A Hierarchical Marketing Communications Model of Online and Offline Media Synergies

We propose a new hierarchical model of online and offline advertising. This model incorporates within-media synergies and cross-media synergies and allows higher-order interactions among various media. We derive the optimal spending on each medium and the optimal total budget. We also develop three hypotheses on the effects of within- and across-media synergies on both the total budget and its allocation. We estimate media effectiveness as well as the within- and cross-media synergies of offline (television, print, and radio) and online (banners and search) ads using market data for a car brand. We show that both types of synergies —within-media (i.e., intra-offline) and cross-media (online-offline)— exist. We show how within- and cross-media synergies boost the total media budget and online spending due to synergies of the online media with various offline media.     

制造业企业核心竞争力二元结构维度构建

企业核心竞争力是企业保持持续竞争优势和可持续发展的关键因素,在对现有企业核心竞争力研究归纳分析的基础上,通过对制造业企业核心竞争力的知识创新、企业文化、生产能力、管理能力、营销能力、服务能力和响应能力的分析,提出基于隐性力量支撑维度和显性能力保障维度的二元结构,设计制造业企业核心竞争力二元结构的类原子模型,对其中结构内的协同关系和结构间的协同关系进行阐释,并提出二元结构的运行机理的齿轮模式,以期能够完善制造业企业核心竞争力的研究,促进制造业企业核心竞争力的构建和提升.     

Synergies and tensions between and within domestic and international market activities of firms

The distinction between domestic and international market activities has an idiosyncratic meaning for international business research. This study examines the significant yet unclear role of domestic market activities for the internationalizing firm through the theoretical lens of exploitation and exploration. By means of five qualitative case studies, we show that both the dynamics between domestic–international market activities and the interplay between exploitation–exploration are intrinsically concerned with synergies and tensions. Our findings uncover how firms leverage these synergies and manage these tensions that manifest between and within their domestic and international markets. Synergies and tensions are found to revolve around ambidexterity, networks and organizational market information processes.     

Empirical insights on the nature of synergies among HRM policies - An analysis of an ethics-oriented HRM system

In the last years, several HRM scholars have theoretically support the idea that the policies bundled in an HRM system present synergistic effects. Surprisingly, empirical studies about those synergistic effects are scarce, and their results unstable. As a result, some critical voices in the HR field are questioning the idea of synergies among HR policies, and calling for more research which does not take them for granted. Addressing this gap, this study tests the existence and nature of synergies in HRM systems targeted at improving the employees' perception of benevolent and principled ethical climates. Results from a probabilistic sample of 6000 employees from 6 European countries highlight that synergies occur both for benevolent and principled ethical climates, even if the specific components of the HRM system presenting synergistic effects are different in the two cases. Implications of the findings for HRM practice are presented and discussed.     

环境规制先行接受者竞争优势分析

从竞争优势的视角,对环境规制的先行接受者和跟随者进行比较,本文分析发现环境规制的先行接受者采取的环境战略越严格,其获得的竞争优势越明显。环境规制的先行接受者所获得的竞争优势集中体现在创新优势和先动优势两方面。由于严格的环境规制能激励企业创新、促进企业进入开发新技术的上游市场、创造新的市场需求和降低成本等,环境规制的先行接受者因此获得创新优势。由于环境规制的先行接受者未雨绸缪,按照更严格的环境标准来要求企业,能够在未来更严格的环境规制变为现实之时占有市场的优先位置,获得先动优势。     

Corporate advantage in customer-centric diversification

Our theory explains how multi-product corporations that engage in customer-centric diversification can create and sustain corporate advantage. First, we invoke the concept of customer-centric assets to explain their role as the cornerstone of corporate advantage in customer-centric diversification. Second, our explanation of the corporate advantage in customer-centric diversification goes beyond the hypothetical ‘consumer synergies’ argument to also include the ‘market-power advantage’ argument. We explain the mechanisms employed by multi-product firms to share and/or leverage their customer-centric assets to create corporate advantage. Third, we explain how sustaining the corporate advantage so achieved requires the organizational-renewal activities to go beyond simply addressing the changing nature of the firm’s demand-side resource (i.e. customer-base) to manage revenue and/or profits.     

