SUNGTAK HONG London Business School Regent’s Park, London, United Kingdom NW1 4SA Mobile: +44 (0)75 3088 0310 Fax: +44 (0)20 7000 7001 Email: [email protected] Web: http://phd.london.edu/shong.phd2010 EDUCATION Ph.D. Marketing, London Business School, UK (Expected) 2016 M.Sc. Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK 2009 B.A. Economics, Sogang University, Korea, magna cum laude 2003 RESEARCH INTERESTS Topics: Economics of product variety, product line, retail product assortment, multi-category consumer choices, empirical industrial organization, public policy Methods: Bayesian statistical methods, microeconometrics DISSERTATION Title: The Impact of Product Variety on Consumer Demand and Firm Performance Co-chairs: Naufel J. Vilcassim and Kanishka Misra Essay 1. “The Perils of Category Management: The Effect of Product Assortment on Multicategory Purchase Incidence,” with Kanishka Misra and Naufel J. Vilcassim (revising for invited secondround review at the Journal of Marketing) Essay 2. “Product Variety as a Barrier to Entry: Evidence from the Post-Deregulation Korean Soju Market,” with Jinhwa Chung * Winner, 2015 EMAC Best Paper of the Conference Based on Doctoral Work Essay 3. “The Impact of Commodity Taxation on Firm’s Product Portfolio and Market Structure,” with Kanishka Misra and Vishal Singh * Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship PhD Awards (£6,000) (See Appendix for extended abstracts of the essays and other selected work.) WORK IN PROGRESS “The Use of Bundling in Telecommunications Markets,” with Anja Lambrecht and Katja Seim (data collection/ processing completed) “Market Entry and Competition in Service Quality: Converge vs. Diverge,” with Prasad Vana (data collection/ processing completed) 1/6 PRESENTATIONS “Product Variety as a Barrier to Entry: Evidence from the Post-Deregulation Korean Soju Market” EMAC Annual Conference, KU Leuven 2015 Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, London Business School 2015 INFORMS Marketing Science Conference, Emory University 2014 “The Perils of Category Management: The Effect of Product Assortment on Multicategory Purchase Incidence” * A previous version was presented under a different title; “A Tempting Assortment: The Effect of --” Theory + Practice in Marketing Conference, Georgia State University 2015 INFORMS Marketing Science Conference, Ozyegin University 2013 EMAC Doctoral Colloquium, Istanbul Technical University 2013 Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, London Business School 2012 Marketing Department Seminar, London Business School 2012 FELLOWSHIPS, HONORS AND AWARDS Winner, EMAC Best Paper of the Conference Based on Doctoral Work 2015 Fellow, AMA-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium 2014 Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship PhD Awards 2014 Fellow, Workshop on Quantitative Marketing and Structural Econometrics 2013 Fellow, ISMS Marketing Science Doctoral Consortium 2013 Fellow, EMAC Doctoral Colloquium 2013 2010 – Present PhD Fellowship, London Business School Best Employee Award, ACNielsen Korea 2005 Dean’s Scholarship, Sogang University 1997, 2001 - 2002 TEACHING EXPERIENCE Seminar Instructor, “Marketing (Masters in Management),” with Professor Bruce Hardie In-Class Tutor, “Customer and Marketing Analytics (MBA),” with Professor Bruce Hardie 2015 2012 - 2015 Volunteer Teacher of English, Seoul Public School for the Blind, Korea 2001 Volunteer Teacher, Catholic Care Centre (for the mentally impaired), Korea 1997 OTHER RESEARCH EXPERIENCE National Health Services (Croydon University Hospital), UK Statistical model building and testing of newborns’ auditory brainstem responses to stimuli 2012, 2015 Centre for Economic Performance (London School of Economics), UK EUROSTAT household panel data analysis on gender inequality in European labour market 2009 2/6 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Research Fellow, The International Growth Centre, London, UK A founding member of the organization, in charge of the IGC Research Programme 2009 - 2010 Research Specialist, Oliver Wyman, Seoul, Korea Asia Pacific head officer for TMT (Telecommunication, Media, and Technology) sector research Account Manager, The Nielsen Company (ACNielsen), Seoul, Korea Retail measurement services, consumer panel data analysis, and analytic consulting services Management Accountant, Unilever, Seoul, Korea Price promotion profitability analysis and slow-moving stock management 2008 2003 - 2007 2003 SELECTED GRADUATE COURSEWORK Marketing Proseminar in Marketing Nader Tavassoli Marketing Models Kanishka Misra Probability Models in Marketing Bruce Hardie Special Topic in Quantitative Marketing * Puneet Manchanda (visiting professor) Analytical Models in Marketing* Oded Koenigsberg