AJAY T. ABRAHAM. University of Maryland Phone: (301) , Fax: (301)

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1 AJAY T. ABRAHAM 3330J Van Munching Hall University of Maryland Phone: (301) , Fax: (301) College Park, MD Web-page: Education Ph. D. in Business Administration, University of Maryland, College Park, May 2015 (Expected) Major: Marketing, Minor: Psychology Post Graduate Programme in Management, Indian School of Business, India, April 2006 B. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering, Mahatma Gandhi University, India, May 2001 Honors and Awards Doctoral Fellow, AMA Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium, 2014 Marvin A. Jolson Outstanding Marketing Doctoral Student, University of Maryland, st Place, Oral Presentation, Graduate Research Interaction Day, University of Maryland, 2014 Best Discussant, Haring Symposium, Indiana University, 2013 Winner, Behavioral Pricing Dissertation Competition, Fordham University Pricing Center, 2012 Dean s Summer Research Fellowship, Smith School, University of Maryland, Dean s List (Top 10% of graduating class), Indian School of Business, 2006 Best Outgoing Student, Departmental First Rank, M. A. College of Engineering, 2001 Research Interests and Skills Substantive: Pricing, Morality; Theoretical: Perceptual salience; Methodological: Meta-analysis, Physiological measures (e.g., eye-tracking) Publication (Abstract in Appendix A) Hamilton, Rebecca W., Joydeep Srivastava, and Ajay Thomas Abraham (2010), When Should You Nickel and Dime Your Customers? A Manager s Guide to Benefits-Based Price Partitioning, MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), Dissertation: A Multi-Method Examination of Surcharge Pricing Committee: Rebecca Hamilton (Chair), Amna Kirmani, Michel Wedel, P. K. Kannan, Anastasiya Pocheptsova, Kent Norman Essay 1: Abraham, Ajay T. and Rebecca W. Hamilton, When Do Partitioned Prices Increase Demand? Meta-Analytic and Empirical Evidence Working paper, Target: Journal of Marketing Research. Sixteen years of research has shown that partitioning prices into multiple components can increase (e.g., Morwitz et al. 1998, Chakravarti et al. 2002) or decrease (e.g., Bertini & Wathieu 2008, Cheema 2008) consumer demand. We conduct a meta-analysis of this literature, including June 25, 2014 Page 1 of 7

2 42 studies from 26 published and unpublished papers. The perceived benefit of the surcharge, the magnitude of the surcharge relative to the base price, and the typicality of partitioning the surcharge in the category emerge as significant moderators of the effect of partitioning on demand. Across a range of robustness checks, high benefit and highly typical surcharges make partitioned prices more attractive, while high relative surcharge magnitude makes partitioned prices less attractive. Replicating the meta-analytic effects of typicality and relative surcharge magnitude, we report a follow-up experiment and an empirical analysis of ebay auctions in four product categories. Essay 2: Abraham, Ajay T. and Rebecca W. Hamilton, Attention! Physiological and Behavioral Effects of Surcharge Magnitude and Typicality, Data analysis completed. This essay uses multiple methods to provide convergent evidence for the role of attention in the effects of surcharge magnitude and typicality. We predict that higher surcharge magnitudes raise attention to surcharges due to greater salience, thereby decreasing preference. We also predict that typicality moderates this effect because atypical surcharges raise surcharge salience at all magnitudes, attenuating the effects of surcharge magnitude. Study 1 finds that higher surcharge magnitudes increase self-reported attention, but decrease preference. Study 2 replicates the effect on preference and uses eye-tracking to physiologically show the role of attention in this effect. Studies 3a and 3b show that for typical surcharges, higher surcharge magnitudes raise eye-tracked physiological attention but reduce preference, whereas for atypical surcharges, the effects of surcharge magnitude on attention and preference are attenuated. Professional Experience Indian School of Business, Academic Associate Hyderabad, India, Microsoft Corp. India Pvt. Ltd., Academic Evangelist Bangalore, India, Wipro Technologies Ltd., Systems Engineer Hyderabad, India, US Software Pvt. Ltd., Software Engineer Trivandrum, India, 2002 M. A. College of Engineering, Guest Lecturer Kothamangalam, India, 2001 Working Papers and Research in Progress (Selected Abstracts in Appendix A) Abraham, Ajay T., Anastasiya Pocheptsova, and Rosellina Ferraro, Call Me Maybe! Do Mobile Phones Make Us Less Prosocial? Working paper. Raghubir, Priya and Ajay T. Abraham, Rising to the Occasion: Self-Signaling Effects of Position, Working paper, Target: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. Kirmani, Amna, In Hye Kang, and Ajay T. Abraham, A Conceptualization of Morality in Marketing, Conceptual framework creation in progress, Target: Journal of Marketing. Abraham, Ajay T. and Rebecca W. Hamilton, When Dividing Prices Multiplies Customer Dissatisfaction, Data collection in progress. Page 2 of 7

