Sloan Center for Internet Retailing going west

Donna L. Hoffman and Thomas P. Novak, award winning scholars of electronic commerce and Internet marketing at Vanderbilt University, will leave Vanderbilt in July to join the faculty at the University of California at Riverside’s A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management. Hoffman has been named chancellor’s chair and Novak the Albert O. Steffey professor of marketing.

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Hoffman and Novak currently serve as co-directors of Vanderbilt’s Sloan Center for Internet Retailing. The center, supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and corporations including founding partners Walmart.com and Lands’ End, will follow the industry experts to UC Riverside.

Once in California, the two professors will launch eLab 2.0, the second generation of the research laboratory they co-founded in 1994. The new Sloan Center will leverage eLab’s virtual lab research infrastructure to study the challenges facing the rapidly evolving Internet retailing industry.

Hoffman’s research focuses on Internet marketing strategy, consumer behavior in online environments and the policy implications of commercializing the Internet. Novak’s research explores web commerce issues such as the online consumer experience, online research methodology, Internet marketing strategy, and electronic commerce policy issues including the digital divide, privacy and trust.