Utterly fresh perspectives on consumer research and advertising: Introducing the special issue from the 2013 La Londe conference

This article provides an overview of the papers from the 40th La Londe Marketing Communications and Consumer Behavior Conference that were selected for this special issue of the Journal of Business Research. The La Londe conference is a biennial event that attracts top researchers from across the world. A small and selective conference, its intimacy combined with high-quality presentations serves as an incubator for new ideas and fresh perspectives on consumer research, and does so through an international lens that is reflected in the diversity of countries represented on the conference program, the co-chairs of the conference, and the La Londe Conference Scientific Committee.     

Retrospection on the impact of Wallendorf and Brucks' “Introspection in consumer research: Implementation and implications”

This paper offers a retrospection of the impact of Wallendorf & Brucks' (W&Bs') (1993) contribution. The present article considers W&Bs' contributions to theory and research and uses citation analyses to consider W&Bs' impact in the literature. The number of citation references indicates that the article has substantial impact on introspection scholarship. An analysis of the contents of references confirms W&Bs' unique importance to introspection theory and research. W&Bs' influence on introspection studies is diverse and substantive, spanning a wide range of topics that W&B explicate. These contributions move W&B from noteworthy scholarship to seminal status in its contributions to introspection research.     

Brand management in small and medium-sized (SME) retailers: A future research agenda

Abstract

Recently, an emerging body of literature has advocated the importance of branding to small and medium-sized (SME) retailers. Nonetheless, this discourse has ignored the complexities and idiosyncrasies of retail branding. The aim of this paper is to provide a new theoretical understanding of brand management by SME retailers. In order to achieve this aim, the paper integrates the brand management, SME branding, and retail branding literature, and offers a conceptual framework for SME retail branding. A number of propositions are included that aid understanding of brand management in SME retail organisations. It is anticipated that these propositions will help shape future empirical research in this area. Further in-depth research into the application of branding within the SME retail context would address a significant gap in academic knowledge. In doing so, it would also provide important insights for management practice.     

Rejoinder to commentary on Chien, Cornwell, and Pappu (2010): Advancing research on sponsorship portfolio effects

This article responds to the issues Bibby (2010) raises in his recent commentary essay on Chien, Cornwell, and Pappu (2010). The rejoinder focuses on brand meaning's definition, measurement, construct delineation and operationalization, and cautions against outright rejection of Aaker's (1997) brand personality scale applied to the sponsorship context. Further, criticism by Bibby of employing Aaker's scale in Australia seems unwarranted given similarities in cultural values between Australia and the United States. Bibby (2010) also questions the legitimacy of event personality fit effects but the questions potentially misinterpret the construct used by Chien et al. (2010). While this rejoinder admits to the challenges of brand personality measurement, theory-testing goals of Chien et al.'s (2010) research are not compromised by the measures employed.     

Beyond good and bad: Challenging the suggested role of emotions in customer experience (CX) research

Our paper challenges several notions regarding emotion's role and their influence on the customer experience (hereafter CX). Based on our analysis, we develop the following five propositions to advance our understanding of emotions' role in customer experience research. First, we argue that positive and negative emotions can coexist during the consumption experience. Second, positive emotions do not automatically lead to positive consumption outcomes, and negative emotions may not necessarily generate negative results. Third, positive or negative emotions toward a company employee might not automatically transfer to the company as a whole. Fourth, customers are not apathetic victims of their emotions with no capability to control their emotional experiences. Our last proposition is that consumption emotions are not a purely intrapersonal phenomenon, but that the social context matters and influences the consumption experience. We propose a related future research agenda highlighting opportunities for scholars and managers alike.     

