We would like to invite you to participate in Management Engineering(ME) Seminar.

1. When: December 27st (Thursday), 10:30~11:50
2. Where: Chey A Hall
3. Speaker: Prof. JaeHwuen Jung (Carnegie Mellon University)
4. Topic: Social Learning in Prosumption: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
5. Research field: IT Management
* Lecture will be delivered in Korean.

Abstract:
Digital technologies enable consumers to actively participate in the product design and production process for a wide range of products, leading rise to the concept of a 'prosumer'. A significant portion of the value for such products is generated through the prosumption process, and a variety of firms are investing in building such capabilities. However, a major, largely unexplored, friction in prosumption is the customers’ effort involved to undertake a creative exercise of designing products and extracting value from it. In this study, we ask whether social learning, the act of showing the focal customer creations made by other customers, can ameliorate such friction. Arguably, by showing others’ product designs to the focal customer, the firm may help the customers gain design ideas, garner knowledge about product features and calibrate expectations of product quality. Such an action is also likely to influence their belief about their own ability, namely, their self-efficacy, to design a valuable product that they would like to purchase. However, if not carefully done, displaying others’ design may also be detrimental to prosumption. Certain designs or certain product features, for instance, may perceived to be out of the creative reach of the focal user, and therefore reduce their likelihood of designing a product and purchasing it. We present a general theory of prosumption in creative industries that hinges on the interplay between feature knowledge, quality distance, and self-efficacy. We test our theory by means of large scale in-vivo randomized field experiments in close collaboration with an e-commerce platform specialized in customized photo products. We examine whether social learning affects the customers’ decision to design a product, to purchase and product the dollar amount spent. Our analysis shows that under certain conditions, showing other users’ design can be highly effective in influencing the purchase and design behavior of the focal customer, but firms must choose the right customers and carefully select the type of user design for display.