Preventing Motivated Defense Behavior against Market Research
Transcrição
Preventing Motivated Defense Behavior against Market Research
Preventing Motivated Defense Behavior against Market Research Insights - An Experimental Study on Managerial Decision Behavior DISSERTATION of the University of St.Gallen, School of Management, Economics, Law, Social Sciences and International Affairs to obtain the title of Doctor of Philosophy in Management submitted by Jasmin Eberharter from Germany Approved on the application of Prof. Dr. Sven Reinecke and Prof. Dr. Torsten Tomczak Dissertation no. 4343 The University of St. Gallen, School of Management, Economics, Law, Social Sciences and International Affairs hereby consents to the printing of the present dissertation, without hereby expressing any opinion on the views herein expressed. St. Gallen, October 22, 2014 The President: Prof. Dr. Thomas Bieger Acknowledgments It is my very pleasure to express my gratitude to the people who supported me throughout the process of my dissertation. In particular, I am very grateful to my doctoral supervisor Prof. Dr. Sven Reinecke for his guidance and support. I highly appreciate that he helped to maintain a focus on bridging the gap between managerial challenges and scientific approaches. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Torsten Tomczak for co-supervising and his valuable feedback. Moreover, I am deeply indebted to my mentors Prof. Dr. Peter Mathias Fischer (University of St.Gallen) and Prof. Dr. Anne Laure Sellier (HEC Paris) not only for their enlightening comments and priceless advice but also for making this dissertation an enjoyable journey. Peter has always supported my research process. His passion for science and his persevering trust in my dissertation kept me going, particularly, when it was necessary to leave the comfort zone. Anne Laure is an inspiring role model for a female young professional like me and I feel lucky that her experience and knowledge has left a mark on my research project as well as on my personal development. Many thanks to the participants in my empirical studies who have willingly shared their precious time in order to support scientific research on managerial decision behavior. For financial support on my extremely instructive visiting research year abroad, I thank the Swiss National Science Foundation. As a research associate at the Institute of Marketing, I was working in a very friendly and supportive environment. In particular, my sincere thanks go to Dennis Herhausen, Christian Schmitz, Jochen Binder, Johannes Hattula, and Alexander Schagen for their advanced advice regarding the dissertation process and for making this time also enjoyable from day one, for example, with legendary “Tischkicker” sessions. Likewise, I am thankful for having shared the ups and downs of a dissertation with my “Dream Team” PhD-courses partners Kirsten Mrkwicka and Eva Steinbacher, and with the best “Office-Roommate-Ever” Benjamin Berghaus. Furthermore, many thanks to Robert Hohenhauer, Cansu Oral, You-Cheong Lee, Carla Thaper, and Carmen Maier for their various and kind support. The dissertation had also given me the opportunity to exchange ideas and experience with other (former) PhD students, however, I want to express a special thanks to Klemens Knöferle, Susanne Schmidt, Janice Spiess, Miriam van Tillburg, and Amir Bonakdar for learning, listening, and laughing together. Also, I like to thank my long-standing friends Melanie Horstmann, Simone Daum, Claudia Fuchs, Sarah Ehmann, Julia Senkbeil, Katharina Boxleitner, Caroline Basu, and Elodie Bobard who initially encouraged me to start a dissertation, strengthened my confidence during the process, and eventually helped me to recognize that the time had come to finalize this project and move on. Last, but certainly not least, I am very grateful to my family in Germany and Austria for their firm belief in me. I dedicate my thesis to my dad Erwin Eberharter and my aunt Monica Maue who had installed a joy of learning in me – the greatest motive for my dissertation. Jasmin Eberharter I Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. I List of Figures ............................................................................................................... III List of Tables ................................................................................................................ IV List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................... V Abstract ......................................................................................................................... VI Zusammenfassung........................................................................................................ VII 1 Introduction............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 1.2 2 Theoretical Development and Literature Review ..................................................... 9 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3 Problem Statement and Relevance ............................................................................... 1 Dissertation Overview .................................................................................................. 4 Impact of Market Research Insights in Marketing Management ................................. 9 Influence of Identity on Decision Behavior ................................................................ 15 Defensive Behavior in Self-Affirmation Theory ........................................................ 16 Critical Role of Relationship Norms .......................................................................... 21 Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses .................................................................... 28 Study 1: Contextual Factors of the Facts-Be-Damned Bias ................................... 32 3.1 3.2 Outline ........................................................................................................................ 32 Method ........................................................................................................................ 32 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.3 Results ......................................................................................................................... 37 3.3.1 3.3.2 3.3.3 3.4 4 Participants ...................................................................................................................... 32 Procedure and Materials .................................................................................................. 33 Checks ............................................................................................................................. 37 Moderated Regression Analysis ...................................................................................... 38 Floodlight Analysis ......................................................................................................... 40 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 43 Study 2: Evidence for Managers’ Defensive Behavior against Market Research Insights .......................................................................................................................... 44 4.1 4.2 Outline ........................................................................................................................ 44 Method and Materials ................................................................................................. 44 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.3 Participants ...................................................................................................................... 44 Procedure ......................................................................................................................... 45 Results ......................................................................................................................... 48 II 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.4 5 Checks ............................................................................................................................. 48 Moderated Regression Analysis ...................................................................................... 48 Floodlight Analysis ......................................................................................................... 50 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 52 Study 3: Role of Relationship Norms between Decision Makers and Market Researchers ................................................................................................................... 53 5.1 5.2 5.3 Outline ........................................................................................................................ 53 Pre-Study: Communal and Exchange Relationship Norms Manipulation ................. 54 Method ........................................................................................................................ 57 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.4 Results ......................................................................................................................... 59 5.4.1 5.4.2 5.4.3 5.5 6 Participants ...................................................................................................................... 57 Procedure ......................................................................................................................... 57 Checks ............................................................................................................................. 59 Moderated Regression Analysis ...................................................................................... 59 Floodlight Analysis ......................................................................................................... 61 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 63 General Discussion ................................................................................................. 64 6.1 6.2 6.3 Summary of Key Findings .......................................................................................... 64 Theoretical Contribution ............................................................................................. 65 Managerial Implications ............................................................................................. 68 6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3 6.4 How Managers Can Avoid Succumbing to the Facts-Be-Damned Bias ......................... 68 Market Researchers Need Additional Negotiation Skills ................................................ 71 Organizational Cultures and Standards in the Era of Big Data ....................................... 73 Limitations and Further Research ............................................................................... 76 6.4.1 6.4.2 Limitation of Experimental Approach and Setting.......................................................... 76 General Avenues for Future Research ............................................................................. 78 References ..................................................................................................................... 82 Curriculum Vitae .......................................................................................................... 97 III List of Figures Figure 1: Outline of Dissertation .................................................................................... 7 Figure 2: Schematic Representation of Self‐System .................................................... 18 Figure 3: Introduction of the Business Case Study ...................................................... 33 Figure 4: Manipulation of the Threatening Market Research Insights ......................... 35 Figure 5: Decision Task – Allocation of Sponsoring Budget ....................................... 35 Figure 6: Measure of Strength of Identification with Running .................................... 37 Figure 7: Simple Slopes of Study 1 – Allocation of Sponsoring Budget ..................... 42 Figure 8: Example of Choice of Marketing Testimonials in Study 2 ........................... 47 Figure 9: Simple Slopes of Study 2 – Preference for Marketing Testimonials ............ 51 Figure 10: Simple Slopes of Study 3 – Allocation of Sponsoring Budget ................... 62 IV List of Tables Table 1: Overview of Empirical Studies......................................................................... 8 Table 2: Empirical Studies on Market Research in Marketing Management............... 12 Table 3: Norms of Exchange and Communal Relationships ........................................ 23 Table 4: Exchange and Communal Relationship Norms in Marketing Research ........ 26 Table 5: Moderated Regression Results of Study 1 – Budget Running ....................... 42 Table 6: Moderated Regression Results of Study 2 – Testimonial Running................ 51 Table 7: Moderated Regression Results of Study 3 – Budget Running ....................... 62 V List of Abbreviations Affirmation(c) Level of Self-Affirmation (Centered) AMA American Marketing Association Budget Running Sponsoring Budget Allocated to Running CEO Chief Executive Officer cf. compare for Ed(s). Editor(s) e.g. exempli gratia CHF Swiss Franc et al. et alia etc. et cetera EUR Euro GolfI(c) Interest in Golf (Centered) GolfSOI(c) Strength of Identification with Golf (Centered) i.e. id est J-N Point Johnson-Neyman Point M Mean MRI Market Research Insights n Sample Size p Page Preference Running Preference towards the Running Testimonial RunningSOI(c) Strength of Identification with Running (Centered) SE Societas Europaea SD Standard Deviation SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences trans transformed US/USA United States of America VI Abstract Market research insights are doubtlessly an integral part of decision making in marketing management. However, the criticism of the selective use of objective data according to managers’ personal comfort zone is also unmistakable. The present dissertation addresses this criticism and investigates data-based decision behavior in marketing management, when managers strongly identify on a personal level with the market they are serving. For this reason a business case study is developed forming the framework for three experimental online studies with marketing managers as participants. The results of all three experiments consistently show that managers with a strong identification tend to make decisions going against market research insights, when the objective data clash with the self-associated market. The present research terms this seemingly irrational decision behavior the “facts-be-damned bias.” It occurs only when market research insights are perceived as potentially self-threatening (Study 1), and is demonstrably triggered through a mental defense mechanism (Study 2). Preventing the facts-be-damned bias is not trivial because defense mechanisms operate under the radar of people’s own conscious awareness. In accord with the established theory of self-affirmation, however, the findings show that managers are better able to objectively process self-threatening data when they are provided with self-affirmation unrelated to the decision task (Study 2). Furthermore, the findings reveal that the type of relationship norm between managers and market researchers constitutes an interesting boundary condition for the facts-be-damned bias (Study 3). While norms of a communal relationship favor the bias, norms of an exchange relationship mitigate it. Based on the overall findings, implications are drawn for managerial decision makers, market researchers, and organizations. VII Zusammenfassung Marktforschungsinformationen über Konsumenten und Märkte sind zweifelsohne ein integraler Bestandteil der Entscheidungsfindung im Marketing Management. Allerdings lässt sich auch die Kritik über die selektive Nutzung von objektiven Daten nach der persönlichen Komfortzone der Marketingentscheider nicht überhören. Die vorliegende Dissertation greift diese Kritik auf und untersucht, wie Entscheidungen im Marketing Management anhand von objektiven Daten getroffen werden, wenn sich Manager mit einem strategischen Markt persönlich stark identifizieren. Zu diesem Zwecke wird eine Unternehmensfallstudie entwickelt, die den Rahmen für drei experimentelle online Studien mit Marketing Manager als Probanden schafft. Die Ergebnisse aller drei Experimente zeigen konsequent, dass Manager mit einer starken Identifikation tendenziell Entscheidungen entgegen den Marktforschungsdaten treffen, wenn die objektiven Daten im Konflikt mit dem selbst-assoziierten Markt stehen. Die Arbeit benennt dieses scheinbar irrationale Entscheidungsverhalten als den „Facts-Be-Damned Bias“. Dieser tritt ausschliesslich auf, wenn die Marktforschungsinformationen als potentiell selbst-bedrohlich wahrgenommen werden können (Studie 1), und wird nachweislich durch einen mentalen Abwehrmechanismus ausgelöst (Studie 2). Eine Prävention des Facts-Be-Damned Bias ist nicht trivial, da man das eigene defensive Verhalten kaum bewusst wahrnehmen kann. Anhand der wissenschaftlich etablierten Selbstbestätigungstheorie kann allerdings gezeigt werden, dass Manager objektiver mit selbst-bedrohlichen Informationen umgehen, wenn sie zuvor in einem Bereich persönlich bestärkt werden, der keinen Bezug zur Entscheidungssituation hat (Studie 2). Des Weiteren stellen beziehungsdefinierende Normen zwischen Managern und Marktforschern eine interessante Rahmenbedingung für den Facts-Be-Damned Bias dar (Studie 3). Während gemeinschaftsbezogene Beziehungsnormen den Bias begünstigen, wirken austauschbezogene Beziehungsnormen entschärfend. Basierend auf diesen Erkenntnissen werden Implikationen für Entscheider im Marketing Management, Marktforschern und Unternehmen abgeleitet. 1 1 Introduction “We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, but not for illumination.” David Ogilvy, advertising pioneer and founder of Ogilvy Group 1.1 Problem Statement and Relevance In marketing management, decision makers frequently consult market research to better understand the fluctuating demands of consumers and adapt their strategy to dynamic markets. Wierenga (2011) pointed out that “marketing management involves a unique combination of hard data and soft judgment.” Accordingly, marketing professors in business schools around the world teach that market research can help managers both identify opportunities and solve problems they are confronted with. Lee and Bradlow (2011) refer to market research as the “lifeblood of the field of marketing practice” (p. 881). To illustrate, in the late 1990s, Nick Schreiber – CEO of Tetra Pak at the time – justified the implementation of a customer satisfaction survey across all market units by urging his managers to “not trust your gut-feel. Measure it” (Kashani 2002). Similarly, the US consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble currently integrates analytics in day-to-day decisions through no less than 50,000 “decision cockpits.” The American Marketing Association defined the role of market research as follows (2004): “Marketing research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information – information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications.” 2 Market research insights are doubtlessly an integral part of decision making in marketing management. However, managers have been criticized to use data-based information selectively. Ulrich Lachmann, a former market research director at Philips Germany, pointed out that market research insights disconfirming managers’ expectations are often discounted as wrong or irrelevant (1994). Similarly, scientific research in marketing found that managers use market research insights significantly less when those insights appear to be “surprising” (Deshpande and Zaltman 1982). Reinecke and Tomczak (1994) criticized managerial decision makers who dismiss market research providers’ interpretation of data – a behavior that could be interpreted as an indication of fear that insights could clash with the manager’s personal preferences. Hence, in spite of receiving structured and valuable information, executives in marketing might nonetheless carry out decisions that deviate from databased decision making. This is because our mental filters operate to interpret information at hand in a way that comforts our self. In his book Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face – and What to Do About It, Richard S. Tedlow describes several prominent examples when top decision makers hesitated to leave their comfort zone in order to face important market changes and new consumer demands. For instance, Henry Ford once denied information suggesting that consumers want cars that represent a status symbol. Adhering to the T Model, he continued to promote cars as a basic form of transportation, an attitude that became detrimental for the whole company (Tedlow 2010). Would this situation have turned out differently if Ford had lived in the datadriven world of today? In a more recent example, we witnessed the rise and fall of BlackBerry. In 2008, BlackBerry was the most popular “smart phone” with a market share of 45 percent in the US (MacCormack, Dunn, and Kemerer 2013). However, decision makers at BlackBerry widely ignored obvious facts indicating that touch screens strongly appealed to consumers. They continued to promote keyboards on smart devices to protect their flagship product (Shih and MacCormack 2013). After Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, Jim Balsillie – co-founder and co-CEO of BlackBerry – stated in 3 an interview: “We’re a very poorly diversified portfolio. It either goes to the moon or it crashes to earth. But it’s making it to the moon pretty well, so we’ll stick with it” (CrackBerry.com 2008; see also Cohan 2012). During 2011, the company’s stock price fell from $70 to $12.45 a share (MacCormack, Dunn, and Kemerer 2013). Prominent cases such as these illustrate the detrimental consequences of ignoring dynamic markets and changing consumer demands. Universities and organizations are putting a great deal of effort into enhancing the quality of data-based information, but meanwhile we need to better understand how managers in marketing use market research insights. Understanding managerial decision behavior and appropriately responding to it, requires the application of behavioral science in a management context (cf. Wierenga 2011). Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) once compared the human mind to an iceberg, indicating that most of our actions are motivated through aspects that lie under the surface, with only a small portion of the whole showing above. Today we have realized that the concept of biased behavior does apply to all of us, not only in our personal life but in our professional work as well. “Armed with the knowledge that human beings are motivated by cognitive biases of which they are largely unaware […], businesses can start to better defend against foolishness and waste” (Ariely 2009). The famous advertising businessman David Ogilvy reformulated an often-quoted saying as “we all have the tendency to use research for support, rather than illumination” – presumably indicating that he himself had fallen into this human pattern at some point. Building on a previously made claim that managers’ “comfort zone” determines the use of market research insights (Deshpande and Zaltman 1982, 1984), our research goal is to answer the following important questions about data-based inferences made by marketing managers. Do managers make biased decisions going against market research insights? If so, which contextual factors provoke this biased behavior? What is the underlying psychological mechanism? How can organizations prevent such biased decision behavior? Does the interaction between managerial decision makers and market researchers influence whether or not unexpected or inconvenient market research insights are dismissed or used inappropriately? 4 Among marketing managers who are generally well trained to use data about consumers and markets for decision making, we found a robust defensive behavior against market research insights. We coin this phenomenon “the facts-be-damned bias,” a human tendency illustrating one deleterious use of market research insights as support rather than illumination. 1.2 Dissertation Overview The dissertation overview is illustrated in Figure 1. The overall structure consists of six main chapters, with the first chapter presenting this introduction including the previous description of the problem statement and relevance of the dissertation topic, and this overview section. Chapter 2 presents the theoretical development of the dissertation, drawing on literature from various research streams. Section 2.1 summarizes prior research in marketing that has investigated the impact of market research insights on marketing management. In particular, we point out that research in marketing management has in passing mentioned the occurrence of managers’ defensive behavior against market research insights (e.g., Deshpande and Zaltman 1982), but to date has not investigated this phenomenon from a behavioral and psychological perspective. Proposing that managers are most motivated to defend products and markets that are associated with a central part of their self, we link our conceptualization to aspects of identity and outline selective identity literature in section 2.2. In section 2.3, we emphasize that research on self-affirmation theory provides the key to understanding managers’ defensive behavior against market research insights, and we discuss prior research in detail. An integral part of this dissertation involves the investigation of a boundary condition that can mitigate the proposed defense bias among managers. In this regard, we review literature on communal and exchange relationship norms in section 2.4, transferring this concept to the interaction between managerial decision makers and providers of market research insights. In section 2.5, we present our final conceptualization coining managers’ defensive behavior against market research insights the “facts-be-damned bias”. We refine our hypotheses according to which 5 managers display the facts-be-damned bias when market research insights threaten their self-associated domains, noting that this defensive behavior is mitigated when managers and market researchers follow exchange rather than communal relationship norms. Chapters 3 to 5 present three experimental studies testing our hypotheses. Table 1 illustrates an overview of our studies and the key findings. For the overall experimental storyline, we chose a sport context since sport categories often represent a valued domain of a person’s self-concept. In all three studies, we adopt a common basic procedure: participants imagine that they are the marketing head of a (fictitious) company selling running and golf gear. Using company information and recent market research insights about the running and the golf markets, they are asked to make a marketing management decision. To increase external validity, we invited actual managers – professionally trained to treat data objectively – to take part in our first two studies. More specifically, in chapter 3 we introduce our first study investigating the contextual factors that trigger the facts-be-damned bias among marketing managers. We manipulated the market research insights to either threaten or not threaten the selfassociated domain in order to examine whether the facts-be-damned bias kicks in following exposure to self-threatening data but not to non-threatening data (Hypothesis 1). Overall, 213 marketing managers took part in our first study allocating a sponsoring budget between the two divisions, running and golf. We measured participants’ strength of identification with the two sports using a scale that illustrates different overlaps of two circles, one circle representing the target sport (e.g., “running”) and another circle the participant (“me”). In support of our hypothesis, we found that managers made a decision against market research insights as a function of their identification strength with the threatened domain. In chapter 4 we present our second study replicating our previous finding and testing whether a defense mechanism causes the facts-be-damned bias (Hypothesis 2). Referring to prior research, we introduce a common self-affirmation intervention that 6 had previously been used to turn off defense mechanisms against self-threat (e.g., Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011). We recruited 89 marketing managers and manipulated whether or not our participants are self-affirmed in an unrelated task before we exposed them to self-threatening market research insights. We further modified our experimental storyline for the purpose of external validity and asked our participants to select the company’s future marketing testimonial. Using the same strength of identification measure as in our first study, we again show that managers display the facts-be-damned bias. However, providing managers with self-affirmation indeed mitigated their defensive behavior against the self-threatening market research insights. Chapter 5 contains our last study, investigating the moderating role of relationship norms between managerial decision makers and market researchers. More specifically, we aim to test whether exchange relationship norms can mitigate the facts-be-damned bias, while communal relationship norms do not (Hypothesis 3). For this purpose we recruited 82 marathon runners for our experimental business case study with the supposition that they should be most motivated to defend the self-associated running market against threatening market research insights. In this context, we additionally measured participants’ current level of feeling self-affirmed using a self-integrity scale from prior research (Sherman, Cohen, Nelson, Nussbaum, Bunyan, and Garcia 2009; Townsend and Sood 2012). In chapter 6, we conclude with a general discussion of our research findings. First, we deliberate the key findings of our three experimental studies. We follow with the discussion of our contribution to existing research and our managerial implications. Finally, we outline the potential limitations of our research and suggest avenues for future research in this area. 7 Figure 1: Outline of Dissertation Choosing a marketing testimonial Allocation of sponsoring budget Does a defense 89 marketing mechanism cause the executives facts-be-damned bias? Can relationship norms between managers and market researchers mitigate managers’ defensive behavior? Study 3 75 marathon runners Allocation of sponsoring budget Study 2 213 marketing executives Do self-threatening market research insights trigger a biased decision behavior among managers? Decision Task Study 1 Sample Research Question Study The more managers identify with the market they are working on, the more they tend to defend their selfassociated domain. Managers’ decisions become a function of their identification strength when market research insights threaten a self-associated domain, but this effect is non-significant when insights are relatively neutral. When market research insights threaten a selfassociated domain, managers display the facts-bedamned bias. Key Findings Relationship norms: communal vs. exchange Given that managers strongly identify with the market they are working on, their decision is more (less) likely to go against threatening market research insights, the less (more) they feel selfaffirmed. However, this pernicious defensive behavior of the facts-be-damned bias only occurs when managers and market researchers follow communal relationship norms. In exchange relationship norms, non-affirmed and affirmed managers make the same decision not displaying the facts-be-damned bias. Managers display the facts-be-damned bias in Self-Affirmation: affirmation prime vs. different decision tasks (control condition), indicating the robustness of the bias. control group An unrelated self-affirmation intervention can turn off the effect of identification strength on managers’ decisions, although market research insights threatened the self-associated domain. Since affirmed managers are immune against the facts-be-damned bias, we can confirm that defense mechanism causes it. Market research insights: threatening vs. non-threatening Manipulation 8 Table 1: Overview of Empirical Studies 9 2 Theoretical Development and Literature Review 2.1 Impact of Market Research Insights in Marketing Management In general, marketing managers have to consider a myriad of factors influencing the outcomes of marketing activities – for instance, consumer demands, actions of competitors and resellers, economic and political developments, environmental changes, and technological innovations (cf. Wierenga 2011). In order to help orchestrate marketing campaigns and strategies under complex conditions, market research offers a wide variety of data-based information that aims to reduce aspects of uncertainty. Traditionally, the role of market research has been defined as “the systematic and objective identification, collection, analysis, and dissemination of information for the purpose of assisting management in decision making […]” (Malhotra 2002). Prior research has demonstrated the importance of market research insights for marketing management. For instance, when marketing experts had no access to consumer insights, their “intuitive predictions” were no more accurate than those of non-experts (Hoch 1988). Wierenga (2011) recently pointed out that a unique skill of marketing managers is the adequate use of market research insights. More than twenty years ago, Blattberg and Hoch (1990) demonstrated that a “50% Model and 50% Manager” heuristic significantly improved brand managers’ forecast quality for coupon redemption rates. Along with the improvement of individual decision-making performance, organizational research highlighted the fact that taking actions based on market research insights is a cornerstone of firms’ market orientation (Kohli and Jaworski 1990) and a sustainable competitive advantage (Glazer 1991). Moreover, the importance of market research insights for effective decision making in marketing management continuously increases, with recent developments encompassing Web analytics and the ever-growing promise of big data. Prior research in marketing also investigated managers’ use of market research insights. Table 2 summarizes in a chronological order those empirical studies. In a 10 series of survey-based studies Deshpande and Zaltman (1982; 1984; 1987; Deshpande 1982) first identified several factors having an important influence on the effectiveness of market research insights. Conducting an experimental study, Lee, Acito, and Day (1987) further confirmed the influence of prior beliefs on data-based decision making. Following research then aimed to address “how” specific factors such as managers’ experience, type of decision task (Perkins and Rao 1990), and trust between managers and market researchers (Moorman, Deshpande and Zaltman 1992) affect the use of data-based information. More recent studies turned the attention to behavioral biases. Biyalogorsky, Boulding, and Staelin (2006) showed how managers neglect new databased information because of the escalation bias. Hutchinson, Alba, and Einstein (2010) demonstrated that biases caused by heuristics to make data-based inferences are difficult to overcome. Overall, it seems that research in marketing started with a relatively holistic perspective on the use of market research insights, and is now developing this field towards managerial decision making behavior (cf. Wierenga 2011). Most prior research has particularly criticized managers’ frequent resistance to using insights readily available to them (e.g., Deshpande and Zaltman 1982, 1984; Lee, Acito, and Day 1987). In particular, Deshpande and Zaltman (1982) found that “surprising” market research insights hardly impact managers’ decisions, regardless of data quality and decision relevance. This finding has been shown to occur among consumer product managers as well as industrial managers (Deshpande and Zaltmann 1987). Deshpande and Zaltman concluded that belief-disconfirming market research insights fall outside a decision maker’s personal “comfort zone” (1982; 1984). They further draw the inference that when “research shows that the pet product of a senior marketing manager (its ‘champion’) is not faring well in the marketplace, the manager may be as likely (or more likely) to criticize the research study than to find fault with the product” (Deshpande and Zaltman 1984, p. 37). Hence, prior research indicates that managers tend to react defensively when market research clashes with their personal “pet products.” However, research has not provided evidence for such a defense bias against market research insights. Moreover, the question should be raised as to how organizations can mitigate managers’ defensive reactions and facilitate the acceptance of sound market research insights beyond an individual’s comfort zone. 11 An important factor affecting managers’ use of market research insights is the quality of interaction between managers and providers of those insights. In this regard, prior research has made a recurring recommendation to establish trusting relationships between managers and market researchers. Trust in market researchers creates trust in data provided and thus reduces managers’ uncertainty associated with the use of market research insights (Deshpande and Zaltman 1982; Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande 1992). However, Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande (1992) acknowledged that the factor of trust only partially explains interpersonal interaction quality, and these authors mentioned in passing that “social norms” might further explain how interactions between managers and market researchers can facilitate managers’ use of market research insights. In summary, prior research in marketing has highlighted on the one hand the importance of market research insights for managerial decision making, and on the other hand emphasized the challenge in management to facilitate individuals’ acceptance of insights. However, to date research in marketing has put little attention on gaining a better understanding of managers’ comfort zone regarding market research insights. Seizing the assumption that market research insights can trigger defensive behavior when insights clash with managers’ pet products, we continue our literature review on the topic of behavioral research. Our aim is to gain a better understanding of the psychological mechanism and eventually identify ways to overcome a potential defense bias against market research insights. For the latter purpose, we refer to prior research emphasizing the role of interaction quality and discuss specific social norms between managers and market researchers as a debiasing contextual factor (section 2.4). Research Question Key Finding(s) Managerial Implications It is important that market Survey-recall method: The most important factors are researchers are less sanguine researcher-manager interaction, participants were about managerial reactions to political acceptability of research asked to recall the surprise. results, exploratory purpose of most recently research, and the presentation and Finding ways to address completed marketing technical quality of research. research project managers’ comfort zones can Managers and researchers seem to be crucial to the use of market have perceptions directly in conflict research information. with one another – e.g., researchers tend to underrate the degree to which their clients dislike being taken by surprise. One survey with market researchers from agencies specializing in research on consumer markets (n = 90) Survey-recall method: The most important factors are A high quality of personal organizational structure, technical interaction between managers participants were quality, surprise, actionability, and and researchers can create asked to recall the researcher-manager interaction. trust in the research results. most recently completed marketing Surprise serves as a “reality test” Generating a large array of research project for managers to decide whether or possible research outcomes not to use research results. prior to the conduct of the High quality enhances use partly by research should broaden a managers’ comfort zone to lowering the level of surprise. surprising information. Setting Organizations should allow Survey-recall method: Managers in more decentralized organizations are more likely to use managers to operate in participants were research information than managers reasonably flexible task asked to recall the environments facilitating in more highly structured firms. most recently managers’ involvement in the completed marketing Managers tend to utilize research research process in order to research project more when they are in control of enhance the efficient use of decision making and have to bear market research information. the responsibility. One survey with marketing managers (n = 86) and market researchers (n = 90) in consumer markets Study Which organizational One survey with marketing forms affect the managers (n = 92) market research process most efficiently? Deshpande Which factors affect and Zaltman managers’ use of 1984 market research information from market researchers’ perspective? Deshpande 1982 Deshpande Which factors affect and Zaltman managers’ use of 1982 market research information? Author(s) 12 Table 2: Empirical Studies on Market Research in Marketing Management Participants perform a The more experienced managers differ Unprogrammed decision making can be improved by onfrom their less experienced colleagues promotion on the less programmed (new product) the-job training or learning by (programmed) tasks decision by rating more information as doing. and a new product (unprogrammed) tasks useful. in a consumer market Individual interviews with brand managers from a single division of a company (n = 15) How does managerial experience affects information use and decisions in programmed vs. unprogrammed situations? Perkins and Rao 1990 Organizations need to take steps to compensate for the human judgmental shortcomings. For example, when managers request research, they should sign a statement of agreement that the proper research questions are asked and that the method proposed is an acceptable approach for the problem. In-basket simulation: Subjects’ prior beliefs affect their evaluations and use of both participants were quantitative and qualitative studies. asked to select commercials for a However, qualitative studies have a forthcoming roll-out greater effect on subjects’ belief of the Campbell Soup perseverance than quantitative survey Company's new results. canned fruit juice product One laboratory experiment with MBA students (n = 117) Managerial Implications How do decision makers evaluate and use marketing research? Key Finding(s) Lee, Acito, and Day 1987 Setting Survey-recall method: Surprise in the research findings is less Because industrial managers negative related to use of information have much greater amount of participants were among industrial than consumer direct customer contact they asked to recall the managers. appreciate a greater most recently exploratory nature of completed marketing Research conducted for exploratory information collection which research project purposes is positively associated with information use in industrial firms, but leads to greater information negative associated in consumer firms. advantage. While informal organizations foster the However, market researchers need to carefully address use of information in consumer firms, managers responds to formalization of structure facilitates surprising results to consumer the use