Theory in consumer behavior: A status report

This article examines the attitudes of 40 opinion leaders in marketing toward theory in consumer behavior. These individuals exhibited favorable attitudes toward theory in marketing in general. More favorable perceptions of the value of the contributions of theory to consumer behavior existed than for promotion and channels of distribution. In comparison to eight other areas of marketing, the consumer behavior area was perceived as having made the greatest past contribution to marketing thought and the one most likely to make worthwhile future contributions. The sample believed that much future effort was needed in progressing toward a general theory of consumer behavior and that such effort would indeed be forthcoming.     

A note on cultural consistency within the service firm: The effects of employee position on attitudes toward marketing culture

This study represents the beginning of an exploration of the internal constraints and barriers that stand in the way of successful strategy implementation within service organizations. A determination will be made if one of the internal constraints is perhaps the lack of consistency among employees regarding marketing practices, attitudes, values, norms, and ideals. Specifically, service firm employees’ attitudes toward their actual and ideal marketing culture were measured. Attitudinal differences were examined between ground-level, middle-, and top-management employees from a cross-section of service industries. Significant differences were found for a variety of marketing culture components. Many of the differences remained even after removing possible effects of number of employees in the firm and age of the firm. Managerial implications are given.     

Development and validation of scales to measure attitudes influencing monetary donations to charitable organizations

Charitable organizations are under increasing financial pressure to attract and retain private donors. However, scales measuring consumer attitudes toward giving to charity have yielded ambiguous results in the past. Scales to measure consumer attitudes toward the act of helping others and toward charitable organizations are developed and tested for dimensionality and internal consistency using advocated procedures. The resulting measures are important to academicians, policymakers, and practitioners in the development of theory, public policy, and marketing strategy. Deborah J. Webb is a visiting assistant professor of marketing in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. She received her Ph.D. from Georgia State University. Her research interests are consumer behavior, marketing and society, and social marketing. Her work has been published in theJournal of Public Policy & Marketing and theJournal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing. Corliss L. Green is an assistant professor of marketing in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. She obtained her Ph.D. from Florida State University. Her research interests include advertising and promotion, ethnic consumer behavior, and social marketing. Her research has appeared in such journals as theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Advertising, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of Services Marketing, and various other journals and proceedings. Thomas G. Brashear is an assistant professor of marketing in the Eugene M. Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He received his Ph.D. from Georgia State University. His research focuses on international marketing management, sales management, and research methodology.     

The current status of outcomes assessment in marketing education

Under pressure for accountability and in pursuit of valid measures of their performance, institutions of higher education are examining outcomes assessment as a means of program and institutional evaluation. Through a survey of chairs of marketing departments, this study explores the current status of outcomes assessment in marketing education in universities in the United States. It examines attitudes toward several potential measures of educational outcomes as well as current and anticipated collection patterns for these measures.     

An experimental approach to improve student attitudes toward careers in selling

Students' negative attitudes toward careers in selling are well documented in the literature. This study shows how such attitudes can be improved by minor changes in course content of the introductory marketing course. Such changes are necessary if the full potential of the personal selling component is to be realized.     

Consumer ethnocentrism offline and online: The mediating role of marketing efforts and personality traits in the United States, South Korea, and India

Consumer ethnocentrism is an important concept that is used to understand international marketing phenomena. In this article, the authors conduct two empirical studies. Using consumer data from the United States, South Korea, and India (three diverse cultural and economic environments), they explore six hypotheses. In Stage 1, the results suggest that across all three countries, consumer ethnocentrism provokes negative attitudes toward both foreign advertisements and foreign products. The authors identify a set of consumer variables (i.e., consumers’ global mind-set) that may mediate consumers’ unfavorable attitudes toward foreign advertisements and products derived by consumer ethnocentrism. In Stage 2, the authors find that consumer ethnocentrism dampens consumers’ online consumption activities on a foreign Web site. Finally, the authors find that marketers’ e-mail communications to foreign consumers mediate consumer ethnocentrism in online environments. Hyokjin Kwak (hkwak@drexel.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing at Drexel University. His research interests include advertising effects, consumer communications, and strategic marketing. He has publications in theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Advertising Research, theJournal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, theJournal of Consumer Marketing, and other marketing journals. Anupam Jaju (ajaju@gmu.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Management at George Mason University. His main research interests are in marketing strategy, marketing-technology interface, and international marketing. His work has been published in theJournal of International Management, Marketing Theory, andMarketing Education Review. Trina Larsen Andras (published as Trina Larsen, larsent@ drexel.edu) is a professor and the head of the Marketing Department at Drexel University. Her research has been published in many of the major professional journals in her field, includingHarvard Business Review, theColumbia Journal of World Business, International Marketing Review, Industrial Marketing Management, Management International Review, theJournal of Global Marketing, and theJournal of International Marketing, among others. Her research is focused on international marketing, specifically, cross-cultural behavioral and relationship issues in international marketing management.     