3 Working Papers and Research in Progress (contd.) Abraham, Ajay T., Anastasiya Pocheptsova, and Tom Kim, Bundle Pricing: The Role of Goal Conflict and Relative Sizes of Partitions, Data collection in progress. Tom Kim, Anastasiya Pocheptsova, and Ajay T. Abraham, Attribution of Health Risks and Preference for Insurance Products, Data collection in progress. Presentations (* indicates presenter) Abraham, Ajay T.* and Rebecca W. Hamilton (2014), Surcharge Surfeit: Meta-Analytic and Experimental Evidence on Atypical Surcharges, Poster presentation, 4 th Marketing Academic Research Colloquium, Georgetown University. Abraham, Ajay T.* and Rebecca W. Hamilton (2014), A Meta-Analysis of Partitioned Pricing, Graduate Research Interaction Day, University of Maryland, 1 st Place, Oral Presentation. Abraham, Ajay T.* and Rebecca W. Hamilton (2014), A Meta-Analysis of Partitioned Pricing, 2 nd Mid-Atlantic Marketing Doctoral Symposium, Temple University. Abraham, Ajay T.* and Rebecca W. Hamilton (2012), When Do Consumers Like Surcharges? The Relative Influence of Base Price Anchoring and Surcharge Salience for Partitioned Prices, Behavioral Pricing Conference, Wayne State University. Abraham, Ajay T., Anastasiya Pocheptsova, and Rosellina Ferraro* (2012), Call Me! Do Cell Phones Make Us Less Prosocial? SCP International Conference, Florence, Italy. Abraham, Ajay T.*, Rebecca W. Hamilton, and Joydeep Srivastava (2012), When Dividing Prices Multiplies Expectations, Frontiers in Service Conference, University of Maryland. Abraham, Ajay T.*, Anastasiya Pocheptsova, and Rosellina Ferraro (2012), The Effect of Mobile Phone Use on Prosocial Behavior, SCP Annual Winter Conference, Las Vegas, NV. Abraham, Ajay T.*, Rebecca W. Hamilton, and Joydeep Srivastava (2011), When Partitioning Prices, Firms Better Deliver! ACR North American Conference, St. Louis, MO. Abraham, Ajay T.*, Anastasiya Pocheptsova, and Rosellina Ferraro (2011), The Cellph -ish Effects of Self -Phone Usage, ACR North American Conference, St. Louis, MO. Mathew, Alexander* and Ajay Thomas Abraham (2009), Hierarchy, Trust, and Control: A Structurational Approach to Leadership Emergence in Organizations, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL. Mathew, Alexander* and Ajay Thomas Abraham* (2009), Leadership Emergence: Contrasting Effects of Hard and Soft Influence Tactics, Poster presentation, Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA. Page 3 of 7

4 Teaching Interests Marketing Management, Marketing Research, Marketing Strategy, International Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Integrated Marketing Communication Teaching Experience Teaching (Undergraduate) Consumer Analysis University of Maryland, 2011 Operating Systems, Algorithm Analysis & Design M. A. College of Engineering, 2001 Teaching Assistance (MBA Level) Marketing Management (Dave Godes) University of Maryland, 2013 Marketing Decision Making (Jagmohan Raju, Pradeep Bhardwaj), Marketing Research (Naresh Malhotra), Consumer Behavior (Priya Raghubir, Joydeep Srivastava), Marketing Strategy (George Day, V. Kumar), International Marketing (Venkatesh Shankar) Indian School of Business, Service Reviewer Behavioral Pricing Dissertation Competition, Fordham University Pricing Center, 2013 Working Papers, ACR North American Conference, 2011, 2013 Competitive Papers, Working Papers, SCP Annual Conference, 2013 Trainee Reviewer, Journal of Consumer Research, 2012 Social Influence and Consumer Behavior, Social Influence Special Issue, 2012 Committee/Panel Member Ph. D. Info session, Orientation, Teaching workshop, Smith School of Business, 2013 Young Leaders and Torchbearers Awards Committee, Indian School of Business, Admission interviews, Indian School of Business, Graduate Assistant, Trainer for visiting scholars, staff, and students Smith Behavioral Lab, Smith elab online panel, Smith School of Business, Eye-tracking, MTurk trainings, Smith School of Business, Volunteer Frontiers in Service Conference, University of Maryland, 2012 ACR North American Conference, St. Louis, October 2011 Marketing Academic Research Colloquium, University of Maryland, 2011 ACR Asia-Pacific Conference, Indian School of Business, 2009 Affiliations Association for Consumer Research, 2009 present Decision Science Field Committee, University of Maryland, 2013 present Page 4 of 7

