Time and Outcome Valuation: Implications for Marketing Decision Making

Abstract

Both marketing managers and consumers must make decisions for which the good and bad outcomes may occur at various points in time in the future. A model of time and outcome valuation (TOV) is developed and shown to expand and complement a variety of marketing models and theories, including exchange models, salesforce motivation models, and decision calculus models. The TOV model is derived from six basic assumptions. From the assumptions a series of managerially important decision phenomena are described, including individual traps and fences, speedup costs, delay charge effects, and future optimism. A series of managerial propositions on the impact of the timing of outcomes on marketing decision making is also developed from the TOV model.