Utilization of Delphi methods for University planning

A Delphi-type project undertaken from 1970–1972 to explore the long-term aims of Carleton University is described. The desiderata of ten participating groups is compared to actual developments in the decade that followed.     

Sharing product harm information: The effects of self-construal and self-relevance

Product harm information spreading in the marketplace may have profound consequences for companies, public policy makers and consumer well-being. However, limited research is available on what makes consumers share such information with others. This paper examines how self-relevance and self-construal affect the sharing of product harm information and the underlying processes that shape sharing. Five experiments demonstrate that under independent self-construal, highly self-relevant product harm information is less likely to be shared. The reluctance to share highly self-relevant information is attenuated under interdependent self-construal. The differential effects of self-construal are related to self-serving processes and motivations for sharing product harm information with others. The results apply to the sharing of negative information, but not positive information. Companies may use these findings to manage the diffusion of product harm information.     

‘We’ are more likely to endorse than ‘I’: the effects of self-construal and brand symbolism on consumers’ online brand endorsements

Recent research increasingly highlights that consumers engage in online brand endorsements (e.g. Facebook likes) to signal their identity, but has failed to explain why different consumers use this type of signaling to differing degrees. This paper addresses this gap by looking at a culturally constructed individual difference variable, namely self-construal. Self-construal, which can be independent or interdependent, refers to the extent that people define themselves in terms of the relations they have with others. In four studies, this research shows that consumers’ self-construal is related to their intention to endorse brands online. In particular, high levels of interdependent self-construal positively affect consumers’ intention to endorse brands online (Studies 1A & 1B). This effect is mediated by an increased perception of brands’ symbolic value (Study 2). Moreover, this positivity bias toward symbolic brand cues is conditional upon consumers’ brand attitude (Study 3). These findings demonstrate that consumers’ identity plays a central role in their brand perception and brand-related social media use.     

The Firm's Management of Social Interactions

Consumer choice is influenced in a direct and meaningful way by the actions taken by others. These “actions” range from face-to-face recommendations from a friend to the passive observation of what a stranger is wearing. We refer to the set of such contexts as “social interactions” (SI). We believe that at least some of the SI effects are partially within the firm's control and that this represents an exciting research opportunity. We present an agenda that identifies a list of unanswered questions of potential interest to both researchers and managers. In order to appreciate the firm's choices with respect to its management of SI, it is important to first evaluate where we are in terms of understanding the phenomena themselves. We highlight five questions in this regard: (1) What are the antecedents of word of mouth (WOM)? (2) How does the transmission of positive WOM differ from that of negative WOM? (3) How does online WOM differ from offline WOM? (4) What is the impact of WOM? (5) How can we measure WOM? Finally, we identify and discuss four principal, non-mutually exclusive, roles that the firm might play: (1) observer, (2) moderator, (3) mediator, and (4) participant.     

The role of customization,brand trust,and privacy concerns in advergaming

This study investigates the effects of advergame customization features and trust in the brand advertised in the advergame on players’ brand attitude and personal information disclosure. Moreover, we examine to what extent players’ privacy concerns moderate these effects. Drawing on self-determination theory and uncertainty reduction theory, we developed and tested a game with varying levels of customization features and brand trust. Results show that customization possibilities and brand trust may have a positive influence on advergame persuasion outcomes, but this influence is strongly conditioned by consumers’ privacy concerns. When privacy concerns are low, a game containing customization features leads to a more positive brand attitude. However, when privacy concerns are high, the effect becomes negative. Additionally, we find that different levels of privacy concerns do not affect players’ responses toward high trust brands, but toward low trust brands. For low trust brands, players with high privacy concerns show more negative game responses than players with low concerns. These findings set the boundaries for several theoretical and practical implications regarding advergame effectiveness.     

The owner's edge: Brand ownership influences causal maps

Understanding the coherence between the attributes of a brand is a key asset for marketers managing brand equity. This study proposes consumer causal maps as a powerful instrument to achieve this purpose. These maps shed light on how different consumer groups think about the brand. Compared to non-owners, brand owners have been able to develop more expertise regarding the specific brand, which leads them to have more extensive causal maps. An exception occurs for the category leader, for which owners and non-owners have equally extensive maps. The surprising finding of this study is that the leading brand seems to encompass the ingredients for the causal maps of the other brands in the category. The results highlight how management should address owners and non-owners differently, in particular if a brand is far from category leadership.     

Receiver responses to rewarded referrals: the motive inferences framework

Referral reward programs have been shown in past research to stimulate referrals and also to contribute positively to customer lifetime value and firms’ profitability. In this paper we examine whether, how, and under what conditions providing a reward for a referral affects receivers’ responses to the referral. Based on a multiple motives inference framework, we propose that rewards adversely affect responses because they lead receiving consumers to infer ulterior motives for the referral. Using experiments and a survey, we find support for this hypothesis and show that this effect is stronger for unsolicited and weak tie referrals. We also demonstrate that rewarding both the referral provider and receiver or providing symbolic rewards can eliminate the negative effect of rewarded referrals. The paper makes conceptual contributions to the literature on referral reward programs, word-of-mouth, and motive inferences. The work has implications for managers considering ways to construct referral programs and design marketing activities to increase referrals.     

Range and Number-of-Levels Effects in Derived and Stated Measures of Attribute Importance

We study how the range of variation and the number of attribute levels affect five measures of attribute importance: full profile conjoint estimates, ranges in attribute level attractiveness ratings, regression coefficients, graded paired comparisons, and self-reported ratings. We find that all importance measures are affected by the range manipulation. The number of attribute levels affects only two measures. The results allow us to benchmark the magnitude of the number-of-levels effect against the range effect: conjoint importance estimates were approximately equally affected by a threefold increase in the range of attribute variation and by the insertion of two intermediate attribute levels. Our findings show that the number-of-levels effect is most likely due to respondents' tendencies to distribute their mental stimulus representations and their responses uniformly over the corresponding continua.     

Outsourcing the pain,keeping the pleasure: effects of outsourced touchpoints in the customer journey

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science - Firms struggle to manage touchpoints in their customer journey that consumers perceive as dissatisfying. Based on attribution theory and associative...     

The impact of cultural symbols and spokesperson identity on attitudes and intentions

In today's multicultural societies, ethnic targeting is an increasingly important marketing strategy. Two main approaches to target ethnic minorities have emerged in recent years: messaging consumers when their ethnic identity is most salient, and doing so with spokespeople or models with the same heritage as the targeted minority. In this paper, we conduct conceptual replications of two influential articles representative of these research streams: Forehand and Deshpandé (2001) and Deshpandé and Stayman (1994). Our studies show that the effects of such practices on minority consumers are not homogeneous. The findings identify generational status (first vs. second generation) as an important boundary condition for these ethnic targeting strategies. This has important conceptual and practical implications for choosing an effective ethnic targeting strategy.