Book Review: Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science: Marketing

This book, one of North-Holland's series of Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science, is a comprehensive collection of reviews of the major contributions of OR/MS work in marketing. As such, it will be of interest to a wide variety of readers. For the practitioner, the book provides an up-to-date summary of the state of the art in marketing science. For the doctoral student in marketing, the book provides a detailed overview of each of marketings substantive areas. For marketing faculty, it will undoubtedly be a valuable asset as a comprehensive reference source for research and teaching. It should be noted that the book requires mathematical literacy (generally at the level of introductory calculus) but does not presuppose previous knowledge of the marketing literature. Eliashberg and Lilien have done a remarkable job bringing together some of the preeminent scholars in marketing. The chapters are written by experts in each respective substantive area-Blattberg and Neslin on sales promotion; Urban on pretest market forecasting; Mahajan, Muller, and Bass on new product diffusion, and so on. My criticisms of the book are few and minor (for example, advertising receives only cursory attention). The book consists of five main sections. After a short overview of ORIMS in marketing (Part I) written by the editors, Part II ("Models of Market Phenomena") contains three chapters addressing key theoretical foundations for marketing models. Chapter 2, written by Roberts and Lilien, reviews "Explanatory and Predictive Models of Consumer Behavior." The chapter is organized around "stages" of consumer behavior: need arousal, information search, evaluation, purchase, and postpurchase. The chapter is well written and complete in its coverage of consumer behavior models. The discussion of preference formation in section 5 of this chapter is particularly outstanding. Chapter 3, written by Corfman and Gupta (University of Michigan) addresses "Mathematical Models of Group Choice and Negotiation." EDITOR: Donald E. Stem, Jr.