{"id":662,"date":"2014-05-23T13:34:32","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T11:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tseexe\/?p=192"},"modified":"2014-05-23T13:34:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T11:34:32","slug":"evolutionary-approach-to-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/2014\/05\/23\/evolutionary-approach-to-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Evolutionary approach to business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week our last year eMBA students<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (FUEL10)<\/em>\u00a0took a dive into waters less-often visited by business students. Adjunct Professor Markus Rantala<\/a> (PhD) from the Department of Biology at the University of Turku lead the group to take a look at economics and marketing through theories provided by evolutionary psychology<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The roots of evolutionary psychology are in cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology and it attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits as the functional products of natural selection<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0Our students found the new perspective very interesting and refreshing.<\/p>\n

\"sportsAs Rantala revealed, evolutionary approach can be also be used in business. For example when studying consumer behaviour<\/strong><\/em>, an evolutionary approach looks for the adaptive (ultimative) function<\/em> of behaviour. To take this into\u00a0practice, we could have a look\u00a0at the reasoning of a man when buying an expensive sports car. When saying he bought it because it makes him feel good<\/em>, we are looking at a proximative<\/em><\/strong> reason, but evolutionary approach would want the ultimative<\/strong><\/em> reason: to enhance his reproductive opportunities<\/em>.<\/p>\n

One of the most important questions for marketers is why people prefer one product over another. Understanding the ultimate motives can be a valuable asset<\/strong><\/em>, as consumers tend to have a very large number of proximate needs, which are typically specific to a particular product\u00a0 and thus are not usable for wider application. An evolutionary perspective of consumer motivation can add value to nearly every aspect of marketing strategy.<\/p>\n

Marketing should be less about convincing consumers to take desired action and more about presenting the desired action as a natural solution to an already-active need.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Rantala\u2019s session practical examples were given about the benefits of evolutionary approach to branding and also how a specific context \u2013 or a situation \u2013 has a temporary affect on evolutionary motives. This certainly left everyone some food for thought. Would be interesting to\u00a0see what practical applications our soon-to-be-gratuated eMBAs can make of these theories.<\/p>\n

If you feel like learning more about the topic, you could start by looking at TED talks<\/em> from a few years back:\u00a0Frans de Waal: Moral behavior in animals<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week our last year eMBA students (FUEL10)\u00a0took a dive into waters less-often visited by business students. Adjunct Professor Markus Rantala (PhD) from the Department of Biology at the University of Turku lead the group to take a look at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4771,"featured_media":7148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"lang":"fi","translations":{"fi":662},"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":62,"label":"Uncategorized"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1419\/2014\/05\/Screen-Shot-2014-05-23-at-14.26.05-720x488-1.png",720,488,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"emlkauutufi","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/author\/emlkauutufi\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":62,"name":"Uncategorized","slug":"uncategorized","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":62,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":15,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":62,"category_count":15,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Uncategorized","category_nicename":"uncategorized","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4771"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.utu.fi\/exe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}