Managing corporate identity: An internal perspective

Management plays a key role in the development and maintenance of corporate identity, including paying particular attention to the internal and controllable aspects of the process. The progression of research that examines corporate identity is contingent on clarification of the scope of corporate identity management (CIM) and development of generalizable and applicable measures of the construct. This study develops an interdisciplinary measure of the CIM construct by drawing on the literature and primary data, such as exploratory research, a survey, and a follow-up phase. Overall, CIM involves (1) the endorsement of consistent behavior through the diffusion of a company’s mission, values, and goals; (2) the expression and pursuit of brand and image consistency in the organization’s symbols and forms of communication; and (3) the implementation, support, and maintenance of visual systems. The results suggest that CIM includes the dissemination of mission and values, consistent image implementation, and visual identity implementation.     

Institutional pressures and marketing ethics initiatives: the focal role of organizational identity

Institutional theory implies that normative societal expectations create pressures for organizations to respond acceptably to important institutional constituents. Although the role of the institutional environment on marketing has been studied, the organizational mechanisms by which firms respond to societal pressures remain under-investigated. We suggest that an important determining factor involves organizational identity, which drives firm response to societal norms and facilitates its quest for legitimacy. Accordingly, this study contributes to organizational theory in marketing by casting identity as the focal mechanism in the firm’s response to the institutional environment. Marketing ethics and CSR issues frame this research given natural synergies with institutional and organizational identity theories and evidence that increasingly, firms must respond to societal expectations involving ethics in their marketing practices. Using game theoretical models and economic experiments, we find that the influence of the institutional environment emerges through firm identity, affecting resource allocation to ethical product augmentation.     

组织合作视域中的学徒制研究

职业教育的历史实际上就是组织合作的历史。从组织合作的视域来考察职业教育的学徒制度,我们发现,无论是农业社会时期的行会学徒制、工业社会时期的集体商议学徒制,还是后工业社会以来兴起的现代学徒制,组织合作成为其主要特征。也就是说,组织合作犹如一条绵延的血脉隐藏在学徒制的肌体深处,虽然沉寂过却从未断裂过。20世纪80年代以来,这条血脉又迎来了其发展的勃勃生机。我们只有抓住了学徒制度这条血脉,才能真正把脉我国职业教育的发展走向。     

特许经营中的协议安排——以中国创业法律环境为视角

特许经营在中国已成为创业者创业的一种主要模式,但是任何一种创业方式都存在着风险。本文介绍了特许经营的基本内涵和主要特征,分析了中国现行创业环境下有关商业特许经营的法律制度;并在研究特许经营协议中的市场准入、信息披露、知识产权保护、竞争保密、责任分配等条款后,指出创业者在加入特许经营时应注重特许协议的安排。     

Exploring CRM effectiveness: an institutional theory perspective

This study identifies the potential contribution that institutional theory can make to understanding the success of marketing practices. Based on institutional theory, we argue that the effectiveness of marketing practices decreases when firms are motivated to adopt such practices under the influence of institutional pressures originating in firms’ environments. However, alignment between a practice and a firm’s marketing strategy may buffer against these negative effects. We apply these insights to the case of customer relationship management (CRM). CRM is considered an important way to enhance customer loyalty and firm performance, but it has also been criticized for being expensive and for not living up to expectations. Empirical data from 107 organizations confirm that, in general, adopting CRM for mimetic motives is likely to result in fewer customer insights as a result of using this practice. Our study suggests that institutional theory has much to offer to the investigation of the effectiveness of marketing practices.     

Marketing as a pluralistic discipline: The forestalling of an identity crisis

Most scholars of marketing have argued explicitly or implicitly in favor of unidimensional perspectives in the discipline. As a discipline matures, however, it must branch out into several identities lest repression of the natural manifestations of a field causes an identity crisis. In scratching an intellectual itch concerning some major debates about the identity of marketing, this article proposes a pluralistic perspective to clarify the nature and scope of marketing, and hence deter an identity crisis.     

