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.     

Social networks in the global banking sector

We show that banks with shared social connections partner more often in the global syndicated loan market and that central banks in the network play dominant roles in various interbank transactions, indicating that social connections facilitate business connections. However, more centralized banks in the network also contribute significantly to the global systemic risk. Moreover, we find the soft information generated by social networks is particularly valuable when potential partners operate under different accounting and regulatory standards. Finally, we show that the recent banking crisis significantly limited the positive soft information effects of social networks in the global banking system.     

Crossing Disciplines: A Constraint‐Based Model of the Creative/Innovative Process

This paper argues that artistic creativity and organizational innovation share a common problem‐solving process. The process per se is presented as a complement to the jazz metaphor for understanding organizational innovation. As modeled, it involves paired constraints that limit and direct search for a solution path. One of each pair identifies something to be precluded; the other specifies its substitute. The process can be initiated by necessity or by design. Once begun, the process is iterative: one substitution pair necessitates another. The creation/innovation is the novel solution path created by the substitution series. In‐depth analyses of two artistic creators are accompanied by allusions to parallel examples in organizational innovation.     

Reassessing Firm Size in International Marketing Research

This study investigates the relevance and importance of firm size as a current research variable in international marketing while being cognizant of the reasons behind previous researcher's focus on firm size. Utilizing two different databases and analyses, this study integrates existing research on the effects of firm size variables on decisions in international marketing and draws a general conclusion. The main research questions center on whether firm size matters in internationalization decisions and whether firm size is a meaningful proxy for specific firm resources. Our results suggest that the effect of size on internationalization becomes less significant over time and that the effect of firm size on choice of ownership is significantly less than that of other firm-specific variables such as R&D intensity and advertising intensity, suggesting that strategic international marketing decisions are more related to a firm's unique assets than to its size.     

Domain‐Relevant Commitment and Individual Technical Innovation Performance

Individual innovators play a critical organizational role in that they generate and often champion technology and product ideas. Amidst an ongoing stream of organizational and team innovation research, few empirical studies focus on differences in individual innovation performance despite the importance of the individual innovator to a firm's innovation efforts. Based on goal commitment theory, we introduce a new domain‐relevant commitment construct and develop a conceptualization of conditional indirect effects. Our model suggests that relevant individual abilities enhance commitment to technical innovation and innovation performance while also insulating against the impact of situational variables, making employees' commitment to innovation performance less dependent upon context. Hypotheses are tested using two sources of data and a sample of 339 R&D professionals from a Fortune 100 industrial firm. Results suggest that commitment to innovation is a key motivational factor in explaining individual technical innovation performance. Situational characteristics impact motivation differently for individuals with lower vs. higher ability levels, even in this context in which truly low‐ability individuals, in the absolute sense, have been screened out by the employment selection process. The relationship between commitment and innovation performance is strengthened by higher levels of individual ability.     

The effect of a potential borrower's reporting reputation and financial condition on commercial loan officers' estimates of forecast bias and subsequent loan recommendations

This paper investigates whether a potential borrower's reporting reputation and financial condition affect commercial loan officers' loan judgments and recommendations after receiving an earnings forecast that predicts improved financial performance. The results suggest that the earnings forecast is perceived as more credible in the presence of (1) a reputation for objective reporting, and (2) strong financial condition. Also, a reputation for objective reporting allowed the borrower to more credibly convey the expected improvement in performance when financial condition was weak. However, while financial condition predictably affects loan recommendations (likelihood of granting the loan, interest rate), reporting reputation does not. While we find that commercial loan officers discount forecasts under similar circumstances as stock analysts, results suggest that the consequences of developing a reputation for aggressive reporting (e.g., aggressive selection of accounting methods and estimates within GAAP) may be greater in a stock valuation setting (prior research documents lower stock prices) than in a loan setting.     

Brand Name Audit Pricing,Industry Specialization,and Leadership Premiums post‐Big 8 and Big 6 Mergers*

This paper investigates brand name, industry specialization, and leadership audit pricing in the wake of the mergers that created the Big 6 and the Big 5 accounting firms. For samples of Australian listed public companies in each of the postmerger years 1990, 1992, 1994, and 1998, we estimate national audit fee premiums for the Big 6/5 auditors and the industry specialists and leaders. We find limited support for the ability of the Big 6/5 to obtain fee premiums over non‐Big 6/5 for those industries not having specialist auditors. Nonspecialist Big 6/5 auditors are able to obtain fee premiums over nonspecialist non‐Big 6/5 auditors for those industries having specialist auditors. However, this result only holds among the smaller half of our sample. We do not find strong support for the presence of industry specialist premiums in the postmerger years, especially after 1990, using various definitions of industry specialist. We find, at best, limited support for the presence of industry leadership premiums. The evidence suggests that after the Big 8/6 audit firm mergers, some caution is required in generalizing the Craswell, Francis, and Taylor 1995 finding of national market industry specialist premiums. More generally, the study raises questions about the tenuous link between the concept of specialization and national market‐share statistics.     

Market Structure and the Value of Agricultural Contingent Claims

In this paper, we evaluate the proposition that market structure, including supply and demand elasticities, plays a significant role in influencing equilibrium price dynamics. We show that the more inelastic the demand and/or supply of a commodity is, the more price risk will be faced by producers of that commodity. In general one can expect greater volatility from commodities with both demand and supply being inelastic, and the least when they are both elastic. We illustrate how the elasticities of supply and demand can impact the prices of contingent claims on agricultural commodities including revenue insurance.
Dans le présent article, nous évaluons la proposition selon laquelle la structure de marché, y compris l'élasticité de l'offre et de la demande, influence la dynamique du prix d'équilibre. Nous montrons que plus la demande et/ou l'offre d'un produit de base est inélastique, plus les producteurs de ce produit de base sont confrontés au risque de prix. En général, on peut s'attendre à une forte volatilité des produits de base pour lesquels l'offre et la demande sont à la fois inélastiques, et à une faible volatilité lorsqu'elles sont élastiques. Nous faisons ressortir de quelle façon l'inélasticité de l'offre et de la demande peut influencer les réclamations éventuelles concernant des produits agricoles de base, y compris l'assurance−revenu.