Published Papers

Consumers are increasingly engaging with content on social media platforms, such as by "following" Twitter accounts and "liking" tweets. How does their engagement change through the day for vice content offering immediate gratification versus virtue content offering long-term knowledge benefits? Examining when (morning vs. evening) engagement happens with which content (vice vs. virtue), the current research reveals a time-of-day asymmetry. As morning turns to evening, engagement shifts away from virtue and toward vice content. This asymmetry is documented in three studies using actual Twitter data-millions of data points collected every 30 minutes over long periods of time-and one study using an experimental setting. Consistent with a process of self-control failure, one of the Twitter data studies shows a theory-driven moderation of the asymmetry, and the experiment shows mediation via self-control. However, multiple processes are likely at play, as time does not unfold in isolation during a day, but co-occurs with the unfolding of multiple events. These results provide new insights into social media engagement and guide practitioners on when to post which content.

Across five experiments, this research finds that product anthropomorphism enhances consumers' intention to share positive thoughts in their word-of-mouth (WOM) communication about such products, in the hope of creating a favorable interpersonal impression about themselves. Our theorizing suggests that the effect occurs because consumers apply a norm that originates in human-related communication--namely, that speaking positively of other people creates a more likable impression of speakers by making them seem more kind and polite--to their WOM for anthropomorphized products (study 1). As a result, when an impression management motive is salient, consumers display greater overall positivity in their WOM for an anthropomorphized product than for its non-anthropomorphized equivalent (study 2). Support for this prediction is found across various measures of WOM positivity. Furthermore, in line with this conceptualization, anthropomorphism-induced positivity diminishes (a) when consumers are less concerned about impression management, such as when talking to a close friend (study 3), (b) when an opposing accuracy motive overpowers the impression management motive (study 4), or (c) when the underlying belief that positivity will yield favorable impressions is itself challenged (study 5). Our conceptualization and findings inform and extend research on consumer WOM communication, product anthropomorphism, and impression management.

Every day, we learn about others' decisions from various sources. We perceive some of these decisions as choices and others as rejections. Does the mere perception of another's decision as a choice versus as a rejection influence our own behavior? Are we more likely to conform to another's decision if we view it in one way or the other? The current research investigates the social influence of decision frames. Eight studies, including a field study conducted during a livestreaming event hosted by an influencer with over 1.5 million followers, find that people are more likely to conform to another's decision if it is perceived as a rejection than if it is perceived as a choice. This effect happens because consumers are more likely to attribute another's decision to product quality as opposed to personal preference, when consumers perceive another's decision as a rejection than as a choice. The inference about quality versus personal preference in turn increases conformity. This research bridges the existing literatures on decision framing, social influence, and perceptions of quality and personal preference, and it offers important implications for marketers and influencers.

The Peer-to-Peer sector of the sharing economy relies on reputation systems through which consumers and providers review each other. Whereas prior research has examined the effects of reviews by consumers on providers and firms, this research examines, for the first time, a turn of the tables in which consumers are evaluated. Across a pilot and seven studies (five preregistered), using multiple actual behaviors and sharing contexts, results reveal that a negative review of the consumer from the peer provider leads to negative word of mouth (NWOM) about the platform. Drawing from psychological contract theory, the research demonstrates that this effect is mediated by consumers' perceived betrayal by the platform. Two sets of moderators are identified. The first set establishes that a breach of consumers' psychological contract with the platform underlies the effect. In the second set, platform policies that may render a breach more or less consequential can intensify or mitigate consumer reactions. Specifically, making the review private (vs. public) and providing opportunities for justice restoration (response, revenge, and dispute) attenuate the effect of review valence on betrayal and NWOM. Implications for sharing economy platform managers and consumers are discussed.

Research has documented the emergence of embedded entrepreneurs within consumer collectives. This phenomenon is increasingly prevalent as social media enables ordinary consumers to become social media influencers (SMIs), a distinct form of embedded entrepreneur. Whilst research has considered the implications of embeddedness for embedded entrepreneurs themselves, we lack insight into embedded entrepreneurship's impact on consumer collectives. To address this gap, we draw from a longitudinal, qualitative study of the YouTube beauty community, where SMIs are pervasive. Informed by interactionist role theory, we document the Polanyian "double movement" prompted by the emergence of SMIs within the community. We demonstrate that the economy within the community was initially highly embedded, constrained by behavioral norms linked to established social roles. SMIs' attempts to disembed the economy created dysfunctional role dynamics that reduced the benefits of participation for non-entrepreneurial community members. This prompted a countermovement whereby SMIs and their followers attempted to re-embed SMIs' economic activity via role negotiation strategies. Our analysis sheds new light on the negative implications of embedded entrepreneurship for non-entrepreneurial members of consumer collectives, highlights the role of social media platforms in negotiations of embeddedness, and advances wider conversations surrounding the evolution of consumer collectives and the impact of SMIs.

