Barriers Inhibiting Export Performance of Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Firms

Abstract

This study uses a step-wise discriminant analysis to address two related questions. First, to identify those inhibiting factors perceived to be both important and difficult to counter when a firm is initiating an export program. Second, to address the criticism that the current export research has failed to differentiate between degree of importance and the level of difficulty that firm may encounter when entering foreign markets. Two-hundred and forty-two small and medium-sized Wisconsin manufacturing firms were surveyed. The findings identified three barriers perceived to be both important and difficult to overcome. However, they did not support the criticism that we must differentiate between the degree of importance and the level of difficulty.     

Communication in Marketing Channels

Abstract

In terms of the political economy framework, Mohr, Fisher, and Nevin (1996) have shed light on the issue of how the internal economic structure and processes respectively moderate the effects of channel communication. However, the question of whether and how the internal sociopolitical structure and processes respectively moderate the effects of channel communication has not been empirically investigated. To complement Mohr, Fisher, and Nevin's (1996) work and address the above research question, this study examines how power structure (symmetrical or asymmetrical) and relationalism (relational versus discrete) respectively affect the marginaleffects of communication on trust and perceived performance in channels of distribution. It was found that power symmetry enhances the positive effects of communication, while relationalism undermines them. Theoretical and managerial implications were drawn from these findings.     

Social franchising: A systematic review

Abstract

Social franchising is starting to garner more interest among researchers and practitioners as a replication approach used to help address a growing array of societal issues in both developed countries and emerging economies. While there has been a proliferation of experimentation with social franchising that is occurring on the global stage, the knowledge base remains fragmented. A comprehensive review of the empirical and practitioner literature has not been done. This article fills the void by reviewing the past decade of literature and will be of interest to governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), philanthropists, social impact investors, corporations devoted to social goals, and other key players who support the scaling up or replication of ventures that strive to address societal ills by creating pathways to health and prosperity.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Marketing Communications Within Stores: A Case Study of U.K. Food Retailers

ABSTRACT

The U.K. Government has argued that more transparency in the ways that companies address and manage environmental, economic, and social issues can help improve relationships with employees, customers, and other stakeholders and U.K.'s large food retailers are increasingly keen to report their commitment to CSR. This paper offers a preliminary examination of the extent to which the U.K.'s major food retailers currently use CSR as a means of communicating with customers within their stores.     

Siloed Perceptions in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Risk Management: A Brazilian Perspective

Abstract

This article maps risk perception across the pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC) in Brazil. Our paper employs the method orders-of-magnitude analytic hierarchy process to rank risks as perceived by industry, distributors, hospitals and pharmacies. We show that players have a siloed perception of risk and impact of those risks. While upstream players emphasize cost, downstream players value service; moreover, both prioritize operational risks over strategic risks. We call for further studies in Latin America: although interest in risk is growing, few studies address the PSC and even fewer realities outside the Northern Hemisphere.     

A Forum for Issues in Advertising Education

Abstract

Advertising education is an established facet of higher education. It has developed, however, along two tracks—journalism and marketing. The result has been two different approaches to the study of advertising, neither of which may be the best approach. If the best education in advertising is to be offered, then the academic community must address itself to a resolution of these differences in the approaches to the teaching of advertising. Thus, a forum to consider the problems of advertising education is suggested.     

Markets and violence

ABSTRACT

In this commentary, I address different forms of corporate violence, in particular how some contemporary corporate practices result in violence. Violence is carried out often without impunity by a market-state nexus that enables accumulation by dispossession. Structural violence concentrates power on certain groups while creating a class of disposable labour. Epistemic violence involves using language and law to disempower specific groups of people. The state often uses instrumental violence to quell resistance. I discuss how violence operates in the political economy by discussing conflicts in the extractive industries.     

