Conference includes full paper presentations by doctoral students, keynote sessions and invited talks by scholars in management and social sciences research, workshops and a poster session
DECEMBER 22, 2015: The seventh IMR Doctoral Conference (IMRDC 2015), organized by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore’s IIMB Management Review (IMR) and the Office of the Fellow Programme in Management (FPM), began on Tuesday, December 22, 2015. The objective of the two-day conference is to bring together doctoral students affiliated to institutions across India and overseas for an event of paper presentations, discussions with senior academics and researchers from industry, and publication-oriented development.
IMRDC aims to encourage research and scholarship among young scholars in Management Science and other related disciplines. To this end, the IMR conducted the country's first annual Doctoral Students Conference for Management Scholars in 2009. IMR is a quarterly journal brought out by IIMB and its primary aim is to promote management research.
The IMR doctoral conference will facilitate full paper presentations by doctoral level students and consist of keynote sessions and invited talks by noted international scholars in management and social sciences research, workshops and a poster session.
The inauguration of the event saw Conference Chair Dr. Manaswini Bhalla, IIMB faculty from the Economics & Social Sciences area, introducing the theme and background of the meet. IIMB Director Dr. Sushil Vachani inaugurated the conference by lighting the lamp and then shared a few thoughts. He spoke of the significance of research, doctoral programmes and related conferences and detailed IIMB’s role in such activities. He observed that the conference had the potential to result in significant value creation, adding: “A very important element of any activity in a doctoral programme is to be part of the research ecosystem.”
The FPM Chair, Dr. Shashidhar Murthy, IIMB faculty from the Finance & Control area, provided insights on IIMB’s doctoral programme, IMR and the history of the conference, saying that the conference was held in 2009 for the first time. The doctoral programme at IIMB, he said, had been restructured to focus on research, and yielded results in terms of the institute achieving enviable rankings, averaging two to three publications by current students over the last three years, participation of students in conferences, and more.
Dr. Nagasimha Balakrishna Kanagal, IIMB faculty, Marketing area, and Chairperson, IIMB Management Review, welcomed all the participants to the conference by saying that the conference, since its inception, has established itself as a benchmark annual event for doctoral students in management and social sciences in the country. “As of 2013, the IMR is listed as a B-category journal according to the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC). IMR provides selected material with publication opportunity in the journal. Some of the papers that have been presented in past IMR doctoral conferences have been peer reviewed and published in IMR,” he informed, adding: “Publication in IMR will make your work visible to a wide national and international readership and help take your research forward. Doctoral students can submit papers being presented at the conference, after incorporating the comments of discussants.”
About the conference, he said: “This year, we received 100 abstracts, out of which 50 were selected for full paper presentations and finally 13 paper presentations are scheduled. There are four fast-track presentations too.” Talking about the importance of the generous support extended by the sponsors for a conference of such magnitude, he stated that the three best paper awards had been named after the sponsors.
Dr. Sreelata Jonnalagedda, Conference Co-Chair and IIM faculty in the Marketing area, shared details on the conference structure.
After a tea break, the morning session proceeded to the very enlightening and interactive keynote lecture by Dr. Pradeep Chintagunta, Joseph T. and Bernice S. Lewis Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, USA, on ‘Trends in Research in Marketing’.
Offering an overview of the history of Marketing Research from the quantitative point of view, he explained that the early years drew concepts largely from Economics because the kinds of questions asked then could be answered through methods of Economics, like pricing, etc. After a while people realized that apart from the supply side, consumer perspective/pattern in important as well, he said. So the next stage of research in quantitative marketing saw adoption of models of Statistics, particularly in the late 60s and 70s. It was observed what brand the consumer was buying over time to use that information to say something about the distribution of purchases over time, etc. However, very little was known about what impacts such purchases. Thereafter, the late 70s witnessed the emergence of optimal solutions and Operations Research gained significance. This phase was followed by the stage of Econometrics, where more emphasis was put into what was happening at the consumer level. In the 80s, researchers got hold of scanner data, that is data about the sales/output and what was driving those sales, like prices, promotions, etc. So this was the golden age of scanner data. But the downside was that this data gave restricted information. But now, with the emergence of internet revolution and availability of online data, it gives us more information on consumer behaviour in varied contexts.
