MSc Consumer Behaviour

This lecture course will introduce you to the fundamentals of consumer psychology and behavioural economics.

It will give you an understanding of the fundamental decision making processes and the factors that influence these processes. It covers topics such as prospect theory and classical economics, brain structures and information processing, heuristics and rules of thumb, and framing and influencing techniques.

It also discloses the various strategies used by marketers to differentiate their products, leverage brands, set strategic prices, reduce the effectiveness of consumer search, and it compares the effectiveness of each.

The course covers topics such as the types and effectiveness of pricing strategies, individual differences in uptake of pricing strategies, value perceptions and subconscious influences (priming), and ethical and legal issues around influencing consumer choice.

The lectures in this course will be supplemented by several assignments designed to develop and enhance practical skills, and further develop familiarity with consumer psychological methods and theories.

This module will introduce students to the science of marketing and advertising. It will compare and contrast the old and the new in terms of theory and research, and examine the scientific literature on buyer behaviour and psychology in order to provide the state-of-the-art in the field. It also considers research on the most effective ways of communicating information to consumers – knowledge very much rooted in cognitive psychology and information processing models. It will examine different types of media, present research on the relative effectiveness of each, and identify best practices within each media strategy. The module will cover topics such as: advertising effectiveness, different types of media: online, TV, radio, print, communication strategies and cognitive psychology: Attention and Memory, and the six general principles of influencing. This information will help students understand the complexities and best marketing and advertising practices in creating and growing products, brands, and organisations.

The lectures in this module will be supplemented by several assignments designed to develop and enhance practical skills, and further develop familiarity with consumer psychological methods and theories.

This module covers skills required for effective research design and analysis of data in work environments to enable inferences about cause and effect relationships. You will also learn to critically evaluate the research appearing in academic and business literatures. Lecture topics include the following:

• Basic principles of research design, scientific method, role of theory
• Sample selection, data cleaning, data screening, descriptive statistics
• Association: correlation and covariance
• Design of experiments: one way and two way ANOVA, contrasts, repeated measures
• Regression: simple, multiple, logistic, time series, awareness of multi-level modelling
• Measurement: classical test theory, reliability, validity, factor analysis and item response theory, structural equation modelling

How do managers discover attractive market opportunities? How can they tackle these market opportunities by creating impactful marketing strategies, based on a powerful market positioning?

How is marketing strategising different in established versus new market arenas? This module introduces students to the state-of-the art in marketing strategy formulation.

Students will work with an entrepreneurial, London-based company to develop and implement a real-world marketing plan.

Over the past three decades, customers have gained centre stage in marketing education and practice. Establishing close and intimate relationships with customers is considered to be key to marketing success, and customer equity has become an important marketing performance indicator.

The advent of digital technology and social media have had a major impact on the nature of customer relationships. Today, companies are seeking to engage the customer by creating interactive, participative marketing landscapes which will be the focus of this module.

Based on a solid understanding of traditional customer relationship management and contemporary customer engagement theories, this module discusses the creation of customer experiences from two perspectives.

First, the module will teach students how managers involve customers throughout the marketing process. Existing technology allows customers to participate in product design (for example online product customization), pricing (for example pay-what-you-want), and marketing communications (creation of viral online content). 3D printing may revolutionize the distribution of material goods, with customers designing products online and printing them at home.

Virtual Reality will add further customer touch points to our existing marketing landscapes in the near future. Specifically, Virtual Reality has the potential to transform retail environments and create entirely new marketing communication channels. Furthermore, companies are increasingly engaging customers in brand building, especially via brand communities. The merits as well as the limitations of participative customer experiences will be discussed in this module. Also, the potential impact of other emerging technologies on the customer experience will be examined.

