Professor, Keio University Faculty of Business and Commerce
Miyuri Shirai
Consumer Behavior
Miyuri Shirai was appointed to the current post in 2015. Prior to joining Kei University, she served on the faculty at Yokohama National University. She holds a PhD in Economics. Her current research interests include investigating consumer judgment and decision making that are not fully understood, utilizing theories and concepts from various fields such as social psychology, across different product types. Her particular focus is sustainable consumption. Her publications have appeared in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of Services Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, among others.
Homepage：https://miyurishirai.my.coocan.jp/
Elucidating psychological processes of consumer decision making
Professor, Keio University Faculty of Business and Commerce Miyuri Shirai
My research specializes in consumer behavior, which is a part of Marketing research. Marketing is an interdisciplinary discipline encompassing various research areas, and there are diverse ways to categorize it. During my studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as a visiting graduate student, I learned that the marketing faculty there categorized marketing researchers into three subdisciplines: marketing strategy, marketing science, and consumer behavior. Since then, I have adopted this categorization. According to Professor Jagdish Sheth, a distinguished Marketing scholar, this classification originated in the 1960s. However, it is important to note that some studies may overlap across multiple subdisciplines or not neatly align with any of the three categories.
The discipline of Consumer Behavior began to evolve with the establishment of the Association for Consumer Research (ACR) in 1969 and the launch of the Journal of Consumer Research in 1974. Since then, a tremendous number of studies have been accumulated. Consumer Behavior research aims to elucidate consumers' decisions regarding the choice, acquisition, usage, and disposition of products and services, primarily by identifying the psychological processes underlying those decisions. A typical approach to the research involves setting research hypotheses and testing them by analyzing data obtained from surveys or experiments. The research should also indicate theoretical contributions and practical implications. This entails summarizing the findings of related existing studies, identifying unexplored issues, describing the originality of the research, and showing the usefulness of the results for marketing strategies.
Next, let me briefly describe my research. The first research topic I tackled was consumer price judgments. At the time, I was a graduate student. Since the mechanism behind them was poorly understood, many overseas researchers focused on this topic and published numerous research papers. Inspired by the exciting findings of those papers, I was motivated to delve deeper into this topic. I continued to focus on it even after completing graduate school. During that time, ACR conferences often hosted sessions related to the topic. Through these sessions, I got acquainted with several researchers and engaged in discussions about each other's research.
Consumer price judgments are known to be influenced by internal reference prices (IRPs), which serve as psychological benchmarks derived from consumers' memories of previous prices. My research aimed to enrich our understanding of IRPs by examining multiple aspects. For instance, I investigated various factors influencing the level, number, and type of IRPs consumers use; these factors included characteristics of consumers and products, product information provided in retail stores and advertisements, and price promotions offered over a certain period. Additionally, I explored the impact of the discrepancy between observed prices and IRPs on consumers' intention for external search and emotions. Furthermore, I examined the heuristics consumers use to form IRPs with limited product knowledge.
Subsequently, I delved into researching consumers' value structures regarding price premiums. This topic stemmed from a question about which product elements influence consumers' willingness to pay price premiums. I focused on a premium brand within each of the four product categories, delineated by two dimensions: high vs. low involvement and cognitive vs. affective motive, and then compared the perceived benefits and brand personalities across these brands. Another investigation scrutinized price premiums in the food industry, notably during a period marked by the proliferation of food products labeled as "premium" in the market. However, this trend ended with the onset of the 2008 financial crisis.
After that, my price research delved into semantic information associated with retail prices and price discounts, such as price reframing and tensile price claims. Concerning price reframing, I investigated how consumers respond to three different reframed prices: temporal reframing of price (e.g., "$1.68 a day"), measure-based unit price (e.g., "$1.68 per liter"), and usage-based unit price (e.g., "$1.68 per serving"). Tensile price claims (TPC) employ vague wording to express discount amounts, and I analyzed three forms of TPCs: maximum-discount TPC (e.g., "save up to 40%"), minimum-discount TPC (e.g., "save 10% or more"), and range TPC (e.g., "save 10% to 40%"). By considering the moderating effects of the consumption domain and consumer characteristics, this research elucidated the boundary conditions of the impact of TPCs.
My latest price research centered on unit pricing across multiple package sizes. Specifically, the study examined two tactics: quantity discounts, where unit prices for larger packages are lower than those for smaller ones, and quantity surcharges, where unit prices for larger packages are higher than those for smaller ones. This research delved into how these tactics influence consumer evaluations, incorporating several mediators and moderators.
Recently, my research has shifted away from price studies. The field of price research has made significant strides, leaving fewer unexplored issues, and I began to feel that I had sufficiently explored consumer reactions to prices. Now, I've redirected my focus toward understanding various underexplored decision making processes, drawing on theories and concepts from diverse disciplines. My specific area of interest now lies in sustainable consumption, a topic gaining traction across research domains beyond consumer behavior, with the number of studies in this area continuing to grow. I am particularly invested in exploring communication strategies to foster sustainable consumption, given that many consumers are reluctant to engage in sustainable consumption.
Consumer behavior research is fascinating for several reasons. It allows us to delve into familiar decision making processes related to ourselves and our families, test predictions with data we collect ourselves, and uncover psychological processes that remain incompletely understood. For firms to conduct effective marketing, understanding consumer behavior is indispensable. Given the frequent changes in consumer behavior, continuous investigations are essential. Thus, consumer behavior research places a high value on providing theoretical insights and practical applications, which I find particularly appealing. In particular, firms have shown a strong interest in knowledge regarding consumer price judgments; consequently, many have consulted me for advice. Lastly, the research gains even more momentum with the increasing number of researchers worldwide. It is gratifying to see studies offering perspectives I had not considered before.