Children’s understanding of advertisers’ persuasive tactics

The aim of this study was to investigate children’s understanding of six popular tactics used by advertisers to elicit certain advertising effects, including ad repetition, product demonstration, peer popularity appeal, humour, celebrity endorsement and premiums. We first asked 34 advertisers of child products to indicate what kind of effects (e.g. ad or product recall, learning and liking) they intend to elicit by using each of the six tactics. Subsequently, in a survey among 209 children (aged 8–12) and 96 adults (>18), we investigated the extent to which children understood advertisers’ intended effects of these tactics and how this compared to an adult benchmark. Results showed that children’s understanding of advertisers’ tactics increased progressively between the ages of 8 and 12, showing a significant increase around age 10. The age at which children reach an adult level of understanding differed by tactic. For example, the use of celebrity endorsement was generally understood at an earlier age than other tactics, whereas product demonstration was understood at a later age.     

An examination of the usage and impact of upward influence tactics by workers in the hospitality sector of Taiwan: Expanding the framework of rao,schmidt, and murray (1995)

This study adds the political tendencies of subordinates and their organizational socialization as antecedents to the Rao, Schmidt, and Murray ( 1995 ) framework of the use of upward influence tactics. Supervisor trust in the subordinate was added as an outcome. Furthermore, using 278 subordinate‐supervisor dyads in the Taiwanese hotel industry, a full range of influence tactics were examined. Political tendencies and socialization were associated with subordinate use of influence tactics. However, assertiveness was the only tactic strongly and negatively associated with both performance rating and the level of trust the manager placed in the subordinate. Importantly, these negative effects were mediated by supervisor impressions of subordinate tenacity and disagreeableness. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influences on what consumers know and what they think they know regarding marketer pricing tactics

Although a considerable amount of research has investigated consumer knowledge of individual prices, consumer knowledge of marketer pricing tactics (e.g., partitioned prices, pennies a day) has received only limited attention. In the current research, a model depicting hypothesized antecedents of consumer knowledge (both accurate and self‐perceived) regarding pricing tactics marketers use is proposed and then investigated in two studies. Tests of the model provided support for the hypothesized antecedents of both objective and subjective pricing tactic knowledge and suggested that experience is a key moderator of the objective pricing tactic knowledge–subjective pricing tactic knowledge relationship. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Gender and Impression Management: Playing the Promotion Game

Little attention has been paid to the role which impression management (IM) of genuine and substantial talents and commitment plays in the careers of female and male managers seeking promotion. IM studies have largely investigated the supervisor/subordinate relationship, often with samples of business students in laboratory settings. In the Cranfield Centre for Developing Women Business Leaders, we have focused on the use of IM by practising managers. In this paper, we examine previous literature for indications that gender may be important in explaining differences in IM behaviours. We then report findings from a survey and a qualitative study, showing that gender, especially combined with age and job level, is a differentiating factor in managers' inclinations to use particular IM behaviours. Many women (and some men too) seem uncomfortable with using IM. Women do not always want to play "the organizational game" by the male-constructed unwritten rules, but prefer to trust good management and systems fairness for just rewards. Younger and junior level women managers often recognize that IM may be a useful tool but reject its use for themselves. Women seem to prefer to rely on extra high performance and commitment for visibility to their seniors rather than the networking, ingratiation and self-promotion strategies used more by males. An important consequence is that as ambitious young males use job-focused IM in addition to self and manager-focused strategies, this is likely to leave young women at a considerable disadvantage for promotion, if the strategies are successful.     

A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics

A longstanding debate exists in both academic literature and popular culture about whether non-informative marketing tactics are manipulative. However, given that we tend to believe that some marketing tactics are manipulative and some are not, the question that marketers, their critics, and consumers need to ask themselves is that of how to actually determine whether any particular marketing tactic is manipulative and whether a given manipulative tactic is, in fact, immoral. This article proposes to operationalize criteria that can be used by marketers for making such determinations and attempts to provide some clarification toward our under- standing of the concept of manipulation and the conditions for the moral acceptability of manipulative marketing practices. It argues that a marketing tactic is manipulative if it is intended to motivate by undermining what the marketer believes is his/her audience’s normal decision-making process either by deception or by playing on a vulnerability that the marketer believes exists in his/her audience’s normal decision-making process. Such a tactic is morally objectionable on several grounds, which make it morally impermissible unless outweighed by sufficient “redemptive” moral considerations.     

Persuasion knowledge and consumer reactions to pricing tactics

The current research investigates consumer knowledge of the pricing tactics that marketers frequently employ and the effects of that knowledge on responses to various price offers. In the research, a series of studies were conducted to develop and validate a knowledge measure designed to assess pricing tactic persuasion knowledge (PTPK). Consistent with the persuasion knowledge model, individuals with higher levels of PTPK were shown to have more knowledge-related thoughts regarding pricing tactic information than those with low levels of PTPK. Additionally, pricing tactic persuasion knowledge was shown to be more predictive of consumer choices regarding quantity surcharge offers and purchase interest evaluations following exposure to tensile claim offers (e.g., “Save up to 50 percent Off”) than several competing constructs.     

