Sensitivity to Ulterior Motives in Retail Settings: The Moderating Role of Dual-Identity versus Sole-Identity Consumers

The current research compares sole-identity versus dualidentity consumers in their responses to different retail persuasion attempts that occur in situations with low versus high ulterior motives. We examine different consumer responses (e.g., interaction time, perceived friendliness, future interaction intentions, and actual purchase behavior). We find that dual-identity consumers (those individuals with sales experience who have both a consumer and agent identity available) tend to automatically activate their agent identity which makes them more likely to take the perspective of the sales agent as compared to sole-identity consumers (individuals without sales experience who only have a consumer identity available). Dual-identity consumers show greater sensitivity to ulterior motives as exhibited by more accurate responses when persuasion cues suggest that ulterior motives are low, but not high. In contrast, sole-identity consumers are insensitive to differing levels of ulterior motives. The current research further demonstrates that perspective-taking can mitigate sole-identity consumers' defensive reactions which can increase their responses to sales agents' persuasion attempts with low ulterior motives.     

Investigating the Moderating Effects of Perceived Technological Change on Sales Force Acceptance

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Prior literature has shown that the acceptance of new technologies can improve the long-term performance of sales forces and firms. However, new technologies are likely to introduce obstacles to acceptance, especially for those technologies that represent a massive change for the user. Sales force members who drastically change their work processes in order to integrate a technology sacrifice both time and effort and may be distracted from their primary goals (e.g. hitting deadlines or sales goals). Thus, we investigate how perceived technological change can negatively moderate individual motives to accept a new technology. Furthermore, we analyze how managerial support can help overcome the acceptance issues caused by perceived technological change.

Methodology/approach: Data for this study was collected from 163 sales force members via an online survey. Respondent data was collected using a private market research firm that provides access to online panels. We utilize structural equation modeling for factor analysis and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression for testing the hypotheses.

Findings: We find that perceived technological change negatively moderates the influence of individual goal orientation on to acceptance of new technology. We also find that managerial support, as opposed to team goal commitment, will positively moderate an individual’s goal orientation onto acceptance of new technology. This suggests that managerial support is necessary in order to encourage acceptance of technologies that present drastic change for the end user. Post-hoc analysis takes a deeper look into potential curvilinear effects, a three-way interaction, and differences among categories of technologies. This analysis reveals that the negative influence of perceived technological change specifically affects the acceptance of behavioral-based technologies, as opposed to outcome-based technologies, thus necessitating the moderating influence of managerial support.

Contribution: This study demonstrates the acceptance issues presented by technologies associated with drastic perceived technological change. This article identifies and suggests how to more appropriately enhance acceptance of technologies that introduce drastic changes by sales force employees, thus enhancing potential long-term organizational performance.     

Disengagement of Nascent Entrepreneurs from the Start‐Up Process

This study examines the roles of entrepreneur motivation and a potentially adverse founding condition in disengagement of nascent entrepreneurs from the start‐up process. Specifically, measures of goal commitment, self‐efficacy, and perceived competition intensity from 943 nascent entrepreneurs are employed to predict disengagement as reported one year later. Results indicate that high perceived competition intensity renders the otherwise strong negative main effect of goal commitment on disengagement, not significant. The even stronger negative main effect of self‐efficacy on disengagement, however, is not contingent on perceived competition intensity. Further, perceived competition intensity by itself does not appear to influence nascent entrepreneurs' disengagement.     

Perceived progress variability and entrepreneurial effort intensity: The moderating role of venture goal commitment

Drawing on entrepreneurial motivation and goal striving literatures, we examined the dynamic relationship between momentary perceived progress, or an ongoing sense of how one is doing in the pursuit of one's venture goal, and entrepreneurial effort intensity among early-stage entrepreneurs who are based in business incubators. We also examined how perceived progress variability over time predicted entrepreneurial effort intensity, and whether venture goal commitment moderated this link. Experience-sampling data collected from over one hundred early-stage entrepreneurs indicated that perceived progress predicted greater effort intensity. Moreover, perceived progress variability over time negatively predicted entrepreneurial effort intensity, and venture goal commitment attenuated this negative relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of our study to entrepreneurial motivation and goal striving research are discussed.     

Supplier Partnerships and the Small, High-Growth Firm: Selecting for Success

Strategic partnerships are commonplace in today's global economy. Effective use of partnerships are viewed increasingly as an important issue facing small, growth-oriented firms. A key debate is how small firms should manage supplier partnerships. Contrasting the debate about the extent to which small firms are inertial versus adaptive, the impact of growth on value chain partnerships with suppliers was investigated. Data collected from 91 pharmaceutical-related firms is used to test the proposition that firm growth is related positively to maintaining or to expanding relationships with suppliers, not to terminating partnerships. The paper further posits that this relationship between firm growth and the amount purchased from a supplier is moderated by the perceived effectiveness of the value-chain partnerships such that when effectiveness is higher, the relationship between sales growth and the amount purchased from a value-chain partner is stronger. The propositions, which are tested with regression analysis, are supported partially.     

