66969 - Consumer Behaviour

Academic Year 2020/2021

Learning outcomes

The course will enable students to know the main theories of consumer behavior and to apply them in different consumption contexts. Students will particularly master the main concepts related to the understanding of people’s purchase process, such as the motivation to purchase, the construction of preferences, the mechanisms of choice and decision, also having knowledge of other aspects that affect the purchasing processes, like reference groups and culture. Students will, moreover, know how new technologies influence consumption behavior.

Course contents

This course provides an overview of the most relevant and updated research in consumer behavior. The course is structured in order to provide students with a mixture of theory and practical applications by following logically and chronologically the steps that consumers encounter in their decision-making processes, that is to say Need Recognition, Search, Evaluation of the Alternatives, Choice, Post-Choice Evaluations. It has four main goals:

  • To focus on the fundamental theoretical perspectives that allow to understand and measure how consumers make decisions;
  • To provide students with the necessary tools to measure and analyze the different phases of the consumer’s decision making process;
  • To stimulate the translation of the theoretical concepts into the managerial practice;
  • To encourage students to work in a team, and to present and discuss their ideas and results with the audience.

Topics Course Overview - General Principles of Consumer Behaviors

  • Attention and Perception
  • Categorization
  • Motivation, Goals and Means-End Chains
  • Research Methods in Consumer Behavior: Interviews and Surveys
  • Research Methods in Consumer Behavior: Experiments and Survey Implementation on Qualtrics
  • Consumer Attitudes
  • Context Effects
  • Context Effects: LAB Session
  • Customer Satisfaction: theory & LAB session
  • Intertemporal Choice and Evaluations

Readings/Bibliography

The course material consists of a collection of book chapters and scientific journal articles taken from different sources.

This “reading packet” is made available September 15th to students at Copisteria Asterisco (via Belle Arti, 31/B; just close to Bigiavi Library and round the corner from Piazza Scaravilli) to ensure that the photocopies comply with the current regulation in terms of copyrights. In order to purchase it, you just need to stop by at Copisteria Asterisco and ask for the Reading Packet for the course of Consumer Behavior by professors Chiara Orsingher and Gabriele Pizzi. We are aware that this might be a little bit more expensive than normal photocopies, but the material provided is protected by copyright and we are committed to the complete legality of the distribution of the course material. Nonetheless, we have done our best to make the total cost of the reading packet absolutely comparable to, if not lower than, the most widespread university textbook available in bookshops.

Lecture notes

Attending class, taking notes, and asking questions is the best way to learn. In class we will provide lots of examples that will be portrayed in the lecture notes. Furthermore, the course material is very detailed. For these reasons, the lecture notes that we are providing are not to be intended as a summary of the textbook and are not exhaustive for a sufficient preparation to the exam. Rather, the notes serve as an outline for the instructors for developing the concepts in each lecture. Lecture notes will be made available to students before each class on the IOL platform in .pdf format, so that students can bring a printed version of the slides to annotate them during class at their convenience.

Teaching methods

Lectures, Group discussion, Group Work and Students presentation

Assessment methods

Though not compulsory, class attendance and participation in team-work assignments is strongly encouraged. Team-work assignments consist of:

  1. One intermediate short team-work project at the end of the first term: students will be asked to collect and analyze data on consumers’ consumption goals, and to write a short report (max 15 Power Point slides). Groups will be randomly extracted to present and discuss their reports in class on the assignment due date.
  2. One final team-work project at the end of the second term: students will be asked to work in group on a project aimed at understanding and analyzing how consumers form their attitudes and intentions toward a given purchase situation and to present in class the results and the managerial consequences of their projects (max 15 Power Point slides).

Course evaluation will be different depending on the participation in team-work assignment, as detailed in the following:

Students participating in team-work assignments:

50% final written exam

50% team-work assignment

Students who do not participate in team-work assignments:

100% final written exam

Final written exam

Students can attend a mid-term exam (not compulsory) during the teaching break at the end of the first sub-cycle, and then the second mid-term exam at the end of the course. The grades of the two mid-term exams will be averaged to compute the “final written exam” grade.

By School regulation, those who positively pass the first mid-term exam (i.e. grade greater or equal to 18), have the chance to take the second mid-term exam either in the January or February session. However, the second mid-term can be taken only once. Therefore, if a student does not pass the second mid-term exam (or opts for a re-take), s/he can attend only total exams from that moment on.

The course material chapters on the topics discussed in the team-work assignments will be excluded from the exam program for those students who will participate in team-work assignments.

Teaching tools

Slides, Videos & Business Press.

Students with disability or specific learning disabilities (DSA) are kindly asked to make their condition known to find the best possible accommodation to their needs.

Office hours

See the website of Chiara Orsingher

See the website of Gabriele Pizzi

SDGs

Quality education

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.