The effects of downsizing on organizational buying behavior: An empirical investigation

To survive in today’s highly competitive markets, many firms are initiating fundamental changes in organizational form and practice. These restructuring efforts are having significant effects on the organization and management of work within customer firms. However, these important changes have been largely ignored in the extant marketing literature. The research presented in this article first describes a general theory of the effects of organizational downsizing. Then, it examines the potential effects of downsizing on buying center structure and purchase participant characteristics. Findings support several of the hypotheses related to the proposed effects of organizational downsizing on the outcome variables of interest. Jeffrey E. Lewin (Ph.D., Georgia State University) is an assistant professor and Chair, Department of Marketing at Western Carolina University. His research interests include business-to-business marketing, relationship marketing, personal selling and sales management, and organizational buying behavior. His work has been published in theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing, and other publications. He serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Business Research and theJournal of Business & Industrial Marketing and is a reviewer for theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, andIndustrial Marketing Management.     

An analysis of experimental buying behavior

Consumer innovators have been studied in depth by marketing analysts; however, these early buyers may not be a homogenous group with respect to purchase patterns. This research indicates that some early buyers are experimenters and that they can be distinguished from adopters of certain procery products in terms of shopping strategies, shopping awareness, and demand for product newness.     

Risky shift: An empirical investigation and implications for industrial buying behavior and marketing management

This study attempts to determine whether the nature of the industrial buying process has an effect on the riskiness of its decisions. Research has shown that group discussion of alternatives has a tendency to shift initial risk preferences of individuals and groups. This social phenomenon, known as “risky shift,” has important implications for marketers since many decisions involve group consensus or social influence if decisions are made by a single individual. It was posited that the influence of others, mainfested by group discussion, will change the risk preference in both individual and group consensus decisions. An industrial supplier selection decision was presented to 92 marketing students in which five alternative sources of supply were described in reference to various performance criteria. The data clearly reflected statistically significant changes in risk preferences as a result of group discussion in both the individual before-individual after and individual before-group after type decision.     

Conflict resolution in organizational buying centers

This article reports the results of a field study of buying center conflict and conflict resolution processes—factors often seen as key ingredients in modeling the organizational buying process. The problem-solving and persuasion modes were found to be more often used than the potentially destructive power and politics modes. As expected, increasing levels of conflict were found to be associated with confrontation-oriented modes of resolution. Differences in resolution mode across stages of the purchase process were not significant.     

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.     

The antecedents of preventive health care behavior: An empirical study

A conceptual model of preventive health care behavior is proposed and tested. Results suggest that preventive health care behaviors are strongly influenced by the value consumers perceive in engaging in such actions. This value is greatly affected by response efficacy, or the person’s belief that a specific action will mitigate the health threat. A separate consideration affecting adherence to a prescribed preventive health care behavior is self-efficacy, or the person’s belief that the target behaviors can be enacted. Additionally, health motivation and health consciousness are also shown to influence preventive health care behaviors. Future research directions and managerial implications of the findings are outlined. Rama K. Jayanti (Ph.D., Louisiana State University) is an assistant professor of marketing, James J. Nance College of Business, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio. Her primary research interests include services marketing and consumer behavior. She has published articles inJournal of Health Care Marketing; Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior; andJournal of Professional Services Marketing. Alvin C. Burns is a professor of marketing and department chairman at Louisiana State University. His articles have appeared in publications such as theJournal of Marketing Research, Journal of Health Care Marketing, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, andAsian Journal of Marketing. Burns belongs to the American Marketing Association, the Association for Consumer Research, and the Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning. He is the lead author ofMarketing Research (Prentice Hall, 1995).     

Multi-stage information processing behavior: An experimental investigation

This paper presents an operationalization of Srinivasan's model for examining multi-stage information processing behavior. Based on theoretical considerations, specific hypotheses regarding multi-stage information processing behavior are posited. An experimental investigation undertaken to test these hypotheses is described.     

