Linking employer branding orientation and firm performance: Testing a dual mediation route of recruitment efficiency and positive affective climate

Faced with competitive labor markets, firms increasingly use employer branding to build a qualified workforce and engage their employees. However, our understanding of the impact of employer branding orientation on firm performance and the theoretical firm-level mechanisms underlying this potential impact is very limited. To address this gap, we integrate brand marketing theory with human resource management (HRM) research to develop a model explicating how employer branding orientation is linked to firm performance through a dual route by enhancing both recruitment efficiency (i.e., external route: applicants) and positive affective climate (i.e., internal route: incumbent employees). The results of a multisource study (i.e., top management, human resource managers, employees) with 93 firms show employer branding orientation is positively related to firm performance through positive affective climate but not recruitment efficiency. Using a brand equity approach to HRM, our results advance the literature by demonstrating the generalizability of employer branding effects independent of concrete brand attributes and explaining the firm-level mediating mechanisms linking it to firm performance.     

Entrepreneurial Orientation’s effect on marketing strategies and success: implications for US firms entering Cuba

Entering a newly liberalized market is a great challenge for companies as the environment is new and untested. On one side, to have success in these markets, firms must have a plan of action before resources are committed. Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is associated with the successful exploration of resources and the creation of new niches as the Resource Theory supports. On another side, a natural bond between EO and marketing is found in the Value Creation Theory. So, to maximize firm success in newly liberalized markets (such as Cuba), firms must be able to objectively gauge their own entrepreneurial orientation adopting a marketing approach. Within this framework, the present paper will attempt to effectively measure the entrepreneurial orientation of US firms that have an interest in entering the Cuban market. A final sample of 81 US firms was obtained. The sample was then split into two groups (high and low entrepreneurial orientation) and compared regarding their marketing strategies (H1) and their levels of success (H2). Our results confirmed both hypotheses.     

Examining the relationship between customer and entrepreneurial orientation on nascent firms’ marketing strategy

Is entrepreneurial marketing (EM) a ??one type fits all?? approach? Research suggests that EM is especially suitable for small firms. However, it is obvious that??despite their size??small firms show a myriad of different characteristics. In this paper, it is argued that different firm characteristics can be seen in different business orientations, namely customer orientation (CO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). In turn, different amounts of EO and CO lead to different forms of EM strategy. The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) serves as source to investigate relationships between EO, CO, and respective marketing strategies among nascent firms. The study suggests that innovativeness is strongly related to the importance of several marketing strategies, such as developing new or advanced product or process technologies. However, other strategies, such as lower prices or convenient location, are not related to either significant levels of CO or EO. The paper offers two main implications. Firstly, small business founders have to be aware of the fact that certain strategies cannot come ??out of nowhere??. This paper shows that running proactive marketing strategies that aim for ongoing innovativeness require the existence of an underlying EO. Secondly, there are different forms of ??small firm EM??; a finding that requires further research in the future.     

Exploring customer online reviews for new product development: The case of identifying reinforcers in the cosmetic industry

This study analyzes online customer reviews in order to investigate customers' preferences regarding cosmetic products. Based on the marketing firm theory, this research explores the possibility of enhancing the bilateral contingent relationships between the customer and the marketing firm within the cosmetics domain. Hence, this study applies market-search concepts by extracting customer reviews and employing text analytics to identify reinforcers and factors in cosmetic products, which customers are expecting, and their sentiments towards them. Our results suggest that some reinforcers are shared among all customers, but some vary among the different customer segments based on their age and skin tone.     

Corporate environmentalism strategy in the Spanish consumer product sector: a typology of firms

In recent years, the protection of the environment has gained a growing importance. Accordingly, small and large firms have become aware of their responsibility and begun to develop environmental strategies as an enterprising challenge. In such a situation, this study describes firms' environmental orientation and its impact on the design of corporate and marketing strategies in the Spanish consumer product sector. The purpose of this paper is to identify different groups of firms according to their environmental behaviour. The information was obtained through 81 personal interviews with firms in the final consumer product sector. With the data obtained we have conducted several exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and a cluster analysis. Findings have proved that there is a specific firm type characterized by certain variables: influence of external forces; environmental orientation; corporative and marketing strategies; size; macro‐sector and, if existing, the environment department. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate social responsibility,durable‐goods and firm profitability