of information in industrial as well as industrial firms. firms. Study One survey with marketing managers in industrial markets (n = 201) Research Question Deshpande Which factors affect and Zaltman managers’ use of 1987 market research information from the perspective of marketing managers in industrial markets compared to managers in consumer markets? Author(s) 13 Table 2: Empirical Studies on Market Research in Marketing Management A “graph-plus-model” Participants were asked Decision makers use heuristics to guideline should be to allocate an advertising make data-based inferences which cause biased decisions. appropriate for business budget across three decisions. For instance, media (newspaper, radio, Graphical formats compared to data market researchers should and television). presented in tables do not reduce always present some heuristic-dependent biases. statistical model when Neither real-world experience nor displaying multivariate data explicit training can reduce heuristicas a linear regression. dependent biases. Do graphical presentation, experience, and training reduce biases in databased allocation decisions? Hutchinson, Alba, and Einstein 2010 Three experiments with students and marketing managers (n1 = 246, n2 = 2013, n3 = 160) Continue/stop decisions on new product launch should be made by someone with no prior beliefs about the project. Organizations should accept decision makers' biased behavior, and setup policies and procedures that minimize the escalation bias. Participants were asked The driving force behind escalation behavior is rather a biased belief to make a decision on launching a new product updating that outweighs initial positive beliefs than an involvement (“Quality Valve with the initial decision. Company case”) Managers use information improperly when initial positive beliefs about the viability of the product launch clash with negative new information. One experiment with full and part-time MBA students (n = 142) What is the driving factor behind escalation bias in the context of managing new product information? Managerial Implications Biyalogorsky, Boulding, and Staelin 2006 Key Finding(s) It is important that market researchers know how to keep the relationship trustful, and manage decision makers' expectations. Trust should have stronger effects when users are unable to evaluate research on some important dimensions. Setting Dyads: internal The effect of trust on use of marketing managerinformation is achieved primarily through critical indirect effects on internal marketing quality of user-researcher researcher, internal interactions (key variable). marketing managerexternal marketing Involvement and commitment of researcher, internal market researchers have few marketing researchermeasurable effects on the processes external marketing of research relationships. researcher, and internal Trust becomes more important in nonmarketing managerinter- than intraorganizational internal marketing settings. researcher Study One survey with marketing and nonmarketing managers as well as internal and external market researchers (n = 779) Research Question Moorman, How does trust Deshpande and in userZaltman 1992 researcher relationships affects the use of market research? Author(s) 14 Table 2: Empirical Studies on Market Research in Marketing Management 15 2.2 Influence of Identity on Decision Behavior Linking the previously discussed concern about managers’ pet products to research on identity provides important indications to understand managers’ biased behavior against market research insights. Consider the case of a manager who strongly identifies with running, and who trains and takes part in running contests in her/his free time. Imagine that s/he works for a company selling various types of sport gear. Naturally, our manager should wish for the company’s strategic running market to flourish, because this is compatible with her/his identity and s/he might feel competent being able to contribute her/his expertise to this domain. However, as with any person, a manager’s individual identity can create strong beliefs that might clash with facts at some point. Identity research found that people’s judgments are relatively one-sided when they view an issue from the perspective of a single identity and, more revealing, this way of thinking creates “sticky” beliefs (Bolton and Reed 2004; Bolton 2003). Once people derive their beliefs based on a salient and strong identity, Bolton and Reed (2004) demonstrated that various corrective procedures – e.g., analytical thinking and counteridentification – have little impact upon people’s identity-based judgments. Emphasizing the occurrence of sticky priors in management, research cautioned that “identity-driven thinking may lead to biased perceptions and expectations of customers and competitors, leading to overconfident predictions of marketplace success” (Bolton and Reed 2004, p. 408). Thus, prior research indicates a serious concern about the consequences when identity-driven thinking influences managers’ decision-making processes. In general, the self embodies many identities, and any category can be “an identity as soon as it becomes sufficiently central to a person’s self-concept that he or she starts striving to ‘be’ that type of person” (Reed, Forehand, Puntoni, and Warlop 2012, p. 319). Every identity has its own collection of attitudes, beliefs, behavior, values and – as recently demonstrated – emotions (Coleman and Williams 2013). Although managers might see themselves as rational decision makers when they form their professional opinions, other parts of their self-concept – like the identity as an avid 16 runner – can become salient and dominate the decision-making process (e.g., Bolton and Reed 2004; Reed 2004). In this case, people tend to make decision congruent with the dominant identity, although those decision outcomes can be incompatible with their other identities (LeBoeuf, Shafir, and Bayuk 2010). An identity-associated domain – such as the running market in our example – can be viewed as an extension of the self (e.g., Belk 1988). Thus, information threatening this domain directly affects the self. Feelings of threat increase as a function of identification strength, i.e., the extent to which an identity is central to a person’s selfconcept (Dalton and Huang 2014; Reed et al. 2012; Bolton and Reed 2004). In this regard, our manager with the valued identity as a runner might perceive market research insights as a threat to the self when those insights clash with the selfassociated running market. How will s/he react to “self-threatening” market research insights? 2.3 Defensive Behavior in Self-Affirmation Theory Individuals confronted by negative information associated with aspects of the self have long been known to use defense mechanisms (e.g., Freud 1946; Steele 1988; Cramer 2000), particularly when they feel that a central aspect of the self is threatened (e.g., Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011; Dalton and Huang 2014). People may mitigate the emotional consequences of adversity resulting from a threat by e.g., denying, rationalizing, or misinterpreting the threatening information (Cramer 1998). For instance, Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli (2011) demonstrated that even information on important preventive medical checkups can fail to improve people’s behavior when it (unintentionally) threatens a person’s valued identity. In their study, breast cancer advertisements threatened women’s gender identity when those ads highlighted female cues (e.g., a pink ribbon). As a result, women unaware of their innate defense mechanisms showed, for example, a decreased ad memory and indicated a lower perception of vulnerability to breast cancer. In contrast, when women received beforehand a common self-affirmation prime boosting their sense of self-worth, they were able to face the self-threatening information with an unbiased perception of their 17 vulnerability to breast cancer (Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011, experiment 3a). In this regard, the study on breast cancer advertisements is related to a well-established research stream on the theory of self-affirmation (see also Sherman and Cohen 2006 for a comprehensive overview). Claude Steele (1988) first introduced the theory of self-affirmation with the notion that people “regulate their defense adaptations to maintain very general conceptions of self-integrity rather than to remedy specific threats” (p. 289). Self-affirmation theory contends that in order to maintain a sense of self-integrity, people utilize two distinct mental strategies to neutralize self-threats (cf. Steele 1988; Sherman and Cohen 2006). First, defense mechanisms include any kind of behavior that directly shields the self from threats, i.e., from unpleasant reality. For instance, in the study on breast cancer advertisements, threatened women barely remembered the self-threatening ads (Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011). This common psychological defense mechanism called “motivated forgetting” is the tendency to suppress threatening memories from consciousness (Dalton and Huang 2014). As studies in the healthcare context demonstrate, defense mechanisms can effectively protect the self in the short term but can become self-defeating and eventually put the individual at risk over the long term (e.g., Reed and Aspinwall 1998; Sherman, Nelson, and Steele 2000; Klein and Harris 2009; Klein, Harris, Ferrer, and Zajac 2011; Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011). That is because defense mechanisms maintain a sense of selfintegrity but do not intent to manage or solve the real problem (Cramer 1998). The second mental strategy is an indirect psychological adaptation aiming to maintain a global sense of self-integrity in the moment of threat. The self-affirmation strategy depends on the “flexibility of the self,” that is, the ability of the self to shore up one component of a person’s self-concept in order to buttress other components against threats (Steele 1988). Figure 2 illustrates a schematic of the self-system – it consists of different identity domains, i.e., different potential sources of self-affirmation (Sherman and Cohen 2006). More specifically, affirming a part of the self-concept unaffected by the threat enables people to process self-threatening information even-handedly and encourages behavioral adaption (Steele 1988; Sherman and Cohen 2006). For instance, 18 in the study on breast cancer advertisements, an established self-affirmation intervention boosted women’s sense of self-integrity by reminding them of their own kindness. For this purpose, women were asked to write about a situation in which they helped a friend at the expense of their own happiness (Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011, experiment 3a). Thus threats challenging one part of their life (e.g., failing in an exam) are better assimilated when people can affirm the self in other equally valued domains (e.g., winning a sports contest). Figure 2: Schematic Representation of Self‐System (Source: Sherman and Cohen 2006, p. 188) A systematic review of different self-affirmation interventions has been conducted by McQueen and Klein (2006). Many experimental studies embed self-affirmation interventions that aim to focus people’s attention on their personal core values (e.g., Sherman, Nelson, and Steele 2000; Cohen, Sherman, Bastardi, Hsu, McGoey, and 19 Ross 2007; Sivanathan and Pettit 2010). Researchers have argued that reflecting on personal core values enables people to see self-threats in the context of a bigger picture (Schmeichel and Vohs 2009; Wakslak and Trope 2009). In particular, Wakslak and Trope (2009) suggested that self-affirmation interventions can attenuate defensive behavior by allowing people to “distinguish between urgent gratifications (e.g., being right or winning a debate) and more important and defining long-term goals (e.g., learning or achieving pragmatic compromise)” (p. 931). Other recent research has emphasized that activities appearing initially as distractions and procrastination might constitute people’s natural strategy to maintain self-integrity. For instance, Sivanathan and Pettit (2010) showed that when people fail in one part of their life (receiving negative feedback on a test) they tend to seek ownership of status-infused products in order to restore their general sense of self-worth. Similarly suggesting that aesthetics is an important personal value, Townsend and Sood (2012) demonstrated that consumers’ choice of highly aesthetic products had the same positive influence on peoples’ openness to counter-attitudinal arguments as a common self-affirmation intervention. Further, a study on Facebook use as a self-affirmation resource found that people preferred to browse their own Facebook profile after experiencing a self-threat rather than, e.g., watching YouTube videos or reading online news (Toma and Hancook 2013). In general, the “psychological immune system” operates most effectively when behavioral strategies addressing self-threats operate automatically – when we are unaware rather than deliberately reacting (cf. Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, and Wheatley 1998; Cramer 2000). In fact, the positive impact of self-affirmation inventions was found to diminish when people are aware of a potential link between a self-affirmation prime and their processing of self-threatening information (Sherman et al. 2009). Prior research has further emphasized that self-affirmation interventions can even backfire if they are not carefully designed (Sherman and Cohen 2006). For instance, Sivanathan and colleagues investigated the “promise and peril of selfaffirmation” in the context of an escalation of commitment bias, whereby people overly reinvested in a failed project that they had previously promoted (Sivanathan, Molden, Galinsky, and Ku 2008). This biased behavior was even amplified when participants received affirming feedback about their general decision-making ability. 20 In contrast, participants who received positive feedback about their creativity skills made unbiased decisions and invested less in the failed project (Sivanathan et al. 2008, Study 3). Thus, self-affirmation in an unrelated domain can offset defense mechanisms, but self-affirmation in the same domain can actually backfire, that is, trigger (even more) defensive reactions (Sherman and Cohen 2006; Sivanathan et al. 2008). In conclusion, people frequently experience negative information as a threat to their valued identities, for instance, regarding their gender (e.g., Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011), their political identity (e.g., Cohen et al. 2007), and their general social groups (e.g., Dalton and Huang 2014). According to self-affirmation theory, people’s defense mechanisms help them maintain a sense of self-integrity (Steele 1988; Sherman and Cohen 2006). Sherman and Cohen (2006) emphasized that the self-integrity motive is so pervasive that even mundane events can threaten the self and instigate defensive responses. Linking self-affirmation theory to our previously drawn example, we propose that our manager with the valued identity as a runner will respond defensively to market research insights when those insights clash with the self-associated running market. Although s/he might intend to look at data objectively, self-threatening market research insights trigger a defense mechanism, a process that managers themselves are unaware of. Since a “hallmark property of defensive reactions is their potential to be offset by self-affirmation” (Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011, p. 419), we further propose that an unrelated self-affirmation intervention would limit managers’ discomfort with self-threatening market research insights if a defense mechanism indeed causes their decision making against market research insights. Besides the experimental use of self-affirmation interventions for proofing defense mechanisms, the question remains as to whether self-affirmation interventions represent an adequate debiasing technique for management. In general, it seems hardly practical for organizations to provide self-affirmation in an unrelated domain to their managers every time they process potentially ego-threatening market data. Recent research showed that self-affirmation effects can be enduring (Harris and Napper 21 2005; Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, and Brzustoski 2009; Sherman, Hartson, Binning, Purdie-Vaughns, Garcia, Taborsky-Barba, Tomassetti, Nussbaum, and Cohen 2013); however, evidence for long-term effects is still limited. Hence, a further integral part of this dissertation involves the investigation of a contextual factor in organizations that could mitigate managers’ defensive reaction to self-threatening market research insights: the salient relationship norms between managers and market researchers. 2.4 Critical Role of Relationship Norms Organizational information process has been referred to as a fundamental “people process” (Moorman 1995). Accordingly, the interpersonal interaction between managers and market researchers matters in regard to managers’ use of market research insights (Deshpande and Zaltman 1982; Brennan 2000). Prior research in marketing has mentioned in passing that social norms could have an important influence on the quality of interaction between managers and market researchers (Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande 1992). Furthermore, research on self-affirmation theory has emphasized that social norms can focus people’s attention on salient demands beyond ego protection (Sherman and Cohen 2006). However, there is no evidence for a link between social norms and the use of market research insights, nor between social norms and people’s defensive reactions against self-threatening information. Therefore, we aim to shed light on managers’ defensive behavior against self-threatening market research insights under different norms guiding the interaction between managers and market researchers. Prior research has documented the relevance of distinguishing two kinds of relationships that follow different norms governing the giving and receiving of benefits: exchange and communal relationships (e.g., Clark and Mills 1993, 2011; Aggarwal 2004; Aggarwal and Law 2005; Aggarwal and Zhang 2006; Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011). In both relationship types, benefits are broadly defined as “something that one person gives to another which is of use to the person receiving it” (Clark and Mills 1993, p. 687). In an exchange relationship, the parties involved understand that the 22 interaction is tit-for-tat, that is, one benefit is given in return for another benefit. More precisely, partners expect to exchange comparable benefits, such as a prompt monetary payment for a benefit received. Thus, following exchange norms, “giving a benefit creates a specific debt, and a return benefit that is directly comparable eliminates this debt owed by the exchange partner” (Aggarwal 2004, p. 93). For instance, when people trade goods in an economic market, exchange norms normally guide the interpersonal interaction. In contrast, receiving a benefit from a communal relationship partner does not create the obligation to return a comparable benefit. When people follow communal norms in their interpersonal interaction, they give benefits in response to needs or to demonstrate a general concern for a person’s well-being. Although communal relationship partners reward and support each other with benefits over time, a quid pro quo exchange of benefits would by definition violate communal norms. Following communal norms, for instance, people remove the price tag from a gift, emphasizing that the value of their relationship is beyond the exchange of strictly comparable benefits (e.g., Clark and Mills 1993, 2011; Aggarwal 2004). Table 3 contrasts some norms of exchange and communal relationships. Clark and Mills (1993) explained in detail the concept of communal versus exchange norms and distinguished it from other concepts. Importantly, Clark and Mills (1993) argued that people do not switch automatically from exchange to communal norms for the purpose of building a continuing relationship. When interaction partners strive for long-term relationships, they should be particularly motivated to fulfill their own obligations independent of whether these obligations are driven by exchange or communal norms. Furthermore, people might generally tend to temper self-interest under communal norms and promote self-interest under exchange norms (e.g., Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011). However, Clark and Mills (1993) highlighted that the “communal/exchange distinction is also different from a distinction between altruistic and selfish relationships” (p. 686) because in both pairs of relationships a self-serving person can use relationship norms to exploit the other. In general, a deviation from salient relationship norms violates people’s expectations and triggers negative reactions (e.g., Aggarwal 2004). 