Author: Sanchit Pawar

This current research contributes to the concept of consumer-based food label equity (CBFLE) by testing the predictive validity of a scale developed by Coderre et al. (2022) in the sustainability and health domains of seafood products. In Study 1 (N = 301; between-within subjects), we found that scores on all subscales, except the (Dis)honesty subscale, were significantly related to willingness to buy fish fillets without a label in comparison with the B Corp sustainability label and a fictitious label. There were no differences between labels. In Study 2 (N = 200; within-subjects), we found similar results for fillets with a health-related label: the American Heart Association Heart-Check. However, scores on the awareness subscale were not significantly associated with willingness to buy fish fillets. Overall, our results suggest that the CBFLE and the scale predict WTB in the context of sustainability and health signalling.

This paper explores the impact of health communication using smartphones and the outcome of healthier purchases when young Thai consumers shop for groceries. A conjoint experiment was arranged whereby participants (n = 214) purchased grocery using information conveyed via quick response (QR) codes. Results show that a healthy food label, and a good consumer rating on the food’s health, evoked the consumers’ tendencies towards interacting with a smartphone in the purchasing situation. In addition, likelihood of buying increased. Further simulations revealed that health communication conveyed via QR codes can be a good investment for brands to increase healthier purchases.

Introduction: Unhealthy food consumption is a problem for society, companies, and consumers. This study aims to contribute to knowledge regarding such issues by investigating how technology-enabled healthy food labels can impact food choice in an online grocery store context. We conceptualized unhealthy and healthy food choice as a matter of impulsivity problems. Three technology-enabled healthy food labels were derived based on variables that might impact self-control, and their influence on food choice was investigated.

Methods: The empirical study consisted of three parts. In the first part, participants’ impulsivity was measured using an adjusting delay task. Part two investigated the effects of self-monitoring, pre-commitment, and social comparison-based technology-enabled healthy food labels on food choice in a hypothetical online grocery shopping setting using a choice-based conjoint experiment. Lastly, in the third part, three where demographical questions were asked.

Results: The results (n = 405) show that self-monitoring, pre-commitment, and social comparison-based technology-enabled healthy food labels had the most to least impact on food choice in that order. Furthermore, the results indicate that self-monitoring and pre-commitment labels had more impact on the choice for impulsive compared to non-impulsive participants. Similarly, the results indicate that social comparison had more impact on choice for non-impulsive participants. These findings suggest that self-monitoring of previous healthy food choices might be more effective than pre-commitment based on discounts for healthy food products. However, these differences were minor.

Discussion: This finding has managerial implications as grocery stores might increase their revenue by introducing self-monitoring labels in an online grocery shopping setting. Future research should investigate these technology-enabled healthy food labels in natural food purchase settings

Healthy food labels are a widely used form of intervention that nudges consumers towards healthier choices. This study is published in Procedia Computer Science and investigates the relative importance of healthy food labels on the consumers’ online choice of grocery. A conjoint study (n=111) shows that price, brand, and country of origin had a relatively higher impact on choice than health food labels. However, it is important to note that consumers are not completely indifferent to the presence of a healthy food label and it increases chances of a product being chosen online. The results also demonstrate gender differences, as healthy food labels had a stronger impact on female consumers.

This study investigates the impact of Internet of Things (IoT) services from a smartphone app in a retail grocery shopping situation. A scenario was arranged whereby 226 participants were to purchase, among other products, fresh salmon in a grocery store using the store’s smartphone app. Findings from a conjoint study show that the following IoT services; “updated expiry date”, “aggregated national customer experience index”, and “personalized offer based on product in the basket” evoked the approach and abated avoidance tendencies to explore the smartphone app, while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of buying based on information from the app. The IoT service “Real-time price” had a varied impact on participant approach-avoidance tendencies to interact with the app. Scenario simulation analysis shows that some IoT services can be a deal-breaker in a competitive grocery market. The study is published in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, presented at Forskning.no and Kristiania.no.

This study analyzes online customer reviews in order to investigate customers’ preferences regarding cosmetic products. Based on the marketing firm theory, this research explores the possibility of enhancing the bilateral contingent relationships between the customer and the marketing firm within the cosmetics domain. Hence, this study applies market‐search concepts by extracting customer reviews and employing text analytics to identify reinforcers and factors in cosmetic products, which customers are expecting, and their sentiments towards them. Our results suggest that some reinforcers are shared among all customers, but some vary among the different customer segments based on their age and skin tone. The study is published in Managerial and Decision Economics and presented in Kunnskapsmagasinet Kristiania.

Internet of Things Applications in Healthcare: A Focus on Improving Patient Safety: A special issue of Journal of Healthcare Engineering

Call for papers

This special issue seeks to attract original research articles that discuss emerging IoT technologies with regard to their impact on patient safety in healthcare. This special issue especially welcomes analytical, computational, experimental, and clinical research, state-of-the-art reviews, and conceptual and theoretical developments and designs.

Using the theory of the marketing firm, two articles that discuss how marketers in an organization can respond to behaviors resulting from co‐creational customer–customer exchanges. These two papers examine marketer and customer co‐creation processes within the context of bilateral contingencies. The studies are published in Managerial and Decision Economics; 1 and 2.

This paper responds to a call for research on the context-specific effects of human images in different online contexts. This study investigates how inherent facial expressions in a consultant’s profile image influence the likelihood to contact tendency of small business-to-business website visitors. The results from a conjoint study (n = 67) demonstrate that a consultant’s profile image with a smiling facial expression induced a higher likelihood to contact tendency. While the absence of a profile image reduced this tendency, relatively more than an image with a neutral facial expression. In light of these results, implications for small businesses as well as suggestions for future research are discussed. The study is published in Interacting with Computers and presented at Forskning.no.

This study aims to expand understanding of social business processes for co-creation in the service industry. Findings from a case study showed that the banking and finance company in Norway manage to co-create value together with their users. Several new online products and services have been launched since the co-creation lab was launched. The banking and finance companies’ co-creation lab has a small, but stabile group of users. There are, however, findings that indicate that there could been achieved even more value in co-creation process through more and better interaction from the company’s side, as well as introducing an incentive arrangement for the users of the co-creation lab. This study is published at the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM).