Anne T. Coughlan, S. Chan Choi, Wujin Chu, Charles A. Ingene, Sridhar Moorthy, V. Padmanabhan, Jagmohan S. Raju, David A. Soberman, Richard Staelin, Z. John Zhang
This paper shows how analytic modeling research in the Marketing field is focused on answering questions of "How?" and "Why?" It describes the disciplines involved in analytic modeling; examines how the key criteria of parsimony and robustness help to define a good model; and discusses other goodness criteria, including appropriate use of analytic techniques, applicability of the model to institutionally rich, real-world problems, non-obvious results, generalizability, and ability to provide insight where other research techniques do not work. The paper defines and discusses key concepts in analytic models of distribution channels, including double marginalization, coordination, incentive alignment and contract design, strategic substitutability and complementarity, externalities, and principal-agent problems. Next, the paper summarizes research presented in the session on analytic models in channels at the Erin Anderson conference; and finally, the paper suggests avenues for future analytic modeling research. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States; Rutgers Business School, Newark, NJ, United States; Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea; The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong; Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; INSEAD, Singapore, Singapore; The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Duke University, Durham, NC, United States; The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