Implementing an intended brand personality: a dyadic perspective

The authors examine the transformation of an intended brand personality (i.e., the way brand management would like consumers to perceive the brand??s personality) into a realized brand personality (i.e., the consumer??s actual perception of the brand??s personality). Drawing on the results of a dyadic empirical cross-industry study of 137 brand managers and 3,048 consumers, the authors show that the singularity of the brand personality profile, the competitive differentiation of the brand, the credibility of brand communication, consumers?? depth of product involvement, and consumers?? prior brand attitude all affect the degree to which the realized brand personality resembles the intended brand personality.     

Bribery as an organizational response to conflicting environmental expectations

This article develops a conceptualization of bribery activity in organizational relationships at the international level. Utilizing a coalitional viewpoint of organizational interaction across markets, this paper proposes that international exchange environments are dimensioned by two critical factors: environmental constraints formed by cultural expectations and management capability to resolve incongruent exchange demands on the international marketing organization. These factors are proposed as determinants of a model of bribery behavior comprising four international exchange environments. Bribery activity in each environment is examined as a form of “side payment substitution” for unresolvable demands, representing a rational response to conflicting payment requirements and expectations.     

Brands matter: An empirical demonstration of the creation of shareholder value through branding

This research responds to the attendant need for empirical evidence pertaining to how marketing affects firm performance. Using the Fama-French method, common in finance, and a leading marketplace measure of a brand’s financial equity value, the authors provide empirical evidence for the branding-shareholder value creation link. The results extend previous research by showing that strong brands not only deliver greater returns to stockholders than does a relevant benchmark but do so with less risk This finding holds even when market share and firm size are considered. Barclays Global Investors Thomas J. Madden is a professor of marketing and director of the Professional MBA/Executive International MBA programs at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. His research focuses on the measurement of brand meaning, marketing metrics, and value-based marketing strategies. His research has appeared in theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, and theJournal of Consumer Behavior. Frank Fehle (frank.fehle@barclaysglobal.com) is the head of Europe Equity Research at Barclays Global Investors in London, United Kingdom. Previously, he was an assistant professor of finance at the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on empirical asset pricing, market microstructure, risk management, and derivatives. His work has appeared in theJournal of Financial Economics, theJournal of Futures Markets, theJournal of Economics and Business, theReview of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, among other journals and conference proceedings. Susan Fournier is an associate professor of marketing at Boston University. Her research focuses on branding and brand relationship marketing. Current projects explore person-brands, resonance as a moderator of the brand meaning → brand strength connection, the types of relationships consumers form with brands, and dynamic processes of relationship development and evolution. She served for 9 years on the Harvard Business School faculty and 2 years as a visitor at Dartmouth College. She consults with a range of companies to inform her teaching, case development, and research.     

The penguin’s window: Corporate brands from an open-source perspective

The open source (OS) movement allows us to re-vision corporate branding from a corporate to a coproducer perspective. Corporations own their brands and unilaterally determine their positioning and evolution. Power and control are centralized and hierarchical: producers produce brands, which customers then consume. With OS, power and control are radically decentralized and hierarchical: producers and consumers coalesce into “prosumers.” The authors introduce marketers to the OS phenomenon and develop a typology of brand aspects that can be “open” or “closed”: physical, textual, meaning, and experience. The authors elaborate new dimensions for brands and revisit the functions that brands perform and link these to the evolutionary trajectory of branding, arguing that OS represents a final phase in the evolution of corporate brands from closed to open brands. The article concludes with a research agenda. Leyland F. Pitt (lpitt@sfu.ca) is a professor of marketing in the Segal Graduate School of Business at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, and also a senior research fellow at the Leeds University Business School in the United Kingdom. He has taught on M.B.A. and executive programs in business schools on all continents, including the Graham School of Continuing Studies at the University of Chicago, Columbia Business School, and London Business School. His work has appeared in journals such as theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, California Management Review, Sloan Management Review, Information Systems Research, and MIS Quarterly (for which he formerly served as associate editor). Richard T. Watson (rwatson@terry.uga.edu) is the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy and director of the Center for Information Systems Leadership in the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. He has published in leading journals in several fields as well as authored books on data management and electronic commerce. His current research focuses primarily on electronic commerce and information systems leadership. He has given invited seminars in more than 20 countries for companies and universities. He is a past president of the Association for Information Science, a visiting professor at Agder University College in Norway and Fudan University in China, and a consulting editor for John Wiley & Sons. He has been a co-chair of the International Conference on Information Systems and a senior editor of MIS Quarterly. Pierre Berthon (pberthon@Bentley.edu) is the Clifford F. Youse Professor of Marketing in the McCallum Graduate School of Business, Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts. Formerly an engineer with Lotus Sports Cars, he has also been on the faculties of Cardiff University and Bath University in the United Kingdom and Columbia University in the United States. Dr. Berthon’s work has been published in journals such as theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, California Management Review, Sloan Management Review, Information Systems Research, theJournal of Advertising Research, and theJournal of Service Research. Donald Wynn (dewynn@uga.edu) is a Ph.D. student in the Management Information Systems Department of the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. He also holds an M.B.A. from Middle Tennessee State University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His current research interests include OS software communities and ecosystems, business models, technology innovation, and information systems security. He has published in theJournal of International Management, MIS Quarterly Executive, and several information science conference proceedings. George Zinkhan (gzinkhan@terry.uga.edu) is the Coca-Cola Company Chair of Marketing at the University of Georgia. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Michigan, he served on the faculties at both the University of Houston and the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Zinkhan’s main research focus is in the areas of communication, advertising, and electronic commerce. His recent coauthored books includeElectronic Commerce: A Strategic Perspective (Dryden Press, 2000) andConsumers (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2004).     

