scholarly journals When More is Less and Less is More: The Psychology of Managing Product Assortments

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Chernev
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Lower Probability ◽  
Choice Overload ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Less Is More ◽  
Psychology Of Choice

Abstract The strategy of giving customers what they want can backfire when it comes to designing and managing product assortments. Not only does offering more options lead to higher costs for the company, larger assortments often lead to lower probability of purchase and decreased satisfaction due to choice overload. Surprisingly, most consumers (as well as many managers) are unaware of the drawbacks of larger assortments, displaying preference for the greater variety of options even in cases when such variety makes consumers less confident in their decisions and lowers their satisfaction with choice. Understanding the psychology of choice gives managers a competitive advantage, allowing them to design assortments and product lines that create value for both the company and its customers

scholarly journals Measuring Inter-Industry Competitive Advantage and Performance of Lesotho's Export Sector

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Macleans Mzumara
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Wood Products ◽  
The Other ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Animal Products ◽  
Export Sector ◽  
And Performance

The author investigated inter-industry competitive advantage andperformance of Lesotho's export sector. The results show competitivenessin Lesotho varies from one industry to the other. Textiles industry is themost competitive in Lesotho with 165 product lines which has revealedcomparative advantage of equal or greater than 1. It is followed bymiscellaneous industry with a demonstrated competitiveness in 35 productlines. The least competitive industries in Lesotho were found to be footwear/head gear and wood and wood products both with only 4 product lines.The following industries in Lesotho performed badly and have nocomparative advantage at all: animal and animal products; raw hides, skinsleather and furs; plastic and rubber; chemical and allied industries; foodstuffs; and mineral products. Although Lesotho has competitive advantagein textiles industry, it is also very vulnerable due to over-reliance on a singleindustry. There is a need to diversify through attracting foreign directinvestment that will also usher in improvement in competitiveness acrossindustries.

Contextual Inference in Markets: On the Informational Content of Product Lines

2008 ◽  
Vol 98 (5) ◽  
pp. 2127-2149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emir Kamenica
Keyword(s):  
Market Equilibrium ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Informational Content ◽  
Compromise Effect ◽  
Choice Overload ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Market Equilibria ◽  
Stable Preference

Context can influence decisions. This malleability of choice is usually invoked as evidence that people do not maximize stable preference orderings. In a market equilibrium, however, context conveys payoff-relevant information to consumers. Consequently, these consumers rationally violate naïve formulations of standard choice theoretic principles. I identify informational asymmetries under which apparently anomalous behaviors, namely the compromise effect and choice overload, arise as market equilibria. Firms respond to consumers' contextual inference; in case of the compromise effect, a firm may introduce premium loss leaders (expensive goods of overly high quality that increase the demand for other goods). (JEL D11, D83, M31)

scholarly journals A Model Examining the Effect of Generative Learning on the Relationship between Diversification and Financial Performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 03 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tutku Seckin-Celik ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Performance ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
New Products ◽  
Product Line ◽  
Generative Learning ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Business World ◽  
Diversification Strategies ◽  
A Company

Organizations are trying to attain and sustain competitive advantage in the highly competitive business world settings. It is argued that one of the strategies to achieve competitive advantage is to form learning organizations. Diversification strategies of organizations are important growth decisions managers need to make. In this paper, organizational learning, learning organization, fundamental diversification strategies and the link between learning and diversification in the literature were discussed shortly. Then, the link between them was revisited considering the literature with a schema. At last, a causal model was introduced. Model suggested that When a company decides to expand its operations by adding new products related to existing product line, with the aim of exploiting its existing knowledge base, this company can reach superior financial performance (financial performance means profitability) through generative learning. When a company decides to grow by adding a new product line irrelevant to existing product lines, with the aim of exploring new knowledge, then through generative learning, this company can introduce or develop new technologies in forms of new products/services, in other words make innovation. Unrelated diversification does not directly provide high financial performance. But gradually, as the innovation gain awareness, it brings in superior financial performance more than related diversification can bring in.

scholarly journals How Far Should Global Products Go?

1989 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sushil Vachani ◽  
Louis T Wells
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Special Needs ◽  
International Business ◽  
Multinational Enterprise ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Usual Product ◽  
Local Firms

Some authorities in international business have suggested that international markets are becoming increasingly homogeneous, causing more firms to offer global products. Vachani and Wells based on a study of the product decisions of Indian subsidiaries of five multinationals argue that there remain important consumer segments that have special needs which are not met by global products. According to Vachani and Wells, decisions of multinationals and local firms to cater to the special needs of various consumer segments in developing countries depend on four variables: the structure and competitive conditions of their industry segments, the ability to use their traditional competitive advantage in different segments, the ease with which their usual product lines can be extended into new segments, and the availability of more special products elsewhere within the multinational enterprise.

The Effect of Outcome Probability on Generalization in Predictive Learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadar Ram ◽  
Dieter Struyf ◽  
Bram Vervliet ◽  
Gal Menahem ◽  
Nira Liberman
Keyword(s):  
High Probability ◽  
Lower Probability ◽  
Perceptual Similarity ◽  
Learning Paradigm ◽  
Predictive Learning ◽  
Lightning Bolt ◽  
Outcome Probability

Abstract. People apply what they learn from experience not only to the experienced stimuli, but also to novel stimuli. But what determines how widely people generalize what they have learned? Using a predictive learning paradigm, we examined the hypothesis that a low (vs. high) probability of an outcome following a predicting stimulus would widen generalization. In three experiments, participants learned which stimulus predicted an outcome (S+) and which stimulus did not (S−) and then indicated how much they expected the outcome after each of eight novel stimuli ranging in perceptual similarity to S+ and S−. The stimuli were rings of different sizes and the outcome was a picture of a lightning bolt. As hypothesized, a lower probability of the outcome widened generalization. That is, novel stimuli that were similar to S+ (but not to S−) produced expectations for the outcome that were as high as those associated with S+.

Communicating: When Less Is More

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 57 (21) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Scott
Keyword(s):  
Less Is More

When less is more: Feedback, priming, and the pseudoword superiority effect

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Massol ◽  
K. Midgley ◽  
P. J. Holcomb ◽  
J. Grainger
Keyword(s):  
Superiority Effect ◽  
Less Is More
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