academic achievement, and that Type I (competent) and Type II (less competent) graduate students would have different coping styles for stressful situations. All subjects completed a questionnaire which included a cover letter outlining instructions, an information sheet, 26 descriptions or stressful situations, and rating scales for each situation. Analysis was based on the subject\u27s age, number of years out of school, self-rated competency scores, undergraduate cumulative grade-point average (CGPA) scores, and ratings (responsibility, certainty, anxiety) of three types of stressful situations (academic problems, interpersonal problems, fate-failure) obtained from the questionnaire. For Group III, a Pearson Correlation was used to investigate the relationship between subjects\u27 CGPA scores and the variables of age, number of years out of school, self-rated competency, and ratings of coping styles for stressful situations to determine a relationship between the measures and CGPA scores. For Groups I and II, six t-tests were run to determine differences between groups on the measures of age, number of years out of school, self-rated competency scores, and CGPA scores in order to establish a basis for differences in coping styles among graduate students. Results indicate that graduate students\u27 coping styles are not significantly related to academic achievement, and there was not a significant difference between graduates and dropouts to determine a difference among graduate students for comparison of coping styles