Determinants of sports sponsorship response

Despite the growing role of sponsorship in the marketing activities of firms worldwide, academic research in this area has been limited. Adopting a classical conditioning framework, this research examines the effects of consumers’ attitudes about a sports event, their perceptions of sponsor-event fit, and their attitudes about the sponsor on a multidimensional measure of sponsorship response. The results suggest that sponsor-event fit, perceived sincerity of the sponsor, perceived ubiquity of the sponsor, and attitude toward the sponsor are key factors in generating a favorable response from sponsorship. Liking of the event and perceived status of the event have differing significance depending on how response is measured. Sponsorevent fit also has interaction effects with perceived status of the event and personal interest in the event. The implications of these findings for sponsors and event managers are examined, and future research directions are outlined. Richard Speed is an associate professor of marketing in the Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. He received his Ph.D. from the Loughborough University of Technology, United Kingdom. In addition to sponsorship, he researches and publishes on decision-making for marketing strategy and the use and management of brands. Peter Thompson is principal of Et² Sponsorship Strategy and a visiting research fellow of the Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. He holds a B.D.Sc. and an MBA from the University of Melbourne. His reserch of sports marketing, personality management, and sports broadcasting.     

Marketers as noodlers

The article examines difficulties marketing instructors encounter in introductory marketing courses. Presentation of the factors responsible for the growing volume and importance of marketing and examination of the roles marketing performs for business and society can lead students to form negative attitudes. Students in their initial exposure to marketing study may come to view marketing as manipulative and of service only to production and profits. Suggestions are presented for logical development of these topics via positive and persuasive examples. A review of literature is presented indicating a wide divergency of views regarding the scope of marketing, a definition of the field, and societal contributions. Research findings are presented on the accumulation of marketing knowledge and the attitudes which are formed during study in the Marketing Principles course.     

An examination of consumer sentiment toward offshored services

This research identifies and analyzes the underlying elements and consequences of consumer sentiment toward offshored services. This is accomplished by initially conceptualizing consumer sentiment toward offshored services, then developing and validating a multi-dimensional scale (OFFSERVSENT) to measure the construct. This research determines that consumer sentiment toward offshored services is instrumental in explaining consumers’ commitment to and global attitudes toward firms that offshore services as well as consumers’ word-of-mouth behavior. The strength of these relationships varies depending upon the type of service being offshored. The results of this research contribute to the study of services offshoring, an emerging and fertile area of research for the services and marketing disciplines, and provide practitioners with increased knowledge regarding offshoring decisions.     

Intraorganizational determinants of key account management effectiveness

While there is a significant amount of research on determinants of selling effectiveness for individual salespeople, there is a surprising lack of study offactors that affect selling effectiveness in team-selling situations. The authors focus on the context of key account management (KAM) and develop a conceptual model offactors that affect KAM effectiveness. They test hypotheses with data from 385 firms using structural equation modeling and find that firms should seek to build esprit de corps among those involved in KAM, should proactively initiate activities with key accounts and do these activities more intensively, should ensure that key account managers have access to key resources within the marketing and sales organization, and should involve top managers of the firm. John P. Workman Jr. is an associate professor of marketing at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He conducts research on the organization and role of marketing within the firm, on new product development in high-tech firms, and on the interpretive process of learning about the market. His research uses concepts from organization theory, strategy, and sociology to examine the interactions between marketing and other groups in the firm. He has a B.S. from North Carolina State University, an MBA from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He formerly was on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Christian Homburg is a professor of business administration and marketing and chair of the marketing department at the University of Mannheim in Germany. He received his Ph.D. and master's degrees from the University of Karlsruhe and earned his habilitation at the University of Mainz. His research interests include organizational issues in marketing, customer orientation, industrial marketing, and relationship marketing. He has consulted and delivered executive education programs for more than 100 companies, including, for example, Daimler-Benz, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Hoechst, RWE, Thyssen, Krupp-Hoesch, and Sodexho. Ove Jensen is a partner and managing director at Prof. Homburg & Partners, a strategy consulting firm (www.homburgund-partner.de). He has studied in Germany, France, and the United States. He holds a master's degree from the WHU Koblenz (Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management) and received his Ph.D. from the University of Mannheim, both in Germany. His research interests encompass key account management, marketing organization, sales management, incentive systems, and pricing issues. He has conducted many consulting projects, market research studies, and management seminars in Germany, the United States, France, and Japan. Among his clients are Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Bayer, BASF, Lafarge, and Saint-Gobain.     

