Business PhD Spotlight: Bijit Ghosh

Bijit Ghosh is a PhD candidate specializing in marketing at the Alberta School of Business. He began his academic training in engineering before transitioning into marketing during his graduate studies. While Ghosh’s technical background fostered a disciplined approach to modelling and analysis, his move into marketing sharpened his interest in how people interpret value, fairness and trade-offs in everyday decisions.

“I became fascinated by how small differences in the framing of options can completely change what people choose,” Ghosh explains. “The numbers may stay the same, but the meaning people attach to them can shift dramatically.”

That curiosity led him to pursue doctoral research, where he could examine his research questions with greater theoretical depth and methodological precision.

Ghosh’s research consists of three interrelated streams that explore how perceived value and perceived impact shape behaviour across different contexts. One stream investigates charitable giving at the retail checkout, focusing on how round-up versus flat donation requests influence charitable giving. This research focuses on proportion dominance, which is the tendency for people to feel more motivated when their contribution seems to make a meaningful difference relative to a specific goal (for example, covering a large share of a small target) — if the actual dollar amount is small.

A second research stream looks at what companies should do when their existing customers feel frustrated and consider leaving after seeing new customers receive better promotional deals. It compares whether offering money back, such as a refund or discount, or providing a non-cash gesture, such as a thoughtful token or special perk, is more effective at rebuilding trust and encouraging customers to stay.

His third stream examines the sequencing of gifts, and whether someone gives one larger gift or several smaller ones, and how recipients feel during the unwrapping process. This research examines how expectations change as each gift is opened and how moments of surprise or disappointment influence overall happiness with the gift and evaluation of the gift(s).

Ghosh is a published author with recent work in the journal Psychology & Marketing titled “Stories of Service Slip-Ups: Judgments of Pre-Service Deservingness Shape Reactions to Service Failures”. In this study, he examines “pre-service deservingness” — the idea that if observers think a customer is a "bad person" (based on actions unrelated to the business), they actually feel the customer deserved the bad service. Ghosh admits that this project helped crystallize his broader interest in how prior judgments influence later evaluations.

In addition to his publication, Ghosh has been invited to present at major conferences including the Association for Consumer Research (ACR) and the Society for Consumer Psychology. Most notably, at the recent ACR conference in 2025, Ghosh and co-author John Pracejus were awarded Honorable Mention for Best Competitive (Short) Paper for their work “Balancing Pain and Impact: How Additional Donation Options Influence Rounding-up Behavior”.

Ghosh joined the Alberta School of Business for its strong behavioural research culture and collaborative environment. He works closely with his supervisor, Dr. John Pracejus (pictured, left), whose expertise in judgment and decision-making has shaped his analytical approach to consumer research. He also collaborates with Dr. Katie Lafreniere, whose work on consumer word-of-mouth complements his own interests in relational and prosocial contexts. Ghosh values the School’s emphasis on rigorous experimental methods, open intellectual exchange and research that connects theory to real managerial and societal implications.

Bijit Ghosh joined the Alberta School of Business in 2021 as a PhD student in marketing and is supervised by associate professor John Pracejus.