23 Table 3: Norms of Exchange and Communal Relationships (Source: Aggarwal 2004, p. 89) Exchange relationship norms Communal relationship norms Accepting help with money is preferred to no payment. Accepting help with no monetary payment is preferred. Desirable to give comparable benefits in return for benefits received. Less desirable to give comparable benefits in return for benefits received. Prompt repayment for specific benefits received is expected. Prompt repayment for specific benefits received is not expected. More likely to ask for repayments for benefits rendered. Less likely to ask for repayments for benefits rendered. More likely to keep track of inputs and outcomes in a joint task. Less likely to keep track of individual inputs and outcomes in a joint task. Divide rewards according to each person’s inputs and contributions. Divide rewards according to each person’s needs and requirements. Helping others is less likely. Helping others is more likely. Requesting help from others is less likely. Requesting help from others is more likely. Keeping track of others’ needs is less likely. Keeping track of others’ needs is more likely. Less responsive to others’ emotional states. More responsive to others’ emotional states. Prior research has traditionally associated communal norms with close relationships and categorized business relationships as being typically based on exchange norms (e.g., Clark and Mills 1993). How does the determination of communal relationship norms then fit a business context such as the interaction between managers and market researchers? In line with prior research, we argue that exchange norms do not characterize all business interactions – far from it. Research in marketing has previously used the communal/exchange distinction to investigate business-toconsumer interactions (Aggarwal 2004; Aggarwal and Law 2005; Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011) and buyer-seller interactions (Aggarwal and Zhang 2006). Table 4 presents an overview of studies in marketing research manipulating relationship norms in those business contexts. When people frequently work with each other, they may use communal as well as exchange relationship norms depended on which norms happens to be salient in the current situation. Wan, Hui, and Wyer (2011) emphasize that “it 24 can be influenced by the intensity of the friendship, the situational context in which the individuals interact, and the social roles that they occupy in this situation” (p. 261). The salience of norms can also vary according to the nature of the benefits (Pillutla and Chen 1999). Market research insights are traditionally defined as benefits “for the purpose of assisting management in decision making” (Malhotra 2002). Because of the “assisting” character of market research, it seems conceivable that communal norms guide to some degree the interaction between managers and market researchers. Market researchers might feel the obligation to track decision makers’ needs in order to assist and support managers’ decision-making processes as well as possible. Accordingly, managers might expect such insightful support from their market researchers rather than a tit-for-tat exchange of insights for money. Therefore, we conclude that both communal and exchange norms can basically guide the interaction between managers and market researchers. Can relationships norms between managers and market researchers influence how managers process threatening market research insights? Aggarwal and Law (2005) demonstrated that people’s attention to information differs according to whether communal or exchange norms are salient in the moment of information-processing. In a consumer-brand context, people primed with communal norms evaluated information at a higher level of abstraction relative to those primed with exchange norms (Aggarwal and Law 2005). Similar, Wakslak and Trope (2009) found that people evaluate an issue with abstract rather than concrete thinking when provided with self-affirmation leading to less defensive behavior. These findings can support the assumption that both communal norms and self-affirmation interventions could trigger similar behavioral adaptions to self-threatening information. In fact, reminding people of the kindness and support of their close relationships has been shown to be an effective self-affirmation intervention and to prevent defense mechanisms (Sherman and Cohen 2006). Thinking about a communal relationship might mitigate defensive behavior when this relationship is unrelated to the threat. In our case, however, the interaction between managers and market researchers is directly related to market research insights, and thus to the threat when insights clash with managers’ selfassociated domains. In section 2.3 we discussed that related self-affirmation interventions can backfire (e.g., Sherman and Cohen 2006; Sivanathan et al. 2008). 25 Hence, managers’ defense mechanisms might particularly kick in when managers are in a communal relationship with their market researcher, presumably because expectations governed by communal relationship norms might contradict receiving threatening market research insights. Furthermore, in communal relationships people’s self is more exposed to potential threats. Previous research had demonstrated how fragile communal relationships in a business environment can turn out. For instance, Wan, Hui, and Wyer (2011) investigated consumers’ reaction to service failures and found that communal compared to exchange relationships can amplify consumers’ negative reactions under certain circumstance. Because people expect support from each other in communal relationships, a service failure or threatening information can violate those expectations invoking feelings of betrayal (cf. Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011). Market research insights that clash with the self-associated domain can thus appear as a violation of communal relationship norms between managers and market researchers. In contrast, the neglect of personal support beyond a tit-for-tat interaction is not a violation of exchange relationships norms. Because an exchange relationship between managers and market researchers is primarily impersonal and benefits are perceived as objective (e.g., Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011), a personal reaction to the market research insights by managers should be less likely. Further, partners in exchange interactions focus on information details to track the balance of inputs and outputs (Aggarwal and Law 2005). Thus, an exchange interaction should focus managers’ attention on the actual benefits of market research insights beyond ego protection. In sum, we propose that relationship norms between managers and market researchers present an important contextual factor when market research insights clash with managers’ self-associated domains: while a communal relationship should favor managers’ defensive behavior, an exchange relationship should mitigate it. Do violation of relationship norms influences how consumers evaluate a firm's action and brand? Aggarwal 2004 Three experiments with students (n1 = 64, n2 = 56, n3 = 114) Three experiments with students (n1 = 65, n2 = 94, n3 = 95) Studies One experiment Aggarwal and Do communal relationship norms with students Zhang 2006 compared to exchange (n = 98) relationship norms lead to a greater degree of loss aversion? Aggarwal and Do communal Law 2005 relationship norms lead to brand attributes being evaluated at a higher level of abstraction relative to those of exchange relationship norms? Research Question Author(s) Communal norms increase people’s degree of loss aversion as revealed by the higher selling prices. Exchange norms do not have the same mitigating effect on an endowment bias as exchange items. Differences in the buying prices across the different conditions were not found, suggesting that communal norms do not merely lead to a higher overall valuation of a product. A typical endowment effect experiment with participants assuming the role of buyers or sellers A brief scenario description of a social situation unrelated to the investigated seller-buyer interaction A firm’s action that is in violation of a relationship norm leads to negative reactions by the consumers. Consumers’ negative responses to violations of relationship norms are not limited to the specific action but are extended to their brand evaluations. Key Finding(s) Relationship norms moderate Consumers’ information-processing consumers’ information-processing. (evaluations, recall and Communal norms lead consumers to recognition, and selfevaluate brands at a more holistic level. generated features) in Exchange relationships lead consumers different contexts to evaluate brands in an item-specific (product extension, manner. clothing store launch, and pen purchase) Consumers’ reactions to a marketing action and overall brand evaluations Context A brief scenario description of a social situation unrelated to the investigated business-toconsumer interaction (study 1 and 2) or related to the business-toconsumer interaction (study 3). A brief scenario description of a social situation related to the business-to-consumer interaction Manipulation of Relationship Norms 26 Table 4: Exchange and Communal Relationship Norms in Marketing Research Four experiments with students (n1 = 96, n2 = 100, n3 = 132, n4 = 192) Do different relationship norms mitigate the negative feelings that consumers experience as the result of a service failure? Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011 Studies Two experiments with students (n1 = 84, n2 = 156) Research Question Aggarwal Do communal and Larrick relationship norms 2012 compared to exchange relationship norms lead to greater interactional fairness under conditions of low distributive fairness, and is this pattern reversed under conditions of high distributive fairness? Author(s) Key Finding(s) Friendship does not always mitigate negative reactions to a service failure. When consumers focus on the provider’s obligation to respond to their needs, they react negatively to a service failure when communal relationship norms are salient. The reverse is true, when their attention is drawn to their own obligations in the relationship. Inducing consumers to consider themselves as interdependent increased their sensitivity to communal relationship norms and thus increased the intensity of their reactions to a service failure. Consumers’ overall When faced with low distributive fairness, evaluation of a firm’s consumers in a communal relationship are service center and more responsive to issues of interactional relationship norm fairness than are those in an exchange conformity score relationship. (fulfilled promises, met Consumers in an exchange relationship are expectations, behaved more sensitive to interactional fairness appropriately) under conditions of high rather than low distributive fairness. Context Consumers’ reactions A brief scenario to a service failure description of a social situation related to the investigated business-toconsumer interaction. A brief scenario description of a social situation related to the investigated business-toconsumer interaction Manipulation of Relationship Norms 27 Table 4: Communal and Exchange Relationship Norms in Marketing Research 28 2.5 Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses We have highlighted in detail literature from various research streams linking nonproven criticism of managers’ defensive behavior against market research insights to behavioral research, particularly on identity, self-affirmation theory, and relationship norms. The purpose of this section is to formulate our hypotheses by summing up the previously discussed literature, and to present our conceptualization for the following empirical part of the dissertation. This dissertation aims to shed light on managers’ defensive reactions against market research insights. Previous research in marketing management found that a manager’s comfort zone determines the use of market research insights, emphasizing that surprising insights are hardly appreciated regardless of decision relevance and technical quality of those insights. In particular, research has determined that managers would most likely react defensively when market research insights clash with managers’ pet products (e.g., Deshpande and Zaltman 1982; 1984). Linking this issue to identity research, we are able to explain managers’ defensive reactions against market research insights. In this context, we draw on a situation in which managers strongly identify with a product or market, and they view this domain as a central aspect of their self-concept. Prior research has found that people in general are most perseverance in their judgments when they view an issue from a salient identity, noting that identity-driven thinking may also lead to biased managerial decisions (Bolton and Reed 2004). Ideally market research insights should neutralize identity-effects among managers, focusing managerial attention upon the salient demands of their customers and markets. However, we propose that when market research insights clash with managers’ self-associated domain, they experience those insights as a threat to their valued identity. Self-threatening information ordinarily triggers defense mechanisms (e.g., Steele 1998; Sherman and Cohen 2006). Feelings of threat can increase as a function of identification strength (Dalton and Huang 2014; Steele 1988). Accordingly, we propose that managers’ defensive reactions increase as a function of strength of identification; and as a result, they are more tempted to make decisions against market research insights that clash with their self-associated domain. We refer to managers’ tendency to interpret self-threatening market research insights in a way 29 that leads to defensive decisions against those insights as the facts-be-damned bias. As such, it is a type of confirmation bias rooted in a general tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions, potentially leading to irrational judgments and decisions (Nickerson 1998). Formally, we hypothesize: H1: Managers display the facts-be-damned bias: As a function of identification strength, managers make decisions against market research insights when those insights threaten a self-associated domain. According to self-affirmation theory, defense mechanisms serve the ultimate purpose of maintaining a sense of self-integrity, that is, experiencing the self as a good and appropriate person (Steele 1988; Sherman and Cohen 2006). Defense mechanisms can protect the self from threats in the short term, but they also prevent people from making informed and rational decisions (Sherman and Cohen 2006). In contrast, selfaffirmation interventions enable people to integrate self-threatening information in a constructive way. In line with prior research, we propose that an established selfaffirmation intervention should mitigate the facts-be-damned bias if a defense mechanism against self-threats cause managers’ decisions against market research insights (Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011). Hence, we propose: H2: A defense mechanism causes the facts-be-damned bias: when managers display the facts-be-damned bias, self-affirmation in unrelated tasks can turn its effect off. An effective self-affirmation intervention not only constitutes a hallmark property of defense mechanisms (e.g., Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011), it also suggests 30 that managers are relatively unaware of their biased behavior in the moment of its occurrence (e.g., Sherman et al. 2009; Cramer 2000). Hence, knowing that a facts-bedamned bias exists would hardly prevent managers from making decisions against market research insights (Kahneman, Lovallo, and Sibony 2011). However, an integral part of this dissertation is the investigation of a contextual factor that organizations could influence in order to mitigate managers’ facts-be-damned biased behavior. We propose that relationship norms between managers and market researchers can moderate the facts-be-damned bias. In communal relationships, people support each other, and benefits are given to serve the other’s needs (e.g., Clark and Mills 1993; Aggarwal 2004). Managers might perceive a violation of those communal relationship norms, when market research insights clash with managers’ self-associated domains. Because communal relationships can expose people to self-threats, communal norms between managers and market researchers should constitute a breeding ground for the facts-be-damned bias. In contrast, partners in exchange relationships do not have the obligation to support and give benefits according to the other’s needs (e.g., Clark and Mills 1993; Aggarwal 2004). Because interactions under exchange norms are relatively impersonal, an exchange relationship with market researchers should mitigate managers’ defensive reactions against market research insights. Further, following a quid pro quo strategy, people precisely track the value of a received benefit in exchange relationships (Aggarwal and Law 2005). Thus, we propose that exchange norms might even draw off managers’ attention from self-threatening elements toward the actual benefits of market research insights. Therefore, we formulate the following hypothesis: H3: The relationship between managers and market researchers influences the occurrence of the facts-be-damned bias: communal relationship norms favor the facts-be-damned bias, whereas exchange relationship norms mitigate it. 31 In order to test our three hypotheses, we present three experimental studies in the following empirical part of this dissertation. We draw the experimental storyline of our previously discussed example of the manager working for a sports company who is an avid runner. In this context, we created a business case study about a fictitious manufacturer of sporting goods in the business-to-consumer environment. 32 3 Study 1: Contextual Factors of the Facts-Be-Damned Bias 3.1 Outline Although market research insights should ideally facilitate rational decision behavior among managers, we propose that managers make decisions going against market research insights when those insights represent a threat to managers’ self-associated domain. Testing H1, managers’ task was to allocate a specific amount of sponsoring budget between the running and golf divisions of our fictitious sports company, after they had received relevant market research insights. Spending on sponsoring activities, particularly on sport sponsorship, represents an important aspect of many firms’ overall marketing strategy (cf. Rogers and Sexton 2012: in a survey with US marketing managers, 90% indicated that sponsorships and events were one of their marketing strategies). Hence, we assume that managers consider relevant market research insights as generally important when they make strategic decisions on how to allocate scarce sponsoring budget resources. Research on sport sponsorship has emphasized that a profound understanding of consumers’ preferences increases the value of sponsoring activities and becomes particularly important when marketing managers have to evaluate different sponsoring alternatives (e.g., Speed and Thompson 2000). However, Study 1 demonstrates that managers display the facts-bedamned bias when confronted with self-threatening market research insights. 3.2 Method 3.2.1 Participants We recruited marketing executives from a large alumni pool of a Central European business school via email, inviting them to take part in two supposedly unrelated online surveys. As an incentive to participate, executives read that they would be able to receive a managerial summary of the study results, and enter a lottery for an amount equivalent to EUR 30 at the end of the second study. Overall, 213 marketing executives participated in our first study (173 men, 40 women; mean age = 43). 33 3.2.2 Procedure and Materials Olymp Business Case Study We introduced the first online survey as a business case study (as illustrated in Figure 3). Participants were asked to imagine being the head of marketing at Olymp SE, a (fictitious) sports company. Participants read that Olymp SE mainly produces and sells consumer goods serving two markets generating equal revenue: golf and running. They also read that the company targets managers, because a recent report shows that the two sports are managers’ favorites, preferred over other sports to the same extent. Finally, we informed participants that they – in their role as the head of marketing at Olymp SE – are asked to make a marketing management decision. Figure 3: Introduction of the Business Case Study In the next step, participants were presented with market research insights that were either non-threatening or threatening to participants identifying with running. We focused on running since a pretest showed that running is on average one of the panel managers’ favorite sports, while golf is not (Pre-Test: Mrunning = 3.48 vs. Mgolf = 1.87, t(96) = 7.152, p < .001, r2 = 0.35). Participants randomly assigned to the nonthreatening condition read that both markets – golf and running – are equally 34 promising on average, in terms of three key variables: (1) popularity of the sport among managers (27% of managers rank the sport number 1 for both running and golf), (2) predicted change in the number of target managers practicing regularly over the next year, and (3) predicted change in target managers’ willingness to pay over the next year. To exclude any effect caused by different weights being given to these variables, we counterbalanced growth estimates across participants. In particular, half of the participants read that the growth forecast was +2% for variable (2) and +9% for variable (3) for running, and +9% for variable (2) and +2% for variable (3) for golf. The other half of the participants read that the growth forecast was +9% for variable (2) and +2% for variable (3) for running, and +2% for variable (2) and +9% for variable (3) for golf. In contrast, participants randomly assigned to the threatening condition read that the running market was less attractive than the golf market, in terms of both predicted change in the number of target managers practicing regularly, and predicted change in willingness to pay. For both variables, growth was reported at + 2% for running versus + 9% for golf. According to the overall story, the current popularity of the two sports remained the same as in the non-threatening condition. Figure 4 illustrates the market research report of the threatening condition. After they were exposed to the market research insights, participants were asked to allocate the equivalent of EUR 100,000 of the company’s sponsoring budget to the running versus golf business divisions (see Figure 5). The total amount was to be spent on the two sports. Therefore, a higher budget allocated for running corresponds to a lower budget for golf, and vice versa. 