Is your brand''s loyalty too much, too little, or just right?: Explaining deviations in loyalty from the Dirichlet norm

This paper formally investigates the factors that relate to the deviations of brand's actual loyalty levels from theoretical norms in packaged goods markets. An aggregate measure of brand loyalty, share of category requirements, commonly tracked by marketing managers is used for this analysis. The comparison is conducted against the estimated share of requirements provided by the well established Dirichlet model of purchasing behavior. We posit that a brand's positioning strategy and marketing mix can influence the magnitude and the direction of the deviation from the norm. We use a two step modeling procedure where we first compute the deviation from the norm for each brand and subsequently conduct a regression analysis of this brand-level data to test the proposed hypotheses. We find that on average, brands that cater to some market niche, are bought in higher quantities, have lower prices, promote to a lesser extent, and have shallower price-cuts and enjoy higher than expected loyalty levels. We discuss possible implications of these results and offer guidelines that managers can use to better assess both the actual and the theoretical loyalty levels of their brands.     

The debt hangover: Renegotiation with noncontractible investment

This paper analyses the incentives of the equityholders of a levered company to undertake noncontractible investments. This noncontrability is shown to seriously impede the efficiency of any renegotiation process in the debt overhang problems. Conditions for obtaining a fully efficient level of investment choice are derived.     

Do Japanese CEOs matter?

In a country where individualism is emphasized less than in Western countries, we ask whether the CEO (shacho) of a Japanese corporation positively affects firm performance. To answer this question, we construct a shacho-firm matched panel data set in the period 1990 through 2002 of all listed 1419 Japanese manufacturing firms and their 3520 shachos. Though we find a positive abnormal stock return on the date a shacho change is announced, especially when the shacho change is non-routine, we document that this effect is short-lived. There seems to be no long-run positive change in performance or policies after a shacho change, even when the shacho change is non-routine. Finally, in trying to explain firm performance or policies, we attempt to separate a firm-fixed effect from a shacho-fixed effect, and are unable to disentangle a shacho-fixed effect. We are thus left to conclude that shachos do not positively matter in the Japanese corporation in this decade of a stagnant economy.     

The impact of social cues on passengers’ travel experience

Despite the importance of social cues in service experience environments, little is known about the role of other customer perceptions (OCP) in the formation of passengers’ travel experience (PTE) and loyalty in public transportation. This study examines the impact of OCP on PTE and loyalty in public transportation and also investigates the moderating role of face-consciousness between OCP and PTE. Results revealed that all three dimensions of OCP have a positive effect on PTE, which consequently influences loyalty. More importantly, face-consciousness moderated the relationship between suitable behavior and PTE. Transport managers can benefit from these findings by considering the social environment as they design their services.     

Customer Experience in Online Shopping: A Structural Modeling Approach

Online retail's rapid growth in India has triggered both untapped growth opportunities and challenges to maintain consumer “stickiness” to retailer websites. In this context, online customer experience (OCE) has emerged as a strategic differentiator for sustainable competitive edge. However, there is a paucity of empirical research in this field. Therefore, drawing on extant literature and qualitative research of online shoppers, this study proposes an integrated model of OCE with antecedents, components, and outcome variables. Data for this study were collected from Indian online shoppers; the data are empirically tested along with the moderating effect of time availability on OCE. Results of the study largely support the model and contribute to knowledge creation on OCE in the Indian context and to strategy development for online retailers.     

Communicating CSR practices – Role of internationalization of emerging market firms

Emerging markets suffer from institutional voids, and in such resource deficient economies, corporate social responsibility is given scant attention. However, when firms from emerging markets globalize, international stakeholders become suspicious about firms’ products, services, and business practices. Grounded in the liability of emergingness and legitimacy theory and using a sample of 134 manufacturing firms from one emerging market, India, this study explores how firms’ international diversification intent and market-seeking motives influence emerging markets’ firms communication of socially responsible activities as an attempt to eliminate illegitimacy. Furthermore, the study reveals that business group affiliation enhances the influence of internationalization on firms’ communication of socially responsible activities.     

Online Review Helpfulness: Role of Qualitative Factors

Consumers are increasingly reading online reviews before making any purchasing decisions. The significance of online reviews has only grown over the years. Though in the past, scholars have emphasized the impact of quantitative factors (e.g., review ratings) on online reviews, only recently have they begun to explore the role of qualitative aspects of online reviews. Content readability and associated sentiments in text provide two important qualitative cues that influence the helpfulness of online reviews. However, the extant literature has overemphasized the linear association between these aspects and the helpfulness of reviews. Using the elaboration likelihood model and the classic ideal point concept, the current work asserts that after an ideal point is attained, lucid and sentimental reviews diminish in utility (i.e., helpfulness of an online review for consumers decreases). This may happen because consumers are wary of fraudulent reviews. This study proposes that if experienced reviewers give such extreme reviews, then consumers might still draw utility from these reviews. In other words, this study explains the moderating role of reviewer experience, which heuristically influences consumers’ trust of online reviews, thus making even too simplistic or extremely sentimental reviews helpful.     

Bank credit,public financial incentives,tax financial incentives and export performance during the global financial crisis

This paper investigates the extent to which access to credit, public financial incentives and tax financial incentives affect export performance using the EU-EFIGE/Bruegel-Unicredit data set, covering firms within Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and the UK during the 2008 global financial crisis. The results show that firms receiving credit or benefiting from public financial incentives display higher export intensity and export a greater number of product lines compared to those that did not, especially in countries with better access to credit and/or financial incentives during the crisis. Further, firms benefiting from tax financial incentives show a better export performance compared to those that did not, regardless of the degree of access to credit and/or financial incentives in the country in which they operate. In addition, the effect of access to credit and public finance incentives on export performance is found to be size-dependent, while the effect of tax financial incentives is not. We suggest that governments should promote publicly funded financial incentives along with conventional schemes, such as R&D subsidies, to promote exports, particularly during a period of financial crisis.     

Retailers' major ethical decision making constructs

The major constructs of the Ferrell and Gresham [Ferrell OC, Gresham L. A Contingency Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision-Making in Marketing. J Mark 1985; (Summer): 87-96.], Hunt and Vitell [Hunt SD, Vitell S. A General Theory of Marketing Ethics. J Macromark 1986; 6 (Spring): 5-16.], and Ferrell et al. [Ferrell OC, Gresham L, Fraedrich JP. A Synthesis of Ethical Decision Models for Marketing. J Macromark 1989; 9(2) (Fall): 55-64.] models were tested using LISREL. Our findings suggest that Friends, Superiors, Business Associates, and Formalization of the Organization are more significant than Moral Philosophy. A new construct Ethicalness, comprised of individual, organizational, and societal value structures yielded a tight multi-dimensional fit that supports Kerlinger's domain theory and is dissimilar to Reidenbach and Robin's (1991) multi-dimensional scale. This research is one of the first to test as many ethical decision making constructs while explaining the multi-dimensional conundrum of ethical/unethical and legal/illegal practices within retailing.