Whether it’s walking down a dark street at night or fighting off grizzly bears on the trail, pepper spray is an effective tool to fend off an attacker and get safely away. But have you ever thought about what gives this personal-defense-in-a-can its bite – is it just weaponized hot sauce? The American Chemical Society...
A new study shows that two key factors can make freshly appointed CEOs more vulnerable and raise the odds they’ll get fired. The job security of a new CEO tends to suffer when the stock market reacts badly or when the previous CEO stays on as board chair, according to the study by Rice University...
For decades, luxury retailers around the world have conveyed the message that cold temperatures are a sign of status with descriptions like “icy steel Swiss watches,” “cool silk scarves” and “icy bling.” But researchers have never studied whether people truly associate cold temperatures with status and luxury. To investigate whether this association could be substantiated...
Optimizing delivery driver shifts can reduce pick-up time by 50%. Choosing restaurants closer to the drop-off location rather than where a meal was just delivered can reduce delivery time by 17%. Order bundling has an average cost improvement of less than half a percent. The food delivery business, popularized by mobile online services such as...
Shoppers who win retail discounts through scratch-off tickets or other games of chance are more likely to make a purchase, and spend more money, than customers offered standard discounts that apply to everyone, according to a new study led by the University of Connecticut. Games of chance are potential goldmines for both brick-and-mortar stores and...
The new generation of successful female bloggers and influencers on social media are changing the identity of the stereotypical “ideal” housewife. This is according to a new study by Magdalena Petersson McIntyre, a researcher at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. Published in the Journal of Cultural Economy, the study...
Researchers from the University of San Diego and University of Arizona published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing, which examines the rise of deal collectives that exploit ill-designed deals that give away more than companies intended. The study is titled “Let’s Make a “Deal”: How Deal Collectives Co-Produce Unintended Value from Sales Promotions” and...
Many nonprofits, including top universities and museums are confronting serious ethical dilemmas regarding accepting tainted money. The MIT Media Lab, an interdisciplinary research lab, has been widely criticized for taking money from late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 for sexual exploitation of minor girls. Harvard University has now promised to give away...
Artificial intelligence can increase sales by four times more than inexperienced workers. If a customer is told about the use of artificial intelligence before purchasing, sales drop by nearly 80%. The majority of the problem in using artificial intelligence is customer pushback. Chatbots, which use artificial intelligence to simulate human conversation through voice commands or...
Job sharing offers a route to increase the number of women in senior leadership roles in higher education. Research from Lancaster University Management School, published in a special issue of Social Sciences, shows the potential for job sharing to provide new routes into senior management positions and to increase female presence in the upper echelons of...
