Will they pitch or will they switch? Comparing Chinese and American consumers

This study compares the conditions for consumer satisfaction and word of mouth (WOM) between Chinese and American consumers. The authors utilize a between‐subjects factorial design experiment to investigate the effect of service experience (positive or negative) and consumption context (hedonic vs. utilitarian) across these two cultures. Results indicate that consumers perceive higher levels of satisfaction and switching costs, and provide higher WOM intention for positive than for negative service experiences. The relationship between service experience and perceived switching costs is further moderated by consumption context and culture. Of importance is the critical mediating role of consumer satisfaction in driving perceived switching costs and WOM intention. The comparison of Chinese and American consumers also reveals the distinct switching behaviors between the two groups of consumers, which can be explained from a cultural perspective. The study findings provide insights into provider‐switching and WOM‐spreading behaviors by Chinese and American consumers, under hedonic versus utilitarian consumption contexts.     

China''''s Market in 2000: Will Price Continue to Drop?

Until November 1999, the consumption priceof Chinese residents had been dropping for20 months. In the year 2000, what will it comeabout?The Wind of "China's Accession to WTO"Discouraged the Auto Marketl999 saw the worst of China's auto marketin recent three years. In November the same yearwhen an agreement was concluded between Chinaand the U.S.on China's accession to the WTO,the China's auto market was disappointed.Although many manufacturers declaredimmediately that no car price dro…     

Celebrity endorsements: Investigating the interactive effects of internalization,identification and product type on consumers’ attitudes and intentions

In line with Kang and Herr's work (2006), this research questions the ELM's contention that celebrity credibility serves foremost as a peripheral element in a persuasive communication context. Nevertheless, in a different light to the Kang and Herr's ‘either-central-or-peripheral-role’ of a source characteristic, this research advances that celebrity credibility plays concomitantly central and peripheral roles in a persuasive message context depending on product involvement and brand-purchase motive. Particularly, this research uses the notions of ‘source internalization’ and ‘source identification’ (Kelman, 1961) to theorize that source credibility can have a concomitant dual role (peripheral and central) in a persuasion context. More precisely, this research investigates the interactive effects of source identification and internalization with product involvement as well as brand-purchase motives on consumers' attitudes and intentions. Source internalization is predicted to have persuasive effects in the contexts of high-involvement as well as informational products. Source identification is predicted to have persuasive effects in the context of low-involvement as well as transformational products. The findings of two experiments show that celebrity credibility acts through only a single route (i.e., only internalization has persuasive effects) uniformly across different product involvement levels and brand-purchase motive types. We interpret these results with the lens of the ‘match-up’ hypothesis (Kamins, 1990).     

How to protect your premium product from low-price competitors: Price,quality, or portfolio adjustment?

In a game-theoretic framework, I analyze how a brand manufacturer can thwart new entrants into its market. Three strategic options are considered, a price adjustment of the premium product, a quality adjustment of the premium product and a portfolio adjustment of adding a fighter brand. In a basic setup, I show that the incumbent's best response to entry is to choose a portfolio adjustment. If, however, the incumbent is uncertain about whether the rival firm will enter the market, a price adjustment of the premium product might be the better alternative if launching the fighter brand is associated with costs. Moreover, if technological progress improves the efficiency of product development, a combined quality and portfolio adjustment might be the best alternative for the incumbent.     

Impacts of product,store and retailer perceptions on consumers’ relationship to terroir store brand

This research shows that consumers’ relationship to terroir store brand, measured through attachment and two facets of brand loyalty (attitudinal and behavioral) is respectively influenced by their perceptions of the product, retailer and store. More specifically, the perceived authenticity of the products of the terroir store brand and its perceived value have a positive and significant influence on the attachment and behavioral loyalty of the regular buyers of this store brand and a positive and significant influence on the attachment of its occasional buyers. Trust in the retailer has a positive and significant impact on the behavioral loyalty of the regular buyers of this terroir store brand while perceived image of the store has only a positive and significant impact on the attitudinal loyalty of its occasional buyers.     

