Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/499026
14 BizEd MAY | JUNE 2015 research+insights ILLUSTRATION BY ISTOCK The Secrets Of App Success THE MORE PEOPLE USE their mobile devices, the more they're downloading mobile apps to help them do everything from organizing their lives to finding the perfect restaurant on the go. But of the more than 1,200 new apps released each day, is it possible to tell which ones will flourish and which ones will fail? A new study from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University in Tempe tries to crack the code of the winning app. Over 39 weeks, Raghu Santanam, a professor of information systems at ASU, and doctoral student Gun Woong Lee tracked the presence of individual apps on the "Top 300" charts in Apple's App Store. After amassing a final dataset that included 7,600 apps by almost 4,000 sellers, the researchers found a num- ber of factors that make an app more attractive to buyers. For instance, each time a seller expanded into a new app category, that seller's presence on the top-grossing charts was bumped up by about 15 percent. The researchers also discov- ered that free apps stay on the charts up to two times longer than paid apps. In addition, sellers who continuously update and improve the features of their apps can see their apps stay on the charts up to three times longer. High-ranking debuts and user ratings also play a role. The researchers point out that the App Store, which launched in 2008 with only 500 apps, has grown to include 1.2 million di©erent o©erings. This study's findings could help app developers and sellers implement more deliberate strategies proven to boost their product's success on the market. "Determinants of Mobile Apps' Success: Evidence from the App Store Market" appeared in the November 2014 issue of the Journal of Management Information Systems. It can be download- ed at ssrn.com/abstract=2560677. Adapting Abroad Erik Van't Klooster, a researcher at the Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, has a message for students planning to study abroad: If you want to improve your managerial skills, you might want to avoid emerging economies. For his dissertation, Van't Klooster surveyed more than 1,000 students, interns, and RSM alumni from around the world.-He found that students who study in low-income or socialist countries might benefit less from their experiences than those who study elsewhere. "Surprisingly, these students learned less about management competencies, both technical and social skills," he says in a video on RSM Discovery, the school's online research platform. "They had to put more e‰ort into adapting to the local culture." Stu- dents whose time abroad is too short, who stick too close to others from their home countries, or whose internships are a poor fit also don't see as many benefits from their study abroad experiences. Van't Klooster hopes that this research will help program directors and faculty bet- ter design the international components of their MBA and master's programs, as well as better advise students on which internation- al work and study opportunities make the most sense for them. Information about Van't Klooster's dissertation, "Travel to Learn: The Influence of Cultural Distance on Compe- tence Development in Educational Travel," is available at discovery.rsm.nl/articles/ detail/120-studying-abroad-benefits- employability-but-not-universally/. Free apps stay in Apple's "Top 300" ranking up to two times longer than paid apps.