Effect of perceived environmental uncertainty on exporter–importer inter-organisational relationships and export performance improvement

Limited research exists on the effect of environmental uncertainty on inter-organisational relationships and export performance improvement in supply chains that transcend national boundaries, especially in developing markets such as sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the dominance of the economic perspective in export performance literature, increased attention over the last decade has turned to the Resource Base View (RBV) and the relational perspective. Highlighting this theoretical gap, we develop an approach that argues export market buyers gain advantage by leveraging internal resources and draw upon RBV and relational exchange theory. Data from 262 fresh-produce export suppliers in Zimbabwe was used to investigate the effect of perceived environmental uncertainty on inter-organisational relationships and supplier export performance. Results indicate that perceived environmental uncertainty dimensions have varied influence over inter-organisational relationships. Results support the relational theory's tenet that commitment to future exchanges is associated with export performance improvement, and driven by a reciprocal pattern of each partner's perception of the other's commitment, relationship-specific investments and dependence. These inter-organisational relationships are seen as complementary resources of the firm, which export market buyers can rely on through power to coerce developing export suppliers to cooperate in conditions of perceived market turbulence and high competitive intensity. Market turbulence emerged as a complex factor and is negatively linked to commitment and cooperation. Contrary to prior research, cooperation had a negative effect on export performance improvement.     

Redesigning after-sales service: Impact on incumbent product distribution channels

With the growth of multi-channel retailing, many firms that have traditionally relied upon third-party service providers to offer after-sales service (AS) have introduced direct AS channel. While there exist a few studies that examine the effects of adding a direct sales channel on the sales revenue of incumbent channels, there are no studies investigating the effects of adding direct AS channel. This study tries to fill this research gap by exploring cross-channel effects of including AS through the firm's direct brand stores on performance (i.e., revenue, assortment width, and extent of upselling) in both direct and indirect channels. A matched difference-in-difference quasi-experimental design was used to compare the sales outcomes of test and control groups using a five-year longitudinal dataset from a large dual-channel consumer durables firm. Results reveal that providing AS through the firm's direct channel has a positive significant effect on the revenue and upselling in the indirect channel, but no significant impact on assortment width in the indirect channel. However, unlike hypothesized, it results in significantly lower revenue, assortment width, and upselling in the direct channel. We interpret these negative effects as arising from customer confusion and perceived retail crowding. Overall, our research highlights that implementation of going direct with AS should be done with utmost care. Our findings would serve as a building block for future studies that are conducted to understand the dynamic cross-channel effects of introducing direct AS, and would be useful for drawing comparisons and contrasts.     

The relational benefits of personalized communications in an online environment

This research investigates how personalized communications enhance customer‐company relationships, which ultimately produce favourable marketing outcomes. Two factors were manipulated in an online experiment: the perceived effort made by customers to obtain a personalized newsletter (high vs. low) and the level of relevance of the message (high vs. low). The results indicate that perceived effort positively affects calculative commitment (even more so for highly involved customers), while the level of relevance of the message increases affective commitment. In addition, the interaction between perceived effort and message relevance has significant effects on calculative and affective commitment. Finally, affective commitment partially mediates the relationships between relevance and both loyalty and word‐of‐mouth intentions. Managerial implications regarding the best usage of personalized communications are discussed. Copyright © 2013 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Greater patience and monetary expenditure: How shopping with companions influences purchase decisions

Shopping with companions plays a crucial role in daily consumer activities. However, only a few studies have explored the influence of this factor on consumers’ patience. We conducted four studies, including two field studies, to investigate the effects of shopping with companions (e.g., friends and peers) on purchase decisions. We found that consumers exerted greater effort when shopping with friends and peers by spending more money and being willing to wait longer for a product. This effect could be explained by three mediators: positive emotions, negative emotions, and perceived value, in which the hedonic and social value, unlike the utilitarian value, played essential mediating roles. This study elucidates the underlying psychological processes involved in purchase decisions shaped by companions. Retailers should encourage shopping with companions to increase sales and customer retention.     