Corporate social and environmental responsibility in services: Will consumers pay for it?

Two studies investigate consumer awareness of and response toward socially and environmentally responsible practices in the hospitality industry. Results suggest that consumers exhibit more positive response toward establishments exhibiting higher levels of social responsibility, although many are uninformed of the extent to which the organizations they patronize engage in such practices. Most consumers are willing to incur a modest price increase while patronizing an organization that behaves in an environmentally and socially responsible fashion, but that willingness declines dramatically as the price premium escalates. Consumers with high involvement in and positive attitudes toward corporate social responsibility practices are most willing to pay a premium.     

Does sustainability really matter to consumers? Assessing the importance of online shop and apparel product attributes

Although there is a shift in consumers' consumption behavior towards more sustainable patterns across a variety of different contexts, sustainable apparel has still not become a mainstream trend despite the textile industry's excessive usage of valuable resources. Albeit extant research found different potential barriers elucidating why consumers hesitate to purchase such apparel, it remains unclear whether sustainability really matters to consumers in a clothing context and further, which aspects are of relevance during consumers' purchase decision. We thus conducted two studies with four best-worst scaling experiments in which 4,350 online shoppers assessed the importance of both conventional and sustainable apparel attributes, as well as sustainable apparel attributes only, and the willingness to pay for sustainable product attributes. We further inquired the importance of conventional as well as sustainable online shop attributes. Our findings indicate that conventional apparel attributes such as fit and comfort, price-performance ratio, and quality are of higher relevance to consumers than sustainable attributes. The most important sustainable apparel attributes are the garment's durability, fair wages and working conditions, as well as an environmentally friendly production process. Consumers also indicated to prefer the latter three attributes to a 20% discount. Moreover, consumers demand less as well as sustainable packaging, free returns, and discount campaigns. Our findings reveal a gender gap regarding green consumerism with female respondents assessing most sustainable attributes as more important than male respondents do.     

Longing for the past and embracing the new: Does nostalgia increase new product adoption?

Existing research has mostly focused on the salutary impact of nostalgia on nostalgia-related products (e.g., childhood products, classic brands). The current research examines whether this effect can extend to nostalgia-unrelated products: new products. We demonstrate that nostalgia fosters social support, which in turn encourages consumers to adopt new products, and this effect is weakened when individuals have independent self-construal. Three studies provide support for these predictions. Study 1 revealed that nostalgia increases new product adoption. Study 2 demonstrated that this positive effect of nostalgia on new product adoption is mediated by social support. Study 3 showed that this salutary effect occurs only when consumers’ interdependent self is activated. The marketing implications of these findings are discussed.

     

Fear appeals and coping appeals for health product promotion: Impulsive purchasing or psychological distancing?

The prevalence of online health communities (OHCs) motivates health product companies to manipulate persuasion-based marketing strategies, including fear appeals and coping appeals, to promote health products. However, whether such a practice is effective remains unclear. Respondents may either impulsively purchase the recommended health products or simply distance themselves psychologically from the information. Building on protection motivation theory (PMT), this study uncovers the mechanisms behind these two coping responses to persuasive messages, namely, the impulsive purchasing and psychological distancing of OHC users. Correspondingly, we evaluated 366 valid questionnaires, and the results reveal that (1) when encountering fear appeals, perceived health threat can evoke cyberchondria, leading to psychological distancing; and (2) when encountering coping appeals, perceived response efficacy leads to product affection, fostering impulsive purchasing. This study provides new insights into the effects of persuasive messages for health product promotion in social commerce. Marketers should design appropriate persuasive messages to foster impulsive purchasing by generating individuals’ product affection and avoiding cyberchondria.     

