Environmental and Economic Dimensions of Sustainability and Price Effects on Consumer Responses

The lack of attention to sustainability, as a concept with multiple dimensions, has presented a developmental gap in green marketing literature, sustainability, and marketing literature for decades. Based on the established premise of customer–corporate (C–C) identification, in which consumers respond favorably to companies with corporate social responsibility initiatives that they identify with, we propose that consumers would respond similarly to companies with sustainability initiatives. We postulate that consumers care about protecting and preserving favorable economic environments (an economic dimension of sustainability) as much as they care about natural environments. Thus, we investigate how two sustainability dimensions (i.e., environmental and economic) and price can influence consumer responses. Using an experimental method, we demonstrate that consumers favor sustainability in both dimensions by giving positive evaluations of the company and purchase intent. In addition, consumers respond more negatively to poor company sustainability than to high company sustainability. In comparison, consumers respond more negatively to the company’s poor commitment to caring for the environment than to the company’s poor commitment to economic sustainability. We also find that consumers do not respond favorably to low prices when they have information about the firm’s poor environmental sustainability. Finally, we find support for an interaction effect between consumer support for sustainability and corporate sustainability; that is, consumers evaluate a company more favorably if the company shares the consumers’ social causes. Overall, we conclude, from our empirical study, support for the idea that consumers do respond to multiple dimensions of sustainability.     

Tweetjacked: The Impact of Social Media on Corporate Greenwash

We theorize that social media will reduce the incidence of corporate greenwash. Drawing on the management literature on decoupling and the economic literature on information disclosure, we characterize specifically where this effect is likely to be most pronounced. We identify important differences between social media and traditional media, and present a theoretical framework for understanding greenwash in which corporate environmental communications may backfire if citizens and activists feel a company is engaging in excessive self-promotion. The framework allows us to draw out a series of propositions regarding the impact of social media on corporate decisions whether to greenwash, and what channels to use for environmental communication. We conclude with a number of suggestions for future research.     

A holonic framework to understand and apply information processes in evolutionary economics: survey and proposal

Economists unsatisfied with the basic neoclassical assumptions of rational economic actors and economic evolution towards equilibrium states founded the evolutionary economic approach. Their goal was to provide more realistic assumptions regarding economic agents and their institutional environments. The Modern Synthesis (MS), the current conceptual paradigm for biological evolution, was used as a source of inspiration for conceptual development. Along the biologically inspired line of thought, the Generalized Darwinism (GD) initiative relies on the abstraction of the MS to provide a unifying conceptual framework for evolutionary economics. Despite its merits, GD has been subject to criticism, particularly regarding its level of abstractness and lack of an explicit account of the social and cognitive processes that drive economic evolution. The goal of this article is to introduce and explore an alternative conceptual framework for evolutionary economics: the Holonic Framework (HF). Contrary to GD, the HF is not biologically inspired, but builds upon the body of literature on the value of digital information networks. We discuss the analytical strengths and limitations of the HF relative to GD in light of several aspects pertinent to evolutionary economics (e.g. self-organization, culture, cognition, cooperation). Finally, by referring to an operationalization of the HF using Eurostat data, we show its practical strengths in comparison to GD.     

Building international entrepreneurial virtual networks in cyberspace

We examine how software international entrepreneurs in Iceland use online social network sites to develop and harness their network relationships. To study these relationships, we use a combination of participant observation on LinkedIn and open ended face-to-face interviews. The framework for this study is based on resource-based view, networks and international entrepreneurship theories. We found that entrepreneurs with the largest networks use the online social network to demonstrate their network strength and to identify opportunities to bridge relationships. Our contribution illustrates how entrepreneurs acquire resources to internationalize through online social capital formation.     

Sequential sampling enhanced composite likelihood approach to estimation of social intercorrelations in large-scale networks

The increasing access to large social network data has generated substantial interest in the marketing community. However, due to its large scale, traditional analysis methods often become inadequate. In this paper, we propose a sequential sampling enhanced composite likelihood approach for efficient estimation of social intercorrelations in large-scale networks using the spatial model. Given a known population network, the proposed approach sequentially takes small samples from the network, and adaptively improves model parameter estimates through learnings obtained from previous samples. In comparison to population-based maximum likelihood estimation that is computationally prohibitive when the network size is large, the proposed approach makes it computationally feasible to analyze large networks and provide efficient estimation of social intercorrelations among members in large networks. In comparison to sample-based estimation that relies on information purely from the sample and produces underestimation bias in social intercorrelation estimates, the proposed approach effectively uses information from the population without compromising computation efficiency. Through simulation studies based on simulated networks and real networks, we demonstrate significant advantages of the proposed approach over benchmark estimation methods and discuss managerial implications. We also discuss extension of the proposed approach in the context of an unknown population network structure, as well as in an alternative form of the spatial model.     