Despite firms' continued interest in using influencers to reach their target consumers, academic and practical insights are limited on what levers an influencer can use to enhance audience engagement using their posts. We demonstrate that posting stories with or about people whom they share close ties with--such as family, friends, and romantic partners--can be one effective lever. Content that incorporates close social ties can be effective for several reasons: it may increase perceptions of authenticity, enhance perceived similarity, increase the perception that the influencer possesses more warmth, and could satisfy viewers' interpersonal curiosity. We analyze texts and photographs of 55,631 posts of 763 influencers on Instagram, and after controlling for several variables, we find robust support that consumers "like" posts that reference close social ties. Furthermore, this effect enhances when first-person pronouns are used to describe special moments with these close ties. We supplement the Instagram data with an experimental approach and confirm the relationship between close ties and consumer engagement. Managerially, this is a useful insight as we also show that sponsored posts tend to be perceived negatively compared to non-sponsored posts; yet, embedding social ties on the sponsored posts can mitigate consumers' negative responses.

This study examines whether an increase in the transparency of investment transactions facilitates portfolio mimicking. While there are reported benefits of transparency in enhancing regulatory monitoring and discipline, an increase in the transparency of investment transactions can also facilitate mimicking of peer firms' investment strategies. I exploit an exogenous increase in the broad dissemination of transaction-level investment disclosures of U.S.-based insurers and find a significant increase in portfolio similarity at the individual security level. Increases in portfolio similarity are more pronounced in smaller, less sophisticated insurers mimicking their larger, more sophisticated peers. Shared asset positions and common exposures to risk can exacerbate collective risk across firms. Accordingly, I find that the detectable increases in portfolio similarity are positively associated with measures of systemic risk, especially in those smaller insurers mimicking their peers. This study adds to a nascent literature on portfolio mimicking and highlights a potential negative externality of increased transparency.

We investigate the impact of observing peers' information acquisition on financial analysts' allocation of attention. Using the timely disclosure mandate by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as a setting, we find that, shortly after analysts observe that a firm has been visited by peer analysts, they reduce short-term attention to that firm, as indicated by a reduced tendency to conduct follow-up visits. Nonvisiting analysts who do not conduct follow-up visits are more likely to discontinue coverage of the visited firm. These findings are consistent with the conjecture that the timely disclosure reveals the first-mover advantage of visiting analysts, leading nonvisiting ones to reallocate their limited attention. We also find that, compared with the pre-mandate period, the information environments of visited firms deteriorate immediately after an analyst's visit but not over the longer term. Further evidence suggests that the timely disclosure mandate has positive externalities in the form of increased immediate attention to and improved short-term information environments of unvisited peer firms.

An entrepreneur makes offers to multiple investors to fund a project that requires a minimum investment. Concerned about other investors' decisions, each investor strategically communicates information about the project to others. When investors have conflicts of interest, those with contractually stronger incentives to invest attempt to persuade others to invest. Depending on the project's ex ante quality, the entrepreneur may promise investors different returns to create conflicts of interest and induce persuasion, or may promise investors an identical return to align their interests and induce truthful communication. The paper illustrates a new motivation for syndication and hierarchy withinsyndicates.

We study information sharing between strategic investors who are informed about asset fundamentals. We demonstrate that a coarsely informed investor optimally chooses to share information if his counterparty investor is well informed. By doing so, the coarsely informed investor invites the other investor to trade against his information, thereby reducing his price impact. Paradoxically, the well informed investor loses from receiving information because of the resulting worsened market liquidity and the more aggressive trading by the coarsely informed investor. Our analysis sheds light on phenomena such as private communications among investors and public information sharing on social media.

We explore the extent to which aspirations - such as those forged in the course of social interactions - explain 'puzzling' behavioral patterns in investment decisions. We motivate an aspirational utility, reminiscent of Friedman and Savage (1948), where social considerations (e.g., status concerns) provide an economic foundation for aspirations. We show this utility can explain a range of observed investor behaviors, such as the demand for both right- and left-skewed assets; aspects of the disposition effect; and patterns in stock-market participation consistent with empirical observations. We corroborate our theoretical findings with two novel laboratory experimental studies, where we observed participants' preference for skewness in risky lotteries shift as lab-induced aspirations shifted.

A nationwide panic forced President Roosevelt to declare a banking holiday in March 1933. The government reopened banks sequentially using a process that sent noisy signals about banks' health. New microdata reveals that the public responded to these signals. Deposits at rapidly reopened banks rebounded quicker than at comparable or stronger banks that reopened even a few days later. The stigma of late reopening shifted funds from stigmatized to lauded banks and among communities that they served. Despite persisting over a decade, the shift had no measurable impact on the rate at which localities recovered from the Great Depression.