5 Personal Interests Forecasting (Good Judgment Project), Literature, Opera, Sports, Theology Coursework (GPA 4.0) Marketing Survey of Consumer Behavior (A+) Survey of Marketing Models Marketing Strategy Information Processing Behavioral Research in Marketing Psychology and Neuroscience Introduction to Social Psychology Social Cognition (A+) Cognitive & Computational Neuroscience (A+) Doing Psychological Research on the Internet Research Methods Experimental Methods for Behavioral Research Quantitative Research Methods I (A+) Quantitative Research Methods II (A+) Applied Multiple Regression Analysis (A+) Multivariate Data Analysis (audited) Factor Analysis (audited) Structural Equation Modeling (audited) Amna Kirmani P. K. Kannan Wendy Moe Rosellina Ferraro Joydeep Srivastava Charles Stangor Arie Kruglanski & Catalina Kopetz Donald Bolger Kent Norman Rebecca Hamilton Laura Stapleton Laura Stapleton References Dr. Rebecca W. Hamilton Dr. Amna Kirmani Associate Professor of Marketing Professor of Marketing 3456 Van Munching Hall 3467 Van Munching Hall University of Maryland University of Maryland College Park, MD College Park, MD Phone: (301) Phone: (301) rhamilto@rhsmith.umd.edu akirmani@rhsmith.umd.edu Dr. P. K. Kannan Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Marketing Science Chair, Department of Marketing 3461 Van Munching Hall University of Maryland College Park, MD Phone: (301) pkannan@rhsmith.umd.edu Page 5 of 7

6 Appendix A: Selected Abstracts Hamilton, Rebecca W., Joydeep Srivastava, and Ajay Thomas Abraham (2010), When Should You Nickel and Dime Your Customers? A Manager s Guide to Benefits-Based Price Partitioning, MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), We provide managers with a decision framework for price partitioning. We assume that a decision about the total price has already been made, based on both the costs and market demand for components, e.g., carpet and delivery services. Our focus is on the next step: whether the cost of the individual components should be broken out separately or whether the customer should be presented with a single price. Our framework provides a step-by-step approach for managers to decide whether it will be more effective to highlight specific components by pricing them separately or to minimize the focus on specific components by charging less for them or including them in a single total price. Abraham, Ajay T., Anastasiya Pocheptsova, and Rosellina Ferraro, Call Me Maybe! Do Mobile Phones Make Us Less Prosocial? Working paper. The widespread adoption of mobile phones has dramatically increased individuals ability to interact with others. Contrary to intuition that the increased ability to interact correspondingly increases positive interactions, we show that individuals who recently used their mobile phones are less likely to engage in pro-charity behaviors. We argue that the use of a mobile phone evokes feelings of social connectedness to other people and, in doing so, temporarily fulfills the need to belong with others. This lowers concern for others, resulting in decreased prosocial behavior. We demonstrate the effect of mobile phone use on decreased prosocial behavior by examining the effectiveness of charity solicitations in the field, as well as decreased intentions to volunteer for a neighborhood charity and effort invested to benefit a charity in the lab. Raghubir, Priya and Ajay T. Abraham, Rising to the Occasion: Self-Signaling Effects of Position, Working paper, Target: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. We examine whether randomly assigned classroom seating position affects educational performance. Across seven graduate courses in four functional areas, spanning core and elective offerings over three years (n = 7,209 observations), we find that students seated in perceptually salient positions do better on examinations, assignments, and overall. Counter-intuitively, class participation (CP), the reason seating position is randomized (to ensure equal opportunity for CP), is not affected by position. Potential mechanisms include differential attention and biased information processing by the professor, and self-signaling by the student (due to increased attention, motivation, or both). Follow-up laboratory experiments support the self-signaling mechanism ( I am in the center, so I am better ); that is, salient positions produce efficacy. Kirmani, Amna, In Hye Kang, and Ajay T. Abraham, A Conceptualization of Morality in Marketing, Conceptual framework creation in progress, Target: Journal of Marketing. Recent marketing and psychology research has focused on various aspects of morality, from moral vs. market economy to dimensions of Moral Foundations Theory and neurological Page 6 of 7

7 bases for multi-process models of moral judgment. However, there does not appear to be a broad conceptualization of morality in marketing. The Hunt-Vitell theory offers a relevant conceptual framework, but its focus is individual ethical decisions. Marketing involves other entities, so we draw on research from disciplines such as philosophy, economics, psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology, and aim to develop a typology of moral issues in marketing. We also aim to outline an agenda for future empirical research. Abraham, Ajay T. and Rebecca W. Hamilton, When Dividing Prices Multiplies Customer Dissatisfaction, Data collection in progress. We predict that the increased salience of a partitioned component raises expectations of its performance relative to not partitioning, leading to more expectancy disconfirmation and dissatisfaction in the case of service failures. For non-failures, we predict that performance is assimilated with expectations, leading to no disadvantage for partitioning relative to nonpartitioning. Study 1 analyzes secondary data from 2004 to 2012 from three sources the US Department of Transportation database, the American Customer Satisfaction Index database, and news reports and finds annual satisfaction when baggage was partitioned to be 10 points (out of 100) lower than when baggage was not partitioned, controlling for airline and year effects. Study 2 uses experimental data to show that partitioning a component at or above its reference price raises expectations, but partitioning a component below its reference price does not. Follow-up studies aim to show the effects on expectancy disconfirmation and satisfaction. Page 7 of 7