For brand alliance social or cause related marketing which one is better? A study in emerging markets

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships and the effectiveness of cause‐ related or social marketing on consumer perceptions, perceived brand motivations, and the direct and indirect effects that these factors have on brand alliance, attitude, and purchase intentions. A total of 425 participated who are users of soap and oil in the fast‐moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. Advertisements of three per brands are taken up for study. Dove soap, Parachute hair oil, and Dettol Soap (social marketing) and Fiama Di Wells beauty soap, Vatika hair oil, and Nihar hair oil (cause marketing) are selected for study. Both social and cause‐related marketing motivate the consumer to purchase products from the same company and likewise recommend to others. The present study findings clearly suggest that compared with social cause‐related marketing, social marketing is more preferred. People like watching advertisements incorporating social marketing more compared with cause‐related marketing. Both social and cause‐related marketing motivate the consumer to purchase products from the same company and also recommend to others. The takeaway from this study is how social and cause‐related marketing differ on brand alliance and subsequent effect on brand image, brand recommendation, brand loyalty, consumer perceptions, and purchase behaviour.     

Impact of Socio-Economic factors on Consumption Expenditure through Public Distribution System in rural India

Impact of public distribution system (PDS) on poverty in rural India is established; however, how the households from different socio-economic backgrounds are procuring through PDS, relatively, needs study. With this objective, influence of factors like poverty status, family size, social group, religion, gender and occupation on probability of household incurring consumption expenditure through PDS has been studied by using unit level data of consumer expenditure survey of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) and multinomial logistic regression technique. The study is restricted to food grains rice and wheat and reveals that probability of consumption, through PDS, of minorities, economically and socially backward classes are higher, in general.

     

Do low involved brands have better consumer perception due to product placement in emerging markets?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the product placement in the film on purchase intention, attitude and change in perception. For this study, we selected recently released film and interviewed the film goers after he came out of the theatre through intercept technique. The products have improved brand recall, perception, and brand recommendation, ‘feeling’ towards brands, association and purchase intentions which are our dependent variables in our study. Brand image, country image, value for money and culture affects these dependent variables as per our present study. Low involved products get more mileage from product placement. The effect of product placement in low and high involved brand is explained for the first time through application alternative hierarchy’s theory of Ray et al., Theory of Hovland et al. and Gestalt theory of familiarity. Our paper bridges the gap between theory and practice by suggesting improvement in product placement in non –traditional media like film.     

Generic manufacturing strategies: A conceptual synthesis

This paper provides a conceptual framework that links manufacturing to business unit strategy and focuses on developing the notion of ‘generic manufacturing strategies’ at the strategic business unit (SBU) level. Specifically, an explicit conceptual link is drawn between ‘generic’ business unit strategies and ‘generic’ functional structures in manufacturing. It is proposed that the alternate manufacturing structures implicitly represent ‘generic manufacturing strategies’. Drawing on ideas and concepts from the business strategy literature and manufacturing literature the paper links Porter's generic strategy framework to a complementary manufacturing structure framework that uses three dimensions: process structure complexity, product line complexity, and organizational scope. Viewed from different perspectives, the ‘manufacturing contingency theory’ concepts presented implicitly in the paper can be viewed as an extension of classic research on the interdependence between strategy and structure. The frameworks developed here provide a partial synthesis of knowledge in the broader disciplines of engineering and management without sacrificing academic rigor and practitioner relevance.     

Assessing generic strategies: An empirical investigation of two competing typologies in discrete manufacturing industries

In spite of the extensive empirical evidence supporting Porter's (1980) typology of generic strategies, many researchers have criticized it for its conceptual limitations. To address these criticisms, Mintzberg (1988) proposed an alternative typology of generic strategies. Our findings, based on a survey of executives in manufacturing firms, provide support for Mintzberg's typology and fail to support Porter's typology. Given the findings, we call for further empirical validation of competing typologies to revitalize research on generic strategies.     

Optimality of least squares in the seemingly unrelated regression equation model

In this article the authors have investigated the situations in which the single-equation least squares estimator is identical with the generalized least squares estimator in the seemingly unrelated regression model. The condition obtained turned out to be advantageous from an empirical point of view as it permits one to decide whether to go for a single-equation least squares method or Zellner's method with estimated disturbance variance covariance matrix for estimating the coefficients in the model.     

A Case Study on Organisational Performance Measurement Systems for Customer Intimacy

Organisations have been urged to embrace "customer intimacy" in order to become market leaders. However, the complexities of developing and implementing performance measures for customer intimacy are yet to be investigated. This study investigates the introduction of customer-focused performance measures in a wholesale financial services company pursuing customer intimacy. The study demonstrates the multi-dimensional nature of customer intimacy, examines the potential trade-offs in the design of customer-focused performance measurement systems and identifies social and technical factors that shaped the fate of the new performance measurement system studied.     

Market Overreaction to Product Recall Revisited—The Case of Firestone Tires and the Ford Explorer

We revisit the issue of market reaction to product recall and evaluate the magnitude of market reaction to the news of recall. We also examine how the competitors' stock prices are affected by the product recall. Specifically, we evaluate the stock price effects of events relating to the recall of Firestone tires by the Bridgestone Corporation, which were linked to the rollover accidents of the Ford Explorer SUVs. Our results indicate that the initial loss in the market value both for the Bridgestone Corporation and Ford Motor Company was far in excess of direct costs associated with recall. The market losses are approximately equal to the near worst-case estimates of direct and indirect costs, litigation costs, regulation compliance costs and costs associated with future losses in sales. The firms recovered their market value as more information on actual costs became available. These results suggest that the market initially overreacts negatively to the recall news and this reaction is generally based on all potential losses associated with recall. This reaction is corrected as information on actual costs becomes available. With regard to the competitors, our results show that the major competitors in the tire and auto industries experienced a significant gain in the market value of their stocks probably because their products were substitutes for the products affected by recall.     

THE ROLES OF THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTORS IN ENHANCING THE PERFORMANCE OF SEED SYSTEMS

Seeds are crop-based agriculture's most important input, yetfew developing countries have succeeded in establishing efficientseed production and supply systems. In many developing countriesthe large-scale, centralized state farms and public seed corporationsestablished to multiply and disseminate improved seeds of selectedcrops have proved ineffectual, failing to meet the diverse cropand varietal requirements of farmers. Governments and assistingagencies are currently reassessing their strategies, payinggreater attention to the potential contributions of privatefirms, cooperatives, other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),and farmers themselves. This article contributes to that reassessment. It defines thescope for involving the private sector in an array of seed-relatedactivities, identifies critical and complementary roles forthe public sector, and reviews seed system development in industrialand developing countries, with a primary focus on institutionaldimensions. The article advocates a phased withdrawal of thepublic sector from the commercial side of seed production andmarketing, while recognizing a continued important role forthe public sector in plant breeding research, germplasm andvarietal maintenance, training, quality control, and consumerprotection.      

Technology use on the front line: how information technology enhances individual performance

This study explores and tests a new model that links different types of technology usage to individual-level outcomes. The primary objective of this study is to examine the effects of efficient use (routinization) and effective use (infusion) along with the traditional measure of usage—namely, frequency of use—on two dimensions of individual-level outcomes: information technology-enabled administrative performance and information technology-enabled salesperson performance. To maintain consistency with the existing literature, the authors examine the effects of predeployment attitude toward or acceptance of technology and pre-deployment intended use of technology. The authors discuss managerial implications and provide directions for future research.