35 Figure 4: Manipulation of the Threatening Market Research Insights Figure 5: Decision Task – Allocation of Sponsoring Budget 36 Work-Life Balance Study After completing the business case study, participants were introduced to a second online survey about work-life balance. The primary purpose of this study was to measure participants’ strength of identification with running. Participants were asked to indicate the degree to which they identified with four sports – running (M = 3.39, SD = 1.70), golf (M = 1.89, SD = 1.52), tennis (M = 2.41, SD = 1.70), and indoor fitness (M = 3.29, SD = 1.88) – using a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (far apart) to 7 (complete overlap). For each point on the scale we used different overlaps of two circles, one circle representing the target sport (e.g., “running”) and another circle the participant (“me”) (cf. Aron, Aron, and Smollan 1992; Vallerand, Blanchard, Mageau, Koestner, Ratell, Léonard, Gagne, and Marsolais 2003). For example, Figure 6 illustrates our measure for strength of identification with running. Questions regarding identification with tennis and indoor fitness were intended as filler tasks so that participants did not realize a connection between the two studies. For the same reason, they further answered a few questions about how leisure activities generally help them cope with work-related stress. After finishing the second survey, participants were additionally prompted about the purpose of both surveys in an open-ended question. Finally, they were able to sign up for the management summary as well as the lottery, before we thanked them for their participation. 37 Figure 6: Measure of Strength of Identification with Running 3.3 Results 3.3.1 Checks Overall, the average sponsoring budget allocated to running (Budget Running) was significantly lower when participants were exposed to the market research report indicating that the running market is as less attractive than the golf market (M = 35,651.79, SD = 27,655.43) compared to the other condition when participants were exposed to the market research report indicating that both markets are equally attractive (M = 56,138.61, SD = 29,050.66) (t(211) = -5.27, p < .001, r2 = .12). Hence, we can conclude that participants on average perceived the market research insights as relevant for the budget allocation task. We can confirm that on average participants’ strength of identification with golf was relatively low in the sample, and significantly lower than their strength of identification with running (MRunning = 3.39 vs. MGolf = 1.89, t(212) = 9.61, p < .001, r2 = .30), as expected from our pre-test. 38 Regarding the open-ended question about the purpose of both surveys, we found that no participant assumed a relationship between the two online surveys (business case study and work-life balance study). 3.3.2 Moderated Regression Analysis In order to test H1, we were interested in whether or not managers’ strength of identification with running (RunningSOI) has an effect on Budget Running, depending on our manipulation of the market research insights (MRI). Thus, we accordingly formulated a moderated regression analysis with Budget Running as dependent variable and RunningSOI and MRI as independent variables. Although managers’ strength of identification with golf (GolfSOI) was relatively low, we additionally included this factor as a control variable in our regression model. We mean-centered the two continuous variables, capturing managers’ strength of identification with running and with golf (cf. Aiken and West 1991). Dummy-coding MRI allowed us to directly compare the effects between the threatening condition (MRI = 0) and the nonthreatening condition (MRI = 1) (cf. Irwin and McClelland 2001; Cohen, Cohen, West, and Aiken 2003; Spiller, Fitzsimons, Lynch, and McClelland 2013). Finally, we calculated the corresponding interaction variable (Interaction = RunningSOIc x MRI) and formulated the following moderated regression model: (1) Budget Running = β0 + β1 RunningSOIc + β2 MRI + β3 Interaction + β4 GolfSOIc + ε, with the simple slope ω1 = β1 for the threatening condition (MRI = 0), and ω2 = β1+ β3 for the non-threatening condition (MRI = 1). The coefficient of the interaction term represents the difference between the two regression weights of RunningSOIc for the threatening and non-threatening conditions [β3 = ω2 - ω1 = (β1 + β3) - β1]. Hence, if the results of our moderated regression analysis indicate that the interaction is significant, then the two regression weights of RunningSOIc are significantly different from each other. In this case, we can conclude 39 that MRI moderates the effect of RunningSOIc on Budget Running. In order to detect the nature of the moderated relationship, we are then able to run simple slope analyses testing whether the regression weight of RunningSOIc in the threatening (nonthreatening) condition is significantly different from zero (cf. Cohen et al. 2003). Running our moderated regression (1), we first can confirm that residuals were normally distributed. The results of our analysis revealed a significant interaction of RunningSOIc x MRI (β3 = -5,109.88, t(208) = -2.25, p < .05, r2 = .02). A significant interaction effect indicates that the simple slopes for each condition are significantly different from each other, and thus we can run a simple slope analysis to locate the nature of this interaction. In support of H1, the results showed that managers allocated significantly more money to running the more they identified with running, even when the market research insights were threatening (ω1 = 4,526.05, t(208) = 2.95, p < .01, r2 = .04). In other words, as a function of identification strength, managers made a decision going against market research insights that threaten their self-associated domain. In contrast, when insights were non-threatening, managers’ strength of identification with running had no effect on their budget allocation (ω2 = -583.83, p = .726). Hence, managers processed the non-threatening market research insights in an unbiased manner and made rational decisions independent of their identity as a runner. Overall, the results confirm that managers display the facts-be-damned bias, a bias that occurs when managers experience market research insights as a self-threat. All results of our moderated regression analysis in Study 1 are presented in Table 5. Regarding the interpretation of our MRI coefficient β2, we refer to Irwin and McClelland (2001), who criticize that many researchers talk about “main effect” instead of “simple effect” in moderated regression. This is a common misunderstanding “because this term refers to the simple relationship between the dependent variable and an independent variable at a particular level of the other independent variable(s)” (p. 102). Since we mean-centered strength of identification with running, β2 represents the distance between the two simple slopes at the mean of 40 RunningSOI in the sample (M = 3.39). We found a significant simple effect of market research insights at the mean of RunningSOI in the sample, such that managers allocated statistically less money to running when market research insights were threatening versus not (β2 = 19,787.41, t(208) = 5.16, p < .001, r2 = .11). This conditional simple effect suggests that managers were still somewhat rational when their identification strength with running was average. But can the facts-be-damned bias become powerful to the point of neutralizing market research information that threatens managers’ self-associated domains? In order to answer this question, we additionally ran a floodlight analysis (Spiller et al. 2013; Johnson and Neyman 1936). 3.3.3 Floodlight Analysis In regression with an interaction term, the test of simple effects of one variable at the level of another (continuous) variable is referred to as a “spotlight” test because “they shine the spotlight” (Spiller et al. 2013) on, e.g., the effect of market research insights on Budget Running at a particular value of managers’ strength of identification with running. Although it is common in marketing research to conduct spotlight tests at plus and minus one standard deviation from the mean (cf. Aiken and West 1991), Spiller et al. (2013) recently emphasized that researchers should use spotlight tests only if meaningful focal values for the continuous variable exist (e.g., commonly agreed cutoffs). Otherwise, the appropriate approach is to conduct a “floodlight analysis” (Spiller et al. 2013). Johnson and Neyman (1936) first introduced the corresponding statistical concept, which investigates the entire range of a continuous variable, detecting where the simple effect is significant and where it is not. Picking up this 80year-old technique and aiming to promote it for research in marketing, Spiller et al. (2013) coined it “floodlight analysis” because “a floodlight shines on the range of values of the continuous predictor X for which the group differences are statistically significant” (p. 282). Basically, the Johnson-Neyman point represents the border at which the p-value in a spotlight analysis would be exactly .05 (e.g., Johnson and Neyman 1936; Spiller et al. 2013). 41 We conducted a floodlight analysis using the SPSS macro PROCESS (Hayes and Matthes 2009). Results revealed a threshold at 5.15 on the 1-7 scale of identification with running (or 1.76 for RunningSOIc). This suggests that the difference between our two simple slopes becomes non-significant as of only moderately high values of identification with running. Hence, from this point on the effect of providing managers with market research insights equates to zero because managers allocate a statistically equivalent budget to running regardless of the market research insights. Since we already proved that managers’ decisions in the threatening condition were biased, while managers’ decisions in the non-threatening condition were not, we conclude the following: managers exposed to the threatening market research insights pushed back against those insights to such a large extent that they ended up making a decision as though they had been exposed to non-threatening insights. In other words, the facts-bedamned bias can indeed become powerful to the point of neutralizing market research information that threatens managers’ self-associated domains. Hence, results of the floodlight analysis further support the claim that mangers display the facts-be-damned bias when insights threaten a self-associated domain. The results also provide initial evidence for an ego-defense to be the mechanism for the facts-be-damned bias (H2), because managers tended to restore their positive image of the running domain to the point of neutralizing the threatening insights. Figure 7 illustrates the two simple slopes of our moderated regression as well as the Johnson-Neyman point. 42 Figure 7: Simple Slopes of Study 1 – Allocation of Sponsoring Budget Table 5: Moderated Regression Results of Study 1 – Budget Running t-value p-value r2 -5109.88 -2.248 0.026 0.024 4526.05 2.948 0.004 0.040 -583.83 -0.351 0.726 0.001 Beta Interaction β3 RunningSOIc: Threatening Condition ω1 = β1 RunningSOIc: Non-Threatening Condition ω2 = β1+ β3 Market Research Insights β2 19787.41 5.160 0.000 0.113 GolfSOIc β4 -1421.20 -1.117 0.265 0.006 43 3.4 Discussion Study 1 showed that the facts-be-damned bias presents a behavioral bias amidst seemingly rational decision makers. When market research insights were nonthreatening – the markets for running and golf appeared to be equally attractive – managers made unbiased decisions and allocated a reasonable amount of sponsoring budget to running. Importantly, managers’ identification strength with running did not affect their decisions in this case. Hence, the non-threatening market research insights seemed to prevent managers from letting their personal preference color their decisions. But the tide turned when market research insights contained self-threatening elements: managers identifying with the market they are working on used those insights provided to them in a pernicious way. In line with H1, the results provide support for the facts-be-damned bias. In the threatening condition, managers allocated increasingly more budget to running the more they identified with running. Feelings of threat increase as a function of identification strength (Dalton and Huang 2014; Steele 1988). When managers were exposed to market research indicating that the running market is less attractive compared to the golf market, they experienced a threat to their self-associated domain and thus to their self. Making a decision against market research insights seems to be a defensive reaction against a self-threat. Conducting floodlight analysis, we found that managers with a moderately strong running identity became eager to make a decision as if market research insights were equally favorable toward both the running and golf markets. Hence, managers tended to interpret self-threatening market research insights in a way that led to defensive decisions. This is consistent with our hypothesis that a defense mechanism causes the facts-be-damned bias – H2. We developed Study 2 to prove this hypothesis. 44 4 Study 2: Evidence for Managers’ Defensive Behavior against Market Research Insights 4.1 Outline Study 2 serves two purposes. First, to fortify the external validity of the facts-bedamned bias, we had to replicate managers’ reaction to threatening market research insights in a different decision task. Therefore we extended our business case of Study 1 to the managerial task of choosing an appropriate marketing testimonial for promotion of the company’s brand. Research on testimonials for advertisement strategies has indicted that managers should carefully choose marketing testimonials based on consumer insights in order to receive positive advertisement-effects (Martin, Wentzel, and Tomczak 2008). Second, we aimed to provide evidence for the underlying motivated defense mechanism of the facts-be-damned bias (H2). We reasoned that if a defense mechanism causes the facts-be-damned bias, a selfaffirmation intervention in an unrelated domain should mitigate managers’ decisions against threatening market research insights (e.g., Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011). Therefore, in Study 2 we either did or did not provide managers with selfaffirmation in ways unrelated to the subsequent marketing decision task. In the next step, all managers received the self-threatening market research insights and were asked to make their marketing management decision. For managers in the selfaffirmation condition, we expected to observe the facts-be-damned bias, as in Study 1. In contrast, for managers in the control condition, we did not expect a defense mechanism to be triggered. As a consequence, their marketing decisions should reflect a rational processing of the provided market research insights. 4.2 Method and Materials 4.2.1 Participants We recruited male marketing executives from the same alumni pool as in Study 1 via email, inviting them to take part in two supposedly unrelated online surveys. As an 45 incentive to participate, executives read that they would be able to receive a managerial summary of the study results, and to enter a lottery for an amount equivalent to EUR 30. Overall, 89 marketing executives participated in our second study (all men, for reasoning see below, mean age = 44). 4.2.2 Procedure Self-Affirmation Manipulation In the beginning of Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to either a selfaffirmation intervention or a filler task serving as a control condition. We introduced this part of our experiment as “pre-survey questions” and informed participants that the purpose of those questions is to enhance the quality of our survey, since research has proven that these questions increase participants’ attention to the actual survey. We manipulated the self-affirmation intervention as in prior research (Reed and Aspinwall 1998; Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011). Participants answered three questions that aim to strengthen their sense of self-integrity by reminding them of their own kindness: “Have you ever tried to help a friend even at the expense of your own happiness?” “Have you ever forgiven another person when they have hurt you?” and “Have you ever found ways to help another person who is less fortunate than yourself?” For each question, participants provided a supporting example. We compared these supporting examples to check that participants gave appropriate examples, and found that it was the case for all participants. Participants in the control group received three filler questions, which we developed for the study: “What did you have for breakfast this morning?” “On your way to work, did you use public transportation this morning?” and “Have you checked the weather forecast this morning?” 46 Modification of the Olymp Business Case Study Following the self-affirmation manipulation, participants were introduced to Olymp SE, as in Study 1. In Study 2, however, all participants received the threatening market research insights, suggesting that the market for running is less attractive than the market for golf (see Study 1 for the details on the content of the threatening market research insights and Figure 4). Further, we modified the managerial task to test the robustness of the facts-be-damned bias. In particular, participants read that Olymp SE is looking for a suitable testimonial for a marketing campaign for the upcoming year. We informed participants that an advertising agency suggested two successful young male entrepreneurs. More specifically, we provided two pictures illustrating a (nonfamous) testimonial, one representing a golfer and the other a runner. To minimize confounding effects due to differences in the provided pictures (e.g., colors, background, etc.), we chose two different men for each sports category, and counterbalanced whether each picture appeared on the left or right of the screen. Hence, each participant saw one of eight different combinations of two target pictures (see Figure 8 for an example of a combination). We only recruited men as participants for Study 2 to minimize effects due to perceived physical attractiveness of the testimonial. In their role as the head of marketing, participants should indicate their professional preference for one of the two marketing testimonials, using a nine-point scale anchored at 1 (very strong preference for golfer) and 9 (very strong preference for runner). Participants read that their opinion mattered for the company’s final strategic decision. 47 Figure 8: Example of Choice of Marketing Testimonials in Study 2 Life-Work Balance Survey Following the business case study, participants were then introduced to a similar online survey about work-life balance as in Study 1. Again, we used different overlaps of two circles to measure managers’ strength of identification with different sports (e.g., “running” and “me”, see also Figure 6). Participants indicated the degree to which they identified with four sports – running (M = 3.61, SD = 1.856), golf (M = 1.97, SD = 1.58), biking (M = 3.46, SD = 1.68), and hiking (M = 3.94, SD = 1.55) – using seven-point scale (1 = far apart; 7 = complete overlap). 48 After finishing the second survey, participants were further prompted about the purpose of both surveys in an open-ended question. They were able to sign up for the management summary as well as the lottery, as promised in the invitation, before we thanked them for their participation. 4.3 Results 4.3.1 Checks As in Study 1, participants identified more strongly with running than with golf (strength of identification: Mrunning = 3.61, SD = 1.856 vs. Mgolf = 1.97, SD = 1.584, t(88) = 6.11, p < .001, r2 = .30). This suggests that, on average, the market research insights provided in Study 2 conflicted with participants’ self-associated domain of running, as expected. Regarding the open-ended question about the purpose of both surveys, we can affirm that no participant assumed a relationship between the two surveys. 