Beating,ditching and hiding: consumers’ everyday resistance to marketing

ABSTRACT

This article illuminates consumers’ views of marketing in light of theories of resistance. It argues that consumers engage in resistance to the power of marketing through their everyday actions and also through the ways they construct their accounts of these actions. It identifies three theoretical approaches to resistance (hegemonic, relational and autonomous). These are used to discuss consumers’ accounts of marketing collected through 78 personal interviews in which participants were asked to describe marketing and provide examples of their experiences with marketing as they defined it. Through this, the study uncovers various forms of consumer resistance, which can often go unnoticed. These are conceptualised through the notion of everyday resistance to marketing and are used to challenge existing marketing theory and develop paths for future research.     

Female consumers׳ intention to be involved in fair-trade product consumption in the U.S.: The role of previous experience,product features,and perceived benefits

Fair-trade practices include paying fair wages, supporting participatory workplaces and environmentally sustainable production, and developing long-term and supportive buyer-producer relationships (Kunz, G. I. and Garner, M. B. (2011), Going Global (2nd ed.), New York, NY: Fairchild Books). Fair-trade is both a political movement organized around the theme of trade justice, and the practice of particular types of trading and production relationships (Mare, A. L. (2008), The impact of fair-trade on social and economic development: a review of the literature, Geography Compass, 2, (6), 1922–1942). The aim of this study was to examine female consumers׳ previous experience, product features and perceived benefits of fair-trade product consumption. Specifically, the study examined how previous experience or lack of experience in fair-trade product consumption influences female consumers׳ purchase decisions by considering the impact of product features and perceived benefits. Results indicated that consumers who did not have fair-trade products experience made their purchase decision based on traditional product features (i.e., style and new trends). On the other hand, consumers who had experience with fair-trade products more consider ethical responsibility (i.e., perceived consumer effectiveness) in fair-trade shopping. Implications and limitations were discussed.     

Novice,portfolio, and serial founders: are they different?

There is growing interest in entrepreneurs who have been involved in more than one venture, yet to date there has been relatively little theoretical development and systematic empirical examination of the topic. In particular, there has been little attention to the potential heterogeneity of habitual entrepreneurship. This study aims to contribute to this emerging area in two ways. First, it outlines a conceptual typology of habitual entrepreneurs who have founded, purchased, or inherited businesses. Second, the empirical part of the study focuses on owner-managers, providing an exploratory analysis of the characteristics and effects of independent business ownership by novice, portfolio, and serial founders. Novice founders are those that have no prior entrepreneurial experience as either a founder, an inheritor, or a purchaser of a business. Portfolio founders retain their original business and inherit, establish, and/or purchase another business. Serial founders are those who sell their original business but at a later date inherit, establish, and/or purchase another business.The study derives propositions suggesting differences among the three types of founders. At the individual founder level of analysis, similarities as well as differences in the personal background, work experiences, reasons leading to the start-up of businesses, and personal attitudes to entrepreneurship of these three types of entrepreneurs are explored. At the organizational level of analysis, finance, employment and performance differences among the businesses owned by the three types of entrepreneurs are presented.The issues are examined using a sample of entrepreneurs who were the principal owner-managers of independent businesses in Great Britain. The sample included 389 novice founders (62.6%), 75 portfolio founders (12.1%), and 157 serial founders (25.3%). No statistically significant differences were found among the three groups of entrepreneurs with regard to the main industrial activity, geographical location, and the age of their businesses. Univariate and multivariate tests were used to examine potential differences between the groups.The results of the study show significant differences between portfolio and serial founders with regard to their parental background, work experience, and their age when they started their first business. Differences were also found with respect to reasons leading to start-up, personal attitudes to entrepreneurship, and sources of funds used during the launch period of the surveyed business. These findings suggest that habitual entrepreneurs cannot be treated as a homogeneous group. The analysis, however, failed to find any significant differences between the performance of the surveyed firms owned by habitual founders and novice founders and between the two types of habitual founders.The findings of the study indicate for researchers that there is a need to carefully define the unit of analysis in any examination of entrepreneurs. In particular, there is a need to take note of the heterogeneity of types of entrepreneur and to consider the entrepreneur as the appropriate unit of analysis rather than simply the firm. Although this study focused on habitual founders of businesses, the theoretical section of the study also identified other types of habitual entrepreneurs, such as serial corporate entrepreneurs and serial management buy-out and buy-in cases. These other types of habitual entrepreneurs would appear to warrant further analysis.The findings of this study have a number of implications for practitioners, especially venture capitalists. The absence of significant performance differences between novice and habitual entrepreneurs, which is consistent with the results from other studies, emphasizes the need for venture capitalists screening potential investees not to rely solely on previous experience.The study also has implications for policy-makers, especially with respect to decisions concerning the allocation of resources to assist nascent entrepreneurs, novice entrepreneurs, and habitual entrepreneurs. The similarities in business performance among novice, serial, and portfolio entrepreneurs suggests that policy-makers need to be careful in targeting scarce resources. Most notably, targeting resources to encourage talented nascent entrepreneurs to become novice entrepreneurs may offer returns which are at least as good as targeting resources to more experienced entrepreneurs.     

