Figure 1: Role of Knowledge Generation in Learning
Researchers aim to generate and discover new knowledge (Figure 1). My doctorate degree in Business Administration is equivalent to a PhD in Marketing, and was awarded by the triple-crowned Koç University Graduate School of Business in Istanbul. I gained course design and delivery skills as a lecturer and a professor at TED (abbreviation for Türk Eğitim Derneği, Turkish Education Association) University (TEDU) in Ankara. Figure 1 illustrates how research, scholarship and teaching services work together for knowledge generation and knowledge sharing. Innovation, strategic brand management, sustainability and pricing are my main areas of scholarly interest.
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I am grateful for being fortunate to learn from world-class researchers, in my development as a researcher, including Raj Echambadi, Stefan Wuyts, Koen Pauwels, Rik Pieters and Berk Ataman, among other leading scholars that I got to know and communicate with. Research and science is the ultimate achievement and practice of human development, along with arts and philosophy. The area I got to specialize is often categorized as “modeling” in Marketing. The overall goal is to mathematically develop theories, explore relationships and then statistically test hypotheses derived (in a deductive way) from these theories.
A key area of my research revolves around pricing dynamics, following my doctorate thesis. We have two working papers with my doctoral co-advisors, Koen Pauwels and Berk Ataman, and a working research project with Erdem Basci. In the first working paper, we delve into explaining the phenomenon of price response asymmetry at brand-SKU level, and examine a dataset of 243,150 product time-series from 2,178 brands across a sample of 742 retail stores in consumer markets in the United States. We investigate the boundary conditions in explaining the price response asymmetry phenomenon, and identify the labor market resilience as an operational variable that moderates the process, on the premise of the regulatory focus. In related research, we focus on business cycles effects.
In a working paper with Ibrahim Unalmis, we develop theory on why long-term strategy making is both sustainable and more profitable for a firm, only in long-term performance, and explore the relationship between strategic planning capabilities and management quality. Our findings reveal that firms pursuing short-term strategies underperform, when externalization of environmental costs are studied in the long-term, and developing strategic planning capabilities are beneficial for firms, although differentially across nations. Hence, for an effective progress towards a sustainable future, firms may benefit from incentives for developing strategic planning capabilities, particularly in some countries.
In terms of scholarship, AnnMarie Hanlon was my editor in the chapter I contributed to the SAGE Handbook of Digital Marketing in 2022. In this reference work we provide a theory-based review of e-commerce types in business and consumer markets, particularly reviewing business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) transactions from the lens of transaction cost economics theory. It offers a conceptual framework to help researchers develop and test hypotheses for e-commerce.
My research article, “Privacy Concerns in Consumer E-commerce Activities and Response to Social Media Advertising: Empirical Evidence from Europe” that I wrote with Tekin Kose is a very good case that illustrates complexities in research. The study investigates the relationship between consumers purchase response to social media advertisements, that is, participation in e-commerce, when consumers engage in online privacy protection activities. Drawing on a representative sample of 153,053 consumers from 29 European countries, before GDPR, findings underscore the significance of empowering consumers with control over their online privacy. This finding should motivate online retailers to give more (not less) control to potential customers over their online privacy, as that accentuates effectiveness of social media advertisements. For this research project with Tekin Kose, we reinstated TEDU as a research institution with the European Commission and were able to gain access to Eurostat microlevel datasets. The paper is published in the prestigious interdisciplinary journal Computers in Human Behavior. This journal is in top 1 percent in Arts and Humanities, and top 4 percent in General Psychology, with a CiteScore of 19.1.
In a research on new product development, I collaborate with a research group at the IE Business School in Madrid, including Eda Sayin, Yegyu Han, and Jeanne Kim. We employ a multi-method approach combining empirical analysis and laboratory experiments to examine the factors contributing to crowdsourcing success. Furthermore, in collaboration with Alexa Burmester, we explore the role of team dynamics in the success of developing complex products.
Overall, my research practice revolves around innovation and brand management. I desire to publish in top tier journals and have significant contribution through impactful research. I am grateful to universities for offering me the research environment and the academic freedom for scientific endeavors.