影响二手车市场消费者购买行为的因子分析

随着汽车大量进入家庭,我国汽车保有量和二手车消费群体数量不断增加,国内二手车市场不断成熟和扩大。本文通过实证研究方法,对汽车消费者的二手车购买行为进行因子分析,归纳出汽车消费者二手车购买行为的影响因子,为经销商改善二手车服务质量提供一定的理论依据。     

Generating new product ideas: An initial investigation of the role of market information and organizational characteristics

Although product innovation is widely recognized as crucial to the success of organizations, the literature still contains certain gaps that limit our understanding of successful product innovation. These gaps include a lack of research employing a decompositional approach (i,e., analysis of the drivers at each stage of the process) to studying product innovation and a related lack of research investigating the effect of organizational characteristics on specific stages of the product innovation process. The authors attempt to close these gaps by developing and testing a model examining the moderating effects of organizational characteristics on the relationship between the amount of market information gathered and the number of new product ideas generated by work groups in organizations. The study findings provide insights into the types of organizational structure and climate characteristics that can have an impact on the relationship between amount of market information and new product idea generation. Lisa C. Troy is an assistant professor of marketing at Utah State University. She earned her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. Her research interests include product innovation management, environmental marketing, and international marketing management. Her work has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science and theJournal of Marketing. David M. Szymanski is the Al and Marion Withers Research Fellow and Director, Center for Retailing Studies in the Lowry Mays College and Graduate School of Business at Texas A&M University. His research interests are in the areas of applied meta-analysis, marketing strategy, personal selling and sales management, product innovation, and retail strategy. Representative research has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, and theJournal of Retailing. P. Rajan Varadarajan is a professor of marketing and the Jenna and Calvin R. Guest professor of business administration at Texas A&M University. His research interests are in the areas of corporate, business, and marketing strategy. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theAcademy of Management Journal, theStrategic Management Journal, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Business Horizons, and other journals.     

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.     

Customer-to-customer exchange: Its MOA antecedents and its impact on value creation and loyalty

Value creation through customer-to-customer exchange occurs when the perceived benefits of a company’s offering are increased as a result of customers’ interaction with one another. C2C exchange exists in a wide variety of service environments, both online and face-to-face. Drawing on the motivation, opportunity, and ability (MOA) framework, this research presents and tests a theoretical model that examines antecedents and outcomes of C2C exchange in the context of face-to-face networking behaviors at professional association meetings. Data were obtained from a survey of conference attendees, and the hypotheses were tested using moderated regression and path analysis. The results show a three-way interaction effect among the MOA factors, that the MOA model does predict the level of C2C exchange, and that C2C exchange does enhance service value perceptions and customer loyalty intentions.     

Consumer behavior: An appraisal

This article deals with the status of consumer research after nearly twenty years of emphasis. There is a brief history of the subject, an analysis of the number and type articles being published, and an assessment of the direction consumer behavior may take in the future. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A00BV020 00002     

A framework for market-based organizational learning: Linking values, knowledge, and behavior

The authors review the concept of organizational learning and present a broad conceptual framework for its modeling. Within this framework, one specific process for market-based organizational learning is postulated. An empirical test of this model leads the authors to conclude that a more positive learning orientation (a value-based construct) will directly result in increased market information generation and dissemination (knowledge-based constructs), which, in turn, directly affects the degree to which an organization makes changes in its marketing strategies (a behavioral construct). Managerial implications are discussed. His research interests lie primarily in the areas of organizational information use and market-based organizational learning. His work has been published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Business Research, andJournal of Marketing. His research interests include both individual and organizational learning. He has published in the areas of consumer decision making, advertising effectiveness, and market-based organizational learning. His research interests include organizational marketing and marketing channels. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Business Logistics, Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management, andJournal of Health Care Marketing.     

被信任的代价: 员工感知上级信任、角色负荷、工作压力与情绪耗竭的影响关系研究

伦理氛围是组织环境的重要组成,一定程度上影响着组织的运行效率和发展前景。基于“工作要求-资源”理论框架,构建感知上级信任影响亲组织非伦理行为的双路径被调节中介模型,并采用层级回归和结构方程对模型进行验证。研究发现：感知上级信任对员工亲组织非伦理行为具有正向影响;角色超载、内部人身份认知在感知上级信任与亲组织非伦理行为间分别发挥中介作用,两条中介路径间差异不显著;内群体社会地位负向调节角色超载在感知上级信任与亲组织非伦理行为间的中介作用,正向调节内部人身份认知在感知上级信任与亲组织非伦理行为间的中介作用。组织可通过强化员工道德规范意识、关注员工群体内影响力以及加强信任管理等方式有效减少员工的亲组织非伦理行为,促进组织整体效率提升。     

