Marketing while Black: commentary on the Galak and Kahn 2019 Academic Marketing Climate Survey

Marketing Letters - Diversity serves to enrich decision-making, innovation, reputation, and performance. The marketing academy, a microcosm of business and society, is making slow advances in...     

The power of the pen: Handwritten fonts promote haptic engagement

Consumers are increasingly bombarded with merchandise and offers, making clear the need for visually distinctive and sensorially engaging product packaging design. The current research demonstrates that the use of handwritten fonts on product packaging elicits an approach tendency and enhances haptic engagement, which influences product evaluation and choice likelihood. A pilot study quantifies the use of handwritten fonts in four grocery product categories to establish that the study of handwritten fonts as a packaging design element is a worthy one with managerial significance. Four experiments are then presented. Studies 1 and 2 use real products to show that a product label with a handwritten (vs. typewritten) font elicits haptic engagement and, enhanced product evaluations (Study 2). Study 3 identifies a boundary condition such that the focal effect is observed only for benign (safe and enjoyable) product categories, but not for risky (unsafe and dangerous) ones. Study 4 relies on a simulated store setup with actual products to illustrate the differential preference for products with a handwritten (vs. typewritten) font when choosing between brands in a benign (vs. risky) product category.     

Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Consumers' Intention to Engage in Cosmetic Surgery

This study examined the predictors of intention to engage in a cosmetic surgery. A convenience sampling approach utilizing a self-administered pen-and-paper and online survey was used to collect 214 responses in Australia. Favorable attitude had a significant positive effect on intention to engage in a cosmetic procedure for female respondents. On the other hand, subjective norms had a significant positive effect on intention to engage in a cosmetic procedure for male respondents. Managerially, findings will help practitioners in the cosmetic surgery industry to implement marketing strategies that target this growing consumer segment.     

Export survival and the dynamics of experience

This paper focuses on developing countries’ pioneer exports to the OECD and obtains several important results on export dynamics, linking export experience and export survival. Using product level data at the SITC 5-digit level for 114 developing countries over the 1962–2009 period, we show that prior export experience obtained in non-OECD markets significantly increases survival of pioneer exports toward the OECD. The experience does not need to last long, as gaining experience for more than two years does not confer any additional benefit. The effect of experience depreciates rapidly with time: a break in export experience prior to entering the OECD reduces the advantage on survival. Finally, the role of prior export experience is particularly relevant for survival in the first two years upon entry into the OECD. The geographic dynamic of export experience reveals that experience is acquired in neighboring, easy to access markets before reaching more distant, richer partners and ultimately serving the OECD with a higher probability of survival.     

Adverse Selection,Investor Experience and Security Choice in Venture Capital Finance: Evidence from Germany

This article analyses 336 German venture capital transactions from 1990 to 2005 and seeks to determine why selected financial securities differ across deals. We find that a broad array of financial instruments is used, covering straight equity, mezzanine and debt‐like securities. Based on the chosen financial securities’ upside potential and downside protection characteristics, we provide an explanation for the differing use of these securities. Our results show that investors’ deal experience, adverse selection risks and economic prospects in the public equity market influence the selection of financial securities.     

Risk,uncertainty and the theory of planned behavior: A tourism example

The differential impacts risk and uncertainty have on travel decision-making were explored by examining the constructs' influence on the antecedents of intentions to visit Australia using the theory of planned behavior. Respondents were obtained from online consumer panels in South Korea, China and Japan. The South Korean and Chinese samples were general population samples, while the sample from Japan was an international travelers' sample. The extended model fitted the data well, explaining between 21 and 44 percent of the variance in intentions. Subjective norms and perceived behavioral control significantly impacted on intentions in all country samples, whereas attitudes toward visiting Australia were only significant in Japan. Subjective norms influenced attitudes and perceived behavioral control in all country samples. Finally, perceived risk influenced attitudes toward visiting Australia in South Korea and Japan, while perceived uncertainty influenced attitudes toward visiting Australia in South Korea and China and perceived behavioral control in China and Japan.     

Constructing Multi‐Country Rational Expectations Models

This article considers some of the technical issues involved in using the global vector autoregression (GVAR) approach to construct a multi‐country rational expectations (RE) model and illustrates them with a new Keynesian model for 33 countries estimated with quarterly data over the period 1980–2011. The issues considered are: the measurement of steady states; the determination of exchange rates and the specification of the short‐run country‐specific models; the identification and estimation of the model subject to the theoretical constraints required for a determinate rational expectations solution; the solution of a large RE model; the structure and estimation of the covariance matrix and the simulation of shocks. The model used as an illustration shows that global demand and supply shocks are the most important drivers of output, inflation and interest rates in the long run. By contrast, monetary or exchange rate shocks have only a short‐run impact in the evolution of the world economy. The article also shows the importance of international connections, directly as well as indirectly through spillover effects. Overall, ignoring global inter‐connections as country‐specific models do, could give rise to misleading conclusions.