Better together: Trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate as antecedents of salesperson organizational commitment and sales performance

This study assesses the direct and interactive effects of trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate on organizational commitment and sales performance using data collected from industrial salespeople and company records. Findings indicate that the positive impact of trait competitiveness on sales performance is contingent upon a highly competitive psychological climate, helping to explain inconsistent findings in the literature and underscoring the need for firms to manage the fit between salespeople and organizational culture. Additionally, the study reveals continuance commitment’s negative moderation of the affective commitment–sales performance relationship. Taken together, the model reveals an interesting process such that managers should recruit salespeople with high trait competitiveness and foster a competitive climate internally to generate the best sales performance outcomes.     

Effects of Relational Capabilities and Power Asymmetry on Innovativeness and Flexibility of Sub‐Sahara Africa Small Exporting Firms

The objective of this study is to examine the effects of relational capabilities and exercise of power on innovativeness, flexibility, and performance of Sub‐Sahara Africa small exporters. Data from a sample of 206 small fresh produce suppliers in Zimbabwe that had long‐term relationships with retail buyers in export markets were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings suggest that long‐term cooperation between small suppliers and buyers negatively influenced innovativeness and flexibility. However, trust and commitment, as well as dependence, positively impacted innovativeness of small suppliers but had negative effects on flexibility. Further, innovativeness negatively influenced firm performance, whereas a positive link emerged between flexibility and performance.     

Financial consequences of adding bricks to clicks

Many e-commerce retailers are adding “bricks to clicks” – that is, opening an offline channel in addition to their digital sales channel(s). Taking the perspective of such an online pure player, this research assesses the effects of offline channel additions on the financial performance (e.g., sales, profits) and customer behavior (e.g., basket size, return rate) in the extended channel network as well as the initial online channel of the retailer. Across two studies, one at the zip code level and the other at the customer level, we find that the channel addition of a fashion and lifestyle retailer is synergistic in terms of increasing not only overall sales but also profits. At the same time, the new offline channel does not significantly cannibalize the existing online shop, as new customers are attracted through the channel addition. The effects of channel additions, however, are influenced by characteristics of customers gained before the channel addition and of the trade area around the newly opened stores: among existing customers, those who bought more in the online channel do not react as positively to the addition of an offline channel, and trade areas with socioeconomic characteristics that are often viewed as disadvantageous for digital retailing (e.g., an older population, lower average income) show a stronger positive sales effect of a brick-and-mortar addition. The attractiveness of the offline channel for these customer segments highlights that adding bricks to clicks might be most attractive for those customers who were previously unwilling to purchase from an online-only retailer.     

Toward Assessing Supplier Value

Abstract

This research investigates criteria currently used in the evaluation of suppliers, the importance of those criteria in the selection and the retention process as well as their potential in adding value. Results suggest significant differences in all areas. Most importantly, this research identifies key criteria considered important for adding value to a buying partner. Study results may be used by suppliers in developing their channel partner offerings and by buyers in evaluating suppliers for selection and retention purposes.     

Cross-channel effects of omnichannel retail marketing strategies: A review of extant data-driven research

The authors review 50 empirical retailing research papers that have appeared over the last 20 years to take stock of what we know, need to know better, and do not know yet about within-retailer cross-channel effects of omnichannel retail marketing strategies on (a) consumer responses over their purchase journeys, i.e., online and/or offline search, purchase intention, frequency, amount, returns, loyalty, and (b) the retail firm's aggregate outcomes (e.g., sales, costs, profits, product returns) by channel and overall. Specifically, the authors focus on five strategies: (1) the addition of online channel by an offline retailer; (2) the addition (or subtraction) of offline channels by an online retailer; (3) addition of mobile shopping channel (website and/or app) by offline and/or online retailer; (4) cross-channel integration strategies; and (5) retail marketing mix strategies. The author/s integrate findings from empirical research on these strategies into a number of ‘insights’ about ‘what we know’. Prominent among these are the following: Adding a transactional online channel to an offline channel improves the retailer's overall sales even though offline channel sales can be cannibalized to some degree. Adding an offline channel by an online retailer, however, boosts online channel sales as well as overall sales of the retailer. Similarly, adding a mobile shopping channel usually increases customer purchase frequency and amount and overall sales of the retailer in the long-term. Strategies for greater cross-channel integration generally have a positive effect on a retailer's overall performance while online advertising has positive effects on offline channel consideration and sales as well as overall sales of a multichannel retailer. Other insights or findings that need further study or open questions are also identified. The paper closes with managerial implications of the derived empirical insights, and suggestions for future research.     

