This dissertation involves three essays, studying firms' decision-making on marketing mix variables. Specifically, the first essay (Chapter 2) studies the effects of distribution channels on firms' advertising content decision. In many markets, consumers may not have full information of product...

Department: Business.

The predominant perception on commonality strategy in product line design is that it entails a trade-off decision for a firm between cost savings and product differentiation. Adopting the commonality strategy may lower a firm's manufacturing costs, but it blurs the distinction between products...

We develop a game-theoretical model to show that in the markets where price consistency across channels is critical, an incumbent brick-and-mortar retailer can deter the online entry of a pure-play e-tailer by strategically refraining from entering online. In the markets where price consistency...

Firms enjoy declining cost per unit of output with increasing cumulative output in a variety of industries, which gives rise to consumer concerns about transaction fairness. Consumers are less likely to purchase from a firm if it continues to reap an unfairly high profit margin. Intuitively,...

This study examines the strategic implications of retailer shelf layout decisions in a market characterized by consumer fit uncertainty. A retailer can display competing products in the same location, allowing consumers to inspect various products all at once or in distant locations, which...

This paper investigates the diverging incentives for product quality in a channel with two asymmetric retailers and a common supplier. When retailers differ in terms of service provision and channel power, changes in manufactured quality cause channel conflicts. In particular, our results show...