Advertisement Disclaimer Speed and Corporate Social Responsibility: “Costs” to Consumer Comprehension and Effects on Brand Trust and Purchase Intention

It is not uncommon for advertisers to present required product disclaimers quickly at the end of advertisements. We show that fast disclaimers greatly reduce consumer comprehension of product risks and benefits, creating implications for social responsibility. In addition, across two studies, we found that disclaimer speed and brand familiarity interact to predict brand trust and purchase intention, and that brand trust mediated the interactive effect of brand familiarity and disclaimer speed on purchase intention. Our results indicate that fast disclaimers actually reduce brand trust and purchase intention for unfamiliar brands, suggesting that there are both economic and social responsibility reasons to use less rapid disclaimers for unfamiliar brands. Conversely, disclaimer speed had no negative effects on brand trust and purchase intention for highly familiar brands, presenting ethical tensions between economic interests (e.g., an efficient use of advertisement time) and social responsibility. We discuss the implications of our framework for advertising ethics, for corporate social performance, and for corporate social responsibility.     

The Influences of Customer Relationship Metrics on Shareholder Value: What Should Be Done and What Has Been Done?

The contribution of customer relationship (CR) metrics to shareholder value is practically unknown in research and practice. Existing studies report rather ambiguous results. We develop a proposal to identify and measure the multidimensional influences in a valid and reliable way. By comparing existing studies to each other and to our framework, we can find possible reasons for their ambiguity: First, the studies are actually not compatible while using various CR metrics and performance measures. Second, several conceptual and methodological differences also place the comparability of their results in question. The application of our framework should explain the inconsistent outcomes of existing studies and indicate a consistent and general influence of CR metrics on shareholder value.     

Environmental factors to maximize social media engagement: A comprehensive framework

Social media is a crucial tool for companies to reach their customers as additional touch point and build brand awareness, but effectively using these platforms to engage with customers remains an area of research. Branded social media posts are aimed to deepen the customer-brand-relationship in form of social media engagement. In this study, we aim to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence social media engagement by examining the role of environmental factors, including the type of media and content of brand posts, brand involvement of the company, social media channel used, and cross-channel management strategies. We utilize social cognitive theory as our framework and identify three social media environments that must be considered to create social media engagement: (1) the imposed, (2) the selected, and (3) the created environment. We gather more than 7000 brand posts of twenty global brands using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram giving insights on the driver of social media engagement. By examining these factors, we aim to provide a framework for understanding the drivers of social media engagement and how companies can effectively use social media to engage with their customers.     

Ethics and Law: Guiding the Invisible Hand to Correct Corporate Social Responsibility Externalities

Tokenistic short-term economic success is not good indicia of long-term success. Sustainable business success requires sustained existence in a corporation’s political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental contexts. Far beyond the traditional economic focus, consumers, governments and public interest groups alike increasingly expect the business sector to take on more social and environmental responsibilities. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the model in which economic, social and environmental responsibilities are fulfilled simultaneously. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence that demonstrates genuine widespread adoption of CSR in practice, and its underlying reasons. Though research in CSR has been rapidly growing, its commercial reality and implications need to be further improved if it is to inspire corporations to voluntarily adopt CSR. In the literature, Carroll’s four-dimensional (economic, legal, ethical and discretionary) CSR framework offers a theoretical basis for developing an empirically based model to explain why and how profit-motivated managers take up CSR voluntarily. Our study has developed a structural equation model to identify the key factors and their interactions that influence economically motivated managers to take on voluntary CSR, and validate Carroll’s four-dimensional construct. The results support Carroll’s four-dimensional CSR framework, with the exception of the link pertaining to the relationship between economic and discretionary/voluntary responsibility. This characterises the economic reality that financial market-driven economic responsibility does not automatically translate into social responsibility. Nevertheless, the empirical results demonstrate that corporations can be led to engage in more voluntary CSR activities to achieve social good when appropriate legal and ethical controls are in place.     

New product adoption in social networks: Why direction matters

Marketing managers and researchers generally agree that analyzing data from social networks and using them to influence consumers' purchase decisions are useful strategies. However, not all social network data may identify the most influential customers. This empirical study of more than 300 students reveals the low explanatory power of friendship networks (e.g., Facebook) and undirected-advice networks (e.g., LinkedIn). Only directed-advice networks (e.g., Google +) clearly identify influential consumers. In addition, the results challenge conventional wisdom that firms should target advisers assuming that they have the strongest influence on new product adoption. This study contradicts this common assumption and reveals that structural equivalence drives product adoption more than cohesion because advisees' adoption pressures advisers to purchase the product as well. Finally, the study shows the value of social network data beyond the traditional ego-centric psychographic metrics, such as innovativeness or opinion leadership.     

