Manoj K. Thomas

Biography

Dr. Manoj Thomas is Nakashimato Professor of Marketing and Senior Director of Executive MBA and MSBA programs. Thomas is a behavioral scientist who trains MBA students and executives to be customer-centric leaders and encourages them to build meaningful and purposeful connections with customers. His lectures on consumer insights are available online through eCornell’s certificate program on Consumer Behavior. Thomas has received the Apple Award and the Stephen Russell Family Teaching Award for excellence in teaching.

Thomas has published several research papers on the psychology of price evaluations. By characterizing irrational responses such as the left-digit effect, the price precision effect, and the mode of payment effect, Thomas has demonstrated the pervasive influence of heuristics and biases on price evaluations. He also studies how political identity and moral beliefs influence consumer behavior. His recent research with Shreyans Goenka explains why some consumers consider conspicuous consumption immoral while others happily engage in such consumption. He is the co-author of the book Why People (Don't) Buy: GO and STOP Signals. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and the Journal of Consumer Research.

Selected Publications

• Monnier, Arnaud; Thomas, Manoj. "Experiential and Analytical Price Evaluations: How Experiential Product Description Affects Prices"Journal of Consumer Research. (forthcoming).
• Goenka, Shreyans; Thomas, Manoj. "Are Conservatives Less Likely Than Liberals to Accept Welfare? The Psychology of Welfare Politics"Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. 7.3 (2022): 305-315
• Kyung, Ellie; Thomas, Manoj; Krishna, Aradhna. "How Political Identity Influences COVID-19 Risk Perception: A Model of Identity-Based Risk Perception"Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. 7.3 (2022): 316-324
• Goenka, Shreyans; Thomas, Manoj. "The Malleable Morality of Conspicuous Consumption"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 118.3 (2020): 562-583
• Sokolova, Tatiana; Seenivasan, Satheesh; Thomas, Manoj. "The Left-Digit Bias: When and Why Are Consumers Penny Wise and Pound Foolish"Journal of Marketing Research. 57.4 (2020): 771-788
• Santana, Shelle; Thomas, Manoj; Morwitz, Vicki. "The Role of Numbers in the Customer Journey"Journal of Retailing. 96.1 (2020): 138-154
• Thomas, Manoj; Kyung, Ellie. "Slider Scale or Text Box: How Response Format Shapes Responses"Journal of Consumer Research. 45.6 (2019): 1274-1293
• Chun, HaeEun Helen; Park, Joowon; Thomas, Manoj. "Cold Anticipated Regret versus Hot Experienced Regret: Why Consumers Fail to Regret Unhealthy Consumption"Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. 4.2 (2019): 125-135
• Kyung, Ellie; Thomas, Manoj; Krishna, Aradhna. "When Bigger is Better (and When it is Not): Implicit Bias in Numeric Judgments"Journal of Consumer Research. 44.1 (2017): 62-79
• Kyung, Ellie; Thomas, Manoj. "When Remembering Disrupts Knowing: Blocking Implicit Price Memory"Journal of Marketing Research. 53.6 (2016): 937-953

Awards and Honors

• Outstanding Reviewer Award (2016) Journal of Consumer Research
• Stephen Russell Teaching Award (based on vote by students who graduated 5 years ago) (2016) Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University
• Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching (based on vote by graduating MBA class) (2010)
• Clifford H. Whitcomb Faculty Fellow (2008) Johnson Graduate School of Management

Recent Courses

• NBAE 6400 - Behavioral Science for Marketing Decisions
• NCCB 5030 - Marketing
• NBA 6930 - Strategy and Tactics of Pricing

Academic Degrees

• PhD Stern School of Business, New York University, 2006
• MBA Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, 1994
• BEng National Institute of Technology, 1992