Product Involvement and Print Ad Features

Using the empirical method of content analysis, this study investigates the extent to which the concept of enduring prod- uct involvement can be identified in the creative executional tech- niques currently utilized by advertisers. Print ad features are identi- fied that discriminate between high and low involvement products, and implications based on these findings are suggested.     

Perceived Export Problems and Export Involvement:

A relatively limited amount of empirical research has focused on problems and issues pertaining to exporting from countries not associated with an advanced level of economic development. This paper reports on a systematic study of problems experienced by Greek exporting manufacturers in their trading activities with overseas distributors based in European Community (EC). In this context, an attempt is made, firstly, to investigate the underlying structure of exporting problems, and secondly, to examine the extent to which there are significant differences in perceptions of exporting problems based upon the degree of export involvement. A number of significant differences are found to exist in perceived export problems between different exporter categories in terms of export involvement. The implications of the study for business practitioners and public policy makers are highlighted, and future research directions are identified and discussed.     

Shareholders and Corporate Community Involvement in Britain

Corporate community involvement is attracting increasing interest in Britain, but what do shareholders feel about this use of company assets? This timely survey of top UK corporate donors provides interesting data on current practice and explores the degree to which shareholders are consulted. The author is a member of the Department of Business Studies in the Faculty of Management and Business of The Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH; e–mail j.clarke@mmu.ac.uk.     

浅析NGOs参与WTO活动

目前,NGOs在一定程度上参与了WTO的活动,但是依旧存在着局限。通过比较WTO与联合国以及其他一些国际组织对于NGOs参与其活动的法律基础、形式和不同实践,可以看出WTO扩大NGOs的参与与合作,给予其咨商地位是有理由的,也是必要的。这样可以进一步增进WTO的合法性、透明度,使其获得更广泛的支持。     

Promotional Spending Effects in High Involvement Elections: An Examination of the Voter Involvement Explanation

Abstract

Published evidence questions the voter involvement explantion of promotional spending effects in high involvement elections. This study replicates and extends the Soley and Reid (20) study which showed that promotional expenditures have as great an effect on votes received in congressional elections as party affiliation and incumbency. Using an expanded data base and a different analytical technique, the replication found that House and Senate election outcomes were significantly affected by promotional spending, but that spending effects varied by candidate type (i.e., incumbent and challengers) and party affiliation (i.e., major third and independent parties).     

Export Involvement and Channel Conflict in a Manufacturer-Intermediary Relationship

Numerous articles have been published regarding the strained relationships between highly involved export manufacturers and their international intermediaries. While channel conflict is frequently cited as a major reason for such strained trade relationships, few research studies examine the relationship between a manufacturer's export involvement and channel conflict. In this paper, we develop hypotheses linking the three major domains of export involvement to the initial stages of channel conflict. The results indicate that a manufacturer's conflict with its principal international intermediary decreases with greater manufacturer dependence on the principal intermediary, increases as resources are committed to exporting, and decreases with the manufacturer's foreign market knowledge.     

Second Person Pronouns Enhance Consumer Involvement and Brand Attitude

Online brand messaging, e.g., blogging or posting on social media platforms, has an important role in digital marketing strategy. Such messaging is largely text based and provides an opportunity for brands to interact with many consumers simultaneously. The marketing literature, however, has yet to provide sufficient guidance on effective online brand messaging strategies. In particular, research has yet to address how the inclusion of second person pronouns in online brand messaging affects relevant consumer outcomes. The present research proposes that second person pronouns should work to enhance consumer involvement and brand attitude as a result of increasing the extent that consumers engage in self-referencing. A field study involving actual brand posts on Facebook and two subsequent experiments provide support for this hypothesis. In addition, drawing on cultural dimensions theory, individual levels of collectivism are identified as a boundary condition. The presence (vs. absence) of second person pronouns in online brand messaging enhances involvement and brand attitude for consumers that are lower, but not higher, in collectivism. The results provide marketers with needed guidance for creating effective online brand messaging.     

