Effects of employees’ opportunities to influence in-store music on sales: Evidence from a field experiment

Sven-Olov Daunfeldt, Jasmine Moradi (), Niklas Rudholm () and Christina Öberg ()
Additional contact information
Jasmine Moradi: Space Sonology, Postal: Stockholm, Sweden
Niklas Rudholm: Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut), Postal: Handelns Forskningsinstitut, Regeringsgatan 60, 103 29 Stockholm, Sweden and Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden.
Christina Öberg: Örebro University, Postal: School of Business, 701 82 Örebro, Sweden

No 4, HFI Working Papers from Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut)

Abstract: The effects of in-store music on consumer behavior have attracted much attention in the marketing literature, but surprisingly few studies have investigated in-store music in relation to employees. Conducting a large-scale field experiment in eight Filippa K fashion stores in Stockholm, Sweden, we investigate whether it is beneficial for store owners to give employees more opportunities to influence the in-store music. The experiment lasted 56 weeks, and the stores were randomly assigned into a treatment group and a control group, with the employees in the treatment stores having the opportunity to influence the in-store music through an app developed by Soundtrack Your Brand (SYB). The results from the experiment show that sales decreased by, on average, 6% in treatment stores when employees had the opportunity to influence the music played in the store. Interviews revealed that employees frequently changed songs, preferred to play high-intensity songs, and had diverse music preferences that were not congruent with the brand values of the company. Our results thus imply that employees choose music that suits their preferences rather than based on what is optimal for the store, suggesting that store owners might want to limit their opportunities to influence the background music in stores.

Keywords: Background music; Brand-fit music; Music tempo; Consumer behavior; Job satisfaction; Atmospheric cues; Work environment; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D22 L81 M31 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2019-12-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-exp, nep-hrm and nep-ipr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://handelnsforskningsinstitut.se/wp-content/u ... ppakwpversionpdf.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:hfiwps:0004

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HFI Working Papers from Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut) Handelns Forskningsinstitut, Regeringsgatan 60, 103 29 Stockholm, Sweden.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hans Seerar Westerberg ().