Jui Ramaprasad, Associate Professor in Information Systems, was recently appointed as Associate Editor to Management Science.

The Desautels Faculty of Management congratulates the following individuals who are the latest to be granted a Faculty Award for the period of September 1, 2017-August 31, 2020. The Faculty Awards recognise demonstrated research achievement and encourage the pursuance of future academic endeavors.

Authors: Sanjeev Dewan, Yi-Jen (Ian) Ho and Jui Ramaprasad

Publication: Information Systems Research, Vol. 28, No. 1, March 2017

Abstract:

We study social influence in an online music community. In this community, users can listen to and “favorite” (or like) songs and follow the favoriting behavior of their social network friends—and the community as a whole. From an individual user’s perspective, two types of information on peer consumption are salient for each song: total number of favorites by the community as a whole and favoriting by their social network friends. Correspondingly, we study two types of social influence: popularity influence, driven by the total number of favorites from the community as a whole, and proximity influence, due to the favoriting behavior of immediate social network friends. Our quasi-experimental research design applies a variety of empirical methods to highly granular data from an online music community. Our analysis finds robust evidence of both popularity and proximity influence. Furthermore, popularity influence is more important for narrow-appeal music compared to broad-appeal music. Finally, the two types of influence are substitutes for one another, and proximity influence, when available, dominates the effect of popularity influence. We discuss implications for design and marketing strategies for online communities, such as the one studied in this paper.

Read full article: Information Systems Research

Authors: Bapna, R., Ramaprasad , J., Umyarov , A.

Publication: MIS Quarterly, 42(3), 719-735

Abstract: 

Making sustainable profits from a baseline zero price and motivating free consumers to convert to premium subscribers is a continuing challenge for all freemium communities. Prior research has causally established that social engagement (Oestreicher-Singer and Zalmanson 2013) and peer influence (Bapna and Umyarov 2015) are two important drivers of users converting to premium subscribers in such communities. In this paper, we flip the perspective of prior research and ask whether the decision to pay for premium subscription causes users to become more socially engaged. In the context of the Last.fm music listening freemium social community, we establish, using a novel 41 month long panel dataset, a look-ahead propensity score matching (LA-PSM) procedure coupled with a difference-in-difference estimator of the treatment effect, that payment for premium leads to more social engagement. Specifically, we find that paying for premium leads to an increase in both content-related and community-related social engagement. Free users who convert to premium listen to 287.2% more songs, create 1.92% more playlists, exhibit a 2.01% increase in the number of forum posts made, and gain 15.77% more friends. Thus, premium subscribers create value not only for themselves by consuming more content, but also for the community and site by organizing more content and adding more friends, who are subsequently engaged by the social diffusion emerging from the focal user’s activities.

Read full abstract: MISQ, December 15, 2016 

Tenure is granted to professors and librarians in recognition of excellent performance – and is the University’s strongest guarantee of academic freedom in research, teaching, and service. The year-long application process is a rigorous evaluation of performance.

At its May 16, 2016, meeting, McGill’s Board of Governors granted tenure to the 50 people in the 2015-2016 tenure cohort.

Forty-three Assistant Professors have been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with Tenure:

Desautels Faculty of Management

According to Jui Ramaprasad, an assistant professor in the Desautels Faculty of Management, digital dating can be remarkably – and dishearteningly – similar to off-line interfacing.

“We still see these off-line social norms. Our results are derived from the idea men make the first move and that women leave this weak signal. It was more than surprising, it was disappointing – you would have hoped we have evolved beyond that.”

Those who pay extra to browse anonymously on online dating websites are likely to be reducing their chances of a match, new research from the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University reveals.

Professor Jui Ramaprasad and her co-authors found that the traditional social norm restricting women from making the first move remains dominant online and, as men aren't notified if their profile is viewed, they can't contact women who might be interested in dating them.