Product Involvement and the Relative Importance of Health Endorsements

Product involvement is a fundamental part of the buyer decision processes, during supermarket visits, as individuals respond differently to stimuli under differing involvement conditions. This study aims to provide a better understanding of the role of nutritional endorsements in consumers’ food purchasing decisions, when evaluated across high and low involvement products. Although past research in this area does exist, a major limitation is that nutritional endorsements have been studied only for their direct effect as a single, isolated product cue on product perception—rather than its importance relative to other product cues, such as price and product branding. This study overcomes this limitation through a conjoint analysis involving a sample of supermarket consumers. The findings suggest that a health endorsement plays a smaller role in influencing consumer decision-making relative to brand or price, but it is stronger for the higher involvement product. These findings provide nutritional foundations and product managers with quantifiable evidence of nutritional programs’ influence in consumer decision-making, justifying the relevance of such endorsements and giving nutritional foundations specific leads for adaptions in their marketing and educational efforts.     

“Managing” Corporate Community Involvement

In academic research, many attempts have been undertaken to legitimize corporate community involvement by showing a business case for it. However, much less attention has been devoted to building understanding about the actual dynamics and challenges of managing CCI in the business context. As an alternative to existing predominantly static and top-down approaches, this paper introduces a social movement framework for analyzing CCI management. Based on the analysis of qualitative case study data, we argue that the active role of employees pressuring for CCI policies and practices, as well as the organization audience responses to their efforts, are at the core of the challenges involved in managing CCI. These challenges also pose limits to how far CCI can be extended to a “business as usual” activity.     

Strategic Direction of Corporate Community Involvement

Previous research on corporate community involvement (CCI) initiatives indicates that such behaviour is critical for building neighbourhood relationships and extending corporate influence in the community, but there is little theoretical work that provides a clear picture of managing the nature of the initiatives from different stakeholder management approaches. Drawing from theoretical insights of stakeholder theory and the concept of social capital, this article proposes nine strategic directions for CCI initiatives, and concludes by discussing the management implications of the proposed strategic directions. Our proposed approaches have the potential to improve current understanding and practice of corporations and their CCI initiatives.     

An Involvement Explanation for Nostalgia Advertising Effects

This study seeks to offer additional insights regarding why positive “nostalgia effects” in advertising may be observed, that is, why nostalgic ads tend to elicit more favorable consumer responses than do non-nostalgic ads. Using the personal relevance component of advertising involvement as a theoretical foundation, the study supports hypothesized expectations that nostalgic ads are capable of inducing greater levels of self-reflection and advertising involvement. Furthermore, hypothesized effects were shown to be more pronounced when a “personal” nostalgia-themed ad (eliciting “a yearning for a realized, lived past”) was used, as opposed to when an “historical” nostalgia-themed ad (eliciting “a yearning for a distant past, never experienced”) was used. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed and directions for future research are offered.     

Public Sector's Involvement in Marketing Growth:

The Japanese public sector played an instrumental role in the successful resurrection of the Japanese economy after World War II. The public sector supported the use of several emerging marketing concepts as well as borrowing and applying American concepts through cross-cultural marketing during the various stages of Japanese marketing growth. The public sector accomplished its goal by supporting the private sector through the establishment government agencies as well as through other players in the public sector. The leadership and direction provided by the public sector has enabled Japan to develop its economy throughout all five periods of marketing growth. A new sixth phase appears to be emerging through the efforts of the public sector to attract foreign investment and imports into Japan, to counteract the tremendous trade surpluses built up since the mid 1980's.     