Different Folks, Different Strokes -How IBM, AT&T and NEC Segment to Compete

How are large diversified firms like IBM, AT&T, and NEC coping with competition from more narrowly concentrated companies like Intel, Microsoft, Compaq, MCI, and Ericsson? The answer is by increasing the segmentation of their activities in smaller, more autonomous, business units in the hope that this will produce better focus, flexibility, speed of response, and efficiency. But increased segmentation contradicts one of their major potential advantages – their ability to reap benefits from the interdependence – or synergies – of their activities. How are they coping with this contradiction? Will they succeed?     

Examining Market Information and Brand Equity Through Resource‐Advantage Theory: A Carrier Perspective

To survive in this challenging economic environment, transportation providers must differentiate themselves in the eyes of current and potential customers. Consequently, they are seeking to develop superior resources that allow them to build greater awareness of and distinctive images for their brands. Those that are successful achieve higher levels of brand equity and, ultimately, positions of competitive advantage in the logistics services industry. This research applies resource‐advantage theory to investigate the role of market information in creating an informational advantage to build brand equity for transportation providers. Results from a survey of motor carriers indicate that informational advantage mediates the impact of market information resources on the levels of brand image and brand awareness, two dimensions of a firm’s brand equity.     

企业竞争优势持久性的理论分析

本文认为,企业的竞争优势通常来源于成本优势、差别化优势、集中一点优势、关联与整合优势、技术优势等。成本优势主要源于规模经济、生产能力利用模式及学习模式,其持久性在于竞争者难以复制或模仿;差别化优势的持久性在于企业拥有的核心技能(如技术领先、组织机构优势、质量优势、销售领先等)的可否替代性及其程度,不可替代的核心技能才不容易被复制,多样的差别化优势才更持久;集中一点优势主要来源于成本集中和差别集中,其持久性在于目标市场足够大,可以赢利,具有很好的成长潜力,公司拥有有效服务目标市场的资源和能力及借此建立起来的商誉;关联与整合优势在企业之间形成一种链式结构,有利于减少成本,扩大市场份额,形成规模经济,提高抗风险能力;技术优势的持久性取决于技术模仿的难度、技术持续开发和创新能力、技术专利等。同时,竞争战略的持续性和稳定性、部分战略的随机调整能力、竞争战略向竞争优势的转化能力等,也对企业竞争优势的持久性产生影响。     

Competitive advantage: A longitudinal analysis of the roles of data-driven innovation capabilities,marketing agility,and market turbulence

While data-driven innovation capabilities have received considerable attention from academics and practitioners, there is insufficient longitudinal evidence on how they might contribute to improved marketing agility and competitive advantage. In this study, we make a preliminary effort to address this gap by developing a model based on the dynamic capabilities view. We also explore the moderating effects of market turbulence on the link among marketing agility and competitive advantage. We used two-waves data (T = 677 and T+1 = 569) and the cross-lagged panel approach was utilised to analyse the longitudinal data. Our findings provide robust empirical evidence on the causal and predictive temporal impact of data driven innovation capabilities on marketing agility and competitive advantage. It also indicated that marketing agility mediates this relationship over time. Moreover, the analysis suggested that market turbulence reinforce the influence of marketing agility on competitive advantage. We provided significant implications for theory and practice.     

Understanding Market-Driving Behavior: The Role of Entrepreneurship

In recent years, the marketing literature has placed significant emphasis on market-driving and proactive market-driven behavior within firms in attempts to reconceptualize the meaning of "market orientation." For their part, market-driving firms such as Starbucks, Amazon.com, Dell, and Southwest Airlines are demonstrating how business model innovation results in sustainable advantage and superior long-term performance in a wide range of industries. In this paper, we contend that market-driving behavior is distinct from a firm's market orientation, and instead is the essence of entrepreneurial action in the Schumpeterian "creative destruction" sense. It is further argued that the firm's entrepreneurial orientation interacts with other strategic orientations, in the process determining how they are manifested and, in some cases, whether they are manifested. Furthermore, entrepreneurial orientation plays a critical role in determining transitions among various strategic orientations over time. An integrative model illustrates the dynamics of the interface between marketing and entrepreneurship from both a content and process perspective. Two case studies illustrate how trajectories can be identified in the dominant strategic orientations within companies as they evolve.     