Small but Sincere: How Firm Size and Gratitude Determine the Effectiveness of Cause Marketing Campaigns

Cause-Marketing (CM) has gained momentum in recent years, both in marketing research and practice. However, while CM aims to influence consumers on an emotional or affective level, research into the emotional and affective response to CM campaigns is scarce. The current research fills this void by showing that a CM campaign is a win–win–win strategy. Though the tangible benefits of CM campaigns go to the firm and the philanthropic cause, our perspective is novel by arguing that the consumer benefits as well, albeit intangibly; CM campaigns provide an opportunity to do good, and hence induce feelings of gratitude in consumers. However, this effect depends on several contingencies. In particular, consumers perceive greater effort by small firms, relative to large firms, that engage in CM campaigns, leading them to assess the underlying motives as more sincere and then experience stronger feelings of gratitude for the opportunity to donate. Four experiments confirm this greater CM effectiveness for small compared with large firms. In turn, this study offers substantive contributions for both marketing research and practice: It proposes a cost-effective strategy for enhancing CM effectiveness, and specifies concrete strategies for both small and large companies.     

Driving In-Role and Extra-Role Brand Performance among Retail Frontline Salespeople: Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Customer Orientation

The organizational frontline in retail represents the frontline for an entire supply chain. This channel structure distances the branded supplier from the end consumer and makes the supplier dependent on a retail frontline salesperson that (1) it does not control and (2) also represents competing brands. This study reveals mechanisms that the supplier may use to influence retail frontline salespeople. We demonstrate the importance of consumer marketing programs and supplier representatives in building brand identification between the manufacturer’s brand and the retail frontline employee that translates into increased brand sales, while also revealing the role of rewards programs in stimulating brand-specific extra-role behaviors. Interestingly, retail frontline customer orientation, built by the retailer, diminishes the effect of brand extra-role behaviors toward the focal brand on the focal brand’s sales, providing an informal control mechanism for retailers to protect its objectives. The results of this study have powerful ramifications for both retailers and suppliers in achieving both their mutual, and sometimes differing, objectives related to the retail frontline.     

INFORMATION SUPPORT FOR REVERSE LOGISTICS: THE INFLUENCE OF RELATIONSHIP COMMITMENT

The use of reverse logistics systems is becoming more common as firms realize the value that can be reclaimed from returned goods. This study investigates the influence of information systems (IS) support activity on reverse logistics performance, as well as the moderating effects of relationship commitment within reverse logistics arrangements. In a survey of CEOs of U.S. catalog sales electronics companies, information systems support is found to moderately affect two separate performance constructs related to reverse logistics programs. The research also indicates relationship commitment is critical to more fully realizing the value of IS support in reverse logistics arrangements.     

Implementing Supplier Codes of Conduct in Global Supply Chains: Process Explanations from Theoretic and Empirical Perspectives

Western buying companies impose Supplier Codes of Conduct (SCC) on their suppliers in developing countries; however, many suppliers cannot fully comply with SCC and some of them even cheat in SCC. In this research, we link contract characteristics – price pressure, production complexity, contract duration – to the likelihood of supplier’s commitment to SCC through a mediating process: how the buying companies govern their suppliers. Our structural equation model analysis shows that the hierarchy/relational norms governance is a perfect mediator of contract characteristics’ effects on the likelihood of supplier’s commitment; the market governance, an insignificant one. The managerial implications are provided for successfully implementing SCC in global supply chains.     

Value differences as determinants of importers’ perceptions of exporters’ unethical behavior: The impact on relationship quality and performance

The article focuses on the value drivers of the unethical marketing behavior of exporters, as seen from the perspective of their importers, and how this in turn affects the quality of their working relationship and performance. Based on a sample of 189 Cypriot importers, the study revealed that similarities in national, corporate, and personal values between importers and their foreign suppliers are negatively related to unethical marketing practices of the latter as perceived by the former, and vice versa. Perceived export marketing unethicality, in turn, negatively influences the exporter–importer relationship quality (as expressed in terms of cooperation, communication, trust, and commitment), which subsequently has harmful effects on the performance of the relationship. In addition, the existence of a high similarity in both value strength and ethical codes between importers and their export suppliers was found to positively affect the quality of the working relationship. Finally, the association of both corporate and personal values similarity with perceived export marketing unethicality was found to be moderated by network ties, although this was not evident in the case of national values similarity. The findings of the study have important implications for import managers in terms of properly selecting and handling relationships with their foreign suppliers.     

Outward Foreign Direct Investment,Interindustry Networks,and U.S. Trade Politics

This article investigates how outward foreign direct investment by U.S. multinational corporations influences industry lobbying for trade protection in the United States, focusing on interindustry structure of goods sales networks between upstream and downstream sectors and also on the multinationals’ input procurement patterns. If foreign affiliates of U.S. multinationals switch input sources from U.S. to host-country suppliers, U.S. suppliers should receive a negative demand shock, ceteris paribus. An empirical test finds that those U.S. upstream sectors that are highly dependent upon U.S. multinationals for goods sales tend to lobby more as the multinationals’ overseas production and sales increase.