Intangible Resources and Plural Form as Drivers of Franchise Internationalization: Examination within a Two‐Country Perspective

This study focuses on drivers of franchise network internationalization, namely, intangible resources and plural form. Intangible resources refer to those that the franchisor acquires over time and are deemed instrumental to firm success, namely, brand name, monitoring, and know‐how transfer abilities. Plural form refers to the coexistence of franchised outlets and company‐owned outlets within the same network. The empirical study involves 853 U.S. and French networks. Findings indicate that the percentage of company‐owned outlets in international networks is lower than that in purely domestic networks, and this holds for both the combined data sample (United States and France) and the U.S. sample on its own. Moreover, U.S. franchisors are shown to be much more internationalized, with a smaller percentage of company‐owned outlets than their French counterparts. The intangible resource that most strongly affects franchise internationalization is brand‐name recognition, whereas there is partial support for the impact of two other intangible resources, namely, monitoring and know‐how transfer ability. The results of the logistic regression models underscore the importance of intangible resources in franchise network internationalization as well as the significant and negative impact of percentage of company‐owned outlets. Finally, the drivers of internationalization are not found to be statistically different between both countries.     

Human versus spatial dimensions of crowding perceptions in retail environments: A note on their measurement and effect on shopper satisfaction

Perceived retail crowding was originally conceptualized as having two dimensions, but subsequent empirical work in marketing has treated the construct unidimensionally. This paper reports a series of lab and field studies that examine the dimensionality of the construct and its relationship to store satisfaction. Two alternative crowding measures are tested. Results suggest that perceived retail crowding has distinct human and spatial dimensions that affect satisfaction differently.     

Allocation model: a tool to develop effective media plans for Turkey

This paper deals with media planning, which is a challenging problem for both academicians and practitioners. An integer linear programming model on media planning is developed which incorporates qualitative and quantitative aspects suitable to the characteristics and needs of a media environment. The objective of the model is to allocate a given advertising budget among competing magazines by the use of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) so that opportunity-to-see (OTS) is maximised. The application of the model to two consumer products proved to increase OTS considerably. The development and application of the model is especially valuable for Turkey because the number of magazines is continuously increasing, readership is low, syndicated research services are limited and models are not widely used in media planning.     

Inventory Types and Firm Performance: Vector Autoregressive and Vector Error Correction Models

The effects of inventory management on firm performance have been well documented. Most previous research, however, has focused on the performance effects of total inventories and has ignored the potentially differential performance effects of raw materials, work‐in‐process, and finished goods inventories. This research investigates the effects of various inventory types on firm performance. The empirical analyses of data from U.S. manufacturing industries reveal that the magnitude of the inventory–performance relationship varies by type of inventory and across industries. Specifically, raw materials inventories have a greater impact on firm performance than work‐in‐process and finished goods inventories. As a possible explanation, intertemporal interactions among these inventory types are explored using vector autoregressive and vector error correction models. The results suggest that raw materials and finished goods inventories asymmetrically affect each other over time. Implications for research and practice as well as future research opportunities are discussed.     

Turkey's accession to the European Union

Turkey's accession to the European Union is often discussed by posing the simple question of whether it should be admitted. Polite legal discussions will quickly point to the Copenhagen criteria for admission of a state to the Union. Less polite discussion will raise issues regarding whether the whole state can be characterized as a religious state, and a Muslim state at that, whether there is independent government interest beyond the military and religious interests and whether more than 2 million Turks already living in the European Union give Europe any idea of what it might be like to have Turkey admitted in its entirety. In the end, this author concludes that given all of these obstacles, perhaps the most telling question to be asked is why Turkey has been invited in the first place.     

Psychological and demographic factors influencing responsible credit card debt payment

Journal of Financial Services Marketing - The objective of this study is to examine whether individuals’ level of time preference, materialism, risk-taking, optimism, and intuitiveness along...     

EXPERIENCING URBAN SMELLS WHEN WALKING: Kastamonu City Case

Urban experiences are increasing in popularity every day. In these experiences sensory elements are significant, and a review of the urban environment, in which visual perceptions have prevailed in the past, would demonstrate that other senses are important as well. As Le Corbusier remarked, urban experiences can be achieved by walking with a wide perspective. In the present study scent walks were conducted to reveal the significance of the scent factor in urban experience. As a result of these walks, the existing scents in Kastamonu city, the role of the scents in urban memory, and their effects on individuals were determined, thus emphasizing the significance of scents for urban planning and design.     

Internationalization journey of healthcare providers: The case of Turkish Acıbadem healthcare group

The advances in technology and global deregulation have led to the progressive internationalization of professional services, notably, the healthcare industry. The present case study examines the remarkable internationalization journey of Acibadem Healthcare Group (AHG) by scrutinizing the dynamics and outcomes of the agile and innovative strategies which propel their achievements. The case of AHG shows that successful internationalization in the service industry, in general, and healthcare, in particular, is not solely in the domain of large, established companies from advanced economies, but those ventures with liabilities of origin, newness, and size can also succeed with smart strategies and resourceful leveraging of their competitive advantages. The study provides unique insights on strategic management for successful internationalization of the healthcare services within an emerging market context and suggests future research avenues in this fast-growing field of inquiry.     

How does the economic policy uncertainty affect the relationship between financial slack and firm performance in emerging countries?

This study investigates the moderating effect of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the relationship between slack resources and firm performance in emerging countries. By using 47,523 firm-year observations from seven emerging market economies through the period of 2010–2018, the results show an inverse U-shaped relationship between slack resources and firm performance. The findings also demonstrate that EPU acts as a negative moderator for the slack–performance relationship. In high EPU environments, the marginal benefit from one additional unit of slack is smaller relative to low EPU environments. This study contributes to the slack resources-firm performance literature by emphasizing the role of the broader external environment as a moderator.