Strategic positioning,timing of entry,and new product performance in business-to-business markets: do market-oriented firms make better decisions?

Purpose: The mechanism by which market orientation contributes to positional strength of a new product, appropriate timing of entry to the market, and new product performance is examined in a business-to-business (B-to-B) context.

Methodology/Approach: We examine the role of new product positional strength and the role of timing of entry in the market orientation—new product performance relationship using 178 firms operating in the B-to-B market.

Findings: The results show that establishing a new product’s positional strength is a key step in the success of the new product. Market orientation does not directly influence new product performance. Instead, it shapes a new product’s positional strength, which, in turn, positively influences new product performance in the B-to-B market. Timing of entry decision for the new product, shown to be an outcome of its positional strength, is not a determinant of new product performance.

Research implications: We depict the tactical process in new product success and highlight the role of new product positional strength in linking market orientation and new product performance.

Practical implications: The findings reveal that market-oriented firms achieve superior new product performance through well-defined positioning strategy for a new product, not rapidity of action.

Originality/Value/Contribution: This study explains how market orientation influences new product performance in the B-to-B market, taking into consideration new product positional strength and timing of entry.     

What do firms know? What do they produce? A new look at the relationship between patenting profiles and patterns of product diversification

In this work, we analyze the relationship between the patterns of firm diversification, if any, across product lines and across bodies of innovative knowledge, proxied by the patent classes where the firm is present. Putting it more emphatically, we investigate the relationship between “what a firm does” and “what a firm knows.” Using a newly developed dataset matching information on patents and products at the firm level, we provide evidence concerning firms’ technological and product scope, their relationships, the size-scaling and coherence properties of diversification itself. Our analysis shows that typically firms are much more diversified in terms of products than in terms of technologies, with their main products more related to the exploitation of their innovative knowledge. The scaling properties show that the number of products and technologies increases log-linearly with firm size. And the directions of diversification themselves display coherence between neighboring activities also at relatively high degrees of diversification. These findings are well in tune with a capability-based theory of the firm.     

Entrepreneurship,economic growth,and innovation: Are feedback effects at work?

This study aims to analyze the relationships between entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth, and to show the feedback effects in these relationships. A Schumpeterian approach considering three equations linking GDP, innovation, and entrepreneurship facilitates this analysis. This paper presents empirical analysis of entrepreneurial activity in 13 developed countries. Panel data with fixed effects methodology, for the period 2002 to 2007, provides the means to estimate the equations. The analysis shows that several factors have positive impacts on innovation and entrepreneurship, including monetary policy and social climate. Additionally, a feedback effect is at work: economic activity promotes entrepreneurship and innovation activities, and the latter enhances economic activity. Therefore, policymakers must consider this effect when designing economic policies.     