How are young music artists configuring their media and sales platforms in the digital age?

Abstract

Research on how music artists generate sales from their content through different platforms is scant. In this study, configuration theory is used to show that different market access configurations are viable simultaneously and that young musicians differ significantly in how they generate revenues. Using data on the media and sales performance of 338 young musicians in the Netherlands, we show that there is an ‘Emerging Star’ group (7–13% of artists depending on regional scope) and that record labels play an important role in this configuration providing broad media access on all platforms, both old and new. Digital age ‘Independents’ (14% of young artists), mostly without a record label, seem to benefit from the use of social media while exploiting synergies around live music. All artists in the remaining groups ‘Question Marks’ and ‘Hobbyists’ experience low to very low performance on all platforms. This study shows that configuration theory can provide detailed insight into viable and unviable marketing strategies. In particular, it shows that the globally declining music CD platform can still be very important for specific artists that exploit synergies between live performances, on-site CD sales and social media fan relationship management. The implications for marketing theory and young music artists are discussed.     

基于产业集群导向的中小企业竞争战略

面对日趋激烈的国内外市场竞争,中小企业应选定并积极融入到某一集群之中,汲取企业集群的优势,最大限度地提高自身核心竞争力。第一,充分利用集群条件,重新构建企业管理与技术创新机制。第二,重视培育合作竞争意识,建立竞争与合作之间的平衡,力争避免零和博弈。第三,明确在集群中的角色,准确定位。第四,重新调整自身的文化结构,真正适应集群的文化特点。第五,调整人力资源管理策略,积极创建学习型组织,大力提倡内部创业,努力优化人才聚集环境,加强人才梯队建设,建立人才流动机制,加大人力资本投入力度。第六,积极实施品牌战略,打造企业的诚信形象,增强企业的融资能力,不断扩大企业规模。     

Social Alliance and Employee Voluntary Activities: A Resource-Based Perspective

The corporate social responsibility literature devotes relatively little attention to the strategic role played by employee voluntary activities (EVAs) in social alliances. Using the resource-based perspective of the organization to frame the data collection and the analyses, this article investigates: (1) the role of EVAs in the development of corporate and non-profit organizations (NPOs) competitive assets and (2) the management approaches to how both parties can develop their own resources by combining them with the shared resources with the purpose of enhancing its competitive advantage in its own sector. The database is composed of 70 specifically designed interviews with managers of UK-based firms and NPOs. The analyses suggest, among other things, that the majority of corporate and non-profit managers find that EVAs generate substantial tangible and intangible benefits for their respective organisations, creating genuine synergies. We also find evidence of a general preference for the management approaches of such programmes in both types of organisation.     

The impact of mergers and acquisitions on brand equity: A structural analysis

An overlooked strategic benefit of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) is their impact on brand equity. M&As may affect consumer brand preferences, which in turn will affect a firm’s profit. We develop a structural model with a difference-in-differences specification to measure how M&As affect a firm’s profit through three mechanisms: brand equity, cost synergies, and product portfolios. We analyze Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s PC division in China’s PC market and find that the increase in brand equity contributed the most to increasing Lenovo’s profit, followed by cost synergies. To explore the generalizability of our modeling approach, we apply it to Geely’s acquisition of Volvo and also find that the gains in brand equity contributed the most to Geely’s profit increase.     

Linking family-to-business enrichment and support to entrepreneurial success: Do female and male entrepreneurs experience different outcomes?

This study used survey data from 253 entrepreneurs who founded small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to examine how experiences in their family domain may benefit their experiences in their business domain. Specifically, it hypothesized that affective family-to-business enrichment, instrumental family-to-business enrichment, and family-to-business support would be positively related to entrepreneurial success and that each relationship would be more positive for female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial success was assessed by economic measures (business performance, growth in employment) and measures of satisfaction with the entrepreneurial experience (satisfaction with status, satisfaction with employee relationships). Results offered substantial support for the notion that female entrepreneurs benefit from the linkages of family-to-business enrichment and support to entrepreneurial success, whereas they offered no support for the notion that male entrepreneurs benefit from these linkages. Female entrepreneurs may experience such benefits because of their relative lack of access to other resources such as human, social, and financial capital and because the female gender role encourages them to pursue work–family synergies. In contrast, male entrepreneurs may fail to experience such benefits because of the relative abundance of other resources available to them and because the male gender role discourages them from pursuing work–family synergies.     

