John Yi, Ph.D.

John joined the Madden School of Business, Le Moyne College as an assistant professor in 2020. His fascination with the impact of digital technologies on consumer lifestyles began early in his life, as he observed the shift from music records to mp3 files and the worldwide rise of live streaming. Today, John studies how digital technologies influence the way that consumers interact with firms and other consumers. John is especially fascinated by how and when personalized marketing actions, like customized greetings and automated recommendations, can backfire. John finds that personalized messages can be threatening when it is related to a negative identity (for example eating unhealthy, or being unproductive). This is becoming even more prevalent as firms are tracking what consumers do each day. For instance, Netflix knows that I have binged-watched 'Vampire Diaries' and Amazon knows I ordered 2 boxes of sweets every week. The problem arises when the algorithm starts recommending related items to the consumers personally.

In his other research work, John focuses on investigating how digital innovations in hardware (such as touchscreens) and software (think humorous image filters) are changing the way that consumers evaluate products and share content on social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.