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The effect of social interactions on demand and service levels of online retailers in the social shopping context

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Social shopping has emerged as a popular online retailing segment. Social shopping revolves around online communities that bring consumers together to shop for deals. Online retailers have been making significant investments to encourage consumers to join online communities linked to their websites in the hope that social interactions among consumers…

Social shopping has emerged as a popular online retailing segment. Social shopping revolves around online communities that bring consumers together to shop for deals. Online retailers have been making significant investments to encourage consumers to join online communities linked to their websites in the hope that social interactions among consumers will increase consumption rates. However, the assumption that social interactions increase consumption rates in social shopping remains largely untested in empirical settings. Also, the mechanisms of such an effect remain unclear. Moreover, extant literature has overlooked the role played by elements of the marketing mix, including product characteristics and the commercial context, in defining the effect that social interaction mechanisms have on consumption rates in this focused context. Furthermore, common knowledge in the operations management discipline challenges the largely held assumption, in the social interactions literature, that increasing consumption rates will always be beneficial to online retailers. Higher consumption rates may lead to stockouts, leading to lower service levels. This dissertation develops and empirically tests a theoretical framework that addresses these managerially relevant issues. Specifically, the investigation centers on the effects of social interaction mechanisms on consumption rates in social shopping. In turn, it assesses the nature of the relationship between consumption rates and service levels, after controlling for inventory provision. Finally, it assesses the role played by elements of the marketing mix in defining the relationship between social interaction mechanisms and consumption rates in this focused context. The research methodology uses experiments as the primary source of data collection, and employs econometrics techniques to statistically assess the conceptual framework. The results from the empirical analysis provide interesting insights. First, they unveil influential consumers in social shopping according to relational and structural elements of the social network of consumers and time of purchase. Second, the influence of early buyers' purchases on consumption rates becomes weaker when the quality of the products being offered as part of a deal increases, but it becomes stronger when the price of those products increases. Finally, as deals' consumption rates increase, their service levels decrease at a faster pace.
ContributorsSodero, Annibal (Author) / Rabinovich, Elliot (Thesis advisor) / Sinha, Rajiv (Committee member) / Maltz, Arnold (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Three Essays on Firm Responses to Climate Change

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Evidence is mounting to address and reverse the effects of environmental neglect. Perhaps the greatest evidence for needing environmental stewardship originates from the ever-increasing extreme weather events ranging from the deadly wildfires scorching Greece and California to the extreme heatwaves in Japan. Scientists have concluded that the probability and severity…

Evidence is mounting to address and reverse the effects of environmental neglect. Perhaps the greatest evidence for needing environmental stewardship originates from the ever-increasing extreme weather events ranging from the deadly wildfires scorching Greece and California to the extreme heatwaves in Japan. Scientists have concluded that the probability and severity for about two thirds of such extreme natural events that occurred between 2004 and 2018 is contributed by rising global temperatures.

Operations management literature regarding environmental issues have typically focused on the “win-win” approach with a multitude of papers investigating a link between sustainability and firm performance. This dissertation seeks to take a different approach by investigating firm responses to climate change. The first two essays explore firm emissions goals and the last essay investigates firm emissions performance.

The first essay identifies firm determinants of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. The essay leverages Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTOF) and argues for two additional determinants, Data Stratification and Science-Based Targets, unique to GHG emissions. Utilizing system generalized method of moments on a dataset from Carbon Disclosure Project for years 2011-2017, the paper finds partial confirmation for BTOF and support for the two additional determinants of firm GHG emission goals.

The second essay is an exploratory study that seeks to understand factors for firm participation in the Science-Based Targets (SBT) initiative by combining both primary and secondary data analysis. The study is a working paper with primary data still needing to be completed. Secondary data analysis begins with a review of the literature which suggested four potential factors: ISO 14001 certification, Customer Engagement, Emission Credit Purchases, and presence of Absolute Emissions Targets. Preliminary results using panel logistic regression suggest that Emissions Credit Purchases and Absolute Emissions Targets influence SBT participation.

The third essay seeks to understand whether stakeholder pressure drives firm GHG emissions reductions. This relies on Stakeholder Theory and classification schemes proposed in Management literature to divide stakeholders, based on their relationship with the firm, into three groups: primary, secondary, and public. Random effects estimation results provide evidence for primary and public stakeholder pressure impacting firm GHG emissions.
ContributorsHsu, Ta Kang (Author) / Dooley, Kevin J (Thesis advisor) / Rabinovich, Elliot (Committee member) / Corbett, Charles J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020