About

Claudia Kubowicz Malhotra is a Clinical Professor of Marketing at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Her research interests are in the area of issues in consumer behavior, with a specific focus on service failures and service recovery strategies, consumer privacy issues, and new product marketing. She has examined how consumers adopt and use web, mobile, and social media technologies, emphasizing the evolution and effectiveness of advertising in these contexts. Dr. Malhotra teaches courses in brand management, marketing principles, and advertising. She received her PhD and MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler and her BSBA from Georgetown University. Her work has been published in notable journals such as Communications of the ACM, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Services Marketing, and MIT Sloan Management Review. She has also received a grant from the Marketing Science Institute and is a member of the Association for Consumer Research and the American Marketing Association.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• Sociology
• Data science
• World Wide Web
• Psychology
• Cognitive science
• Business
• Economics
• Microeconomics

Selected publications

• Problem constraints in ideation contests: How different types of constraints matter

  Creativity and Innovation Management · 2024

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Business
  • Computer Science

  Companies are turning to ideation contests to engage ideators outside company boundaries to solve their complex problems. Our research focusses on how articulating the problem, specifically the number and type of constraints described within the problem statement (brief), is related to the number of ideas submitted by participants in ideation contests. Specifically, we find that participant engagement, in terms of ideas submitted, varies with three different types of constraints—input, process and output. Contributions to the creativity literature as well as managerial implications are discussed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Searching for ideas from creative Crowds: The role of examples in problem statements

  Journal of Business Research · 2023 · 7 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Data science
  PublisherDOI

• How CEOs can leverage twitter

  MIT Sloan management review · 2016-01-01 · 40 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  While a number of companies have embraced Twitter, many CEOs don't leverage the power of Twitter to the fullest extent. As of September 2014, only 42 Fortune 500 CEOs had Twitter accounts. Of those, only about 70% were truly active and tweeting in a meaningful way. One high-profile Twitter user is Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc. and SpaceX. Musk typically tweets numerous times a month, and his tweets sometimes contain new and exciting information. Twitter, one of the worlds leading social media platforms,2 has more than 300 million active users. In contrast to Facebook, which skews heavily toward personal communication, Twitter is used more actively for business. As a result, brand managers, customer service agents, and other businesspeople became early adopters so that they could stay abreast of the streams of information they cared about. Rather than waiting for impressions to be driven by the media or individuals with ulterior motives, CEOs can use tweeting to help shape their public image and that of their companies. This article describes the opportunities for CEOs.

  Publisher

• How CEOs can leverage Twitter: rather than waiting for impressions about a company to be driven by others in social media, CEOs can help shape the conversation

  CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2016-01-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Exploring switching behavior of US mobile service customers

  Journal of Services Marketing · 2013-02-11 · 125 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the switching behavior of mobile service customers in the USA with a focus on service quality, innovation and lock-in strategies as deterrents of switching. Design/methodology/approach A thorough literature review coupled with two focus group interviews provided the impetus for the design and development of a survey instrument that was then administered to graduate and undergraduate students in the Southeast USA. Findings The paper finds that: mobile service quality (m-SERVQUAL) is a significant detractor of switching intentions of customers – if customers perceive their provider to be innovative, they are less likely to switch to another provider; the perception of being innovative is equally as important as the perception of the service quality delivered by the provider; hard lock-in (unreasonable contract length) leads customers to increase their intention to switch, which is completely counter to its intended purpose; and service quality perceptions and perceptions of the innovativeness of the company positively impact consumers ' intent to buy more add-on services. Practical implications Delivering high service quality as well as being perceived as an innovator are key determinants in reducing consumer switching. Each has a unique role to play, but understanding the impact of the interplay between them is critical. Important innovation factors for providers include creating new services, especially data services, and working with hardware manufacturers to provide new phone models more frequently. Lastly, hard lock-in (e.g. long contracts, contract breaking fees, etc.) may backfire with a higher reported propensity to switch in the long run. Originality/value The study draws attention to the importance of innovation in retaining customers. Counter to the literature, it also finds that hard lock-ins may be detrimental in the long run and a practice to be avoided.

  PublisherDOI

• Evaluating Customer Information Breaches as Service Failures: An Event Study Approach

  Journal of Service Research · 2010-11-04 · 143 citations

  articleSenior author

  Firms are collecting more information about their customers than ever before in an attempt to understand and better serve customer needs. At the same time, firms are becoming more vulnerable to the compromise of customer information through security breaches. This study attempts to associate breach reports with the decline in market value of firms using an event study. The results show that firms suffer significant market value depreciation over a short as well as a long time window. Further, the greatest devaluation occurs when larger amounts of customer information are compromised at large companies. Due to the greater potential of customer backlash, negative publicity and liability risk, managers must view customer information breaches as service failures rather than as information system failures. Employing established service failure recovery strategies may allow firms to quickly and proactively address customer privacy concerns and thereby mitigate negative market reaction to information breaches.

  PublisherDOI

• A relevancy-based services view for driving adoption of wireless web services in the U.S.

  Communications of the ACM · 2009-06-30 · 18 citations

  articleSenior author

  research-article Share on A relevancy-based services view for driving adoption of wireless web services in the U.S. Authors: Arvind Malhotra University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North CarolinaView Profile , Claudia Kubowicz Malhotra University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North CarolinaView Profile Authors Info & Claims Communications of the ACMVolume 52Issue 7July 2009pp 130–134https://doi.org/10.1145/1538788.1538818Published:01 July 2009Publication History 14citation528DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations14Total Downloads528Last 12 Months2Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Arvind Malhotra

  7 shared

Awards & honors

• Grant from the Marketing Science Institute