Models of Equal Employment Opportunity

ABSTRACT

Employees in an organization have the right to fair treatment in all matters of employment. While principles of democracy require equality among the citizens, there is also a need to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) and to undo the effects of past discrimination in employment. This paper provides a three-nation comparison and analyzes the EEO provisions in United States, Nigeria, and India. It describes the main bases of discrimination and the efforts made by the three countries in redressing them. It explores the unresolved EEO issues in the three countries. The United States has a fairly comprehensive set of legislation to address the problems of discrimination. However, it lacks a national consensus on how to address the issue of past discrimination. Nigerian and Indian provisions for EEO address a relatively limited set of causes of discrimination only among their public sector of employment. These two countries are yet to develop a comprehensive set of legislation and enforcement mechanism to ensure EEO for all its citizens. Implications for other countries are discussed.     

A Comparison of Communications Practices Among Indian and U.S. Scientists and Engineers

ABSTRACT

An investigation of communication practices among U.S. (n s= 90) and Indian (n = 71) engineers and scientists employed in the aerospace industry revealed statistically significant differences between the two cultures. The differences may be attributed to Hofstede's (1980) cultural dimensions of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance; Hofstede and Bond's (1988) Confucian dynamism; and Hall's (1976) cultural context. Implications for practice address strategies to accommodate foreign cultures and to develop complementary approaches using the strengths of both cultures. Areas for future research are offered.     

Customer Satisfaction with Consumption Systems

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This research examines how satisfaction toward a product and its associated services offered together by a single provider jointly affects behavioral intentions toward the provider.

Design/methodology/approach: In this study, empirical tests were conducted using longitudinal data spanning 5 years from a multinational company that offers both products and associated services as part of a consumption system to their customers.

Findings: Results show a joint congruent effect of product and services satisfaction on behavioral intentions is linear and positive. It appears that offering great service cannot compensate for less-than-adequate satisfaction toward the product. The results further highlight decreasing customer sensitivity to improvements in both sources of satisfaction and imply that focusing on too high levels of one type of satisfaction for their customers can actually be counterproductive for firms.

Research Limitations: Our model was tested using the data obtained from a single firm. Future research could test this model with data from multiple firms in various different industries and establish broader generalizability to the findings.

Practical Implications: Findings provide managers with insights on how to allocate resources across product and service spaces and to manage product and services revenues over time. Results also indicate that customer behavioral intention ratings are more weighted on product quality over the service received by them. However, mere improvements in the product cannot provide the highest desired results and therefore quality improvements in the product need to be complemented by improvements in service quality.

Originality/Value: There is a rapid emergence of the phenomenon of manufacturers providing both products and services as an integrated consumption system to their customers. While the provision of both product and service subsystems by the same firm leads to certain synergies, there are obvious costs to the development of new service capabilities and coordination with existing product capabilities. Our research intends to address this issue.     

Challenges Facing the Foodservice Industry

Abstract

Restaurant managers and other foodservice operators are increasingly approaching researchers and land grant institutions to seek solutions for some of their problems. The capacity of research institutions to solve the problems of foodservice operators is limited by a lack of understanding of the issues and a lack of societal incentives to address such issues. This study reports the results of a university's efforts to better understand the problems facing the foodservice industry. As part of the study, the researchers conducted a focus group of industry leaders. The researchers end with an overview of problems facing the foodservice industry.     

A Reply to the Commentaries on “Business Marketing: A Twenty Year Review”

ABSTRACT

In this article the authors respond to the commentaries by Professors Spekman, Wilson, and Woodside on their article, “Business Marketing: A Twenty Year Review” and share their thoughts on the future of business marketing. In responding to the commentaries, the authors concede that while their review has started the dialogue, much remains to be done. They conclude with a call for the establishment of a broad-based research task force to develop a research agenda and to coordinate research efforts that systematically address the key problems facing business marketing and research practices in business marketing.     

