Marketing Department

Neela Saldanha
Doctoral Candidate

Neela’s dissertation focuses on consumer perceptions, evaluations and choices of “mixed indulgences” - products, like healthy chocolates, that claim to fulfil both hedonic and utilitarian goals. In this research, she finds that consumers consider the hedonic aspect of consumption to comprise simultaneous and separate factors of pleasure and sin representing the good and bad sides of indulgence respectively. Adding utility to a pure indulgence makes consumers perceive the resultant mixed indulgence to be just as pleasurable but much less sinful than the pure indulgence; it also makes them less likely to choose such a mixed indulgence over a purely sinful pure indulgence. She draws on work in co-activation and arousal to explain this discrepancy between perception and choice.

In another project, she examines the impact that such mixed indulgences may have on the choice of extreme options (pure hedonic and pure utilitarian) in the choice set.

In addition to her research interests, Neela is interested in teaching Introduction to Marketing and Consumer Behavior. She was a TA for the Introduction to Marketing Course for undergraduates in the 2006-2007 year (for which she was nominated for a University-wide Penn TA Prize).

Neela brings to her doctoral studies extensive business experience, having led several sales and marketing projects for consumer goods firms as a Manager at Accenture, India. She also has brand management and sales management experience in leading consumer goods firms such as Nestle, Unilever and Bestfoods.

Neela earned her MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India and her BA (Economics) from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, India.