Research Provides Insight on Consumer Behavior, Workplace Structure, and Creative Thinking Dr. Tamar Avnet, Chair of Marketing and full time professor at Sy Syms School of Business, recently appeared on NPR to discuss her research exploring the impact of individuals’ time management preferences on their decision-making in consumer and professional environments. Insights from Dr. Avnet’s findings can be used to inform marketing strategies, predict consumer behavior, as well as optimize workplace structures and culture. Dr. Avnet developed the theory of Scheduling Style with a colleague at NYU over a decade ago. The theory suggests that people tend to approach tasks and responsibilities either by adhering to what Dr. Avnet and her colleague identify as either “Clock Time” or “Event Time”.

Dr. Tamar Avnet, Chair of Marketing at Sy Syms School of Business

The theory describes how individuals decide when it is time to complete one task and move on to the next. According to Dr. Avnet, “an event-time scheduling style requires individuals to rely on an internal cue, their sense of completion, to determine when it is time to start a new task, while a clock-time scheduling style requires individuals to rely on an external cue (the clock) to determine when it is time to transition to a new activity.” Clock individuals will move to the next task, based on time, and when the time expires, those individuals move to their next assignment. This preference renders a higher degree efficiency in completing assignments but does not necessarily yield effective or thorough outcomes. Event individuals on the other hand will move to the next task, based on level of completion. When they perceive the task as complete, they move on to the next activity, making them effective, but not necessarily efficient. Dr. Avnet’s research has been applied to investigate how individuals schedule their daily tasks and their findings indicate that such preferences have a profound effect on how they handle and experience life in general.  Her research has illustrated that Scheduling Style has been shown to affect well-being, sense of self-control, creative thinking, and productivity. In addition to her research on Scheduling Style, Dr. Avnet investigates how consumers use and rely on their feelings and emotions when making a product choice or a purchase decision. Dr. Avnet explained “people who differ on their scheduling style can work together and we have found that when you engage in creative tasks such as brainstorming, you really want to be an event person. But when you participate activities that are more concrete, which require logistics and production time you probably want to be more of a clock person.” This being said, Dr. Avnet stressed that while people naturally gravitate “to be more one versus the other, individuals can train themselves to develop habits to strengthen their less dominate Scheduling Style.” Dr. Avnet's research findings have been applied in various fields such as predicting the behavior of prospective donors to non-profits, understanding consumer purchasing patterns, and identifying individual health and dieting habits. One of her studies found that individuals who prefer clock time are more likely to wait for end-of-season sales and opt for online shopping, while those who lean towards event time prefer to consume immediately, even if it costs more, and prefer to buy in person. Her more recent research has shown that the way in which people schedule tasks can have a profound influence on their eating and dieting habits, such as consuming fresh produce versus frozen foods and counting calories versus intuitive eating. Dr. Avnet blogs frequently on the topic of Scheduling Style for Psychology Today and has been published in numerous journals and national newspapers. Dr. Avnet's interview with NPR can be heard below.