4.3.2 Moderated Regression Analysis In respect to H2, we used a moderated regression analysis to test whether managers’ strength of identification with running (RunningSOI) has an effect on their preference for the testimonials in the control condition, but not in the self-affirmation condition. A higher value on the testimonial preference measure implied a tendency toward the running testimonial, whereas a lower value implied a preference for the golf testimonial. For readability reasons, we will refer to our dependent variable as preference for the running testimonial (Preference Running: M = 3.84, SD = 2.536). As in Study 1, we also included managers’ strength of identification with golf (GolfSOI) in our regression model and mean-centered the two continuous variables capturing managers’ strength of identification with running and with golf (cf. Aiken and West 1991). Dummy-coding our two conditions (Affirmation) allowed us to 49 directly compare the effects between the control condition (Affirmation = 0) and the self-affirmation condition (Affirmation = 1) (cf. Irwin and McClelland 2001; Cohen et al. 2003; Spiller et al. 2013). Then we calculated the interaction variable (Interaction = RunningSOIc x Affirmation). Since the residuals in the moderated regression were initially not normally distributed, we transformed the dependent variable preference for the running testimonial into its square root [Preference Runningtrans = (Preference Running)1/2] (cf. Sakia 1992; Osborne 2010). Using this common transformation, residuals were normally distributed. We further present the results according to the following moderated regression model: (1) Preference Runningtrans = β0 + β1 RunningSOIc + β2 Affirmation + β3 Interaction + β4 GolfSOIc + ε, with the simple slope ω1 = β1 for the control condition (Affirmation = 0), and ω2 = β1+ β3 for the self-affirmation condition (Affirmation = 1). We found a significant interaction effect between strength of identification with running and our experimental conditions (ß3 = -.15, t(84) = -2.00, p < .05, r2 = .05). It suggests that self-affirmation moderates the effect of managers’ strength of identification with running on their preference for a testimonial. For managers in the control condition who were not self-affirmed, simple slope analysis (cf. Cohen et al. 2003) revealed a significantly positive simple slope of strength of identification with running on preference for the running testimonial (ω1 = .17, t(84) = 3.09, p < .01, r2 = .10). The more participants identified with running, the more they made a decision in favor of the running rather than the golf testimonial, despite market research insights suggesting that the running market was less attractive than the golf market. These results replicate our findings in Study 1 and illustrate the facts-be-damned bias once more. For self-affirmed participants, the 50 simple effect of strength of identification with running on preference for the running testimonial was not significant (ω2 = 0.03, p = .588). Supportive of H2, we found that an unrelated self-affirmation intervention prior to the marketing decision task defused the facts-be-damned bias. These findings suggest that a defense mechanism against self-threat causes the facts-be-damned bias. All results of the moderated regression analysis are presented in Table 6. The simple effect of Affirmation was non-significant (ß2 = -0.08, p = 0.56). In other words, when putting a spotlight on the mean of identification strength with running in the sample (M = 3.61, SD = 1.856), we found that the indicated preferences were only marginally different in both conditions. However, the facts-be-damned bias should show its full consequences for moderately high values of strength of identification with running (see also Study 1). We conducted a floodlight analysis, aiming to discover the point of identification strength with running where managers in the self-affirmation condition would indicate significantly different preferences for the testimonials compared to managers in the control condition. 4.3.3 Floodlight Analysis We conducted a floodlight analysis (see details on this approach in Study 1, section 3.3.3). Results revealed a Johnson-Neyman point at 6.35 on the 1-7 scale of strength of identification with running (or 2.75 for RunningSOIc). Although managers in both conditions received the same threatening market research insights, the results of the floodlight analysis showed that managers in the self-affirmation condition compared to managers in the control condition indicated a significantly different professional preference when they strongly identified with running. Hence, at the Johnson-Neyman point we are the most confident that the consequences of the facts-be-damned bias have a significant influence on managers’ decisions. Managers strongly identifying with the market they are working on are driven by the motivation to defend their selfassociated domain against any threatening market research insights, putting aside rational decision behavior. Figure 9 illustrates the two simple slopes of our moderated regression as well as the Johnson-Neyman point. 51 Figure 9: Simple Slopes of Study 2 – Preference for Marketing Testimonials Table 6: Moderated Regression Results of Study 2 – Testimonial Running t-value p-value r2 -0.15 -2.003 0.048 0.046 0.17 3.086 0.003 0.102 0.03 0.544 0.588 0.004 Beta Interaction β3 RunningSOIc: Control Condition ω1 = β1 RunningSOIc: Self-Affirmation Condition ω2 = β1+ β3 Affirmation β2 -0.08 -0.581 0.563 0.004 GolfSOIc β4 0.00 -0.082 0.935 0.000 52 4.4 Discussion Study 2 highlighted the robustness of the facts-be-damned bias and found evidence for the underlying defense mechanism. Whereas in Study 1 we showed that managers made facts-be-damned biased decisions when allocating sponsoring budget, we found the same effect on managers’ professional preference for a marketing testimonial in Study 2. Hence, both studies confirmed that managers make decisions against market research insights when those insights threaten a self-associated domain (H1). In other words, the more managers identify with the market they are working on, the more they perceive negative market research insights as self-threatening and the more they make a decision against those insights. In section 2.3, we discussed in detail how making a decision against threatening information is an all-too-human defensive reaction to help maintain one’s own sense of self-integrity. We could prove that a defense mechanism against self-threats indeed causes the facts-be-damned bias (Hypothesis 2), when in Study 2 a common selfaffirmation intervention turned off the effect of strength of identification with running on managers’ preference for the running testimonial. Although affirmed managers were still exposed to the threatening market research insights suggesting that running is less attractive than golf, we argue in line with self-affirmation theory (Steele 1988; Sherman and Cohen 2006) that their boosted sense of self-integrity made an unbiased use of those insights possible. Prior research emphasized that “it is the people who view an issue as important rather than unimportant who should prove the most open to affirmation‐induced change” (Sherman and Cohen 2006, p. 217). Accordingly, we found that particularly strong identifiers made a significantly different marketing decision whether they were self-affirmed before receiving the threatening market research insights or not. In Study 3, we aimed to focus our investigation on people who should be most motivated to defend the running market and thus recruited marathon runners, asking them to act as the marketing head of Olymp SE. The purpose of our last study is to test whether different relationship norms between managers and market researchers influence the occurrence of the facts-be-damned bias. 53 5 Study 3: Role of Relationship Norms between Decision Makers and Market Researchers 5.1 Outline In general, market research insights are provided to managerial decision makers by market researchers, leading to a social interaction between the parties. In Study 3, we aimed to examine how this interaction influences the occurrence of the facts-be-damned bias. In particular, we propose that communal relationship norms between managers and market researchers enable the occurrence of the facts-bedamned bias, while exchange relationship norms do not (H3). To test our hypothesis, we modified our experimental design from the previous two studies in three ways. First, we recruited marathon runners because we wanted to focus our investigation on people who should be most motivated to defend the running market against threatening market research insights. Second, we used a scale from prior research measuring individuals’ sense of self-integrity to capture their current level of feeling self-affirmed (Sherman et al. 2009; Townsend and Sood 2012). In line with our previous findings, we assumed that the lower participants score on the self-integrity scale, the more they are prone to the facts-be-damned bias. Third, we created two distinct short scenarios of managers’ routine interaction with their researchers. In a pre-study we proved that one scenario made communal relationship norms salient and the other exchange relationship norms. Overall, we predicted that participants in the communal condition would increasingly make decisions going against threatening market research insights when they feel less self-affirmed demonstrating the defense mechanism of the factsbe-damned bias. In contrast, this defensive effect should not occur, if exchange relationship norms between managerial decision makers and researchers can mitigate the facts-be-damned bias. In the following, we first present our two scenarios and report the results of a pre-study testing the relationship norms manipulation before we continue with Study 3. 54 5.2 Pre-Study: Communal and Exchange Relationship Norms Manipulation Following previous research in marketing that manipulated communal and exchange norms in business-to-consumer interactions (e.g., Aggarwal 2004; Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011; see also Table 4 for an overview), we created two distinct scenarios highlighting either communal or exchange relationship norms between managers and market researchers. In line with the overall story of our business case study, both scenarios introduced the market research department of Olymp SE. In the role as head of marketing, participants read one of the following two scenarios describing the routine interaction between them and their market researchers: Communal relationship norms condition: The market research department of Olymp Corporation provides a wide range of market and customer reports. You have worked with them ever since you started working at Olymp Corporation a couple of years ago, and you have made many memorable, positive, and warm experiences with these department members. You order reports there on a regular basis, and you have always been very happy to cooperate closely with them. In general, whenever you ask for market and customer reports they take an extra effort to understand what you need in order to give you the best service possible. They always give you a strong feeling that they are genuinely interested in helping you. The analysts are not only competent, but also very nice and friendly. You even spend parts of your leisure time with them. The pleasant interaction with them thus is beyond just information delivering. Further, you actually would even consider the head of the market research department as a friend. 55 Exchange relationship norms condition: The market research department of Olymp Corporation provides a wide range of market and customer reports. You have worked with them ever since you started working at Olymp Corporation a couple of years ago. You order reports there on a regular basis and you have always been very satisfied with the efficiency and the quality of their reports. In general, whenever you ask for market and customer reports they get their work done fast – they always respect deadlines that you both have mutually agreed on. The analysts are all very well trained and are highly knowledgeable. They know that it is an essential part of a professional business relationship to provide good quality in exchange for the marketing budget you have invested in the assignment. Working with them does seem like an even trade to you. Further, you actually would consider the head of the market research department as an ideal business partner. In advance of Study 3, we conducted a short pre-study to test whether our two scenarios successfully manipulated peoples’ perception of either communal or exchange relationship norms. For this purpose we recruited 60 people (34 men, 26 women, mean age = 33) via Amazon MTurk. Randomly assigned to either the communal or exchange relationship norms scenario, pre-study participants initially read about the routine interaction between the marketing head and the market research department of Olymp SE. Subsequently, we asked participants to answer ten statements on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) measuring a Net Communality Score designed by prior research (Aggarwal 2004). Seven of the ten statements reflect communal relationship norms, while the other three statements reflect exchange norms. Communal statements: “I have warm feelings toward my colleagues at the market research department”, “My colleagues at the market research department would help me in times of need”, “I would miss my colleagues at the market research department if I left Olymp Corporation”, “My colleagues at the market research department treat me special”, “My colleagues at the market research department care about me”, “My colleagues at the market 56 research department like me”, and “I care for my colleagues at the market research department.” Exchange statements: “The colleagues at the market research department provide good value for money”, “The colleagues at the market research department provide a good service to continuously receive market research requests from you”, and “The colleagues at the market research department deliver reports that are worth the money.” Following Aggarwal (2004), we reversed the score for the three exchange norms items (α = .832) before computing the Net Communality Score together with the seven communal norms items (α = .898). The results of our pre-study confirmed that our manipulation of relationship norms worked as intended. Participants in the communal relationship norms condition reported a higher Net Communality Score than did participants in the exchange relationship norms condition (Mcommunal = 4.67 vs. Mexchange = 4.34, t(58) = 2.65, p < .05, r2 = .11) Additionally, we included confounding checks intended to rule out the possibility that the two scenarios cause other effects as well. First, we asked participants to indicate their agreement with the statements “The market research department of Olymp SE is competent” and “The reports of the market research department are of good quality” [on seven-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)]. There were no differences across the two relationship norms scenarios in how participants perceived the market research department’s competence (Mcommunal = 5.87 vs. Mexchange = 6.10, p = .315) nor the quality of market research reports (Mcommunal = 5.90 vs. Mexchange = 6.07, p = .483). Finally, using a common brief measure of the PANAS scale (Watson, Clark, and Tellegen 1988), we found that neither positive affect (Mcommunal = 3.89 vs. Mexchange = 4.2, p = .403) nor negative affect (Mcommunal = 1.73 vs. Mexchange = 1.49, p = .352) differed across the two relationship norms conditions (measured on a seven-point scale). Overall, the results of the pre-study confirmed that the two different scenario descriptions successfully manipulate relationship norms and therefore are appropriate for our investigation of the influence of communal and exchange relationship norms 57 between managers and market researchers on the facts-be-damned bias. We used the exact same two descriptions about the routine interaction between the head of marketing and the market research department of Olymp SE for the following Study 3. 5.3 Method 5.3.1 Participants For Study 3, we recruited participants who all shared a strong identification with running. Via a corporate sponsor of marathon events in Europe, we invited marathoners to take part in our online business case study. Though they were not experienced high-level executives as in Studies 1 and 2, participants were presumed capable of assuming the role of a marketing executive since they all worked full-time in industry jobs. More importantly, those people were committed and avid runners, since they had all taken part in at least one international marathon within the year preceding the study. As an incentive to participate, people read that they would be able to receive a managerial summary of the study results, and to enter a lottery for an amount equivalent to EUR 80 at the end of the study. Overall, 75 marathoners participated in our third study (63 men, 12 women, mean age = 44). 5.3.2 Procedure Affirmation: Self-Integrity Scale Before we introduced the business case study, we asked participants to answer some short questions about themselves (e.g., gender, age, etc.), including an eight-item selfintegrity scale adopted from prior research (Sherman et al. 2009; Townsend and Sood 2012). We used the self-integrity scale to measure participants’ current level of feeling self-affirmed at the time of the study (M = 5.89, SD = .52, α = .72). On a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), participants indicated the extent to which they agree with the following eight statements: “I have the ability and skills to deal with whatever comes my way”, “I feel that I’m basically a moral 58 person”, “On the whole, I am a capable person”, “I am a good person”, “When I think about the future, I’m confident that I can meet the challenges that I will face”, “I try to do the right thing”, “Even though there is always room for self-improvement, I feel a sense of completeness about who I fundamentally am”, and “I am comfortable with who I am.” Afterward we introduced participants to our business case study. Olymp Business Case Study The business case in Study 3 represents a slightly modified version of the business case scenarios in our previous two studies. Similar to Studies 1 and 2, participants were introduced to Olymp SE and subsequently asked to imagine being the head of marketing of this company. Upon receiving the market research insights, however, participants were randomly assigned to either the communal or exchange scenario from our pre-study. Each participant then read about the routine interaction between him- or herself (in the role as head of marketing) and the market research department of Olymp SE. Subsequently, we informed participants that the following market research insights were provided by Olymp’s market research department. Similar to Study 2, all participants received the threatening market research insights suggesting that the running market is less attractive than the golf market. After reading the market research insights, participants continued with the decision task. We asked participants to allocate a sponsoring budget of EUR 100,000 between the running and golf business divisions (see Study 1 for the same decision task and Figure 5). Further Questions We informed participants that they had completed the business case study and asked them to additionally complete some questions for further research. Participants reported their interest in several sports (running, biking, tennis, skiing/snowboarding, 59 golf, indoor fitness, and others) on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (no interest at all) to 5 (very high interest). Finally, participants were able to request the management summary and enter the lottery before we thanked them for their participation. 5.4 Results 5.4.1 Checks As expected, participants indicated a very high interest in running, which was significantly higher than their interest in golf (on a five-point scale: Mrunning = 4.96, SD = 0.197 vs. Mgolf = 1.59, SD = 0.116, t(74) = 28.538, p < .001, r2 = .99). 5.4.2 Moderated Regression Analysis In line with our previous findings, we argue that the facts-be-damned bias occurs when participants’ current level of feeling self-affirmed (Affirmation) has a negative effect on their sponsoring budget allocation to running (Budget Running). In other words, the more (less) participants feel self-affirmed, the less (more) they should make a defensive decision against the threatening market research insights. In regard to H3, we test whether our manipulation of the relationship norms between managers and market researchers (Relationship Norms) moderates the defensive effect of the facts-bedamned bias. Accordingly, we formulated a moderated regression analysis with Budget Running as dependent variable, and Affirmation and Relationship Norms as independent variables. Similar to the previous two studies, we additionally controlled for participants’ interest in Golf (Golf). We mean-centered the two continuous variables Affirmation and Golf (cf. Aiken and West 1991). Dummy-coding our manipulation of relationship norms allowed us to directly compare the effects of the communal condition (Norms = 0) and the exchange condition (Norms = 1) (cf. Irwin and McClelland 2001; Cohen et al. 2003; Spiller et al. 2013). Then we calculated the interaction variable (Interaction = Affirmationc x Relationship Norms). Since the residuals in the moderated regression were initially not normally distributed, we 60 transformed the dependent variable Budget Running into its square root after adding the value one [Budget Runningtrans = (Budget Running + 1)1/2] (cf. Sakia 1992; Osborne 2010). Using this common transformation, residuals were normally distributed. We further present the results according to the following moderated regression model: (1) Budget Runningtrans = β0 + β1 Affirmationc + β2 Relationship Norms + β3 Interaction + β4 Golfc + ε, with simple slope ω1 = β1 for the communal condition (Relationship Norms = 0), and ω2 = β1+ β3 for the exchange condition (Relationship Norms = 1). In support of H3, we found a significant effect of the Affirmationc x Relationship Norms interaction (ß3 = 45.49, t(70) = 2.01, p < .05, r2 = .05), suggesting that relationship norms between managers and market researchers influence the occurrence of the facts-be-damned bias. Simple slope analysis locates the nature of this interaction (cf. Cohen et al. 2003). We found that participants in the communal relationship norms condition allocated significantly more money to running when their current level of feeling self-affirmed decreased (ω1 = -41.06, t(70) = -2.44, p < .05, r2 = .08). This result is consistent with our previous findings on the facts-be-damned bias, which implicate a defense mechanism as the source of a manager’s decision against threatening market research insights. In contrast, the simple effect of Affirmationc on Budget Running was non-significant in the exchange condition (ω2 = 4.43, p = .767). As a result, participants’ current level of feeling self-affirmed did not further mitigate the facts-be-damned bias. In other words, we cannot find evidence for a defense mechanism in the exchange condition. In fact, Figure 10 illustrates the simple slope for each condition, demonstrating that managers in the exchange condition made relatively rational decisions. Hence, exchange relationship norms between managers and market researchers indeed mitigated the facts-be-damned bias. 61 All results on the moderated regression analysis are presented in Table 7. The simple effect of Relationship Norm was non-significant (ß2 = -10.18, p = .372). In other words, when putting a spotlight on the mean of Affirmation in the sample (M = 5.89, SD = 0.515), we found that the portion of sponsoring budget allocated to running was only marginally different between conditions. In order to detect at which threshold of Affirmation the effect of Relationship Norm became significant, we ran a floodlight analysis similar to that of our previous two studies. 