浅谈出口企业销售策略

现代商业竞争愈加激烈,为了减少资金占压、减轻库存压力及坏账损失,出口企业基本都是以销定产。因此销售工作将在企业发展中起重大作用。销售工作中销售人员应对自身公司的各项业务及实力进行全面的了解,也要了解自己的目标客户群、潜在客户的数量、潜在客户能接受的价位、潜在客户对产品或服务的具体要求等。与目标客户保持良好的互动关系。     

Using a randomized response research design to eliminate non-response and response biases in business research

A serious distortion of business survey research is that frequently the survey includes questions that the respondent views as sensitive or intimate. The respondent may refuse to answer or may give an inaccurate answer. This refusal to answer or tendency to falsify the answer can seriously distort the research findings and invalidate the interferences made from the survey. This paper discusses a sampling procedure that has recently been developed and used to reduce dishonest responses or nonreponses to sensitive questions. The procedure is called Randomized Response. As an example, it is used to ask sensitive questions of individuals who are marketing majors at the University of Hawaii concerning their behavior and attitudes toward racial discrimination, shoplifting, test cheating, and commodity hoarding.     

Marketing theory: A current status report

“Marketing Theory: A Current Status Report” presents the findings of a study conducted among a select group of marketing though leaders. This study explored their attitudes regarding the present state of marketing theory and particularly their views regarding the need for a general theory of marketing. Further, the question of whether academicians and practitioners have differing views concerning the need for theory is examined, as is the question of the importance of practicality in research.     

试论品牌价值与顾客忠诚的关系

国内外市场的进一步统一,不仅展现了市场容量扩充的前景,更丰富了市场竞争的内容和深度。与国际著名品牌的竞争,促使中国的企业不断深化对品牌价值的认识,不断改进品牌经营战略。品牌价值形成是市场营销活动作用的结果,由顾客是否对该品牌具有广泛和持久认同所决定。以顾客忠诚度为中心的营销理念,是中国企业品牌战略管理中的“软肋”。要提升品牌资产价值,提高品牌竞争力,就必须把“塑造品牌,以实现与目标顾客的交易目标”的观念转化为“塑造品牌,建立与目标顾客的长期合作关系”的理念;提升品牌资产价值的唯一途径是开展品牌忠诚营销;品牌忠诚营销的重点是提高并长期维系顾客满意度,并使其转化为忠诚度。     

Exploring the effectiveness of business gifts: A controlled field experiment

To measure the effectiveness of business gifts, a controlled field experiment was designed to isolate the attitudinal and behavioral intent effects of business gift giving by an actual company and its customers. Customers were randomly assigned to experimental groups, (who received a business card file) and control groups (who received no business gift) according to a Solomon four-group design. Mail questionnaires were utilized to collect data on respondent attitudes toward four product attributes (price, quality, service, and delivery) across three product lines, and on customers’ likelihood to contact the donor company versus the majority of its major competitors., Consistent with the reciprocal intent of business gift giving, the results indicate the ability of business gifts to work in synergy with the other elements of an organization’s marketing communications program.     

The moderating effects of insupplier/outsupplier status on organizational buyer attitudes

A conceptual model of the relationships among buyers’ perceptions of and attitudes toward elements of a vendor company’s marketing mix is developed and tested, and the moderating effects of insupplier/outsupplier status are assessed. Attitude centrality and self-perception theories predict that buyer perceptions of and attitudes toward the company, the salesperson, and the product will be more closely interlinked for insuppliers than for outsuppliers. Theory regarding category-based affect and attitude accessibility predicts that buyers will use extrinsic cues to a greater extent when making judgments about outsupplier as compared with insupplier salespeople. The results indicated significant moderating effects of insupplier/outsupplier status and generally validated predictions made on the basis of attitude theory. Perceived company reputation was more strongly related to salesperson and product attitudes for insuppliers than for outsuppliers. Extrinsic cues were used to a greater extent by buyers evaluating outsuppliers. Implications of the findings for management and a more complete understanding of organizational buying are discussed. His research interests include attitudinal influences on consumer and organizational buying behavior, sales force motivation, and job attitudes. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, andJournal of Advertising Research, as well asJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science.     

