Abstract:
How do firms reach beyond their boundaries to innovate effectively? This is an important question that has attracted much scholarly attention throughout the last decade. It has become commonplace to argue that firms do not develop novel products and services in isolation, but engage with their external environments to improve these products and services. For example, to innovate effectively, firms can draw on their own customers or they can search for and recombine the knowledge of others. In terms of the external sources of innovation, prior research has examined this topic under the rubrics of user innovation (von Hippel 2005), innovation contests (Boudreau et al. forthcoming), as well as knowledge recombination and search (Ahuja and Katila 2004). More recently, a growing body of work has examined how firms learn from feedback from the external environment to create new products and services. We propose to examine feedback in new market contexts and to understand how firms draw from a variety of types of feedback from users to generate and evaluate new ideas.

Abstract:
Creativity, coming up with fresh ideas for changing products, services and processes so as to better achieve the organization’s goals, has been heralded as the key to enduring economic advantage. Creative activities appear to be affectively (commonly known as emotionally) charged events. In spite of advancement in the literature on affective influences on individual creativity and of increasing attention to team creativity and innovation, there is a dearth of research on the relationship between emotional contagion and team creativity and innovation. This study aims to address current empirical and theoretical gaps by exploring the affect-creativity relationship at the team level. Both quantitative and qualitative longitudinal data will be used to test the relationship between emotional contagion and team creativity in organizations. 

Abstract:
Indulgent consumption is said to occur when consumers yield to their desires to obtain unrestrained pleasure via products or services that are not really necessary (Kivetz and Simonson 2002). It often involves a self-treatment with excessive generosity such as the purchase of luxury products or the consumption of a special meal. Indulgent consumption involves several forms of emotion that are often conflicting. While indulgent consumption is inherently pleasurable, it is also associated to feelings of guilt and regret, among other negative emotions (Ramanathan and Williams 2007). These ambivalent feelings may affect both the consumption experience and consumer’s subsequent decisions. While previous research often assumes that negative feelings such as guilt and regret underlie indulgent consumption (Mukopadhyay and Johar 2007), less is known about the conditions that will lead to specific types of negative or positive feelings and therefore to different emotional experiences following indulgent consumption. We investigate how the reason underlying an indulgent consumption will affect consumers’ emotional experience and likelihood of continuing to indulge in subsequent situations. Across two studies, we find that consumers’ justification and level of self-control interact to explain consumers’ mixed emotional responses to indulgence (guilt, regret, pride, happiness), which in turn explain satisfaction with the consumption episode.

Abstract:
Despite the growing interest and enthusiasm surrounding microcredit, spurred by Muhammad Yunus’ Nobel Peace Prize, relatively little is known about economic and social impacts of this innovative source of financing. In cooperation with the “Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation” and the “Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)”, Raji Jayaraman and Joerg Rocholl will participate in the design and evaluation of one of the first microcredit programs to be introduced in Bhutan. In particular, they will investigate whether microfinance leads to the creation or expansion of business, and whether the poor benefit to the same degree as the less-poor.

Abstract:
Despite the important economic role of credit ratings, there is not a single research paper in any of the major academic journals examining the accuracy of extant rating methodologies. Indeed, rating agencies have often argued that sufficient historic data for testing their methodologies does not exist. Moreover, the effect of default contagion on the accuracy of credit ratings has never been investigated, and the literature on the behavioral aspects of rating processes is also scarce. This research project aims to fill this void, with potential major implications for the decisions of rating agencies, regulatory bodies, banks, and any other financial institution with internal rating systems.

Abstract:

In this two year research project we investigate how organizations can efficiently and effectively develop sales managers from within their sales force. The contribution of this project should have important implications for both the practitioner (how do I choose sales managers, what types of incentives work under what conditions, what is the role of leadership, what type of sales force control system works …?) and academic communities (how can existing theory explain what is happening and how can this theory be extended and/or enriched?