The Role of the Management Sciences in Research on Personalization

The personalization process is conceptualized as consisting of three stages: learning about consumer preferences, matching offerings to customers, and evaluation of the learning and matching processes, with an emphasis on utility-based approaches to estimate preference functions using data on customer interactions with a firm.

Abstract

We present a review of research studies that deal with personalization and synthesize current knowledge about these areas. We identify issues that we envision will be of interest to researchers working in the management sciences, taking an interdisciplinary approach that spans the areas of economics, marketing, information technology (IT), and operations research. We present a framework for personalization that allows us to identify key players in the personalization process as well as key stages of personalization. The framework enables us to examine the strategic role of personalization in the interactions between a firm and other key players in the firm's value system. We conceptualize the personalization process as consisting of three stages: (1) learning about consumer preferences, (2) matching offerings to customers, and (3) evaluation of the learning and matching processes. This review focuses on the learning stage, with an emphasis on utility-based approaches to estimate preference functions using data on customer interactions with a firm.