Atributos de calidad del servicio de la telefonía móvil para clientes mexicanos y su impacto en la satisfacción y en la lealtad hacia la marca

The objective of this study is to identify relevant attributes of service quality in mobile phones for Mexican customers and to establish their impact on customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. It is being assumed that the attributes of service quality are an antecedent of satisfaction and loyalty. The study is divided in two phases. In a first qualitative phase, thirteen attributes were detected using in-depth interviews. In a second quantitative phase, these attributes were empirically contrasted with variables of satisfaction and loyalty. It was found that only six attributes are statistically related to the variables of these constructs, with two of them being the most relevant: price per minute and empathy perceived by customers from company’s employees.     

Product Placement Versus Conventional Advertising: The Impact on Brand Choice of Integrating Promotional Stimuli into Movies

ABSTRACT

Despite the increasingly favorable environment enjoyed by product placement, the question of whether this technique produces stronger behavioral effects than conventional advertising remains largely unexplored. Based on the transportation-imagery model, we hypothesized that, among users of well-established products, promotional stimuli produce stronger effects on brand choice when integrated into movies than when presented as independent ads, while among nonusers, no differences are expected. Our hypotheses were confirmed in a field experiment that compared the effects of a Coca-Cola placement within the movie Ways to Live Forever with the same Coca-Cola stimulus shown as a usual commercial.     

The effect of US holidays on the European markets: when the cat’s away…

This paper presents evidence of the existence of a return effect on European stock markets coinciding with New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) holidays, which is particularly marked after positive closing returns on the NYSE the previous day. The effect is large enough to be exploited by trading index futures. This anomaly cannot be explained by seasonal effects, such as the day of the week effect, the January effect or the pre‐holiday effect, nor is it consistent with behavioural finance models that predict positive correlation between trading volume and returns. However, examination of factors such as information volume or investor mix provides a reasonable explanation.     

Enterprise Web Accessibility Levels Amongst the Forbes 250: Where Art Thou O Virtuous Leader?

The research team measured the enterprise web accessibility levels of the Forbes 250 largest enterprises using the fully automatic accessibility evaluation tool Sortsite, and presented the compliance of the evaluated websites to WCAG 1.0, WCAG 2.0 and Section 508 accessibility levels. Given the recent attention to organizational leaders having ethical duties towards their dedicated employees, we propose that ‘societal citizenship behaviour’ concerns ethical duties of organizational leaders towards society in general and in particular to those who have less means to assert their needs. In effect, we found enterprise website accessibility levels to be in need of significant improvement. An interpretation of a positive path forward to better enterprise website accessibility levels is put forth based on a focus-group interaction and using BNML—a novel Business Narrative Modelling Language.     

Patterns of consumer response to retail price differentials

Decomposing price elasticity suggests that the major impact of promotions is on brand switching rather than increased consumption. Consumers may also buy smaller quantities of more expensive brands when compared to cheaper ones (inter-brand elasticity). Using panel data for the purchases of 80 consumers buying nine product categories over a 16-week period, we verified that inter-brand elasticities occur, and report the relative importance of intra- and inter-brand elasticities in determining quantity price elasticity per shopping occasion for the product category. Brands were classified by informational (socially mediated) and utilitarian (product-mediated) benefits. Intra-brand elasticity was higher than utilitarian inter-brand elasticity, which was higher than informational inter-brand elasticity.     

The case of market and system failures in services innovation

This paper reviews and analyses the rationale for an innovation policy in services. It focuses on the relevance of the various categories of market and system failures, on the basis of economic arguments and some empirical evidence at EU level. Results show that market and system failures affect service innovation, so that there are no economic reasons supporting any discrimination of policy actions against service activities. Moreover, some of the market and system failures may be even more relevant in the field of services than of goods, although differences between categories of services should be also taken into consideration.     

Technical change: It should be positive and make sense!

We present the results of eight models that differ with respect to the time behavior of technical inefficiency and the presence of country heterogeneity. When taken into account, heterogeneity raises average technical change estimates, however technical progress rankings become counter-intuitive.     

Mixed methods studies in entrepreneurship research: Applications and contributions

Mixed methods research is becoming an increasingly popular approach in several fields. However, its application in the field of entrepreneurship has not been studied. The authors reviewed the use of mixed methods research in three entrepreneurship journals and two leading generalistic journals that publish entrepreneurship research, examining the main purposes and designs. A total of 955 articles were reviewed and 81 mixed methods studies were identified. The analysis of these articles revealed opportunities associated with the application of this approach. Mixed methods may help to improve entrepreneurship research addressing challenges emphasized in earlier studies. Suggestions on why and how to use mixed methods research are offered, and recommendations are provided to guide future mixed methods studies to advance our understanding of the entrepreneurial phenomenon.     

Consumer Ethics in the European Union: A Comparison of Northern and Southern Views

There is a growing interest in understanding consumer ethical actions in relation to their dealings with firms. This paper examines whether there are differences between Northern and Southern European Union (EU) consumers' perceptions of ethical consumer behaviour using Muncy and Vitell's (1992) Consumer Ethics Scale (CES). The study samples 962 university students across four Northern EU countries (Germany, Denmark, Scotland, The Netherlands) and four Southern EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece). Some differences are identified between the two samples, which might question the ability of organisations to consider the EU as one homogeneous market.     

Which Firms are More Sensitive to Public Disclosure Schemes for Pollution Control? Evidence from Indonesia’s PROPER Program

This paper analyzes differences in firms’ responsiveness to PROPER, Indonesia’s public disclosure program for industrial pollution control. The overall effectiveness of this program at achieving emissions reductions and its low regulatory costs have earned it a good reputation around the world. PROPER had no deterrents or incentives other than those that arose indirectly from publicly disclosing information about the environmental performances of firms. We analyzed plant-level data to relate short- and longer-term environmental responses to facility characteristics. The results revealed that foreign-owned firms were consistently more likely to respond to the environmental rating scheme, compared to private domestic firms. This is a clear and important insight with consequences for a number of issues, such as understanding the pollution haven debate. Also, firms located in densely populated regions, particularly in Java, responded more positively to the public disclosure of PROPER ratings. The main observed effect was however given by the initial level of environmental performance of firms. Those firms that had bad environmental performance records felt pressure to improve, but if the initial abatement steps had already been taken, the incentives to improve further appeared to diminish.