The spawns of the creative domains of literature, the visual arts, the performing arts, and architecture add the essential humanistic element to our lives. Together, these cultural products command a universal presence, while the structures that are responsible for their creation and dissemination showcase incredible complexity. I believe there is both a high need and ample opportunity to use data-driven methodologies and analytical models in conjunction with boundary-spanning management theories to optimise these markets.
Publications
Come Together, Right Now? An Empirical Study of Collaborations in the Music Industry
with
Victor Martínez de Albéniz
Management Science
69 (12): 7217-7235
Abstract
Artist collaborations in music have been on the rise, which tend to produce commercially and critically successful songs. We seek to uncover the effect of these collaborative projects on their career trajectories, and identify the factors that lift an artist's profile in the short and in the long term. We develop a theory of collaboration based on the transfer of capital between the collaborating artists which facilitates spillovers across time. To validate the theory, we use weekly radio plays of individual songs, across 25 European countries, between the years 2011 to 2018, together with a multi-attribute Spotify dataset of songs, and Hofstede's cultural dimensions...
Play It Again, Sam?
Reference-Point Formation and Product Differentiation in the Music Industry
with
Victor Martínez de Albéniz
Management Science
Abstract
Newly released music is never assessed in isolation by audiences, who tend to compare objective (sonic attributes) and subjective (genre affiliations) elements of its identity with the previous musical catalog of the corresponding artist, his or her musically proximal peers, and the most successful releases in the market. In this paper, we provide a general framework that disentangles the objective and subjective identities of new musical releases and evaluates how differentiation affects audience reactions. We posit that radio stations, who seek commercial success, have different preferences towards...
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Winner, YinzOR 2021 Video Talk Competition at Carnegie Mellon University
Frame by Fame: Content Creation on Short Video-Format Platforms
with
Xabier Barriola
MSOM
Abstract
Short video format platforms like NetEase and TikTok are attention economies that host user-generated content, in the form of combined video and audio elements, and operate on principles of network virality. This study explores user content creation strategies by focusing on decisions around content release frequency and the incorporation of adopted content in newly generated creations. We theoretically explore the role of the following three mechanisms influencing these decisions: (a) social hierarchies in the platform’s network structure, (b) virality of content on the platform, and (c) algorithmic interventions through the ranking of content recommendations...
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First Place, INFORMS 2020 RMP Data-Driven Research Challenge
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First Place, INFORMS Social Media Analytics Section's 2021 Student Paper Award
Designing Layouts for Sequential Experiences: Application to
Cultural Institutions
with
Ali Aouad
Victor Martínez de Albéniz
(Forthcoming in
Management Science)
Abstract
A fundamental issue faced by experience providers – ranging from retailing to cultural institutions – is to display a collection of items for physical or digital interactions. The arrangement of the exhibits in different locations, which we call the layout, affects the visitors’ choices over time and space, thereby driving their engagement with the offered experience. This paper develops a data-driven analytics framework to inform such operational decisions, taking into account visitors’ preferences. First, we propose a dynamic choice model, called Pathway MNL, that represents visitor activity as a sequence of conditional logit experiments influenced by the layout...
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Second Place, INFORMS RMP Jeff McGill Student Paper Award
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First Place, INFORMS Service Science Section's 2022 IBM Best Student Paper Award
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Finalist, 2023 POMS College of Service Science OM Best Student Paper Award
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Finalist, 2023 INFORMS SOLA Best Student Paper Award
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Winner, 2024 POMS Applied Research Challenge
Working Papers
Engineering Consumer Experiences Under Affect Assimilation
with
Victor Martínez de Albéniz
Guillaume Roels
(Under 2nd round review at
Management Science)
Abstract
In consumer experiences, the consumption of activities may impact the evaluation of future ones, either positively (due to assimilation) or negatively (due to contrast). How salient are these intertemporal spillovers and what are their implications for service experience design? To answer these questions, we develop a model that encompasses both types of spillover, by separating, for each activity consumed by a particular individual, its inherent quality from the consumer’s individual satisfaction. To disentangle the positive and negative intertemporal spillovers, we test our model with retrospective...
Syncing Preferences:
Dynamic Reference Formation in Digital Service Platforms
with
Noah Askin
Khwan Kim
(Under review at MSOM)
Abstract
Sequential consumption of experiential products gives rise to inter-temporal associations. Developing recommendation algorithms that account for these effects while designing experiences for users can be effective in enhancing user engagement. Using music streaming as the paradigmatic context of such interactions -- consumption of multiple songs across multiple sessions -- we construct a utility-based theoretical framework that accounts for users' past consumption, leading to: (a) Recall-based references, that are built on past sessions, and (b) Locally-based references, which are the result of...
Sunflowers & Souvenirs:
Exploring the Effect of Visitor Engagement on Museum Shop Retail
(Under review at
Management Science)
Abstract
Museums increasingly rely on souvenir sales to generate revenue and enhance visitor experiences. This paper explores the relationship between visitor engagement and souvenir purchasing behavior in museum shops, offering insights for managing experiential retail. We introduce two theoretical measures to capture visitor engagement: interaction draw, which reflects the breadth of engagement through the artwork's capacity to spark curiosity and attract visitors; and interaction immersion, which captures the depth of engagement through the visitor's emotional and cognitive absorption, measured by interaction duration....
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Second Place, INFORMS Social Media Analytics Section's 2023 Student Paper Award
Work in Progress
Cultural Institutions:
The Effect of Physical and Digital Layout on Visitor Experience
with
Ali Aouad
Victor Martínez de Albéniz
Coming Soon
Work-Life Balance and Employee Retention Rate: Large-Scale Empirical Evidence
with
Hyunwoo Park
Morvarid Rahmani
Coming Soon