Driving organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson in-role behavior performance: The role of management control and perceived organizational support

Interest in management control approaches and organizational factors associated with higher levels of salesperson performance is reflected in research streams concerned with behavior-based control strategies and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). This study makes two distinct additions to the literature relating to control, organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson performance. First, the study distinguishes between salesperson in-role behavior performance and outcome performance to model in-role behavior performance as a mediator between OCB and outcome performance. Second, the work supports sales manager control as an antecedent to OCB. A second model introduces perceived organizational support (POS) as an additional antecedent to salesperson OCB, and more important, as a consequence of sales manager control. This construct has not been included in prior salesperson OCB studies. Results show sales manage control has a stronger impact on OCB through POS, than directly, and POS has a strong impact on salesperson OCB. Nigel F. Piercy (Nigel.Piercy@wbs.ac.uk) is a professor of marketing in the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and a higher doctorate (D.Litt) from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. His current research interests focus on strategic sales and account management. His work has been published in many journals including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Marketing, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He is coauthor to David Cravens onStrategic Marketing (8th ed., Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 2006). David W. Cravens (D.Cravens@tcu.edu) holds the Eunice and James L. West Chair of American Enterprise Studies and is a professor of marketing in the M. J. Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas. He has a doctorate in business administration from Indiana University. His areas of specialization include marketing strategy and planning, sales management, and new product planning. His research has been published in a wide range of journals including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theInternational Journal of Marketing. Nikala Lane (Nikala.Lane@wbs.ac.uk) is a senior lecturer in marketing in the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and was previously a senior research associate at Cardiff University. Her research interests are focused on gender and ethics issues in sales and marketing management. Her work has been published widely in the international literature and includes articles in theJournal of Management Studies, theBritish Journal of Management, the Journal of Business Ethics, and theJournal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. Douglas W. Vorhies (dvorhies@bus.olemiss.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi. His primary research interests are in the areas of marketing strategy, marketing resources and capabilities, the links between innovation, strategic market management and performance, and professional selling and sales management. His other work has been published in many journals including theJournal of Marketing, Decision Sciences, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, and theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.     

Key aspects of organizational buying: conceptualization and measurement

Much research has been devoted to organizational buying. Unfortunately, few studies focus on the development of specific measures of organizational buying behavior. And although many concepts in the literature are useful for describing and discussing buying behavior, they often cut across other buying activities and therefore may not be empirically distinct. This research applies a combination of literature- and field-based approaches to develop four distinct constructs that underlie the numerous activities in which buyers engage: procedural control, proactive focusing, use of analysis techniques, and search for information. Measurement scales for these constructs are created and then evaluated through a survey of purchasing professionals. The procedure resulted in a set of constructs and measures that may be applied to several complex areas of organizational buying research. She received her B.A. and M.B.A. from Michigan State University and her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the use of information in various decision contexts. She has published several articles in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Business to Business Marketing, andHealth Marketing Quarterly. Her research has also appeared in the proceedings of several national conferences.     

