A Framework for Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility Programs as a Continuum: An Exploratory Study

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs are increasingly popular corporate marketing strategies. This paper argues that CSR programs can fall along a continuum between two endpoints: Institutionalized programs and Promotional programs. This classification is based on an exploratory study examining the variance of four responses from the consumer stakeholder group toward these two categories of CSR. Institutionalized CSR programs are argued to be most effective at increasing customer loyalty, enhancing attitude toward the company, and decreasing consumer skepticism. Promotional CSR programs are argued to be more effective at generating purchase intent. Ethical and managerial implications of these preliminary findings are discussed. Julie Pirsch, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Villanova University. She researches in the areas of cause-related marketing, corporate social responsibility, and new product development. Shruti Gupta, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Management at The Pennsylvania State University at Abington, in Abington, Pennsylvania. Dr. Gupta’s research interests lie in the area of corporate social responsibility, cause-related marketing, environmental consumerism, and social marketing issues. Stacy Landreth, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of North Texas. She researches in the areas of cause-related marketing and social marketing alliances, as well as advertising source effects.     

基于口碑效应的客户终身价值改进模型

本文认为,客户终身价值(CLV)模型是客户关系管理的核心,企业决策者应将有限的资源投放到最有价值客户身上,保持和提高这些客户的价值,为企业赢得长远利益。文章在剖析前人客户终身价值模型的基础上,建立了基于口碑效应的客户终身价值改进模型,更客观地反映了客户消费行为,提高了客户终身价值模型预测的准确性。通过改进模型计算可以知道,满意客户因为积极的口碑效应使自身客户价值放大,不满意客户因为消极的口碑效应使自身客户价值缩小。     

服务业顾客忠诚的驱动因素研究

服务业顾客忠诚一直是营销理论界高度关注的热门话题之一,借鉴西方学者对服务业顾客忠诚基本概念的界定,在考察服务产品质量、情境设计等有形利益对顾客忠诚的影响的同时,将无形驱动因素纳入影响服务业顾客忠诚的分析中,通过国内外现有的研究成果分析这些驱动因素对服务业顾客忠诚的影响,阐明服务业顾客忠诚的形成机理,从而为该领域提供新的研究思路,为服务业提升竞争力提供管理决策的参考依据。     

Brand Loyalty Versus Store Loyalty: Consumers’ Role in Determining Dependence Structure of Supplier–Retailer Dyads

Purpose: This article aims to integrate consumers into a channel dependence framework and explores the influence of consumers’ brand loyalty and store loyalty on the dependence structure within the supplier–retailer relationship. It also examines effects of the dependence structure on perceived conflict.

Methodology/approach: The authors test the proposed triadic relationship model among department store, supplier, and consumer by collecting matched data from both retailers and consumers in a Chinese retailing channel of sports and leisure apparel. Polynomial regression in conjunction with a response surface analysis (RSA) approach is used to test the hypotheses.

Findings: The results indicate that consumers’ brand loyalty positively affects retailer’s dependence on supplier, while consumers’ store loyalty positively affects supplier’s dependence on retailer. In addition, the retailer’s dependence is higher when consumers’ brand loyalty is higher than store loyalty; the supplier’s dependence is higher when consumers’ store loyalty is higher than brand loyalty; and the retailer’s dependence increases with the increase of both consumers’ brand and store loyalty when consumers’ brand and store loyalty are equal. Moreover, supplier’s dependence has a negative linear effect on retailer’s perceived conflict, whereas retailer’s dependence has an inverted U-shape effect on perceived conflict. A retailer would perceive more conflict when the retailer is relatively more dependent on the supplier; but the symmetrical interdependence has no significant effect on retailer perceived conflict.

Research implications: Researchers are encouraged to explore channel behaviors from a network perspective. Consumers, in particular, should be included in research frameworks related to channel dependence and behaviors. Suggestions for further research on the effects of dependence on the conflict are also proposed.

Originality/value/contribution: This study goes beyond the dyadic paradigm by integrating consumers into the framework of the channel dependence structure. It develops and tests a mechanism of consumers’ brand and store loyalty influencing dependence structure within a supplier–retailer dyad. It also enriches the literature of channel conflict by exploring the effects of retailer and supplier unilateral dependence on retailer perceived conflict with RSA methods.

Practical implications: The article provides several insightful implications for managers in understanding and managing interdependence structure in business-to-business marketing, especially in supplier–retailer relationships.     

The erosion of repeat-purchase loyalty

A large-scale longitudinal analysis is used to study the repeat-purchase rates of brand buyers in stationary markets. The data cover the leading brands in a number of frequently purchased grocery categories in three countries. We find that, in the medium term, there is a systematic but limited loss of repeat-purchase loyalty; across nine markets, erosion (the proportionate fall in repeat-purchase loyalty) averages 15 percent in the first year for the brands studied. Erosion does not differ by weight of purchase: similar rates are found for light, medium, and heavy buyer-segments. Brand leaders are found to have a lower erosion than smaller brands.     

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.     

美国消费者满意指数:原理、方法与启示

本文介绍了美国消费者满意指数的编制背景、依据的模型和具体的编制方法,重点分析了消费者满意指数在经济与经营绩效衡量方面的运用。文章认为,消费者满意指数可以从企业、行业和国家三个层次反映经济活动的绩效,不仅是传统的绩效衡量指标的有益补充,而且直接与企业未来盈利性相联系,具有传统指标不具有的独特价值;消费者满意指数有两个显著特点,一是测量消费者对某种产品的整体满意感,二是承认消费者满意水平不能直接衡量,应通过建立模型进行估计。文章还指出了消费者满意指数的局限性如抽象掉了不同行业和产品的差异性,也没有建立产品和服务的性能与消费者满意之间的联系等。     

Understanding Active Loyalty Behavior in Hotel Reward Programs Through Customers’ Switching Costs and Perceived Program Value

Whether loyalty programs have become part of the lexicon of buzzwords or not, the hotel industry continues to adopt loyalty/rewards programs as a major channel to nurture customers’ active loyalty as well as to reap return business. This study examins the structural relationships among perceived program value, switching costs, and active loyalty. The proposed model is supported by an online survey dataset collected from United States (US) tourists. The findings show that perceived program value is less effective in driving active loyalty compared with switching costs. This implies a need for strategic thinking on the part of hoteliers and the industry. Rather than aggressively spending money or copying schemes used by competitors to gear up program value, the value of a defensive tactic of increasing switching costs should be considered.     

基于忠诚度的饭店员工管理

人是企业经营发展的资本,尤其是饭店作为劳动密集型、技术含量低的服务性行业,在个性化服务呼声越来越强烈的21世纪,员工的经验与工作心态直接影响饭店对顾客的服务质量。因而,对饭店的核心竞争优势———人力资源,应给以充分认识,重视员工忠诚的价值,重视对员工忠诚度的培养与提升,以保证饭店的可持续发展。     

Decline and variability in brand loyalty

In this paper, we examine the over-time behavior of brand loyalty for a large set of brands drawn from 21 consumer packaged goods categories. Using the brand-loyalty operationalization of Colombo and Morrison (1989), the following conclusions are obtained. First, little support is found for the often-heard contention that brand loyalty is gradually declining over time. Second, while the short-run variability around a brand's mean loyalty level is not negligible, no evidence is found that this variability has systematically increased over time, and it can be reduced considerably through a simple smoothing procedure. Finally, the brand-loyalty pattern for market-share leaders is found to be more stable than for other brands. The study findings were robust to variation in the time interval used to construct the switching matrices, and to different treatments of multiple purchases.