Schulich Hosts Live Behavioural Decision Research Conference
The Schulich School of Business recently hosted a one-day conference on the latest in behavioural decision research on Friday, May 6.
The 2022 Southern Ontario Behavioural Decision Research Conference brought together researchers and academics as well as business practitioners and government officials with an interest in the study of how people make judgments and decisions. The researchers came from a number of academic disciplines, including: Marketing, Psychology, Organizational Behaviour, Management, Accounting, Finance, and Economics.
“This conference brings together a broad set of top researchers and providers who have interests in better understanding and improving decision making among both managers and everyday people,” says Peter Darke, Professor of Marketing at Schulich and one of the conference organizers.
Conference presenters included Alexander Coutts, Assistant Professor of Economics at Schulich, who spoke about his latest research on employee feedback in the workplace, and Saeid Kermani, a Schulich PhD student whose research examines consumers’ evaluations of brands that face social media backlash in response to potentially offensive advertisements and how the emotional tone of negative social media comments can influence these evaluations.
Other conference presentations included: “Instagramable” restaurant meals – how visual characteristics of food relates to consumer decisions to engage with social media content; what motivates employees to accept a reduction in pay with a corresponding reduction in work hours; why recipients don’t appreciate expensive gifts and suspect the gift giver of having ulterior motives; barriers that prevent individuals from seeking professional financial advice; how individuals process probabilities; and why people will contribute more to fundraising projects that are closer to reaching their goals.
The conference has been held annually since 2005 and has been hosted by a variety of universities in Southern Ontario. For more information about the Conference, please click here.