Fundamental changes in marketing organization: The movement toward a customer-focused organizational structure

There has been growing interest in the future of marketing and changes in marketing’s organization and role within the firm. However, there has not been research that holistically explores key changes in marketing organization. The authors draw on qualitative interviews with 50 managers in the United States and Germany and argue that changes in marketing organization that have been discussed in isolation are part of a more general shift toward customer-focused organizational structures. They initially discuss two specific changes related to the overall shift: changes concerning primary marketing coordinators and increasing dispersion of marketing activities. They then introduce the concept of a customer-focused organizational structure that uses groups of customers as the primary basis for structuring the organization. They identify typical organizational transitions as firms move toward a customer-focused organizational structure and discuss the challenges firms face in making this transition. They conclude with implications for academic research, managerial practice, and business school curriculum. Christian Homburg is a professor of business administration and marketing and Chair of the Marketing Department at the University of Mannheim in Germany. He received his Ph.D. and master’s degrees from the University of Karlsruhe and earned his habilitation at the University of Mainz. His research interests include organizational issues in marketing, customer orientation, industrial marketing, and relationship marketing. Dr. Homburg has consulted and delivered executive education programs for more than one hundred companies, including Daimler-Benz, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Hoechst, RWE, Thyssen, Krupp-Hoesch and Sodexho. John P. Workman, Jr. is an associate professor of marketing at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Dr. Workman conducts research on the organization and role of marketing within the firm, on new product development in high-tech firms, and more recently on organizational issues for e-commerce initiatives. His research uses concepts from organization theory, strategy, and sociology to examine the interactions between marketing and other groups in the firm. Dr. Workman has a B.S. from N.C. State University, an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia, and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. He has consulted for a number of organizations on the topics of e-commerce and marketing organization. Ove Jensen is a Ph.D. student studying under Professor Homburg at the University of Mannheim. He received his master’s degree from the WHU Koblenz. He conducts research on sales management, organizational issues in marketing, and incentive systems. He has extensive consulting experience in the areas of market-focused management and sales management.     

Television commercials in violent programming: An experimental evaluation of their effects on children

Using an experimental method, this study found that when a commercial was viewed immediately following a high-violence dramatic programming segment, children’s ad copy recognition scores were significantly lower and attitudes toward the ad and the advertised brand were significantly less favorable than when the commercial was viewed following a low-violence (but otherwise near-identical) program segment. The influence of program violence level on some advertising response measures was more pronounced when the commercial was positioned immediately following the dramatic programming segment than when immediately preceding it. The study cautions advertisers to examine carefully whether, in reaching for high audience ratings and cost efficiency through violent television programs, they may be sacrificing communication effectiveness of their brand advertising. He has published numerous articles on advertising effectiveness, children and advertising, buyer behavior, and marketing strategy in theJournal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Communication, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Journal of International Marketing, and others. Her primary research interests are in children and advertising issues, buyer behavior, and marketing ethics. Her research has appeared in theJournal of Services Marketing, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, and proceedings of numerous national and regional marketing conferences.     

The measurement of intergenerational communication and influence on consumption: Development, validation, and cross-cultural comparison of the IGEN scale

This article develops and validates measures of intergenerational communication and influence about consumption. Despite the widespread belief that parents play a pivotal role in the consumer socialization of their children, empirical research on the skills, attitudes, and preferences transmitted from one generation to the next is quite limited. One factor that may explain this deficiency is the lack of appropriate instruments for assessing intergenerational issues. Drawing on consumer socialization theory and research, intergenerational transmission is defined in terms of three components directly relevant to marketplace transactions: (1) consumer skills, (2) preferences, and (3) attitudes toward marketer-supplied information. Multi-item scales are developed to measure each of these components. The findings of three studies supporting the reliability, dimensionality, and validity of the intergenerational scales are reported. Validation efforts incorporate cross-cultural analyses from the United States and Thailand, as well as dyadic-level comparisons between parents and children. Madhubalan Viswanathan is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. His research interests include consumer psychology and measurement. His research appears in several journals including theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Applied Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, andPsychology and Marketing. He serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Consumer Psychology andPsychology and Marketing. Terry L. Childers is a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. His research interests include visual information processing, measurement, and psychometrics. His work has been published in several journals including theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, and theJournal of Mental Imagery. He serves on the editorial review boards of theJournal of Consumer Research and theJournal of Business Research. Elizabeth S. Moore is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Notre Dame. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Her research interests include consumer decision processes within the household, the effects of advertising and promotion on children, as well as marketing and society issues. Her work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Consumer Research (in press), and theJournal of Macromarketing, as well as other books and conference proceedings.     

关系营销与客户关系管理

关系营销与客户关系管理是在"大市场营销"背景下"以顾客为中心"的两种不同的管理思想,但两者之间又有着内在的联系,在应用时互相支持。在关系营销的实践中应用客户关系管理,对提高客户满意度,保持与利益群体的良好关系,从而最终实现企业的营销目标具有重要的作用。