Second, this module focuses on customer involvement in the innovation process. Companies are increasingly involving customers directly in the development of novel products and services. On the one hand, this occurs via crowdsourcing efforts and product idea competitions. On the other hand, selected customers may work directly with engineers and managers during the innovation process. Furthermore, customers often innovate on their own, which is well-documented in the lead user and market creation literature. The module demonstrates how managers can create fertile grounds for successful customer co-creation of new products and services. Also, it will debate the value and limitations of customer engagement in companies’ innovation efforts.

The objective of this module is to provide an introductory overview to the theory and practice of personnel assessment and selection. A guiding principle of the module will be the scientist-practitioner perspective, with particular emphasis on the value of scientific, theory-driven research for understanding and addressing pragmatic problems. This module provides the knowledge requirement for the DOP core curriculum domain of ‘Psychological Assessment at Work’.

This module introduces students to the psychological theories and research that address questions concerning how both organisational and individual characteristics affect productivity and mental health in the workplace.

Topics will include:

• organisational behaviour
• organisational development
• and occupational health psychology
• organisational structure and effectiveness
• work organisation theories
• work organisation and individual differences
• individual differences and the stress process
• leadership and organizational behaviour
• health promotion programs
• employee engagement

• Introduction to training and development
• Performance appraisal and identifying training and development needs
• Needs analysis
• Role of cognitive psychology in training design and delivery
• Training evaluation
• Individual differences in training and development
• Modern careers
• Technology in Training I
• Technology in Training II
• Applying theory: considering your professional development.

This module aims to provide an introduction to the ways in which individuals learn and develop within organisations. Lecture topics include the following:

• Training: the learner and learning processes
• Training: training design and delivery
• Stress management training
• Coaching: introduction and theoretical underpinnings
• Coaching II: evidence and professional issues
• Careers I: career development models and career counselling

Innovation is a defining feature of novelty in complex technological, sociocultural, and biological systems. Theories of innovation offer principles on which the practices of innovation are based as well as the connections between theory and practice. As the psychologist Kurt Lewin wrote there is “nothing more practical than a good theory”. Innovation theories help explain the features of systems that make them capable of innovating and how the mechanisms that create novelty help us better understand and shape our world. Building on empirical, modelling and theoretical research, Innovation Theory, introduces a diverse variety of interdisciplinary theories explaining how innovation systems are formed, evolve, and transform in particular conditions and disciplines.

Design Thinking encourages individuals to act as creative catalysts with a systemic approach to innovation challenges. It can be applied in the workplace, at home, and in any sector of socio-economic life, though the focus of this course is the application of Design Thinking to challenges and opportunities specifically related to the management of innovation. The course introduces the concepts of design thinking applied to product development but does so as an exemplar of, and entry into, how those design thinking concepts can be applied to conceptualising changes in organisational culture, structure, processes, and systems. The core set of skills in Design Thinking, from understanding your customer to defining problems, ideation, prototyping, journey mapping, iteration and testing, are introduced in the course through both theory and practice. Design Thinking involves a step-by-step process that can be activated in a linear or non-linear fashion as there are no explicit dependencies between the skills. The foundational agenda of the course is providing students with a theoretical framework and toolkit for surfacing, defining, and refining viable ideas quickly and then executing on high-impact business and social interventions with a lean human-centred design mindset aimed at solving problems and creating opportunities. In the management of innovation, this applies to everything from actionable strategies for workplace or workforce challenges to the leadership skills for developing and nurturing high-performance teams or organisations poised to innovate using, indeed, Design Thinking strategies.

Students are taught to approach real-world problems from the point-of-view of their target audience, demonstrating the kind of audience-led and lead-user that translates inventive ideas into business-ready concepts and encourages making small bets fast, constructive evaluation of failures, and exploiting and harnessing breakthroughs to propel organizational growth or social good. The course structure features 10 lectures focused on learning and applying theories of Design Thinking and two labs where students gain exposure to and experience with software tools used to augment and accelerate application of design thinking theories to real-world challenges.