Utilizing a two‐period durable‐goods framework, we show that in uncommitted sales markets a firm may earn higher profits as it increases its level of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that this occurs even though CSR has no direct impact other than increasing the durable‐goods firm's manufacturing costs. We show that in sales markets, CSR may allow the firm to credibly commit itself to lower production in the future. This, in turn, can enhance their profits even though the CSR activities are costly and provide no direct demand or marketing benefit in our model. This is important because it provides another, hereto unexplored, strategic rationale for the willingness of profit‐maximizing firms to undertake costly CSR activities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

服务导向与组织内外部营销表现关系之研究

在服务营销管理的领域中，内部营销及外部营销均为影响组织绩效的关键因素，本研究以餐饮业的服务员工及顾客为实证研究的对象，将服务导向作为主要变量，从员工及顾客的角度，发展一个整合服务导向及组织内、外部营销表现的模型，并以LISREL分析验证本研究所提出的假设。     

Developing the e-commerce sector for the fishery industry: What business are we really in?

In this study, we use the theory of the marketing firm to explain marketing relationships between consumers and firms selling fish in the context of developing the e-commerce sector for the fishery industry. We use a unique dataset composed of quantitative and qualitative data to provide a behavioral economic analysis and interpretation. The results reveal interdependent managerial and consumer behavioral relationships, indicating the presence of bilateral contingencies. The results also provide some indication of the theory of transaction cost, where cost-intensive activities are likely to be internalized within marketing firms selling fish.     

The marketing firm: Retailer and consumer contingencies

Efficiency has emerged as an important consumer value and thus has increased the importance of the in-store search as one facet of consumer transaction costs. This paper contributes to the development of a marketing theory of the firm by analyzing the consumers' in-store efficiency ratios and the retailers' natural sources of resistance to offer efficiency to all of their customers. We propose new behavioral metrics for consumer transaction costs. Our data from the behavioral tracking of 497 complete shopping trips reveal more transaction costs for quick shopping trips than for regular shopping trips, which demonstrates friction between retail and consumer transaction costs for quick trips.     

Winner Take All: Competition, Strategy, and the Structure of Returns in the Internet Economy

In this paper, we develop an economic rationale for the following stylized fact: Web-based firms spend profligately on advertising and marketing and usually lose money. Our rationale is based on the winner-take-all structure of high fixed cost, low marginal cost, markets for information goods. This market structure ensures that market participation and investment policy are highly stochastic. Moreover, if a firm chooses to participate in a Web market, it is optimal to act very aggressively through saturation advertising. Although increases in advertising costs reduce the probability of entry, once the decision to enter is made, firm strategies are insensitive to advertising price. Consistent with empirical studies of the profitability of internet firms ( Hand, 2001 ), our model predicts returns that are highly positively skewed, that is, even the firms that survive the competition for market position have a small chance of huge gains combined with a large probability of very modest returns. In dynamic competition, firms weakened by early rounds are less likely to challenge in subsequent rounds. However, when a challenge is attempted, it is always aggressive. In addition, because large expenditures in the first period produce valuable strategic real options in later periods, which are treated as expenses using traditional accounting methodology, the financial valuation of Internet firms may actually be negatively related to performance when using standard accounting measures of profitability that fail to capitalize these strategic real options.     

Strategic supply management: The relationship between supply management practices, strategic orientation and their impact on organisational performance

A theoretical model is presented for conceptualising the relationship between the management of supply, strategic orientation at the business-unit level and their proposed link with firm performance. The shortcomings of existing approaches in accounting for the wide variety of purchasing practices in a comprehensive supply management framework are discussed as well their alignment with strategic orientation. The paper concludes by presenting a model and propositions concerning firm-level supply management, strategic orientation and firm performance.     

Strategic marketing practices and the performance of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan

This paper reports on a survey of the strategic marketing practices of 218 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan. The survey's results indicate that while the higher performing Taiwanese SMEs give a higher priority to marketing than to other business functions in corporate planning, they are still sales- or production-oriented. The higher performing Taiwanese SMEs are more aware of strategic planning tools, but they make less use of them. They compete with value-added products and good buyer-seller relationships. The findings suggest that broad, small firm marketing principles, specifically generated from countries in the West, to some extent contribute to the success of Taiwanese SMEs. Interestingly, however, the specific marketing practices of these small firms are different from those of their Western counterparts. The research results provide additional evidence to support the theory that both Chinese cultural value orientations and mediating environmental factors play significant roles in shaping the attitudes and behaviour of Taiwanese owner-managers and, in turn, the marketing practices of Taiwanese SMEs.     