Prof. Chintagunta went on to say that next came a phase where people/marketers became more conscious about understanding differences across consumers. This fed into internet space where firms realized that they could target individual customers. So the late 90s and early 2000 used the Bayesian method to estimate consumer behaviour at the individual level. “So now again Economics is playing a major role in us trying to understand how consumers behave in a variety of contexts.”
He summed up the history of research in the field, saying: “Quantitative Marketing is perhaps one of the most dynamic areas of research.” He also walked the participants through the typical process of a research project with examples. He detailed the steps as: Start with a substantive question of interest – which is the motivating question that drives research; Why is it important; How to translate a substantive question to a research question; What is the ideal data generating process that will help me answer the question; How to get to the ideal data; Can I discern something from raw data; and Can I say something normative for marketing researchers and managers?
He spoke at length about the power and limitations of ranking of specific products/services in e-commerce websites, while quoting from a research paper. “Research is a great career and one has to enjoy it, research is not about teaching but about learning,” he added.
The other activities of the day included presentation of papers and a workshop on ‘Crafting Manuscripts for and Publishing in Scholarly Journals in Business Disciplines: Some Guideposts’ by Professor Rajan Varadarajan, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University.
Day 2 will cover presentation of papers and a workshop titled ‘From Formulating a Research Question to Collaboration and Publication: Lessons from Effectuation Research in Entrepreneurship’, by Professor Saras D Sarasvathy, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia and Visiting Faculty, IIMB.
The two-day event will wrap up with the Valedictory Ceremony and Awards Presentation. The three best paper awards have been named after the event sponsors, in recognition of their contribution towards making the event a success, namely, the SBI Life Award, the IIM Bangalore Award and the Canara Bank Award. This will be followed by a Vote of Thanks by the Conference Chairs.
Conference includes full paper presentations by doctoral students, keynote sessions and invited talks by scholars in management and social sciences research, workshops and a poster session
DECEMBER 22, 2015: The seventh IMR Doctoral Conference (IMRDC 2015), organized by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore’s IIMB Management Review (IMR) and the Office of the Fellow Programme in Management (FPM), began on Tuesday, December 22, 2015. The objective of the two-day conference is to bring together doctoral students affiliated to institutions across India and overseas for an event of paper presentations, discussions with senior academics and researchers from industry, and publication-oriented development.
IMRDC aims to encourage research and scholarship among young scholars in Management Science and other related disciplines. To this end, the IMR conducted the country's first annual Doctoral Students Conference for Management Scholars in 2009. IMR is a quarterly journal brought out by IIMB and its primary aim is to promote management research.
The IMR doctoral conference will facilitate full paper presentations by doctoral level students and consist of keynote sessions and invited talks by noted international scholars in management and social sciences research, workshops and a poster session.
The inauguration of the event saw Conference Chair Dr. Manaswini Bhalla, IIMB faculty from the Economics & Social Sciences area, introducing the theme and background of the meet. IIMB Director Dr. Sushil Vachani inaugurated the conference by lighting the lamp and then shared a few thoughts. He spoke of the significance of research, doctoral programmes and related conferences and detailed IIMB’s role in such activities. He observed that the conference had the potential to result in significant value creation, adding: “A very important element of any activity in a doctoral programme is to be part of the research ecosystem.”
The FPM Chair, Dr. Shashidhar Murthy, IIMB faculty from the Finance & Control area, provided insights on IIMB’s doctoral programme, IMR and the history of the conference, saying that the conference was held in 2009 for the first time. The doctoral programme at IIMB, he said, had been restructured to focus on research, and yielded results in terms of the institute achieving enviable rankings, averaging two to three publications by current students over the last three years, participation of students in conferences, and more.
