Find Your Perfect Program:
MBA Students and Professors Analyze Holiday Consumer Behavior
By Catherine Groux
Posted December 05, 2011 08:28 AM
For most individuals, the holiday season means various trips to the mall to find the perfect gifts. However, for students who are pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree and their professors, it often means studying these shopping habits in order to identify trends for consumers and business professionals, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports.
For example, professors at IE Business School in Spain, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and Drexel University's LeBow College of Business recently studied unplanned holiday purchases. Using a survey, the team found that about 20% to 40% of all holiday purchases are made on a whim, BusinessWeek reports.
Additionally,
MBA degree seekers and their professors are spending the holiday season studying consumer behavior. an associate professor from the University of Miami's School of Business Administration recently conducted a study that shows that shoppers who sign their names on a credit card slip before entering a favorite store end up spending much more, according to a press release. This simple act of signing a name activates individuals' "sense of self," which may cause them to spend more time in a store they like, the study shows.