决策权的重新配置:完善公司治理结构的另一种思考

单纯的权力制衡无法解决国有企业运行中存在的管理腐败和运行低效,相反,权力制衡成为中国国有企业治理低效的根源,对此,应通过决策权的重新配置来解决。     

Exploring impulse buying in services: toward an integrative framework

Prior research on impulse buying focuses mostly on goods, ignoring its incidence in services despite growing evidence about the prevalence of impulsive behaviors across diverse consumption contexts. This paper introduces an integrative conceptual framework to study impulse buying in both goods and services by using perceived risk as a focal construct in the impulse buying process and reports findings from two empirical studies. The first study uses a mall-intercept survey to show that perceived risk is lower and likelihood of impulse buying is greater for services with higher tangible (vs. intangible) attributes and higher search (vs. experience and credence) properties. The second study uses a lab-experiment to show significant differences in the influence of three relevant consumer traits (consumer impulsiveness, optimum stimulation level, and self-monitoring) on the level of perceived risk and impulsiveness in purchase decisions for six different services with varying levels of attributes (tangible vs. intangible) and evaluation properties (search, experience, and credence). Overall, the two studies provide substantial evidence of the presence of impulse buying in services and useful insights for researchers and services marketers.     

Advertising and male nudity: An experimental investigation

This study examines the predictive capability of Peterson and Kerin's product/model congruency hypothesis when extended to the use of male models. The results indicate that too little male nudity and too much male nudity operate against the liking and belief of an ad. This is some-what consistent with the product/model congruency hypothesis but however, is not predictable. The authors conclude that the use of male nudity in advertising is a practice which requires further investigation before any consistent generalizations can be made.     

Causal attributions of product failure: An exploratory investigation

The primary purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate whether consumers make different product failure attributions for different products. The study was conducted within the general framework of of attribution theory. Using four common household products, three classes of potential causes of product failure were examined for a sample of 211 adult consumers within the context of a mail survey.     

Service sabotage: A study of antecedents and consequences

Although much of the existing research on employee sabotage and deviance focuses on the manufacturing sector, studies have also found evidence of deliberate employee misbehavior in a variety of service settings. In this study, the authors conceptualize and test a model of service sabotage dynamics that incorporates both the antecedents and the consequences of such behaviors. In doing so, the study contributes contemporary empirical evidence of factors associated with the deliberate sabotage of service by frontline customer-contact personnel. Using a survey-based approach, the authors collected data from 259 respondents from a sample of 1,000 respondents. The findings largely support the hypothesized antecedents of service sabotage and show that a range of individual characteristics, management control efforts, and perceived labor market conditions are linked with service sabotage. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that service sabotage behaviors are associated with individual and group rewards, effects for customers, and other performance measures. Lloyd C. Harris (Harris@Cardiff.ac.uk) (PhD, Wales) holds the Sir Julian Hodge Chair in Strategic Marketing at Cardiff Business School. His main research interests include dysfunction at work, the marketing-organizational behavior interface, market orientation, dysfunctional behavior during consumption, e-loyalty, and organizational culture. His work has been published in theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Service Research, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Management Studies, theInternational Journal of Human Resource Management, and theJournal of Services Marketing. Emmanuel Ogbonna (Ogbonna@Cardiff.ac.uk) (PhD, Wales) is a professor of management and organizational behavior at Cardiff Business School. His major research interests are in the areas of organizational strategy, culture, human resource management, and the U.K. food retail sector. His other research interests cover all aspects of race discrimination on government-sponsored training programs. His work has been published in theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Service Research, theJournal of Management Studies, theBritish Journal of Industrial Relations, andWork, Employment and Society. He serves on the review board of several international journals.     

Consumer ethnocentrism: A test of antecedents and moderators

This article identifies theoretical antecedents of consumer ethnocentricity and the effect ethnocentricity has on evaluations toward importing products. Hypotheses pertaining to the relationship between the identified antecedents and consumer ethnocentricity are developed based on an extensive review of the ethnocentrism and country-of-origin literatures. Also identified are factors moderating the effect of ethnocentric tendencies on consumers’ attitudes toward importing products. The hypotheses are subjected to an empirical test using data collected in Korea. He has published inJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Management Science, and elsewhere. He has published inJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, and elsewhere. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of South Carolina.