The differing roles of success drivers across sequential channels: An application to the motion picture industry

In several product categories, it is typical to release products sequentially to different markets and customer segments. Conventional knowledge holds that the roles of various product success drivers do not differ significantly across these sequential channels of distribution. The authors examine sequential distribution channels within the motion picture industry and develop a model that proposes that such differences exist between a primary (short- and long-term theatrical box office) and a sequential (video rental) channel. The authors test their model with a sample of 331 motion pictures released in theaters and on video during 1999–2001 using partial least squares. Results reveal differences in the impact of success factors across channels. For example, cultural familiarity enhances box office success but relates negatively to video rental success, and distribution intensity and date of release enhance box office outcomes but have no impact on rental revenues. Thorsten Hennig-Thurau (tht@medien.uni-weimar.cie) is a professor of marketing and media research at Bauhaus-University of Weimar’s Media School and Honorary Visiting Professor of Movie Marketing in the Faculty of Management of Cass Business School, City University London. He has published articles in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Service Research, theInternational Journal of Electronic Commerce, theJournal of Interactive Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, and theJournal of Consumer Affairs, among others. He is author of the monograph Relationship Marketing, which has been translated into Chinese. He is member of the editorial board of three journals and serves as reviewer for theJournal of Marketing andMarketing Science. He has won eight Best Article and Best Paper Awards, including the Overall Best Paper Award of the 2005 American Marketing Association Summer Educators’ Conference and the 2002JSR Excellence in Service Research Award. Mark B. Houston (houstonmb@missouri.edu) (PhD, Arizona State University) is the David and Judy O’Neal MBA Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research on strategy, interfirm relationships, and innovation has been published in leading journals, including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. He cochaired the 2005 American Marketing Association (AMA) Summer Educators’ Conference and served for two terms as vice president of the AMA’s Technology and Marketing Special Interest Group. Gianfranco Walsh (g.walsh@strath.ac.uk) received his MPhil degree from UMIST (England) and PhD (2001) and Habilitation (2004) degrees from Hanover (Germany). His research focuses on consumer behavior, corporate reputation, and e-commerce. He has presented numerous papers at international conferences. His work has been published in, among others, theAcademy of Marketing Science Review, the International Journal of Electronic Commerce, theJournal of Consumer Affairs, theJournal of Interactive Marketing, theJournal of Macromarketing, and theJournal of Marketing Management. He is the Chair of Marketing and Electronic Retailing at the Institute for Management, University of Koblenz-Landau.     

Specialisation,localisation, and trade value in the wake of cross-border production sharing. The Central Eastern European Countries' case

We focus on five among the sectors in which most of the CEECs’ trade in middle products with EU-15 is concentrated. Over the second half of the 1990s, we observe remarkable changes in both production and trade specialization as well as a significant relocation of industries within CEECs. Using jointly trade and production data we outline co-movements in the adjustment of specialisation patterns. We also show that the redistribution of activities at the regional level reflects the relocation of industries at the global level. Finally, we try to detect the scope of fragmentation of production characterizing each industry and the ways in which CEECs are moving along the “internationally sliced-up value chain”. (JEL: F10, F14, F15)     

An Extension of the J‐Test to a Spatial Panel Data Framework

Kelejian (Letters in Spatial and Resources Sciences; 1 : 3–11) extended the J‐test procedure to a spatial framework. Although his suggested test was computationally simple and intuitive, it did not use the available information in an efficient manner. Kelejian and Piras (Regional Science and Urban Economics; 41 : 281–292) generalized and modified Kelejian's test to account for all the available information. However, neither Kelejian ( 2008 ) nor Kelejian & Piras ( 2011 ) considered a panel data framework. In this paper we generalize these earlier works to a panel data framework with fixed effects and additional endogenous variables. We give theoretical as well as Monte Carlo results relating to our suggested tests. An empirical application on a crime model for North Carolina is also estimated. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Culture and age as moderators in the corporate reputation and loyalty relationship

This study investigates the moderating role of culture and relationship age in the relationship between customer-based corporate reputation (CBR) and customer loyalty using data from two service contexts (retailing and fast-food restaurants) in three countries (France, the U.K., and the U.S.) that differ with regards to two cultural values—uncertainty avoidance and time orientation. Results suggest that CBR has similar effects on affective and intentional loyalty in all three countries. However, culture interacts with relationship age, such that relationship age magnifies the effect of CBR in France, while relationship age suppresses CBR's effect in the U.K. and the U.S. The authors provide explanations for these effects based on cultural theories. Managerial and research implications are developed.     

Investigating mediators between corporate reputation and customer citizenship behaviors

Recent corporate reputation research focuses on customers as an important stakeholder group for whom firm reputation matters. The authors hypothesize that customer-based corporate reputation (CBR) may affect customer citizenship behaviors (CCB) and that both commitment and loyalty mediate the CBR-CCB relationship. The tests of the hypotheses use a sample of 583 service customers who evaluate the reputation of service firms. These results suggest that commitment and loyalty mediate the relationship between CBR and one type of CCB, that is, helping the company. The authors discuss the implications for marketing research and practice.     

Algoritmi per problemi di ottimo non vincolato

Nel lavoro sono proposti due algoritmi per la risoluzione di problemi di ottimizziazione non vincolati. Si dimostra che gli algoritmi sono convergenti e che la convergenza risulta superlineare.

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Two algorithms for unconstrained optimization problems are presented. The resulting algorithms are shown to have convergence properties and superlinear convergence rate.

     

Institutions and geography: Empirical test of spatial growth models for European regions

This article provides an empirical assessment of the growth experiences of European regions, during the period 1991–2004, by taking into account the spatial effects due to both institutions and geography. These effects have been modelled by means of specific controls and by using a non-conventional spatial weight matrix. Results favour a model dealing with substantive spatial externalities. Within this framework, the country-specific institutions are strongly and positively related to the regional productivity's growth rate. In addition, the geo-institutional proximity increases the spatial dependence of the regional output per worker and raises the speed of convergence. By contrast, the pure geographical metrics is underperforming, while underestimating the convergence dynamics.     

Ethical Thinking in Traditional Italian <Emphasis Type="Italic">Economia Aziendale</Emphasis> and the Stakeholder Management Theory: The Search for Possible Interactions

Over the last few years, there has been an exaggeratedly widespread and frequently confused use of the concepts of ‘stakeholder’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’. However, some interesting insights of both these notions can be found in traditional European business administration studies. In this article, the Italian view will be examined. In particular, this paper investigates the teachings of some of the historical masters of the Italian Economia Aziendale (EA), with particular attention to the concept of the azienda, its finalism and its essential characteristics, in order to verify some consistencies with the more recent Stakeholder Management Theory (SMT). Principles and considerations seem to emerge from EA scholars’ seminal works that unequivocally connect ethics with business decisions. EA fits in with SMT in many ways, and the former (EA) seems, moreover, to suggest a specific normative point of view from which the role of ethics in business activities can be approached.     

Endogenous recessions: The creative destruction effect of final product novelty

In this paper we build a basic macroeconomic model aimed to grasp some aspects of the inner functioning of macroeconomic fluctuations. We highlight a mechanism through which the appearance of a product innovation results in an eventual reduction of the aggregate economic activity. When a new product appears, demand moves towards this more attractive product. The ‘creative destruction’ effect in this context is represented by the resources lost when firms producing old varieties exit the market due to the shortage of demand. Because firms producing a given product receive on average the same amount of demand, exits happen to be highly synchronized. We use this fact to explain the fluctuation asymmetries observed in real data. We test the ability of the model to meet features of real data against the United States' GDP in the 1950–1992 period.