Marketing Management and Strategy Judgment and Decision Making Rajesh Chandy Simona Botti/ Marco Bertini/ David Faro/ Nader Tavassoli Consumer Behavior Simona Botti/ David Faro Economics MRes Microeconomics I (UCL) V. Bhaskar/ Martin Cripps MRes Microeconomics II (UCL) Martin Cripps The Economics of Industry I (LSE) John Sutton The Economics of Industry II (LSE) Martin Pesendorfer The Economics of Industry III (LSE) Pasquale Schiraldi Microeconomic Theory: Social Networks Jean-Pierre Benoit / Emre Ozdenoren Statistics & Econometrics Statistical Models and Data Analysis (UCL) * Giampiero Marra/ Richard Chandler Statistical Research Method II Bruce Hardie/ Kamalini Ramdas Methods of Economic Investigation (LSE) Vassilis Hajivassiliou Econometrics Walter Beckert Advanced Microeconometrics (UCL) Jean-Marc Robin/ Adam Rosen Applied Bayesian Methods (UCL) Jinghao Xue Optimization Stochastic Processes (UCL) James Nelson Dynamic Programming and Control * Richard Weber * Audited 3/6 SERVICE 2010 – Present Conference organization and paper review: LBS Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference AFFILIATIONS American Marketing Association (AMA) European Marketing Academy (EMAC) The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) SKILLS AND INTERESTS Language: Korean (native), English (fluent), Japanese, Spanish (beginner) Software: R, STATA, SPSS, WinBUGS, Mathematica, SAS, LyX, LaTeX Hobby: Swimming, snowboarding (a former instructor), guitar, traveling (20+ countries / 5 continents) REFERENCES Naufel J. Vilcassim Kanishka Misra Professor of Marketing Assistant Professor of Marketing Academic Director, Aditya Birla India Centre Ross School of Business London Business School University of Michigan Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4SA Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234 Tel: +44 20 7000 8613 Tel: +1 734 764 9181 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Bruce G. S. Hardie Anja Lambrecht Professor of Marketing Assistant Professor of Marketing London Business School London Business School Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4SA Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4SA Tel: +44 20 7000 8622 Tel: +44 20 7000 8645 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Last updated: June 2015 4/6 APPENDIX: EXTENDED ABSTRACTS OF SELECTED WORK “The Perils of Category Management: The Effect of Product Assortment on Category Purchase Incidence” (with Kanishka Misra and Naufel J. Vilcassim) Retailers determine the assortment for a mix of product categories in a particular space. For example, grocers fill their checkout aisle with items from tempting product categories to entice shoppers waiting in the queue to make impulse purchases. In some instances, the nature of the products requires that the assortment decisions be made for a group of categories in a common space; e.g., freezer space in a supermarket. Within such “target” space, shoppers are exposed to the entire selection of product categories that are not necessarily correlated in consumption (i.e., neither substitutes such as butter and margarine nor complements like pasta and pasta sauce). In this paper, we examine whether the assortment of one category affects a consumer’s purchase incidence decision in another independent category that shares a common display space (e.g., frozen meals and ice cream). We use a multivariate probit model of purchase incidence and incorporate perceived variety captured via an entropy measure of an assortment. Results from analysing IRI data and an online experiment provide strong evidence that consumers are less likely to purchase from a category of a given assortment when it is presented with another category assortment of higher perceived variety. We document further that the effects are due to psychological effects driven by the display proximity, as opposed to their purchase behaviour under budget constraints. This work serves as one of the first studies documenting the impact of a consumer’s perception of assortment beyond a single product category, and the results highlight the importance of aisle management, rather than individual category management in grocery retailing when making product assortment decisions. “Product Variety as a Barrier to Entry: Evidence from the Post-Deregulation Korean Soju Market” (with Jinhwa Chung) This paper studies a multi-product firm’s use of product variety in its strategic interactions with potential entrant firms. Firms offer a variety of products not only to compete with firms already in the market but also to preempt the profitable product space and deter potential entry. Yet, there are few empirical studies that document separately to what extent new product launches by the incumbent firms influence and are influenced