For example Elizabeth L. Angeli, Department of Psychology, State University.
This research was supported in part by a grant from the Sample Grant
Program.
Angeli, Department of English, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 55555
Analysis of Case Study
John Canon is a graduate of the prestigious American west coast university. He has majored in International business. After his graduation, he became a very successful biotechnology marketing analyst very early in his career. He became an expatriate in Germany working for IML (International Medical Laboratories). He is appointed by IML to become marketing product line manager for cardiovascular instrumentation. IML is a large American based biomedical equipment company that specializes in cardiovascular equipment. IML is specialized in high quality heart and lung machines which are used in open heart surgery. As soon as, he is given the responsibly to market the system in the international market he targeted East Europe. The system becomes an instant success with Germany as its strongest market.
On the other hand Dr. Hans RomBach is a prominent cardiovascular surgeon in Salzburg Austria. Dr. Hans RomBach is a potential customer for John to sell the IML equipment. John takes appointment from Dr. Hans and occasionally talked with Klaus with the upcoming meeting with Dr. RomBach.
System 2 Thinking
At the day of the meeting, they drove towards Dr. RomBach’s medical facility John inquired Klaus about the personality of Dr. RomBach. It is pretty obvious from John’s conversation and thinking that he is having a rational approach toward his decision making. The rational approach towards decision making is called System 2 thinking in contrast to System 1 thinking which is intuitive and irrational.
Klaus had been trying to sell the IML system to Dr. RomBach for quite some time but he was unsuccessful. When John asked the reason Klaus replied that he might be concerned about the reliability and quality, maybe he regards German system to be more reliable or maybe he is just nationalistic.
Confirmation Heuristic
As they drove towards Dr. RomBach’s medical facility John thought about the nationalistic issues in consumers. It is true that Europeans seek and prefer products that are nationally produced particularly French, German and British. French is the toughest market in when it comes to selling foreign medical equipment. Here John is affirming “confirmation heuristic”. Confirmation heuristic means that one has the tendency to believe in the evidence that conforms to one’s belief and reject the evidence that contradicts one’s belief (Nordquist, 2014). Confirmation Heuristic is a result deduced from an event or a situation. It is a common form of bias.
Motivational and Emotional Influences on Decision Making
As John and his colleague Klaus reached Dr. RomBach’s magnificent medical facility they were expected by the Doctor. As soon as the Dr. mentioned about the IML equipment, Klaus cleverly suggested that we want to provide the best equipment. Dr. RomBach did not became emotional rather he rationally replied. He offered both gentlemen some coffee and invited them to have a tour of his state of the art medical facility. If he had behaved emotionally about the IML’s new cardiovascular equipment it would have probably been much easier to sell him the equipment (Bazerman & Moore, 2014).
After the Coffee the Dr., they went to a tour of the medical facility. John was extremely impressed by the magnificent medical equipment housed by the medical Facility of Dr. RomBach. He had paid visits before to many other international clinics and hospitals but this facility was world class. He also saw a Freznus equipment in the operating theaters. It was a bit outdated compared to other medical equipment. This fact could also help John to sell the IML equipment.
Positive Illusion
When John was in the car with Klaus, Klaus told john, upon asking that Dr. Rombach is a very proud person with a very good image of himself. In fact, he used the words “arrogant” and “confident”. John did used these traits of Dr. RomBach for his advantage and praised Rombach quite graciously and immediately asked the question that what is the reason of his success and the discussion continued. Here, John very cleverly leveraged on “Positive Illusion” of the Dr. to gain his attention. Positive Illusion is a self-perception or self-image of being good that promotes psychological wellbeing (Taylor & Brown, 1994). Dr. Rombach mentioned technology in his conversations replying John about his success which was relevant to the purpose of John and Klaus visit.
Representativeness Heuristic
Upon receiving this reply, John’s mind started to race towards the probabilities that if Dr. Rombach own their IML equipment. The IML could be part of Dr. Rombach research publications and his innovative surgical techniques. This can be a tremendous advantage to sell the IML product to the Dr. and his peers. Here John is relying on “Representativeness Heuristic”. Representative Heuristic means a mental short cut that that helps to make a judgment of a probability of an event under uncertainty.
Claiming and Creating Value in negotiations
After they reach back to the Dr.’s office, John started conversation with the Dr. and allowed the product to speak for itself. He “claimed the value” in this negotiation saying that the IML equipment has better temperature control feature and along with that it has a world class pumping system used by Friedreich pumps, which are made in Switzerland. These pumps are considered the best in the world. Dr. Rombach affirmed that and also stated that Karl Friedreich is his friend and he has a technical contribution in the creation of this product. John was not able to successfully “create value”.
Escalation of commitment
After this John mentioned the names of some well-known surgeons like Dr. Shumway, Barnard and Debaky to create an “Escalation of commitment” to impress Dr. RomBach. Dr. RomBach did acknowledge the utilization of the IML system by Debaky. Dr. Rombach admitted that perhaps he was impress with IML system. This also crudely indicates that Dr. Rombach is a people oriented person at least in making up his mind to praise or admit something. As the discussion continued Dr. RomBach asked for a donation for his expensive research. He also indicated that a donation of 25000$ would be particularly helpful.
This was termed as donation by Dr. Rombach but it could be perceived as bribery by the media and the general public. In such a situation the IML as a world leader in medical equipment may lose its reputation.
After this conversation the meeting ended and Dr. RomBach called his secretary who courteously showed them the way to their car. John did not rule out the option to donate since the adequate amount in discretionary funds was available. He questioned Klaus about their competitor company Freznus making contributions to Dr. RomBach’s research. Klaus did not gave a certain answer. John’s thinking again conformed to “confirmation heuristic”. He is trying to figure out that if other companies are giving contributions to Dr. Bach’s research, IML donates also it will be a fair game for them to sell a good number of IML equipment.
References
Nordquist, R. (2014). Confirmation bias - definition and examples of confirmation bias. [online] Retrieved from: http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/Confirmation-Bias.htm [Accessed: 10 Feb 2014].
Bazerman, M. & Moore, D. (2014). Judgement in managerial descision making. [e-book] JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. [Accessed: 11 Feb 2014].
Taylor, S. & Brown, J. (1994). Positive illusions and well-being revisited separating fact from fiction. [e-book] American Psychological Association. Available through: Positive Illusions and Well-Being Revisited - University of Toronto web.psych.utoronto.ca//Taylor&Brown_Positive%20Illusions%20and. [Accessed: 12 Feb 2014].
