Models and scientific evidence suggest that firms are more successful at new-product development if there is greater communication among marketing, engineering, and manufacturing. This paper examines communication patterns for two matched product-development teams where the key difference...

We seek to understand how the use of Research, Development, and Engineering (R,D&E) metrics can lead to more effective management of R,D&E. This paper combines qualitative and quantitative research to understand and improve the use of R,D&E metrics. Our research begins with interviews of 43...

Consumers often choose products by first forming a consideration set and then choosing from among considered products. When there are many products to screen (or many features to evaluate), it is rational for consumers to use consider-then-choose decision processes and to do so with heuristic...

In most marketing experiments, managerial decisions are not based directly on the estimates of the parameters but rather on functions of these estimates. For example, many managerial decisions are driven by whether or not a feature is valued more than the price the consumer will be asked to pay....

Greedoid languages provide a basis to infer best-fitting noncompensatory decision rules from full-rank conjoint data or partial-rank data such as consider-then-rank, consider-only, or choice data. Potential decision rules include elimination by aspects, acceptance by aspects, lexicographic by...

Adaptive metric utility balance is at the heart of one of the most widely used and studied methods for conjoint analysis. We use formal models, simulations, and empirical data to suggest that adaptive metric utility balance leads to partworth estimates that are relatively biased—smaller...

Aesthetics are critically important to market acceptance. In the automotive industry, an improved aesthetic design can boost sales by 30% or more. Firms invest heavily in designing and testing aesthetics. A single automotive “theme clinic” can cost over $100,000, and hundreds are conducted...