After a six-month hiatus, the Goodman School of Business Luncheon Speaker Series returns this week with a lecture discussing how consumer adoption behaviour affects engagement.

Professor V. Kumar, Distinguished Term Professor and Senior Fellow with the Indian School of Business in India, will deliver a presentation titled “Linking innovation adoption behaviour to client engagement: A Multigenerational and multinational empirical study” on Friday, Sept. 11 from noon to 2:30 p.m. via Lifesize.

Kumar’s online lecture will discuss his ongoing research on the effects of a firm’s efforts to introduce continuous innovations related to a product category in a business-to-business context.

“While customer engagement is widely discussed in business, managers struggle with how clients’ adoption behaviour metrics influence engagement,” said Kumar.

His research looks at how adoption breath, adoption depth and intergenerational adoption time affects purchases, feedback and references.

Kumar said there is limited information available for firms that introduce continuous innovations. His research will help answer questions, such as “whether firms should encourage their clients to go deeper in adopting generations of products or push for adopting a breath of products within a generation, and further, if they should encourage their clients to adopt sooner (versus later) to create higher profits for the firm over the long term.”

Among other achievements and credentials, Kumar has received more than 20 lifetime achievement awards, and 25 research and teaching excellence awards. He has published more than 250 scholarly papers and 25 books, and has held several Scholar and Fellow appointments. He has also been honoured as a “Legend in Marketing” through the Legends in Marketing book series and served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Marketing.

The Goodman School of Business Luncheon Speaker Series  provides Goodman faculty, staff and students with an informal opportunity to listen to and discuss recent advances in research, teaching and practices with international business colleagues. Anyone is welcome by clicking on the Lifesize webinar link  at the date and time of the scheduled lecture presentation.