Characteristics of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Their Involvement in International New Ventures

We studied 561 young firms in Australia to understand the involvement of immigrant entrepreneurs (IEs) in international new ventures (INVs). We found that IEs are overrepresented in INVs and have many characteristics known to facilitate INV success, including more founders, university degrees, international connections, and technical capability. Our study has implications for immigration policy and economic policy and the efficient use of a nation's human capital. This research challenges a necessity‐based stereotype of immigrant entrepreneurs by identifying areas in which immigrant entrepreneurs have natural competitive advantages over native entrepreneurs (NEs). This research makes a contribution to the theory of immigrant entrepreneurship by identifying the significant role of immigrant entrepreneurs in INVs and the suitability of immigrant entrepreneurs for the development of INVs. We inform diverse streams of research in transnational and immigrant entrepreneurship with broader strategic work on the creation of INVs. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This research was partly funded by an Australian Academy of Social Sciences research grant. A previous version of this paper was presented at Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC), 2011, Syracuse.     

Clustering Attitudes and Behaviors of High/ Low Involvement Grocery Shopper

The purpose of this exploratory and quantitative study was to examine the attitudes and behaviors of 14,807 grocery shoppers. These respondents across the US were asked to answer attitudinal, behavioral, and demographic related questions. Shoppers were profiled by analyzing their responses to 16 relevant attitudinal and behavioral questions. A cluster analysis was performed followed by a discriminant analysis to determine attitudinal and behavioral variables explaining cluster membership. A cross-tabulation analysis assessed demographic variables that correlated with cluster membership. Two clusters were identified: high and low involvement grocery shoppers. In an event that has long been perceived as low involvement, a large percentage (53%) can be categorized as high involvement grocery shoppers. These shoppers tend to be younger. They were more likely to enjoy the hunt of finding products/deals, seek the advice of others and perceive that the products they buy reflect upon them. Grocery stores have a significant opportunity to target this high involvement shopper. Grocery stores will need to create an integrative, engaging online and in-store experience to attract high involvement shoppers and ultimately increase store loyalty. The results of this research has significant communication, branding and digital marketing implications.     

Measuring childhood materialism: Refining and validating Schor's Consumer Involvement Scale

This paper examines the measurement of childhood materialism using Schor's ( 2004 ) Consumer Involvement Scale. Schor treated consumer involvement empirically as a unidimensional construct, though she suggested that conceptually it may be multidimensional. Using confirmatory factor analysis procedures on data collected from children in the U.S. and U.K., the psychometric superiority of a three‐factor structure is established, comprising dissatisfaction, consumer orientation, and brand awareness components. Additional analyses demonstrate distinct associations between each of these components and other constructs, including self‐esteem, outside school activities, and child–parent relations. The scale's generalizability across boys and girls is also confirmed. The results suggest that Schor's Consumer Involvement Scale will be useful for researchers interested in studying the important topic of materialism in children. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

中国参与WTO争端解决机制所面临的问题与战略性对策

目前随着贸易规模的扩大、贸易地位的提高和融入世界经济的程度不断加深,中国已进入贸易摩擦高发期,正面临着如何增强处置贸易争端的能力、维护企业合法权益和国家利益的挑战。作为一个贸易大国及WTO的成员,熟练掌握WTO规则,积极有效地参与争端解决活动,运用WTO允许的法律手段解决争端,对于中国来说是十分迫切而重要的问题。本文考察并分析了中国入世以来作为申诉方、第三方和被诉方参与WTO争端解决活动的现状,探讨了中国利用WTO争端解决机制的制约因素,对未来中国更加积极有效地参与WTO争端解决活动提出了若干建议。     

Celebrity Endorsement and Involvement With the Social Cause in Nonprofit Organizations

Celebrity endorsement has become a very popular communication strategy in the nonprofit sector, although there are still doubts about its effectiveness. Specifically, one interesting question is whether the involvement of individuals with a social cause can explain differences in the valuation and effects of the celebrity endorsement strategy in consumer behavior. Taking into account this fact, the current research presents a causal model that analyzes the determinants of the attitude toward ads involving celebrities and the explanatory variables of the behavioral intentions in this sector. We worked with two subsamples of individuals with high and low involvement, who rated a fictitious ad with a well-known social entity and a celebrity. As a result, we observed that the strategy can influence the group of low involved people and have no significant effects on the segment with high involvement.