Fernandes’ research was chosen for the award by the editorial team of Management Decision, as the joint winner of the 2015 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award in the Management and Governance category. He received the prize based on two research papers.
In the first paper, which was published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Fernandes covers which method to remember what to buy works better for consumers: relying on their memory and use the search bar in an online shop, or by scrolling through the store offerings to be reminded of what they have to buy by the stimulus of seeing the product?
Memory cues
According to Fernandes, it turns out the memory-based approach doesn’t work when you shop for things you do not buy very often. The stimuli-based approach works better, he demonstrates.
The second paper researches the effectiveness of reminders. Consumers often use reminders to remember to pay the bills on time, renew subscriptions, and act on early bird specials. “This prize motivates me to do more research on the topic of memory, goals and reminders,” said Fernandes, who is now a faculty member at Catolica Lisbon. “I’m also conducting studies to test the process, boundary conditions and real-life implications of the effect.”
Winners of the 2015 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards received a cash prize of €1,500 and a certificate. For his PhD research, Fernandes was supervised by RSM professors Stefano Puntoni and Stijn van Osselaer.