Consumers as time travellers: the moderating effects of risk perception and construal level on consumers’ responses to temporal framing

Abstract

This study investigated the conditions under which temporal framing is more effective in explaining consumers’ responses to ads. Two experiments were conducted with a 2 (temporal framing: near-future vs. distant-future benefits) × 2 (perceived risk: high vs. low) × 2 (construal level: high vs. low) between-subjects factorial design. In Experiment 1, the two-way interaction effect of temporal framing and perceived risk on ad attitudes and purchase intention was found, such that the near-future benefit frame generated more favourable responses to the ad under the high-risk condition. Incorporating construal level theory, the three-way interaction effect was found, with the temporal framing?×?perceived risk interaction appearing more pronounced for low construal consumers only. Experiment 1 also discovered that information diagnosticity mediated the interaction effect of temporal framing and perceived risk on ad attitudes and purchase intention and this mediating process appeared stronger for low construal consumers. Experiment 2 replicated the two-way and three-way interaction effects on purchase intention, providing evidence of the validity of the findings. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed for researchers and practitioners.     

Investment in online advertising and return on sales: Does it pay to outsource the services to an advertising agency?

Abstract

The effect of investing in online advertising on a firm’s financial outcomes can depend on whether or not the development and implementation of advertising campaigns are managed by advertising agencies. Agencies may have experienced professionals or workload to perform these jobs, but the costs are greater. This paper aims to investigate the effects of investments in digital marketing on the financial outcome of a company’s services, comparing whether or not it is outsourced to advertising agencies. The secondary data relates to services advertised and marketed by a firm. We tested the possible moderating effect of outsourcing the service in the relationship between investment in online advertising (Google and Facebook) and return on sales (profit margin), by controlling the effect of covariates. Through four regression analyses, the results showed that outsourcing the service moderates the relationship. Specifically, the higher the amount of advertising investment, the more it pays to outsource the service to an advertising agency in order to generate greater profit margin. But with a low investment value, it does not pay to outsource. This study helps to identify situations in which it pays to outsource digital marketing services to an advertising agency.     

Still enamoured of the glocal: A comment on ‘From local to grobal,and back’

This is a comment on M. Hoogenboom, D. Bannink, & W. Trommel (2010), ‘From local to grobal, and back’ (Business History, 52(6), 932–954). While great appreciation is expressed for the authors’ effort to test empirically the theoretical ideas developed by G. Ritzer (2007) in The globalization of nothing (2nd ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press), a number of reservations are expressed about the way his ideas are interpreted. The article has the unfortunate tendency to support the idea of glocalisation rather than the broader model developed by Ritzer.     

The mediation effects of consumers’ need recognition and pre-purchase evaluation in consumers’ decision-making on purchasing safe street food: The case in Nakhon Si Thammarat,Thailand

Nakhon Si Thammarat province is one of the largest cities in Thailand and offers various types of street foods in the city. However, the number of street vendors that pass food safety certification is very low. Nevertheless, there are many consumers who still purchase street food because of their lifestyle who are exposed to food safety risks. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate how consumers make their decisions about the safety of the street food. This study investigates the importance of the need recognition and pre-purchase evaluation stages in consumers’ decision-making in relation to their purchasing of safe street food. The results from the structural equation modeling analysis found that, at 95%, the confidential need recognition would act as a partial mediator between consumers’ motivation → pre-purchase evaluation on purchasing safe food and consumers’ food safety knowledge → pre-purchase evaluation. In turn, pre-purchase evaluation would act as a full mediator between consumers’ motivation and safe street food purchasing. The findings signify that the stages of need recognition and pre-purchase evaluation in the decision-making process are important in order to reduce consumers' food risk while purchasing street food. Therefore, encouraging consumers to recognize the importance of purchasing safe food and convincing them to be concerned when selecting food is necessary to prevent consumers from unsafe food consumption.