5.4.3 Floodlight Analysis A Johnson-Neyman point represents the value of participants’ current level of feeling self-affirmed, at which we have the most confidence estimating the conditional effect of Relationship Norms on Budget Running, on the facts-be-damned bias. Running a floodlight analysis (Spiller et al. 2013), we found a threshold for Affirmation at 5.44 (or Affirmationc: -0.44). For participants with a level of feeling self-affirmed equal to the J-N point or lower, the effect of relationship norms on budget allocation was the most precise. Overall, the discovered Johnson-Neyman point for Affirmation is still high, although it is slightly below the mean level of feeling self-affirmed in the sample (M = 5.89, on a 1-7 scale). Our findings thus indicate that only managers with a strong feeling of self-affirmation might be able to neutrally integrate threatening market research insights when communal relationship norms guide their interaction with the market researchers. 62 Figure 10: Simple Slopes of Study 3 – Allocation of Sponsoring Budget Table 7: Moderated Regression Results of Study 3 – Budget Running t-value p-value r2 45.49 2.006 0.049 0.054 -41.06 -2.436 0.017 0.078 4.43 0.297 0.767 0.001 Beta Interaction β3 Affirmationc: Communal Condition ω1 = β1 Affirmationc: Exchange Condition ω2 = β1+ β3 Relationship Norms β2 -10.18 -0.898 0.372 0.011 GolfIc β4 -6.42 -1.104 0.273 0.017 63 5.5 Discussion Study 3 provides three findings further supporting our conceptualization. First, as in our previous studies, we found evidence for the facts-be-damned bias when managers are exposed to market research insights that threaten their self-associated domain(s). Hence, the more managers perceive market research insights as self-threatening, the more they make decisions going against those insights. Second, as in Study 2, our results suggest that a defense mechanism against self-threat causes the bias. Accordingly, feeling more self-affirmed when integrating the threatening insights helps defuse the facts-be-damned bias. Third, Study 3 in particular shows that the relationship norms between managers and market researchers influence the occurrence of the facts-be-damned bias (H3). This bias is facilitated when communal relationship norms guide the interaction between managers and market researchers, presumably because communal norms make managers feel more exposed, and thus more vulnerable. Managers might have perceived the threatening market research insights as a violation of the communal relationship norms between them and their market researchers, and thus they have given their defense mechanism a way. In contrast, with relatively clear and impersonal exchange norms guiding the interaction with the market researchers, managers did not further display the facts-be-damned bias. Managers in the exchange condition might have suppressed their personal reaction or drawn their attention to the actual benefits of the market research insights not perceiving the information as threatening at all. Overall, Study 3 pinpoints the fact that communal relationship norms between managers and market researchers create a breeding ground for the facts-be-damned bias, whereas exchange-oriented interactions seem to limit the bias. In the following, we discuss the full-blown implications of our findings for marketing research and practice as well as important limitations of our investigation. 64 6 General Discussion 6.1 Summary of Key Findings The dissertation’s findings on managers’ defensive behavior against market research insights support David Ogilvy’s quote that “we all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, but not for illumination.” The facts-be-damned bias, which is the tendency to interpret self-threatening data in a way that goes against rational judgment and decision making, captures one pernicious use of market research insights as support rather than illumination. In three studies, we consistently found that managers display this bias when they are exposed to market research insights that threaten a self-associated domain. In Study 1, we demonstrated that a facts-be-damned bias can occur among seemingly rational decision makers. When market research insights were relatively neutral regarding a self-associated domain, managers’ identitydriven preferences did not color their decisions. However, the more managers identified personally with a domain that is part of their professional working life, the more they made decisions against threatening market research insights, interpreting data in a way that supports their self-associated domain. Study 2 confirms that a defense mechanism against self-threat indeed caused managers’ biased used of market research insights. We demonstrated that providing managers with self-affirmation in a domain unrelated to that in which they are expected to make professional decisions mitigated the facts-be-damned bias. This finding suggests that managers’ “personal” reaction is a process that managers themselves are chronically unaware of. Finally, we linked our investigation to the concept of communal and exchange relationship norms, examining a previously undocumented boundary condition of defensive behavior. The findings revealed that the occurrence of the facts-be-damned-bias is more likely when communal relationship norms highlight personal support as an important aspect of the interaction between managers and market researchers. In this case, managers might perceive threatening market research insights as a violation of those norms. As a result, managers give their defense mechanism a way, presumably because one’s ego is more vulnerable in the context of heightened social interdependence (cf. Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011). In contrast, when managers and researchers mutually engage in quid 65 pro quo, those exchange relationship norms fail to provide the same breeding ground for the facts-be-damned bias. Overall, our tests of the facts-be-damned bias are relatively conservative, for three reasons. First, two of our studies illustrate the bias with actual marketing managers, who were professionally trained to seek illumination in data, not support. Second, our participants were provided with unambiguous, easy-to-interpret market research insights before they made a marketing management decision based on that data. When those insights were interpreted as a threat to the self, managers subsequently made a decision going against those insights, despite the data’s lack of ambiguity. This shows the formidable pervasiveness of defensive effects in managerial decision making, beyond the already documented realms of healthcare (e.g., Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli 2011), education (e.g., Sherman et al. 2013), and consumer information processing (e.g., Dalton and Huang 2014). Third, in Study 3, we found that the factsbe-damned bias occurs even in a sample of marathoners whom we found to be highly self-affirmed on average (M = 5.89, SD = .52, on a seven-point scale). Overall, our data show that defense mechanisms can easily contaminate managerial decision making, all the more perniciously since managers themselves are unaware of it. 6.2 Theoretical Contribution On a theoretical level, we make three contributions. First, we identify the facts-bedamned bias in managerial marketing decision making. Second, we pinpoint the defense mechanism behind it. In so doing, we apply self-affirmation theory (Steele 1988) to the context of managerial decision making. Third and critically, we contribute to research on relationship norms and extend its premises. In the following, we discuss all three aspects in more detail. Scientific research investigating managerial decision behavior in marketing is still relatively scarce, although “the quality of managerial decision making is the single most determining factor for the success of marketing management” (Wierenga 2011, 66 p. 89). Because consumer behavior and marketing modeling are the flagship disciplines in the academic world of marketing (Wierenga 2011), our findings on the facts-be-damned bias among managerial decision makers are also important for the impact of such research. We seized the previously made assumptions that market research insights can fall outside a decision maker’s personal “comfort zone” (Deshpande and Zaltman 1982; 1984). This issue has been calling for about 30 years to be addressed from a behavioral perspective. We shed light on a situation when managers perceive market research insights as an attack on their self-associated domains. In many cases, regardless of the quality of data-based insights, managers tend to make decisions going against threatening information. In particular, our conceptualization highlights the consequences when managers identify with the markets they are working for. Prior research in marketing cautioned against identity-driven thinking in management (Bolton and Reed 2004). However, we found that the facts-be-damned bias is a defense bias rather than primarily an identity bias. In fact, our first study showed that managers’ decisions were independent of their individual identity when market research insights were non-threatening, i.e., not outside a manager’s comfort zone. But the facts-be-damned bias occurs when market research “attacks” managers’ pet products. In addition to identifying a robust behavioral bias in marketing management, we find evidence for its underlying mechanism and present two ways to mitigate its occurrence. Although research on behavioral biases is a well-established and broad field, identifying appropriate debiasing techniques is only now becoming a more fruitful and relevant research stream. Since we not only warn against the facts-bedamned bias in marketing management but also suggest two ways to prevent such biased use of market research insights, our present research contributes to the “largely uncharted frontier of debiasing” (Lilienfeld, Ammirati, and Landfield 2009). Regarding self-affirmation theory, we show another instance of the observation that people’s defense mechanisms against even mild self-threats are ubiquitous, in personal as well as professional life. Self-affirmation interventions can maintain a sense of self- 67 integrity in spite of threatening situations (Steele 1988; Sherman and Cohen 2006). Because managers frequently have to face uncertain situations and threatening information, our research makes an important step in adapting self-affirmation research to managerial decision behavior. While defensive behavior against threatening healthcare information affects mainly the decision maker him-/herself, managerial defensive behavior can have consequences for an entire company. However, we also acknowledge that self-affirmation interventions can be risky because they have the potential to backfire under certain circumstances (e.g., Sivanathan et al. 2008). We effectively used a self-affirmation intervention from prior research, asking managers to write about a situation in which they helped a friend at the expense of their own happiness. In general, close relationships are an invaluable support when facing threatening situations. However, our findings confirm prior research suggesting that self-affirmation interventions and decision tasks must be unrelated (Sherman and Cohen 2006). While close relationships often empower people to handle threatening situations, we demonstrated that receiving threat from a communal relationship partner can backfire, i.e., favor the facts-be-damned bias. This leads to our third pillar highlighting the link among relationship norms, the interaction of managers and market researchers, and defensive behavior. Adapting research on relationship norms to our investigation on the facts-be-damned bias, we contribute to research emphasizing the importance of the interaction quality of managers and market researchers regarding the use of market research insights (Deshpande and Zaltman 1982; Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande 1992). Furthermore, whereas prior research in marketing used the concept of communal and exchange relationship norms for business-to-consumer interactions (see Table 4 for an overview), we extend its premises to a business-to-business relationships. We argued that both exchange and communal relationship norms can potentially guide the interaction between managers and market researchers depended on different situational cues. Using a prime to highlight either communal or exchange relationship norms, our results revealed that the type of relationship norm can moderate managerial defense mechanisms against threatening information. More specific, we conclude that communal relationships can involve more human fragility than exchange relationships do, and therefore they can more easily backfire in the context of advice taking and 68 decision making. Finally, we are the first to show that receiving threatening information from an exchange relationship partner mitigates defensive behavior in the context of managerial decision making. 6.3 Managerial Implications 6.3.1 How Managers Can Avoid Succumbing to the Facts-Be-Damned Bias Why should managers take preventive actions to avoid propagating the facts-bedamned bias? To draw an analogy, imagine a backcountry skier. S/he completed some training, acquired the appropriate equipment, and has experience with the terrain. However, no matter how good our backcountry skier has prepared her-/himself, checking the snow conditions and weather forecast on the day of skiing is most crucial. Of course, that information cannot guarantee a smooth ride. But making a decision against the facts gives her/him a good chance to set off an avalanche. Yet never before have decision makers in marketing had access to such sophisticated information about markets and consumers (Rust, Moorman, and Bhalla 2010). The skill to combine domain expertise with data-based information constitutes the unique selling proposition of a marketing manager (Wierenga 2011; McAfee and Brynjolfsson 2012). Some data experts seem to think that developing “analytics-savvy workers” is the most important key to explore the huge potential of big data (e.g., Shah, Horne, and Capellá 2012). However, we identified a behavioral bias that occurred when marketing managers – professionally trained to treat data objectively – made decisions after they had received market research insights. In our view, it is critical that managers not only become aware of the facts-be-damned bias but implement strategies to avoid their own defense mechanisms against market research insights. Although our research is descriptive rather than normative in nature, our findings offer several implications for managerial decision makers on a practical level to avoid the facts-bedamned bias. 69 Managers trained in using data for decision making are not automatically protected from defense mechanisms. The facts-be-damned bias can operate in all decision makers because defense strategies and mechanisms against psychological threats are hardwired into the human nature. Hence, even data-driven managers might occasionally make irrational decisions going against sound market research insights. Our findings suggest that managers should become particularly wary of succumbing to the facts-be-damned bias when they have a “pet product” or strongly identify with a market they are working with. In some situations, managers’ intuition can outperform data-based information if they have a profound expertise within the domain (Dane, Rockmann, and Pratt 2011). However, when market research insights challenge these self-associated domains, we showed that managers tend to experience those insights as a personal affront causing defensive behavior. Although awareness is a critical first step to avoid the facts-be-damned bias, the mere knowledge of behavioral biases cannot prevent their occurrence. Kahneman, Lovallo, and Sibony (2011) emphasized that the simple claim “forewarned is forearmed” has not provided much practical help for decision makers to overcome their biased behavior. In the same vein, prior research showed that people generally fail to recognize their own cognitive biases, and this phenomenon was coined “the bias blind spot” (e.g., Pronin, Lin, and Ross 2002). The problem is that people like to see themselves as rational decision makers who sift the facts before making a decision. Particularly defensive responses are more “rationalized” than “rational” (e.g., Kunda 1990). Hence, managers need strategies to avoid the facts-be-damned bias, and this would include implementing standards on how to best integrate data-based information in the decision process. First, we showed that self-affirmation can temper and reduce the urgency of the shortterm motivation to protect the self from threat, and thus it enables managers to accept unpleasant but decision-relevant market research insights. Steele (1988) emphasized that the “availability” of mental strategies – either defense mechanisms or selfaffirmation – is an important factor when people must encounter self-threatening information. More specifically, he assumes that “availability is a powerful, if not all 70 powerful, determinant of how we go about affirming the self” (Steele 1988, p. 294). In our experiments, managers received the self-threatening insights and immediately were asked to make a corresponding decision. Thus, using a defense mechanism was more available than the chance to affirm the self by engaging in other activities before making a decision. In order to prevent the facts-be-damned bias, we suggest that managers take the time to let market research insights sink in before making a corresponding decision. Making decisions in the heat of the moment has often been known to have unwanted long-term consequences. For instance, Ariely (2010) suggests that, in an aroused situation, managerial decision makers should “Take a deep breath. Count backward from 10 (or 10,000). Wait until you’ve cooled off. Sleep on it.” (p. 38). We not only echo that advice to sleep on market research insights, we further recommend that managers actively engage in unrelated activities and thoughts before making an important decision. Apart from our experimental setting, exercising via one’s favorite sport might for some managers have the healing power to self-affirm and eventually mitigate their own defensive behavior against threatening situations. Second, we emphasize that managers’ expectations of the role of market research are crucial to the facts-be-damned bias. We infer from our findings that exchange relationship norms are more likely to ensure that managers are less personally affected when insights contradict their personal preferences. Thus, we suggest that a tit-for-tat interaction results in more objective managerial decisions. In particular, we emphasize that managers should see market research as an equal counterbalance that can correct behavioral faults if necessary. In a recent interview about the biggest thinking mistakes in economics, Rolf Dobelli – businessman and author of The Art of Thinking Clearly – explained his strategy to avoid the confirmation bias, a more generic form of the factsbe-damned bias. When he falls in “love” with a project, he asks an acquaintance to talk him out of this project and gives him an incentive. If the person can change his mind, he receives CHF 1,000. By doing so, Dobelli suggests, that managers can make sure to see “both sides of the coin” (Dobelli 2013). Dobelli’s strategy to “hire” someone to play devil’s advocate seems to coincide with our suggestion that managerial decision makers and market researchers should establish quid pro quo standards in order to avoid defensive responses to threatening marketing research insights. The role of the market researcher can sometimes include providing a counterbalance to biased 71 decision behavior and managers at all levels should welcome the challenge (Roxburgh 2003). In a recent management seminar in 2014 with approximately 60 marketing executives, we briefly introduced the facts-be-damned bias. We asked participants which standards of interaction with their market researchers would probably prevent them from making decisions against market research insights (before showing them our results on the third study). Half of the participants decided for communal, the other half for exchange relationship norms. We acknowledge that not all managerial decision makers might appreciate an impersonal and straight to the point interaction with their market researchers. Particularly in communal relationships, it seems that managers and market researchers should be alert to the facts-be-damned bias. Importantly, we do not claim that following communal relationships norms preprogram a toxic situation. In fact, we showed that strongly self-affirmed managers (Study 3) and managers who received a self-affirmation intervention (Study 2) were immune against the facts-be-damned bias independent of the salient relationship norms with their market researchers. However, our results point out that communal relationships are much more fragile and can provide a breeding ground for the factsbe-damned bias. Because people in communal relationships are more vulnerable to self-threats, those interpersonal interactions might require more tactfulness between business partners to discuss sensitive topics. 