• Find out about project management and its application to a range of project environments
• Critically evaluate project management theories as they relate to practical application
• Understand and act upon the role of the project manager in relation to project stakeholders
• Develop an understanding of appropriate project management methods, tools, and techniques, and their application for problem-solving and decision-making in project environments

• You'll have access to executives from industry, who'll discuss and debate the merits of different approaches to the management of innovation. Recent speakers have included fashion designer Paul Smith, 'city super woman' Nicola Horlick, and editor of Monocle Tyler Brûlé.
• Learn about a variety of innovation approaches and challenges
• Translate conceptual and theoretical implications of innovation to practical applications
• Understand current and future potential issues reshaping commercial and non-profit practices
• Critically evaluate debates on the value and potential of intersections between disciplines and emerging innovation practices, particularly as these relate to transformation and change
• Understand the challenges and opportunities for applying or piloting early stage digital, media, and marketing in commercial and non-profit organisations

What is technology and how does it evolve? How can managers stimulate technological innovation in organisations? How can managers use technology to disrupt existing markets, and create entirely new ones? These questions lie at the heart of this module. Students will learn how to appreciate the potential commercial and social implications of emerging technologies, and how to orchestrate marketing processes for the creation of new markets.

Over the past three decades, the internet and digital technologies have transformed marketing landscapes beyond recognition. Indeed, they have created an entirely new marketing discipline: digital marketing. This module demonstrates how marketers navigate digital marketing environments successfully: how they implement effective marketing communication strategies, how they create successful digital business models, and how they build strong brands in digital marketing environments.

The module will ensure a solid understanding of fundamental theories on marketing communications and brand management. Based on this theoretical foundation, classroom discussions will be directed at the latest insights from an ever-growing body of research on digital marketing and digital branding. The first part of the module will focus on the idiosyncrasies of digital marketing communications. Students will learn how to develop a digital communication strategy and will be familiarised with relevant digital marketing metrics. Digital communication activities include, but are not limited to, mobile marketing, social media marketing, blogging, email marketing, and search engine optimisation. The lectures will also explain how to combine different social media (i.e., Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Instagram) in order to achieve strategic marketing objectives. In the second part of the module, the lecturer will examine different online business models including, for instance, internet retail, subscription and curated commerce, two-sided markets, freemium products, and the sharing economy. Finally, the third part of the module will identify effective branding strategies and tactics for digital marketing environments. Specifically, students will learn how digital technology has changed the nature of customer relationships with brands. The module aims to enable students to leverage digital technology for the development of compelling brand identities.

Throughout the module, students will be challenged to identify unintended negative social consequences of the growing digitalisation of consumer worlds, and to understand the dark side of social media. For example, mental health issues of users, the emergence of the “gig economy”, and the proliferation of “fake news” will be discussed. This aims to ensure that students will employ digital technology thoughtfully in their future careers.

Digital technologies allow for the creation and storage of an unprecedented amount of data. The advent of the Internet of Things will further accelerate the growth of digital data, as more and more devices and physical objects will connect to the internet. The ‘digital universe’ is expected to grow from 4.4 trillion gigabytes today to around 44 trillion gigabytes by 2020. This deluge of data presents an immense opportunity for marketing, yet seizing this opportunity requires specific market research skills.This module will introduce students to the rapidly growing field of data science and will familiarise them with its basic principles and general mindset. Students will learn concepts, techniques, and tools that are used to deal with various facets of large data sets. It is essential to develop a deep understanding of the complex ecosystem of tools and platforms, as well as the communication skills necessary to explain advanced analytics. This course will provide an overview of the wide area of data science and the tools available to analyse large amounts of data. The module will also highlight limitations of big data analytics. Specifically, big data analytics assist in improving and developing existing product portfolios, yet their ability to derive insights that may inform the creation of radical innovations and new markets is limited. Potential approaches to address this limitation will be discussed (e.g., combinations with qualitative/netnographic research methods).

In summary, this module aims to provide students with the skills needed to work in data-driven marketing environments.