Quality signaling through ex-ante voluntary information disclosure in entrepreneurial networks: evidence from franchising

This paper examines antecedents of ex-ante voluntary information disclosures for standardized contracts in entrepreneurial networks. Entrepreneurs (e.g., franchisors) may make such disclosures to prospective business partners in order to signal profitability of partnering, attract financial and managerial resources, and develop their entrepreneurial networks. In practice, only a fraction of franchisors make financial performance representations (FPRs), an ex-ante voluntary information disclosure to prospective franchisees. We address gaps in the signaling, voluntary information disclosure, franchising, entrepreneurship, and small- and medium-enterprise (SME) literatures. We draw on signaling theory to develop a theoretical framework and investigate factors that influence a franchisor’s disclosure decision. We evaluate hypotheses from our theoretical framework through econometric analyses of multi-sector panel data for the US franchising industry. We estimate a logit model and use lagged independent variables to address our dichotomous independent variable and potential endogeneity, respectively. Our results support the view that firms signal their quality through FPRs to attract potential business partners and expand their entrepreneurial networks. Beyond the extant literature, we find that rigorous partner qualification is another driver of voluntary information disclosure in franchising. Our findings also provide empirical support for the complementary role played by multiple quality signaling mechanisms used by franchisors and yield public policy implications for franchising.     

A New Framework Integrating Environmental Effects into Technology Evaluation

This study aims to propose a framework considering both economic issues and environmental effects in technology evaluation in order to provide firms’ decision makers a useful reference in adopting technologies that will enable them to fulfill corporate social responsibilities and get competitive advantages at the same time. Recently, the demands for technology evaluation have increased with the flourishing development of technology licensing, technology transaction or joint venture on the one hand and with the pressing needs of environmental protection for human beings’ sustainable development on the other hand. Under such conditions, it thus goes without saying that firms’ decision makers are propelled to take into account both economic benefits and environmental effects in evaluating technologies by choosing low or nonpolluting technologies for manufacturing products. Although technology evaluation is not a new and emerging subject currently besetting scholars in the field of management, previous research on this topic has unwittingly left behind the pressing issue of environmental effects. Based on this observation, this study purports to develop a new framework for technology evaluation by taking both economic benefits and environmental perspectives into consideration. In it, we seek to demonstrate that our proposed framework will not only be a workable model but also can serve as a useful point of reference for technology appraisers and firms’ decision makers.     

A direct comparative framework of customer satisfaction: An application to Internet search engines

Traditionally, satisfaction evaluations have been studied in the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm in which customers compare firm performance to expectations. The current customer-satisfaction framework incorporates competitive comparisons indirectly through expectations. However, in markets in which competing alternatives are often primed in the evaluation context (e.g., product and retailer information presented in Bizrate.com), customers may directly compare performance and satisfaction across competing alternatives.In this article, we develop a direct comparative framework (DCF) of customer satisfaction. To make our DCF managerially useful, we also develop an operational model that managers can use to draw strategic insights based on customers’ satisfaction evaluations. We demonstrate our framework and operational model by applying them to the Internet search-engine market.     

Mapping Research Topics and Theories in Private Regulation for Sustainability in Global Value Chains

The globalization of production and trade has contributed to the rise in complex global value chains where the reach of state regulation is limited. As an alternative, private regulation, developed and administered by companies, industry associations, and nongovernmental organizations, has emerged to safeguard economic, environmental, and social sustainability in producer countries and along the value chain. The academic literature on private regulation in global value chains has grown over the last decade, but currently few major reviews of the research have been undertaken. This paper examines peer-reviewed research in the relevant disciplines published in academic journals up to December 2011. Our goal is to identify and classify the topics and theories in the global value chain literature. We conclude that the number of articles explicitly examining private regulation, in a global value chain context, is relatively small when considering the importance and growth of these chains in the world’s economy. We also conclude that agriculture, forestry, and apparel manufacturing are the most often studied economic sectors; in contrast, other sectors, such as the information, communication and technology, with their complex global value chains, and often problematic environmental and social conditions, are understudied.     

