Quality and quantity?

Purpose Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings Leafing through the glossy brochures of business schools, or browsing their expensively-designed web pages, you would be forgiven for thinking going to do an MBA is akin to either going on holiday, a blind date, or meeting friends for coffee. The images portrayed by business schools are designed to make potential students feel at ease and actively look forward to a great experience, just like regular people do looking forward to the weekend or going on vacation. Not only are these images designed to deflect the pain of paying up to $100,000 for the privilege of attending a top business school, but they are also deflecting the potential pain of what you do when you are there. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

In-Store Spending Dynamics: How Budgets Invert Relative-Spending Patterns

The authors conduct four controlled lab experiments and one field study in a brick-and-mortar grocery store to demonstrate that relative spending—the price of the purchased item relative to the mean price of the product category—evolves nonlinearly and distinctly for budget and nonbudget shoppers. While the relative spending of budget shoppers evolves in a concave manner, the relative spending of nonbudget shoppers evolves inversely in a convex manner. Thus, budget (nonbudget) shoppers spend relatively more (less) in the middle than at the beginning and toward the end of their shopping trip. Mediation analyses confirm that the pain of paying experienced while shopping drives price salience, which then drives relative spending. Moreover, manipulating shoppers’ pain of paying, by altering the opportunity costs associated with their spending or drawing shoppers’ attention to their spending via real-time spending feedback, is shown to influence these spending patterns. The research offers theoretical contributions to the in-store decision-making, budgeting, and pain-of-paying literature and has important implications for marketing and promotion strategies in retail and mobile technology environments, as it suggests when a shopper may be more sensitive to price-related factors.