The same old song: The power of familiarity in music choice

Does "familiarity breed contempt" or is "to know you is to love you"? In this research, we explore the role of familiarity in music choice. We show that although consumers say they would prefer to listen to unfamiliar music, in actuality familiarity with music positively predicts preference for songs, play lists, and radio stations. Familiarity with music is at least as good, if not a better, predictor of choice as are liking, satiation (which actually positively predicts choice), and regret. We suggest that the need for familiarity is driven by consumers' low need for stimulation in the music domain, and show that when the need for stimulation decreases, the power of familiarity significantly increases. In addition to their theoretical contribution, these results are informative for music managers determining playlists, for the promotion of music events and products, and for advertisers selecting the most potentially lucrative music venues.     

Entrepreneurial global franchise ventures: US and European franchisee failure strategic and empirical perspectives

Rapid United States and European franchise growth offers potential benefits for stakeholders and host counties, as well as the potential for failure. Franchisee failure research is a complex area confounded by varying failure definitions, approaches, an event-focus, and single-year data. This paper includes a strategic franchisee failure perspective that views franchisee failure as a multi-stage process rather than an event; new longitudinal data from the United States for over 780 franchise systems and 292,000 franchise units and United Kingdom franchisee failure data for over 700 franchise systems and 31,000 franchisee units; and estimates of current European business-format franchise market size, including selected Central and Eastern European countries. Understanding and mitigating franchisee failure provide potential lessons for franchisors and franchisees. Franchisee failure and the strategic implications for franchise entrepreneurial ventures is a significant research area that merits further study and analysis.     

Interactions between marketing and quality at the SBU level: Influences and outcomes

The management of quality and development of effective cross-functional cooperation have assumed a new strategic importance over the past decade. However, many companies have reported that quality strategies have failed to deliver anticipated performance benefits and that ineffective interfunctional relationships may be to blame. This study explores marketing-quality interfunctional relationships as a potential source of quality strategy implementation failure at the strategic business unit (SBU) level. This study focuses on interdepartmental connectedness, communication and conflict between marketing and quality, and the antecedents and consequences of these dimensions of interfunctional interaction. Using data from a pooled response mail survey, the results suggest that marketing-quality interactions are associated with senior management quality leadership, strategic quality planning process, and control system characteristics. Interfunctional interactions between marketing and quality are found to be only weakly related to relative quality, market performance, and financial performance outcomes. Neil A. Morgan is a university lecturer in marketing and strategy at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge, England. His research interests focus on strategic issues concerning marketing strategy formulation, marketing implementation processes, and business performance. His work has appeared in theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, British Journal of Management, and other journals. Nigel F. Piercy is Sir Julian Hodge professor of marketing and strategy and chair of Marketing and Strategy at the Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, United Kingdom. His research interests focus on the organizational context of marketing management, market-led strategic change, and the role of process in marketing strategy implementation. His work has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Advertising, and other journals.     

GROWTH,COMMODITY PRICES,INFLATION AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME

A primary commodity price boom is underway. Given the role of internationally traded primary commodities as inputs into the productive process in the industrialized world, an important question arises: namely what effects will this price‐boom exert upon wage and price inflation in industrialized countries? In order to address this question, we specify and estimate a system of equations in which the key dependent variables are world commodity prices, the domestic inflation rate for finished goods and the rate of domestic industrial wage inflation. This model is estimated against data for each of three major industrialized countries: Japan, the UK and the USA and the implications of the results thus obtained are explored.     

Environmentally sustainable or economically sustainable? The effect of Chinese manufacturing firms' corporate sustainable strategy on their green performances

Environmentally and economically sustainable strategies are predicted to influence the public perception of a firm's green performance in terms of environmental protection as well as corporate social responsibility as a whole. We empirically tested this prediction with the data from 214 Chinese manufacturing firms. Our empirical findings showed that firms' environmentally sustainable strategies are more important compared with the economic ones in shaping firms' green performances. Moreover, we also found a significant moderating effect of employees' education on the relationship between the two sustainable strategies and firms' green performances. We explain the findings and conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for academic researchers and practitioners.     

‘Tourism poverty’ in affluent societies: Voices from inner-city London

There is now a significant body of work analysing the multifaceted connections between tourism and poverty in less developed economies. Far fewer studies discuss the relationships between tourism and poverty in the world’s affluent societies and most of these concentrate on social tourism and on the benefits of these holidays for deprived and marginalised groups. This paper provides an insight into the experiences of families unable to afford any form of paid holiday away from home. Based on participant-driven interviews with 20 low-income parents living in a deprived area of Inner London, the paper reveals that for these individuals exclusion from tourism makes a clear contribution to their children’s exclusion from everyday norms as holidays are regarded as part of contemporary British family life. The study discusses policy and business implications and suggests further investigation of trans-generational ‘tourism poverty’.