Prof Om Narasimhan MAR 6.32

This course is compulsory on the MRes/PhD in Management (Marketing). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course covers both consumer behaviour and quantitative modelling.

In the area of Consumer Behaviour the course objective is to familiarise students with research in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and marketing on information processing and judgment and decision making related topics to better understand and develop marketing strategies that affect consumer behavior. There are two main aims of this course: (1) to give students a strong foundation for critical thinking in the area of consumer behavior, and (2) to enable students to conceptualize, develop and operationalize research ideas. Therefore, the focus is on understanding current theoretical and methodological approaches to various aspects of consumer behavior, as well as advancing this knowledge by developing testable hypotheses and theoretical perspectives that build on the current knowledge base. This means that students have to actively read prior research in different areas – try to understand the authors’ ideas and develop the habit of constructive criticism of the research. To encourage this habit, the role of author of certain papers may be assigned to some students in the class and the role of reviewer assigned to others.

In the area of quantative modelling the course is designed to develop the quantitative foundations for marketing decisions. Both theoretical models which help analyse marketing issues, and decision-support models will be covered. There is a requirement for students to already have some understanding of calculus, probability, statistics and matrix algebra, Features of the course include a focus all marketing decisions: product, pricing, advertising, salesforce and distribution. All necessary analysis tools from resource allocation models to NEIO (New Empirical Industrial Organization) models will be discussed. A comprehensive set of exercises will enable students to test their knowledge of models and their understanding of the material discussed in class. The course will also incorporate recent research findings in all aspects of marketing including online marketing and social media marketing.

30 hours of seminars in the AT.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the AT.

 - Higgins, E. T., & Kruglanski, A. W. (Eds.). (2007). Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

• Cognitive Psychology: Mind and Brain, Edward E. Smith, Columbia University, Stephen M. Kosslyn, Stanford University, 2007  | Pearson

• Bazerman, Max H. (1994), Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, John Wiley & Sons.

• Russo, J.E. and P.J.H. Shoemaker (1989), Decision Traps, Doubleday.

• Thaler, Richard H. (1992), The Winner’s Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life, Princeton University Press.

-  Lilien GL, Kotler Ph, Moorthy KS. Marketing Models. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, 1992

• Leeflang PSH, Wittink DR, Wedel M, Naert PA. Building Models for Marketing Decisions. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht / Boston 2000.

• Hanssens DM, Parsons LJ, Schultz RL. Market Response Models: Econometric and Time Serie Analysis. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston 2001.

• Lilien GL, Rangaswamy A. Marketing Engineering, 2nd edition. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2003.

• Little JDC. Models and Managers: The Concept of a Decision Calculus. Management Science 1970; 16: B466-B485.

Essay (100%, 4000 words) in the ST.