Heterogeneous effect of ethnic networks on international trade of Thailand: The role of family ties and ethnic diversity

Ethnic networks have been found to have a pro-trade effect in previous research. However, the heterogeneous effect of different ethnicities is under-studied. Drawing on the literature on social structure, this paper attempts to untangle the heterogeneous effect of ethnic networks on international trade using trade data of Thailand. We found that ethnic networks have a positive impact overall on trade, confirming the results of previous studies. However, the magnitude of the positive effect varies across different ethnicities along two dimensions. First, the strength of family ties in the culture of origin accelerates the pro-trade effect of its ethnic networks, suggesting ethnicities with stronger family ties have a cultural preference for trading within their own ethnic community. In comparison, ethnic diversity weakens the positive effect of ethnic networks on trade, suggesting an informational value of diverse ethnic structure in promoting trade between different ethnicities. Our study contributes new evidence of the enduring influence of social and cultural attributes on economic activities.     

Arbitrage risk and the cross-section of stock returns: Evidence from China

We demonstrate that arbitrage risk, constructed using three measures — noise trader risk, trading cost and information uncertainty — can predict the return of stocks cross-sectionally in China. The findings are broadly consistent even when out-of-sample tests are conducted using the Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regression approach. We also construct hypothetical portfolios using the information arising from arbitrage risk and find the existence of abnormal returns which is robust to the use of various portfolios constructed by re-sampling the observations through multiple approaches (e.g., by market capitalization and by book-to-market ratio). Lastly, we reconstruct our portfolios by considering the unique nature of the Chinese stock market (e.g., the dominance of individual investors). Our trading strategies again successfully obtain abnormal returns, suggesting that arbitrage risk can be useful to construct effective investment portfolios in China.     

Consumer Perceptions of the Social Vs. Environmental Dimensions of Sustainability

Prior research on sustainable consumption has addressed a variety of issues yet is characterized by mixed results. Researchers have often treated sustainability as a uni-dimensional construct, overlooking important differences and thwarting a better understanding of consumer response. We demonstrate that consumers perceive the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability as psychologically distinct in theoretically and practically important ways. Specifically, consumers associate the social dimension of sustainability more with affective, short-term, and local considerations and the environmental dimension more with cognitive, long-term, and global considerations. We identify and explore these distinctions in a qualitative pilot study, which subsequently motivated development of three hypotheses. We provide evidence supporting these hypotheses in a series of five studies. Our findings enable a reinterpretation of prior equivocal research, serve as a foundation for future research, and provide guidance for how policy-makers can tailor policy and related communication efforts depending on whether the focal issue is related to social versus environmental concerns.     

SMEs, Social Capital and the Common Good

In this paper we report on empirical research which investigates social capital of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Bringing an international perspective to the work, we make a comparison between 30 firms located in West London and Munich in the sectors of food manufacturing/production, marketing services and garages. Here we present 6 case studies, which we use to illustrate the early findings from this pilot project. We identify differences in approach to associational membership in Germany and the U.K., with a greater propensity to "belong" to an official group in Germany. We distinguish clear sectoral similarities across the countries, and indications that certain personality types will seek out engagement and find time beyond busy work life schedules, often merging work/home/leisure life and friends. Some of our cases illustrate that formal institutions, networks and mutual relationships can develop social capital for the SME, although we should take care not to assume a universal win-win situation for those who are engaged and contribute to the common good. Some of the obstacles to co-operation and civic engagement are outlined.     

Institutions,entrepreneurs, and communities: A special issue on entrepreneurship

This Special Issue's aim is to demonstrate that drawing on sociological research can further enrich entrepreneurship studies of institutions, entrepreneurs, and communities. We develop an organizing framework for our ten Special Issue papers that categorizes the pieces by community level and type, observed changes, form of entrepreneurial actor, institutional and entrepreneurial concepts and processes, and integrative methodologies. This set of categorizations helps us to identify components that scholars can use to build more mid-range theory around our special issue topics. The framework also helps us to isolate limitations in the Special Issue papers, thereby providing avenues for future research.     

Cross-decision social effects in product adoption and defection decisions

Researchers and practitioners have long been aware of the capacity to use information on consumers' product adoptions and defections to forecast the adoption and defection behavior of others in their social networks. Yet, herein, we suggest that such information still holds substantial untapped predictive potential. Specifically, this paper is the first to define and investigate cross-decision social effects, i.e., the effects of customer defections on network neighbors' adoption decisions, and the effects of customer adoptions on network neighbors' defection decisions. We incorporate these effects into a conceptual framework that enables us to explore them concurrently with same-decision social effects (the effects of adoptions on adoptions and of defections on defections), which have been researched extensively. We develop a multi-event hazard model to describe this framework, and estimate it using two unique data sets on a communication network and on adoption and defection dates for a mobile add-on. We obtain strong empirical evidence for negative cross-decision social effects that are larger for strong ties than for weak ties.