by competitors’ market entry. In this paper, we document empirical evidence of the incumbent firm’s entrydeterring product strategies in the Korean soju market. This market, previously composed of independent geographic markets, each with a protected incumbent producer, became open to nation-wide competition as a result of market deregulation in the early 1990’s. Across the geographic soju markets, we look at the observed pattern of product proliferation by the local firms and investigate whether it had any impact on the number of competing firms in the markets. We build an econometric model that accounts for causal structures surrounding the incumbent firms’ product variety and the number of firms in the market, and the model also takes into account both observed and unobserved heterogeneity across firms and regions. The model parameters are estimated using instrumental variables techniques and we find that product proliferation and dominant market leadership of the incumbent firm served as barriers to entry following market deregulation. 5/6 “The Impact of Commodity Taxation on Firm’s Product Portfolio and Market Structure” (with Kanishka Misra and Vishal Singh) This research investigates the competitive outcomes of commodity tax changes in a product-differentiated oligopoly. The question of how commodity tax influences the behavior of firms and their implications on firms’ profits and on consumer welfare have been of particular interest to researchers and policymakers alike. While previous research in this stream has studied the optimal tax design by addressing the issue of tax incidence (i.e., economic cost sharing between firms and consumers), we focus on the role of commodity taxation in inducing firms’ investment in product quality and product line expansion, and the resulting market structure. Our question was motivated by intriguing observations from the Korean alcoholic beverage industry and the U.S. cigarette industry. In Korea, a preferential tax rate applied to domestic soju products against imported liquors had become an issue among members of the WTO, and the government was pressured to equate the tax rates levied on soju and whisky products in 2000. This resulted in an abrupt increase in tax rates for soju products, and since the change we observe that the soju market became more concentrated. Further descriptive statistics indicate that firms may have responded to higher tax rates by reducing their product quality and variety. Interestingly, we have confirmed that such an association between the commodity tax rate and market concentration was also present in the U.S. cigarette industry where the tax rates varied over time by state. We currently examine the mechanism that accounts for how a commodity tax increase can provide a disincentive for firms to invest in product quality and variety, and furthermore, how it could benefit larger manufacturers or brands. “The Use of Bundling in Telecommunications Markets” (with Anja Lambrecht and Katja Seim) The convergence of telecommunications and cable television markets has meant that many firms have started to offer bundles that include a variety of different services, such as phone service, video (i.e. TV service) or Internet access. This change in the marketplace has increased competition between service providers that previously served separate product markets. For example, many firms that used to provide only local telephone service now also offer Internet access and, sometimes, video. At the same time, cable companies that delivered only video services now likewise provide Internet access and phone service. Empirical findings on the effectiveness of such bundling strategies in the telecommunications markets are scarce and a major challenge has been a lack of data that capture both demand- and supply- side variation. We overcome this challenge by constructing a comprehensive dataset that contains each provider’s set of service offerings and customers’ service adoption and provider choices in the US over time. We obtained the customers’ service subscription data from their bills and additional survey data, and complemented them with detailed information on the service offerings at the provider level for a time period from 2005 to 2007. Exploiting rich variation in the data, we aim to answer a number of questions such as: How effective was the bundling strategy in penetrating into a new service domain? For example, did cable operators successfully leverage their video market leadership in the Internet or telephone market? How effective was the strategy in strengthening the firm’s position in the focal service domain? What was the impact of the strategy on a customer’s multi-service subscription behaviors? 6/6
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