Revisiting media selection in the digital era: adoption and usage

This study presents an empirical analysis of the usage of limited media resources, gratification of user expectations, complementarity between different types of media, and the competitive relationship of media, based on new media in China, specifically Wechat, Weibo, and Renren. In this study, previously un-researched areas of the difference between old and new media as well as competition among the new media are analyzed so as to suggest strategies for increasing the market share. The results showed that (1) Wechat, a service which has converged the positive attributes of old and new media, provided a high level of user gratification by meeting user’s diverse requirements, while Weibo beat other social media regarding information seeking because its network structure has advantage on extensive information acquisition. On the other hand, Renren was less competitive than Wechat and Weibo, but it still had its place as an information seeking media because of the plentiful amount of information such as pictures and videos. (2) There was keen competition among the media that provided high levels of user gratification. (3) Old media were competitively superior in media richness, equivocality reduction, and the social relationship, while new media were competitively superior in information seeking and remediation of media. The conclusions suggest that, for social network service/site-based new media to obtain the advantage in the media market, they need to provide users more diverse communication functions and a platform for more meaningful communications.     

我国中小企业品牌战略发展研究

近年来,我国中小企业无论在单位数量还是经济效益指标上都有非常大的增长,中小企业为我国经济的新发展做出了贡献,并已成为国民经济中举足轻重的重要组成部分。但是,随着市场竞争的加剧,我国中小企业单纯以质量、产品差异或价格战的经营策略已经难以维持企业的发展,中小企业必须重视品牌战略,利用自身有限的资源条件培育自有品牌,通过合理的运营管理来获取竞争优势。     

Shopping centre clusters: Competition or synergies? The case of the region of murcia (Spain)

Since their emergence in the mid 1950s, the role of shopping centres has evolved and they have now become key articulating elements of urban and metropolitan peripheral areas. In Spain, the opening of new out-of-town shopping centres intensified after the year 2000, thanks to an increased area dedicated to new leisure-related uses and activities. This process has been particularly prevalent in the regions in the south-east of Spain such as Alicante-Elche, Murcia and Valencia which are supported by high capacity regional and national road networks. In the case of Murcia, of its ten shopping centres, three of them, Thader, IKEA and Nueva Condomina, are very close to one another, and two of them - Thader and IKEA - are just 650 m apart. The objective of this study is to analyse whether this proximity between shopping centres generates synergies among them based on agglomeration economies or, on the contrary, whether it gives rise to competition between the different centres. For the purpose of this study, these highly specialised shopping centres have been considered and a field study has been conducted based on the administration of surveys among the customers of these shopping centres. The results show that the synergies with those shopping centres which have a diverse retail mix seem to be linked to those users who have a longer journey time and visit these shopping centres more frequently. On the other hand, in the case of non-regular or sporadic customers of these large, highly specialised shopping centres, we can observe direct competition with the rest of the shopping centres, revealing an absence of agglomeration economies.     

Targeting the College Market for Banking Services

ABSTRACT

College students have long been recognized as a significant market for products and professional services. Their sheer number alone, estimated to reach 15.7 million by the year 2000, makes them a viable market for many companies.

However, there are many other attractions from a marketing perspective to targeting college students. They are relatively easy to locate, concentrated in reasonably well defined geographic areas, and accessible through campus newspapers and bulletin boards. And, because they are at the beginning of their careers, firms which establish business relationships with them have long-term opportunities to maintain those links.

This study examined selected banking attributes of college students, including factors affecting patronage decisions, perceptions as to the quality of services available, and sources students use to obtain information about financial services. Surveys were conducted at a large west coast university among a diverse set of students.

Results of the study found that a sizable percent of students maintain substantial balances in their checking and savings accounts. Additionally, economic factors, such as monthly charges and interest rates on deposits, weigh heavily on decisions concerning banking patronage.

The study also found that large, state-wide banking institutions appear to have the advantage in attracting the college student market. And, while bank patronage loyalties appear to be reasonably strong, a sizable percentage of students use more than one institution. Finally, the most useful source of information for reaching the college market appears to be direct mail.