Televised Consumption: Women,Advertisers and the Early Daytime Television Industry

This article looks at ways in which the US broadcasting and advertising industries conceptualized the female consumer in the immediate Post War period. It explores the emergence of daytime television and discusses broadcasters' views of their predominantly female audience. The article argues that by grasping the underlying principles that were developed in the early daytime television industry, one can gain a better understanding, not only of the manner in which female audience members were addressed in the 1950s, but also, to some extent, of the ways mass media address women today.     

Credit cards in the United Kingdom—where the power lies in the battle between the banks and the retailers

This paper looks at the development of the two types of credit card systems in the UK, the bank credit cards and the retailer credit cards. The article seeks to address the issue of who will hold the balance of power at the introduction of an EFTPOS, or direct‐debit, system into the UK. The situation in 1988 appears to be that retailers are well up the “learning curve” as regards the management and marketing of credit and so are increasingly proving to be a threat to the banks not only in the provision of credit but also in offering a wide range of financial services.     

Digital consumption and the extended self

Abstract

There are numerous and substantial effects of the use of digital technologies on consumers. I focus here on the ways in which these technologies have brought changes to the extended self. This review builds on earlier work considering digital subjectivities. I find that the human–machine digital interface results in a series of challenging theoretical issues. In considering these issues at the broadest level I also address how the affordances of digital technologies may cause us to rethink the notion of extended self, the body and the relationship between objects and consumers in digital environments.     

Narrowing the Concept of Marketing

SUMMARY

The misapplication of marketing to major American social institutions-education, religion, health care, the media, government and the legal system-has frequently undermined the fundamental purposes of those institutions, to the point that Laczniak and Michie's (1979a; 1979b) worst fears about marketing as a force for social disorder may have become a reality. Even more perplexing is a deeper question that marketers have yet to address adequately: Is the customer metaphor, which is so central to business and consumer marketing, fundamentally incompatible with the nature of a productive social institution?     

Marketing Professional Services to Family Businesses

ABSTRACT

Theory from the new field of family business studies, tested empirically here, indicates that family business procurement processes for professional services is significantly different from that of other companies. Family businesses engage in more informal processes, involve family members who are not employees as influencers in the buying center, require a greater investment on the part of their suppliers and take longer to reach a decision. As a result of these process distinctions, marketers of professional services targeting smaller to medium sized businesses should be prepared to address the special needs of family business owners.     

Social marketing and big social change: personal social marketing insights from a complex system obesity prevention intervention

ABSTRACT

To address ‘wicked problems’ such as obesity, family violence or community safety, we need systems change interventions that reach large numbers, are scalable and can be enriched over time.

Follow the development of a social marketing platform as it became a critical component of Healthy Together Victoria; an internationally recognised, and radically different, approach to driving change for better health. Working beyond the delivery of public education campaigns, social marketing became a key pillar of this powerful movement – one that emboldened governments, business and other partners across sectors and communities – to tackle the rising tide of obesity through leadership, big thinking and joint action.     

Customer Selection and Prioritization

Abstract

That a firm benefits most when customers stick around for the long haul is a central premise of relationship marketing. This conviction has manifested itself over the past decade in the form of numerous formal loyalty programs that aim to seek and foster customer relationships. Scant evidence for the success of such programs has accrued since. This has lead firms to re-evaluate their investments in customer relationship management. Optimal resource allocation models address issues of relative investments in customer acquisition versus retention, and on managing relationships with profitable customers so that the value of a firm's customer base is maximized.     

Consumer Product Redistribution

Abstract

Formats for product redistribution are emerging and evolving, creating alternative channel options for consumers' disposition of unwanted possessions. These retail formats operate in both informal (e.g., garage sales) and formal (online auctions) economies. As consumers participate in redistribution channels, some retailers are confronted with new competition and the potential for declining sales. This article expands on both recycling and disposition literature by examining consumer disposition behavior and the flow of used products through various redistribution channels. Strategies are offered to address consumer disposition behaviors as well as to assist retailers in combating traditional and non-traditional competition.