论《行政许可法》的成就与缺陷--从制度完善的视角

《行政许可法》的出台 ,是我国行政法制史上取得的重大立法成就 ,但是 ,《行政许可法》还存在着行政许可公开缺少监督制度、行政许可事项的限定过于空泛、但书削弱《行政许可法》权威、电子政务缺乏操作程序、行政许可权变相转移、救济制度含糊不清和配套制度没有跟进等立法缺陷。对于这些立法缺陷 ,应当从《行政许可法》自身和其他相关行政法制度中进行纠正     

Utilization of new technologies: organizational adaptation to business environments

The practice of introducing new technologies into the corporate environment has become a well-accepted principle for sustaining or advancing competitive advantages. The current study focuses on the environmental and managerial factors associated with the successful utilization of new technologies. To this end, the suggested framework examines the efforts put forth by the two parties involved (the firm buying and the firm supplying the new technology). We use 112 matched data collected from the suppliers and buyers of the customer relationship management (CRM) system in business-to-business markets. We find that the perceived turbulence of business environments stimulates adaptive efforts from both the supplying and buying firms, which may lead to a high level of utilization of new technologies for the buying firm.

法定犯罪的犯罪化与非犯罪化--从寻租经济学视角分析

以“寻租经济学”理论为基点 ,探讨了市场经济条件下 ,法定犯罪中的权力设租行为、寻租现象及形成原因 ,并据此提出减少设租 ,实行非犯罪化 ,追求刑法效益的刑法理念     

去芜存菁:劳动保护与企业创新——基于边际劳动生产率视角的实证研究

利用2008年新《劳动合同法》实施这一具有准自然实验性质的外生政策,以边际劳动生产率为分组变量,运用双重差分的方法,考察了劳动保护对企业创新的影响。研究表明:《劳动合同法》实施后,劳动保护的增强使得低劳动生产率的企业创新显著下降,这种"去芜存菁"的抑制效应在国有企业与民营企业中均存在,但动态趋势变化存在长期和短期的差异;进一步研究发现,劳动保护政策随着市场竞争的减弱、法治治理的改善和薪酬负担的加重,抑制了国有企业的创新,而民营企业受到的抑制效果较弱。研究结论丰富和拓展了中国制度背景下法与创新的文献,并为政策制定提供了经验证据。     

Shared organizational values: Measurement and impact upon strategic marketing implementation

The concept of shared organizational values and its impact upon successful marketing strategy implementation are discussed. The need to measure the degree to which values within the organization are shared is stressed. A method to quantitatively measure the degree of value congruency and the strength of value consistency is proposed. An exploratory, empirical study is presented in which organization values are measured and found to impact upon strategy implementation.     

区域品牌虚拟经营探讨--"安溪铁观音"茶叶品牌虚拟经营设计为例

虚拟经营是一种新的经营模式,区域品牌虚拟经营模式首先需要对区域品牌主体进行确认,然后在区域内部整合资源,进一步建立基于该品牌虚拟经营的虚拟生产网络、虚拟销售网络和虚拟行政部门,从而形成一个完善的品牌虚拟网络.提出了基于区域品牌虚拟经营模式的福建“安溪铁观音”茶叶品牌虚拟经营设计思想.     

An examination of Peter Drucker's work from an institutional perspective: How institutional innovation creates value leadership

This paper uses an institutional perspective to analyze Peter Drucker's contributions to management, marketing and marketing strategy. Drucker recognizes the importance of institutions in society. Further, his work reflects a variety of institutional views from sociology, economics and marketing. Drucker uses a form of comparative institutional analysis for evaluating both management and strategy issues. At the heart of each institutional comparison is the customer and the value created for the customer by the organization. Institutional comparisons help managers understand how the organization can create customers by adjusting its customer value proposition. Drucker influences marketers by focusing on how the organization's values are used to develop the organization's customer value proposition. Further, it is shown that the organization's values and its customer value propositions are manifested in its transaction rules, termed marketing institutions. Based on Drucker's work, a framework for comparing marketing institutions is introduced: the value leadership framework.