Marketing Innovation

This paper provides an economic analysis of marketing innovation. A dynamic duopoly model is developed to study two forms of marketing innovation: γ, which allows a firm to acquire consumer information effectively; and σ, which reduces consumer transaction costs. The incentives and effects of marketing innovation differ markedly from those of product or process innovations. Although γ benefits the innovating firm, it hurts some consumers; and, while σ benefits all consumers, it may or may not benefit the innovating firm. Increased competition intensity reduces the value of γ but increases the value of σ. The private incentive is too high for γ but too low for σ.     

Operating decisions, supplier availability and quality: An empirical study

In the just-in-time (JIT) philosophy, purchasing strategies advocate the use of fewer sources of supply to enable a firm to improve the quality of its products. However, there is paucity of empirical evidence in support of the theory. We develop a model by integrating concepts from manufacturing, marketing, and business strategy to better understand the links between operating decisions of the firm, supplier availability, and product quality. We empirically test the hypotheses using cross-sectional PIMS data. Our analysis shows that operating decisions and environmental factors such as wider product lines, lower levels of competition, and greater frequency of product changes increase the likelihood of a firms' reduction of supplier base, which in turn raises quality levels.     

Agile manufacturing: Relation to JIT, operational performance and firm performance

A structural model incorporating agile manufacturing as the focal construct is theorized and tested. The model includes the primary components of JIT (JIT-purchasing and JIT-production) as antecedents and operational performance and firm performance as consequences to agile manufacturing. Using data collected from production and operations managers working for large U.S. manufacturers, the model is assessed following a structural equation modeling methodology. The results indicate that JIT-purchasing has a direct positive relationship with agile manufacturing while the positive relationship between JIT-production and agile manufacturing is mediated by JIT-purchasing. The results also indicate that agile manufacturing has a direct positive relationship with the operational performance of the firm, that the operational performance of the firm has a direct positive relationship with the marketing performance of the firm, and that the positive relationship between the operational performance of the firm and the financial performance of the firm is mediated by the marketing performance of the firm.     

Real consumers in the virtual store

This article deals with shopping on the Internet. On a basis of environmental psychology theory, we examine the effects of this new retail interface on consumer shopping behaviour. In an empirical study, we contrast Web shopping with physical store shopping. The findings show discrepancies with regard to the amount and form of purchase planning. Internet shoppers plan their purchases better and seem to be less susceptible to marketing activities. However, these discrepancies can be attributed to differences in store stimuli, as the Web retail interface is not well designed in marketing terms. The mediating effect of shopping orientation was examined and found not to be significant. However, the distribution of shopping types has important implications.     

Breaking the cycle of marketing disinvestment: using market research to build organisational alliances

Many marketers find their programmes fall victim to disinvestment, both financial and psychological. While most marketers are avid students of consumer psychology, they tend to overlook the dynamics of organisational psychology, just as the literature on market orientation often fails to emphasise the organisational identity politics and power struggles that frustrate marketing. Discussions of market orientation focus on leadership and team‐building issues, favouring highly visible cases of organisational success at the expense of analysing common factors in marketing failure, many of them grounded in organisational psychology. Allied with knowledge of organisational epistemology, market research can be used as a critical resource in marketers' internal marketing programmes to strengthen market orientation. Ongoing collaborative market research can build positive organisational alliances that contribute to the internal support needed to sustain a successful marketing programme. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

The service sector: Challenges and imperatives for research in operations management

The United States has undergone a transformation from an industrial society to the first postindustrial society. Consequently, the service sector has outstripped manufacturing in its contribution to the GNP and in employment. This paper discusses the challenges and imperatives for research in service operations management (SOM). Service operations have unique characteristics that must be considered in developing research strategies. Recent attempts at evolving a general theory of service organizations are reviewed, and it is suggested that these conceptual models provide a unifying framework for the study of SOM. Research in SOM requires a broad perspective that includes the customer and the interactions with other functional areas. It requires an integration of conventional production concepts with behavioral and marketing considerations.     

Firm's resilience to supply chain disruptions: Scale development and empirical examination

This paper expands our understanding of factors that contribute to development of firm resilience to supply chain disruptions. In doing so, we operationalize firm resilience to understand how supply chain disruption orientated firms can develop resilience to supply chain disruptions. We find that supply chain disruption orientation alone is not enough for a firm to develop resilience. Supply chain disruption oriented firms require the ability to reconfigure resources or have a risk management resource infrastructure to develop resilience. The way in which supply chain disruption oriented firms develop resilience through resource reconfiguration or risk management infrastructure depends on the context of the disruption as high impact or low impact. In a high impact disruption context, resource reconfiguration fully mediates the relationship between supply chain disruption orientation and firm resilience. In a low impact disruption context, supply chain disruption orientation and risk management infrastructure have a synergistic effect on developing firm resilience.