6.3.2 Market Researchers Need Additional Negotiation Skills The job of a data expert was recently labeled the “sexiest job of the 21st century” (Davenport and Patil 2012). In fact, over the last few decades data-based information has had an increasingly greater impact on managerial decision making, particularly in marketing. Market research has become a multibillion-dollar industry and keeps growing, with recent developments encompassing Web analytics and the burgeoning promise of big data (Davenport 2013). In business schools around the world, specialized master’s degree programs in market research teach students sophisticated analytical skills and how to gather data with new technology. 72 The job of a market researcher encompasses the planning, collection, and analysis of data relevant to marketing decision making, as well as communicating the results and interpretation to managerial decision makers in an appropriate manner (Aaker, Kumar, and Day 2004). Prior academic research has demonstrated, for instance, that graphical presentations of data cannot reduce decision makers’ behavioral biases (Hutchinson, Alba, and Einstein 2010). It takes more. Data are blind to decision makers’ comfort zones, but human beings are not (necessarily). Of course, if market research were driven by personal or political motivation, it would represent a breach of professional standards. However, we emphasize the importance of market researchers understanding that people are fundamentally driven by the motivation to feel “safe, likeable, valuable, and competent” (Ross 2008, p. 3). Brennan (2000) emphasized that to managers surprising results are not only suspect but threatening. As we demonstrated in the present research, providing “threatening” market research insights to managerial decision makers can trigger their defense mechanism against those insights. We assume that market researchers want to avoid such a response when they put energy and time into their work. Thus, market researchers are required to have strong interpersonal and communication skills allowing her/him to communicate even threatening market research insights effectively with managerial decision makers. Based on our findings, we suggest that market researchers need more in-depth training in negotiation skills. Establishing trustful relationships between managers and researchers to facilitate the use of market research insights has been a recurring recommendation for years (Deshpande and Zaltman 1982; Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande 1992). While we acknowledge that trust in the quality of data is fundamental, we advise that the relationship between managers and researchers should not go beyond a tit-for-tat exchange of benefits. If market researchers want to address the facts-be-damned bias among managerial decision makers, they should know how to play the “devil’s advocate” appropriately. If communal norms have already been established, tactfulness and perseverance might be the key to slowly defuse the defense mechanisms of managers in relation to unpleasant market research insights. Otherwise, we recommend establishing well-defined quid pro quo standards from the start. For example, Lee, Acito, and Day (1987) recommended that market researchers should request managers “to sign a statement of agreement that the proper research 73 questions were being asked and that the method proposed was an acceptable approach for the problem” (p. 194). 6.3.3 Organizational Cultures and Standards in the Era of Big Data In general, we emphasize that organizations should start addressing the issue of behavioral biases in the workplace. After the financial crisis of 2008, Ariely (2009) proclaimed the end of rational economics and announced, “armed with the knowledge that human beings are motivated by cognitive biases of which they are largely unaware […], businesses can start to better defend against foolishness and waste” (p. 80). Similarly, Kahneman, Lovallo, and Sibony (2011) suggested that “the fact that individuals are not aware of their own biases does not mean that biases can’t be neutralized – or at least reduced – at the organizational level” (p. 52). Although investing in more capacity and expertise might generate more data-based insights, experts on big data are warning that organizations will not automatically act on those insights (e.g., McAfee and Brynjolfsson 2012). In this regard, we acknowledge that embedding and appreciating data-based decision making is fundamental if organizations invest in becoming part of the big data revolution, but it does not necessarily protect managerial decision makers (and their companies) from the facts-be-damned bias. For some companies the big-data advantages will come with the price of fundamentally restructuring organizational cultures and defining new standards. Based on our findings, we first suggest that exchange relationship norms should guide the interaction between managers and market researchers to prevent or mitigate defensive behavior. The advantage of this approach is that decision makers experience market research insights as less self-threatening. We mentioned before that market researchers sometimes have to take on the role of devil’s advocate. Investigating the interaction between marketing and sales, Homburg and Jensen (2007) came to a similar conclusion. Their findings indicated that maximizing harmony between 74 business divisions does not necessarily maximize market performance. They encouraged organizations to implement a culture that fosters devil’s advocacy because it “ensures that more relevant information and more arguments enter into marketrelated decisions” (Homburg and Jensen 2007, p. 135). At the same time, we have to acknowledge that our recommendation to establish exchange norms clashes with considerable past research showing the benefits of having a rapport for cooperation, trust, and commitment (e.g., Deshpande and Zaltman 1982; Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande 1992; Moorman 1995; Nadler 2004). For instance, Moorman (1995) argued that organizational information processes need commitment and trust among organizational members and found that “clans” compared to other cultures facilitate organizational information processes. Similarly, Chen and Berger (2013) suggested that bringing up a controversial topic should be less threatening with friends because “knowing more about close others enables people to tailor what they say to ensure smooth conversation” (p. 582). However, these arguments are not necessarily in conflict with our findings because we demonstrated in Studies 1 and 2 that strongly self-affirmed managers do not display the facts-bedamned bias, independent of the kind of interaction between them and their market researchers. Thus, we suggest a second way to mitigate the facts-be-damned bias on the organizational level. Organizations can provide managers with sufficient self-affirmation, for example, via retreats or the regular practice of an activity (e.g., engaging in prosocial activities) in which they affirm a part of their identity that does not overlap with their managerial decision tasks. Managers can thus better handle threatening situations in a constructive way, rather than spend mental energy on defensive behavior. Although recent research suggests that self-affirmation interventions can have long-lasting effects (e.g., Harris and Napper 2005; Sherman et al. 2013), the documented effects are few, and only Sherman et al. (2013) and Cohen et al. (2009) showed behavioral effects. Hence, we suggest that investing in ways to regularly provide a company’s managers with selfaffirmation is important, particularly when organizational environments celebrate communal relationship norms. For instance, the data-driven company Google has 75 created and promoted an organizational environment where employees have plenty of possibilities to engage in professional-unrelated activities during their work time, like exercising via sports, playing video games, and organizing community events. Kanter (2011) recommended more generally that organizations should cultivate a culture of confidence fostering employees’ resilience for times of inevitable downturns because “performance under pressure – the ability to stay calm, learn, adapt, and keep on going – separates winners from losers” (p. 34). Overall, we aim to emphasize that organizations in the era of big data should meet the challenges of human shortcomings associated with the use of data-based information for managerial decision making. We showed that organizations can develop a culture that highlights exchange relationship norms, thereby limiting managers’ personal defensive reactions to market research insights. However, a “cold” data-driven environment might not be suitable for all organizations. Creating an organizational culture that supports decision makers maintaining a strong sense of self-integrity can help to become immune to the facts-be-damned bias as well. In both cases, we recommend that organizations invest in trainings that allow decision makers to reflect on behavioral biases in the workplace. Similarly, Biyalogorsky, Boulding, and Staelin (2006) suggested that organizations should institute educational programs and policies addressing the issue that “managers tend to examine data with the goal of making the world appear consistent with their own views of reality” (p. 118). For instance, discussing management target literature with examples of human shortcomings in organizations – such as Decision without Blinders by Bazerman and Chugh (2006) – can present a good first step for managers to reflect on their own decision behavior and comfort zone to threatening information. Furthermore, organizations can support their internal market researchers with trainings on advancing important negotiations skills. This is important because in the heat of a moment, the personal interaction between organizational members can influence whether or not decisions display the facts-bedamned bias (for a discussion on affect in organizations, see e.g., Barsade and Gibson 2007). 76 6.4 Limitations and Further Research 6.4.1 Limitation of Experimental Approach and Setting Although we believe that the dissertation’s findings make a valuable contribution to the field of managerial decision behavior in marketing, our investigation has some limitations. In this section we critically discuss the use of online experiments and the generalization of findings from our specific experimental setting. Most prior studies on managerial use of market research insights were based on survey methods. In particular, researchers used a recall method in which managers were asked to consider the most recent marketing project associated with the use of market research insights (e.g., Deshpande and Zaltman 1982; Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande 1992). Recalling an actual real-world project carries the advantage of bolstering external validity. However, it risks providing inaccurate responses because participants are likely to have rationalized their past decisions (Lee, Acito, and Day 1987). Surveys are particularly limited in regard to the detection of behavioral biases (Sprinkle 2003) because people are generally unaware that their past decisions were biased. For this reason, research on the use of market research insights has increasingly conducted experimental studies (see Table 2). Aiming to investigate a potential behavioral bias, its psychological mechanism, and ways to mitigate the bias, we ran three controlled online experiments. In general, controlled experiments constitute the standard in behavioral research to test hypotheses and detect cause-effect relationships between variables (Cook and Campbell 1976; Aaker, Kumar, and Day 2004). The relative advantage of experiments is a higher internal validity due to the ability to control for confounding effects. On the down side, experiments can be artificial, thereby lowering the external validity (Cook and Campbell 1976). Aiming to address the issue of external validity, we recruited actual managers for our research. Because it is difficult “to get real marketing decision makers in the lab” (Wierenga 2011, p. 99), we conducted online experiments. 77 There are some potential advantages and disadvantages to conducting an experiment online as opposed to in the lab (see Birnbaum 2004, for a review of pros and cons). For instance, the absence of the researcher creates two important advantages. First, the data collected online does not suffer from the experimenter’s bias, that is, when researchers unintentionally affect participants (Birnbaum 2001; Reips 2000). Additionally, it protects the anonymity of the participants, which, for example, reduces socially desirable answers (Joinson 1999). On the other hand, the main disadvantage of conducting online compared to lab experiments is a relative lower internal validity due to the inability to control environmental factors (e.g., technical facilities, environmental distraction, and use of additional aids) (e.g., Dandurand, Shultz, and Onishi 2008). Due to the limitations of online experiments regarding internal and external validity, we encourage future research to complement our research on the facts-be-damned bias by conducting further laboratory as well as field experiments. Regarding field experiments, Jaworksi (2011) recently prompted research in marketing to “spend much more time observing, recording, and analyzing managers’ work in their natural setting” (p. 214). Supporting the generalization of our findings on the facts-be-damned bias, we acknowledge that future research should extend our work to other experimental settings. First, future studies might use real market research insights. In ours, we fabricated the provided market research insights because we wanted to manipulate whether insights are threatening or not (see Study 1). If we had shown that managers make decisions against real market research insights, the results would have pointed out the consequences of the facts-be-damned bias more dramatically. Second, our investigation is relatively one-sided regarding the managers’ identity that was threatened by market research insights. We used the identity of a runner because we needed to utilize an identity that is shared by many people in our participantspools. Future research could investigate, for instance, how managers’ nationality influences their use of threatening market research insights when making a decision on 78 a location for a company’s first flagship store. In another context, a manager might work for a home appliance company considering cooking shows as a marketing strategy. Would the manager who holds a valued identity as an amateur cook display the facts-be-damned bias when market research provides insights that contradict the marketing effectiveness of cooking shows? We emphasize that applying our conceptualization to other experimental settings would help to increase the robustness of the characterization of the facts-be-damned bias. 6.4.2 General Avenues for Future Research Our research raises some further theoretical questions that we did not address in the realm of this dissertation but which might present fruitful avenues for future research. Regarding self-affirmation theory, Steele (1988) emphasized that it depends on i) the “availability of a mental strategy” and, among equally available strategies, ii) the perceived relative “effectiveness-to-cost ratios” as to whether people display defense mechanisms or use other self-affirmation adaptions to absorb threatening information. In our studies, we did not encourage managers to take time to recover from the threatening market research insights before making a decision. Thus, defense mechanisms might have been more available. Future research could investigate whether some managers automatically deploy self-affirmation interventions before making decisions based on data (e.g., through procrastination, see section 2.3). Regarding effectiveness-to-cost ratios, we have to admit that our participants’ decisions had no consequences. Hence, it would be interesting to examine whether the facts-be-damned bias is tempered when the perceived costs for a wrong decisions increase. One may ask how often the relationship norms between managers and market researchers are of a communal rather than an exchange type. We mainly argued that the answer is a function of organizational culture but it can also vary across country cultures. Regarding the latter, we collected the data for this research in a European 79 country where business relationships might follow more communal norms than in other countries (e.g., USA). In fact, we acknowledge that this might be a reason why the facts-be-damned bias was so blatant in our first two studies. Further, our participants were alumni of the same school, another factor presumably favoring communal rather than exchange relationship norms. We further emphasize that it would be interesting to pinpoint more precisely specific organizational contexts (e.g., family-owned companies working with long-term, closely associated suppliers of market research) or cultural contexts (e.g., collectivistic cultures) in which it is likely that communal relationship norms are common between managers and market researchers, and (as a result) in which the facts-be-damned bias may strongly impact managerial decision making. Additionally, other research fields might be interested in replicating our findings on relationship norms beyond business interactions. For instance, when medical doctors provide threatening healthcare information to their patients, would following exchange relationship norms help patients to better accept their situation? Importantly, we also suggest that one should not over-interpret the concept of communal and exchange relationship norms in the context of business interactions (cf. Aggarwal 2004). The interaction between managerial decision makers and market researchers might highlight more communal norms than other business relationships do, but their relationship is still not comparable to people who know each other intimately. Given such obvious differences between private and business relationships, we suggest that investigating other normative rules of behavior between managerial decision makers and market researchers would represent a productive avenue for future research. This is because our findings reveal that social norms create an interesting tension: the trade-off between an interaction on cordial terms and the ability to use data objectively. In this respect our work resonates with research revealing a “dark side” of long-term relationships in marketing services (Grayson and Ambler 1999; see also Grayson 2007) and more recently of rapports in business relationships (Jap, Robertson, and Hamilton 2012). 80 Additionally, future research might find other approaches to mitigate defense mechanisms. For instance, Puntoni, Sweldens, and Tavassoli (2011) suggested that “voicing the fear” can mitigate defensive behavior against self-threatening information because people become aware of their actual motives. In the context of motivated forgetting as defense mechanism, Dalton and Huang (2014) found that people suppress unpleasant information only for explicit memory but it remains implicitly accessible. Further, in light of the market research-driven era that we seem to have entered with the advent of business analytics, our findings raise a troubling question: are there situations in which, in order to avoid the facts-be-damned bias, managers would be better off making decisions without market research information? Our studies do not examine this question, as an underlying assumption in our work so far is that data, however irrationally used, remains better than pure managerial intuition, at least for most managers. Indeed, we recall that in our findings we do show that the facts-bedamned bias occurs along with some rational decision making (e.g., in Study 1, when market research shows that running is an inferior investment compared to golf, managers do invest less in running on average). Similarly, we did not rule out the possibility that the facts-be-damned bias can have positive effects on managerial outcomes. In some situation it can be helpful that defense mechanisms protect from damages to self-integrity. Because sometimes the managerial “task isn’t to predict what will happen but to make it happen” (Rosenzweig 2014). Acknowledging that self-fulfilling prophecies can have the power to realize success against overwhelming odds, we argue that most managerial decisions in marketing depend on the market environment and demands of consumers. Because the quality of data-based information for marketing will further improve in the coming years, the consequences of the facts-be-damned bias might become more harmful for organizations. However, future research should more generally investigate when the use of market research insights has positive effects and when managers’ intuitions outperform data-based information. 81 Concluding, we emphasize that defensive behavior against sound market research insights can open a Pandora’s box for marketing managers and organizations. 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Wierenga, Berend (2011), “Managerial Decision Making in Marketing: The Next Research Frontier,” International Journal of Research in Marketing, 28 (2), 89-101. 97 Curriculum Vitae – Jasmin Eberharter – Date and Place of Birth: July 26, 1983, in Frankfurt/Main, Germany Education 2010 – 2015 University of St.Gallen, Switzerland Doctoral Studies in Management/Marketing 2013 – 2014 HEC Paris, France Visiting Scholar granted by Swiss National Science Foundation 2010 University of Michigan, USA ICPSR Summer School in Quantitative Research Methods 2003 – 2009 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany Undergraduate and Graduate Studies in Business Administration 2006 University of Georgia, USA Graduate Studies in Marketing, at Terry College of Business Work Experience Since 2014 Swiss International Air Lines Ltd., Switzerland Manager Channel Research and Strategy 2010 – 2012 Institute of Marketing, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland Research Associate