Selected Publications
To Dispose or Eat? The Impact of Perceived Healthiness on Consumption Decisions for About-to-Expire Foods
( Kim, Jeehye Christine | Huh, Young Eun | McFerran, Brent )JOURNAL OF MARKETING2025-05
Abstract
Perceived healthiness of food is generally regarded as a positive attribute in food choices, as it positively impacts consumers' preferences. The current research demonstrates that in contexts where there is a time delay between a food's production and its consumption (referred to as "about-to-expire" food), strong perceptions of a food's healthiness can be detrimental. This is because consumers hold a lay theory that healthy food expires more quickly. In eight studies (N = 3,552), the authors find that merely portraying food as healthy increases the perception that it expires quickly and that this effect attenuates when consumers hold the lay theory weakly or have a high level of knowledge about food expiration. Importantly, this lay theory leads consumers to avoid consuming healthy (vs. nonhealthy) about-to-expire food, resulting in increased disposal intentions and decreased preferences. In designing sales promotions for about-to-expire food, managers should consider the healthiness of food products, as consumers prefer different types of sales promotions and require different magnitudes of price discounts for healthy (vs. nonhealthy) about-to-expire food. Finally, adding an expiration date label that provides unambiguous guidance (i.e., "consume by") can effectively mitigate the detrimental effect of perceived healthiness on the consumption for about-to-expire food.
Multichannel Advertising: Budget Allocation in the Presence of Spillover and Carryover Effects05
( Chen, Huijun | Chen, Ying-Ju | Park, Sung-Hyuk | Shin, Dongwook )M&SOM-MANUFACTURING & SERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT2025-05
Abstract
Problem definition: This paper explores budget allocation strategies for a multichannel ad campaign, where a marketing agency strives to maximize the total conversions by dynamically adjusting budget allocation over marketing channels. A salient feature of the problem is the interplay of spillover and carryover effects; namely, customers are exposed to ads through multiple channels, and thus ads from one channel affect the effectiveness of the subsequent ads from other channels. Methodology/results: We construct a simple model that captures the essential features of this problem. Our theoretical analysis yields two main insights. First, motivated by common practice based on the last-click attribution method, we examine a class of budget allocation policies that are oblivious to the spillover and carryover effects. If the agency decreases the budget on a channel based on past low conversions while neglecting to account for the fact that the ads from that channel induced conversions through other channels, then the conversions from that channel will decrease. Consequently, the agency will further decrease the budget on the channel. This pattern repeats, eventually leading to suboptimal performance in the long run. Second, we derive a fluid approximation to consumer dynamics across multiple channels, which lends itself to characterizing structural properties of optimal dynamic budget allocation policies that internalize the cross-channel interactions. To enable practical implementation, we propose a static budget allocation policy that is both tractable in practice and near optimal for long campaigns. Managerial implications: Our theoretical results provide normative guidance for budget allocation in multichannel ad campaigns. We illustrate the efficacy of our proposed method through a numerical study based on data from an online multichannel ad campaign.
Targeted Advertising as Implicit Recommendation: Strategic Mistargeting and Personal Data Opt-out
( Ning, Z. Eddie | Shin, Jiwoong | YU, Jungju )MARKETING SCIENCE2025-04
Abstract
We study an advertiser's targeting strategy and its effects on consumer data privacy choices, both of which determine the advertiser's targeting accuracy. Targeted ads, serving as implicit recommendations when consumer preferences are uncertain, not only influence the consumer's beliefs and purchasing decisions, but also amplify the advertiser's temptation toward strategic mistargeting: sending ads to poorly matched consumers. Our analysis reveals that advertisers may, paradoxically, choose less precise targeting as accuracy improves. Even if prediction is perfect, the advertiser still targets the wrong consumers, leading to strategic mistargeting. Nevertheless, consumer surplus can remain positive because of improved identification of well-matched consumers, thereby reducing the incentive for consumers to withhold information. However, the scenario shifts with endogenous pricing; better prediction leads to more precise targeting although mistargeting persists. To exploit the recommendation effect of advertising, the advertiser raises prices instead of diluting recommendation power, lowering consumer welfare and prompting consumers to opt out of data collection. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of consumer data opt-out decisions under varying privacy policy defaults (opt in versus opt out). These decisions significantly affect equilibrium outcomes, influencing both the advertiser's targeting strategies and consumer welfare. Our findings highlight the complex relationship between targeting accuracy, privacy choices, and advertisers' incentives.
Site Visits and Corporate Investment Efficiency
( Cao, Sean Shun | Gong, Guojin | Kim, Yongtae | Shi, Hanzhong | Wang, Angie )MANAGEMENT SCIENCE2025-01
Abstract
Site visits allow visitors to physically inspect productive resources and interact with on -site employees and executives face to face. We posit that, by allowing visitors to acquire investment -related information and monitor the management team, site visits offer disciplinary benefits for corporate investments. Using mandatory disclosures of site visits in China, we find that corporate investments become more responsive to growth opportunities as the intensity of site visits increases, consistent with the notion that site visits yield disciplinary benefits. We also find that the positive association between site visits and investment efficiency is more pronounced when visitors can glean more investmentrelated information and when they have stronger incentives and greater power to monitor managers. This positive association is also stronger among firms with more severe agency problems and higher asset tangibility. The overall evidence supports the notion that site visits serve as a unique venue for institutional investors and financial analysts to acquire valuable information and serve a monitoring function, which generates disciplinary benefits for corporate investments.
Two Heads Are Better than One: Task Division and Decision Control in Inventory Planning
( Park, Young Soo | Lee, Yun Shin | Siemsen, Enno )PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT2025
Abstract
We examine when and how task division improves performance for inventory planning. Specifically, we consider a decentralized inventory management context with two interdependent subtasks: preparing a forecast and setting a service level. Using a behavioral experiment, we reveal that the task challenge moderates the relationship between task division and performance. Our findings indicate that task division improves performance when the task becomes more challenging, such as under high demand uncertainty. It facilitates counteracting behavior, where individuals adjust their decisions to counterbalance their partner's errors, leading to more stabilized final decisions. We identify this counteracting behavior as a critical mechanism driving the benefits of task division, mainly when subtasks are interdependent. We demonstrate the robustness of our findings by examining an egalitarian system, where decision-making authority is shared among team members, and a hierarchical system, where decision control resides entirely with one team member.
