2022/23 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue

LUBS5406M Consumer Behaviour

15 creditsClass Size: 250

Module manager: Aulona Ulqinaku
Email: A.Ulqinaku@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2022/23

Module replaces

LUBS5402M

This module is not approved as an Elective

Module summary

The proliferation of consumer data has profoundly changed how businesses reach, engage, interact, and maintain relationships with consumers. However, understanding of consumer behavior is vital. The course will provide students with a critical understanding of how consumers behave and how the key consumer behavior concepts could be integrated within broader consumer analytics and marketing strategies. By providing an in-depth knowledge of the core features and characteristics of various consumer behavior elements, students will be able to appreciate the scope and breadth of consume behavior. Finally, the course will provide students with the basic knowledge and skills to evaluate and optimize marketing strategies. Opportunities to analyse marketing phenomenon from the perspective of consumer behavior will be assessed through individual assignment and seminar case studies and group works.

Objectives

Businesses survive and grow because many individual consumers to decide to purchase their products or service. Although nowadays data and consumer analytics help business, most businesses routinely fail in this regard due to too little understanding of consumer behaviour. At the same time, there is a considerable failure from the consumer perspective too. Few people manage to behave exactly as they feel they should. People frequently spend money on products and services that just don’t end up bringing the anticipated joy. Consumer behaviour has undergone significant changes in recent years where insights from data are increasingly dominant. Thus, it is imperative to understand consumer behaviour for better adopting consumer analytics and implement marketing strategy.
The module aims to provide a solid grounding in the fundamental principles of consumer behaviour in the context of data analytics, help to understand what leads to the individual purchase decisions that are so important to business profitability, and to personal prosperity. It will evaluate the individual consumer behaviour from the perspective of basic psychological perspective (such as memory, habit, identity, preference, and intuition) and cultural/social perspective and at different stages of the consumer journey: from pre‐purchase search to moment‐of-purchase deliberation, to post‐purchase user experience and word‐of‐mouth.
The module will cover four aspects: 1) basic psychological core; 2) the process of making the decision; 3) the consumer’s culture, and 4) the consumer behaviour outcomes and issues.

Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Demonstrate knowledge of the fundamental concepts underpinning consumer behaviour
- Critically evaluate and apply related consumer behaviour concepts
- Gain a systematic understanding of the core features and characteristics of various consumers behaviour elements, including psychological core, social/cultural element, decision-making process, and outcomes and issues.
- Critically apply the knowledge of consumer behaviour to acquire, retain, and engage customers within the broader strategic marketing discipline
- Integrate consumer behaviour concepts within a wider context of consumer analytics and big data
- Critically assess marketing strategies and consumer analytics from the perspective of consumer behaviour

Skills outcomes
Global and cultural insight.

Syllabus

Topics will cover:
- An introduction of consumer behavior
- Motivation, ability, and opportunity
- Perception, learning, and memory
- Attitudes
- The process of making decision
- Social influences on consumer behavior
- Values, personality, and lifestyles
- Consumer behavior research
- Consumer behaviour outcomes and issues

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lecture	10	2.00	20.00
Seminar	9	1.00	9.00
Private study hours			121.00
Total Contact hours			29.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			150.00

Private study

Students will be provided with a detailed reading list as well as a recommended textbook. These readings will correspond to the lectures and will aid their understanding of the lectures. Cases or exercises will be incorporated into the lectures to ensure that students comprehend these materials and are following the lectures.
Exercises and case studies will be provided during the seminar sessions. Reading the provided journal articles and textbook chapters will enrich the discussion and activities in the seminar sessions. Given the limited amount of time in the seminars, students will have to conduct group meetings to discuss their tasks. Throughout the module, students will be expected to apply the theory taught in the lectures in their answers for the case studies and exercises.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

- Formative feedback will be given during seminar sessions when covering the case-study work during in-class discussions.
- Two optional assignment drop in clinics will be held on Week 2 and Week 8 to provide further opportunities for specific formative feedback.
- Summative feedback will be provided for the assessed course-work.


- During the lectures, progress will be monitored by in-class exercises and unassessed pop-quizzes.
- The seminars will adopt a more flipped learning approach.
- In the seminars corresponding to the psychological/cultural part of the module, case studies will be used. Students will be required to work in groups to apply the frameworks and theories learnt during the lecture to address the problems highlighted in the case. Feedback will be provided during the in-class discussions.
- In the seminars corresponding to the introduction and research part of the module, students will be asked to participate in classroom experiments. While assistance will be provided during the seminars, feedback will be provided after the experiment and after the findings are revealed. This will ensure that students could learn from their own experience of doing consumer behaviour research.
- In addition, difference groups exercises will be used to supplement how different consumer behaviour theories explain the real-life phenomenon.
- Weekly office hours will be available so that students could arrange to drop in outside the main teaching sessions to discuss progress and identify/respond to areas of difficulty.
- Discussion forum on Minerva will provide another opportunity to monitor students learning process.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	A 3000-word individual essay to analyze and critique a marketing phenomenon in a selected market from the perspective of consumer behavior by applying theories and knowledge taught in the lectures.	100.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

This individual essay will give students a specific marketing phenomenon to analyze, which they will know at the beginning of the module. They will be asked to select a country market and analyze and critique the success or popularity of the marketing phenomenon by applying theories and knowledge from three selected topics taught in the lecture. Re-sits will be assessed in the same way, i.e. re-write the assignment but with a different topic provided in due course.

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 25/01/2023

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