新中国前30年广告研究的格局及其基本面向——1949-1979年间中国的广告学术论著的历史与分析

当今治中国广告史的研究者，常常以1979年丁允朋在《文汇报》上发表的《为广告正名》一文以及唐忠朴等《实用广告学》一书的出版作为新中国广告学术研究的开端。然而，1949—1978年这段时间中的广告学研究，并非是人们所想象的一片空白。在新中国成立后前30个年头中，广告研究零散地分散在文史研完、商业美术、对外贸易系统等多个领域中．在那个特殊的历史时期的文化政治背景中取得了一些独特的学术成果。如果忽略中国广告学在这三十年间所关照的一些研究主题，我们就无法建立起一个关于二十世纪中国广告学学术史完整的脉络，也无法从根源上理解八十年代广告学研究中的某些时代性主题。     

Examining artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in marketing via a global lens: Current trends and future research opportunities

Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured substantial interest from a wide array of marketing scholars in recent years. Our research contributes to this emerging domain by examining AI technologies in marketing via a global lens. Specifically, our lens focuses on three levels of analysis: country, company, and consumer. Our country-level analysis emphasizes the heterogeneity in economic inequality across countries due to the considerable economic resources necessary for AI adoption. Our company-level analysis focuses on glocalization because while the hardware that underlies these technologies may be global in nature, their application necessitates adaptation to local cultures. Our consumer-level analysis examines consumer ethics and privacy concerns, as AI technologies often collect, store and process a cornucopia of personal data across our globe. Through the prism of these three lenses, we focus on two important dimensions of AI technologies in marketing: (1) human–machine interaction and (2) automated analysis of text, audio, images, and video. We then explore the interaction between these two key dimensions of AI across our three-part global lens to develop a set of research questions for future marketing scholarship in this increasingly important domain.     

(Mis)trust in marketing: a reflection on consumers' attitudes and perceptions

Consumers are at the focal point of marketers' attention. However, while extensive research is devoted to understanding consumers' motivations, attitudes and behaviour, surprisingly little attention is given to the consumers' views of marketing itself. This paper explores consumers' attitudes towards marketing and their perceptions of it, reflecting critically upon their views. Since much criticism of marketing focuses on its role in promoting consumption, we also consider perceptions of current levels of consumption and the extent to which marketing is held responsible for them. Based on 29 in-depth interviews we find evidence suggesting the prevalence of negative attitudes towards marketing, especially associated with deceptive or dishonest campaigns, although marketing's informative role is acknowledged. Importantly, findings reveal a limited understanding of the discipline, suggesting a gap between the concept of marketing and consumers' perceptions of it. This paper sends marketers important messages from consumers and offers grounds for further debate.     

集聚效应与农业外商直接投资的区位选择——基于1999-2009年中国省际面板数据分析

传统观点认为,农业因其产业链和分工较为简单等原因,相对来说并不易于形成空间集聚,因而,农业FDI的区位选择不存在集聚效应的影响。然而,本文通过统计分析和计量分析发现,农业FDI在中国的区位分布具有明显的空间集聚的特征,这种空间集聚产生的外部性利益,吸引了新进的农业FDI继续定位于这些地区。而且,随着时间的推移,由于因果循环的作用,农业FDI存量越大的地区,吸引的农业外资就会越多;而缺乏足够农业FDI存量的地区,就更加难以吸引农业外资的流入。集聚效应使得农业FDI地区分布的差距逐步扩大。     

Solving and Testing for Regressor-Error (in)Dependence When no Instrumental Variables are Available: With New Evidence for the Effect of Education on Income

This paper has two main contributions. Firstly, we introduce a new approach, the latent instrumental variables (LIV) method, to estimate regression coefficients consistently in a simple linear regression model where regressor-error correlations (endogeneity) are likely to be present. The LIV method utilizes a discrete latent variable model that accounts for dependencies between regressors and the error term. As a result, additional ‘valid’ observed instrumental variables are not required. Furthermore, we propose a specification test based on Hausman (1978) to test for these regressor-error correlations. A simulation study demonstrates that the LIV method yields consistent estimates and the proposed test-statistic has reasonable power over a wide range of regressor-error correlations and several distributions of the instruments. Secondly, the LIV method is used to re-visit the relationship between education and income based on previously published data. Data from three studies are re-analyzed. We examine the effect of education on income, where the variable ‘education’ is potentially endogenous due to omitted ‘ability’ or other causes. In all three applications, we find an upward bias in the OLS estimates of approximately 7%. Our conclusions agree closely with recent results obtained in studies with twins that find an upward bias in OLS of about 10% (Card, 1999). We also show that for each of the three datasets the classical IV estimates for the return to education point to biases in OLS that are not consistent in terms of size and magnitude. Our conclusion is that LIV estimates are preferable to the classical IV estimates in understanding the effects of education on income. JEL Classification: C12, C13, C21, J3, M3