Dr. Nagasimha Balakrishna Kanagal, IIMB faculty, Marketing area, and Chairperson, IIMB Management Review, welcomed all the participants to the conference by saying that the conference, since its inception, has established itself as a benchmark annual event for doctoral students in management and social sciences in the country. “As of 2013, the IMR is listed as a B-category journal according to the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC). IMR provides selected material with publication opportunity in the journal. Some of the papers that have been presented in past IMR doctoral conferences have been peer reviewed and published in IMR,” he informed, adding: “Publication in IMR will make your work visible to a wide national and international readership and help take your research forward. Doctoral students can submit papers being presented at the conference, after incorporating the comments of discussants.”
About the conference, he said: “This year, we received 100 abstracts, out of which 50 were selected for full paper presentations and finally 13 paper presentations are scheduled. There are four fast-track presentations too.” Talking about the importance of the generous support extended by the sponsors for a conference of such magnitude, he stated that the three best paper awards had been named after the sponsors.
Dr. Sreelata Jonnalagedda, Conference Co-Chair and IIM faculty in the Marketing area, shared details on the conference structure.
After a tea break, the morning session proceeded to the very enlightening and interactive keynote lecture by Dr. Pradeep Chintagunta, Joseph T. and Bernice S. Lewis Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, USA, on ‘Trends in Research in Marketing’.
Offering an overview of the history of Marketing Research from the quantitative point of view, he explained that the early years drew concepts largely from Economics because the kinds of questions asked then could be answered through methods of Economics, like pricing, etc. After a while people realized that apart from the supply side, consumer perspective/pattern in important as well, he said. So the next stage of research in quantitative marketing saw adoption of models of Statistics, particularly in the late 60s and 70s. It was observed what brand the consumer was buying over time to use that information to say something about the distribution of purchases over time, etc. However, very little was known about what impacts such purchases. Thereafter, the late 70s witnessed the emergence of optimal solutions and Operations Research gained significance. This phase was followed by the stage of Econometrics, where more emphasis was put into what was happening at the consumer level. In the 80s, researchers got hold of scanner data, that is data about the sales/output and what was driving those sales, like prices, promotions, etc. So this was the golden age of scanner data. But the downside was that this data gave restricted information. But now, with the emergence of internet revolution and availability of online data, it gives us more information on consumer behaviour in varied contexts.
Prof. Chintagunta went on to say that next came a phase where people/marketers became more conscious about understanding differences across consumers. This fed into internet space where firms realized that they could target individual customers. So the late 90s and early 2000 used the Bayesian method to estimate consumer behaviour at the individual level. “So now again Economics is playing a major role in us trying to understand how consumers behave in a variety of contexts.”
He summed up the history of research in the field, saying: “Quantitative Marketing is perhaps one of the most dynamic areas of research.” He also walked the participants through the typical process of a research project with examples. He detailed the steps as: Start with a substantive question of interest – which is the motivating question that drives research; Why is it important; How to translate a substantive question to a research question; What is the ideal data generating process that will help me answer the question; How to get to the ideal data; Can I discern something from raw data; and Can I say something normative for marketing researchers and managers?
He spoke at length about the power and limitations of ranking of specific products/services in e-commerce websites, while quoting from a research paper. “Research is a great career and one has to enjoy it, research is not about teaching but about learning,” he added.
The other activities of the day included presentation of papers and a workshop on ‘Crafting Manuscripts for and Publishing in Scholarly Journals in Business Disciplines: Some Guideposts’ by Professor Rajan Varadarajan, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University.
Day 2 will cover presentation of papers and a workshop titled ‘From Formulating a Research Question to Collaboration and Publication: Lessons from Effectuation Research in Entrepreneurship’, by Professor Saras D Sarasvathy, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia and Visiting Faculty, IIMB.
The two-day event will wrap up with the Valedictory Ceremony and Awards Presentation. The three best paper awards have been named after the event sponsors, in recognition of their contribution towards making the event a success, namely, the SBI Life Award, the IIM Bangalore Award and the Canara Bank Award. This will be followed by a Vote of Thanks by the Conference Chairs.