The Evolution of Business Groups’ Corporate Social Responsibility

Although establishing gender equality in board and managerial positions has recently become more important for organizations, companies with low levels of gender diversity seem to perceive an ethical dilemma regarding the ways, in which they attempt to attain it. One way that organizations try to move toward gender equality is through the use of their corporate websites to manage potential applicants’ impressions of their current levels of, and actions to improve, gender diversity. The dilemma is whether to truthfully communicate their low level of gender diversity, conceal it, or exaggerate it. On the one hand, organizations that are truthful may find it difficult to achieve equality because women are less attracted to companies that lack diversity. On the other hand, organizations that are untruthful risk their moral legitimacy. The present work investigates gender diversity-related communication on the corporate websites of 99 major German companies. Based on theoretical work on minority attraction, we apply an organizational impression management taxonomy to guide our in-depth content analysis. With this approach, we hope to advance the understanding of how the issue of gender diversity is presented on corporate websites, which is useful for both organizational decision makers as well as diversity researchers. We found that although gender diversity-related communications on corporate websites contain both assertive and defensive organizational impression management tactics, as well as a third type of tactic we refer to as “acknowledgement,” assertive tactics were used more frequently. We argue the existence of a paradox whereby organizations use assertive impression management tactics to maintain pragmatic legitimacy but compromise their moral legitimacy by doing so. Furthermore, we argue that moral legitimacy can be maintained or restored through the sincere use of defensive impression management tactics and acknowledgement.     

Currency Substitution and Price Endings: Right Digit Effect

ABSTRACT

The strategic manipulation of prices. rightmost digits has been a tactic used by retailers in the western world for decades. By studying the internationalization of pricing tactics in a global economy, our research adds a much needed contribution to the literature of price endings and pricing tactics in global markets. We find that at lower price levels, consumers exposed to a 99 ending price in a currency substitution market are more likely to purchase the product compared to consumers in the US market. At higher price levels, on the other hand, consumers in either market situation exhibit no change in purchase intentions. Thus, the 99 ending tactic has no effect on consumers when the product is expensive. The use of the right digit effect by managers in a currency substitution/ dollarized economy as a way of persuading consumers to buy is still likely to be more successful compared to the USA market. As such, firms in a dollarized economy should structure their pricing strategies while taking into consideration the type of product they are offering and the consumer market they are dealing with.     

Seeing Is (Not) Believing: Managing the Impressions of the Firm’s Commitment to the Natural Environment

This paper examines stakeholder responses to impression management tactics used by firms that express environmental commitment. We inductively analyzed data from 98 open-ended questionnaires and identified two impression management tactics that led respondents to believe that a firm was credible in its commitment to the natural environment. Approximately, half of the respondents responded to illustrative impression management tactics that provide images of, and/or broad-brush comments about, the firm’s commitment to the natural environment. The other half responded to demonstrative impression management tactics, which provide specific facts and details about the firm’s operations. The research results provide important insights into the effects of organizational transparency. In this paper, we explore these findings and provide directions for future research.Pratima Bansal is an associate professor and the Shurniak Professor in International Business at the Richard Ivey School of Business. Her research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, the British Journal of Management, and the Journal of Management Studies. Her research interests are primarily in the areas of sustainable development and international business.Geoffrey Kistruck is a PhD Candidate in Strategic Management at the Richard Ivey School of Business. His research has received distinguished best paper awards at academic conferences, and his research interests are primarily in the areas of corporate governance and nonprofit organizations.     

Managing Impressions in the Face of Rising Stakeholder Pressures: Examining Oil Companies’ Shifting Stances in the Climate Change Debate

In this paper, we examine how organizations’ impression management (IM) evolves in response to rising stakeholder pressures regarding organizations’ corporate responsibility initiatives. We conducted a comparative case study analysis over a period of 13 years (1997–2009) for two organizations—Exxon and BP—that took extreme (but different) initial stances on climate change. We found that as stakeholder pressures rose, their IM tactics unfolded in four phases: (i) advocating the initial stance, (ii) sensegiving to clarify the initial stance, (iii) image repairing, and (iv) adjusting the stance. Taken together, our analysis of IM over these four phases provides three key insights about the evolution of IM in the face of rising pressures. First, when faced with stakeholder pressures, it seems that organizations do not immediately resort to conforming but tend to give in gradually when pressures increase and start to come from relatively powerful stakeholders. Second, evolution of IM seems to be characterized by path dependence, i.e., even as organizations’ positions evolve, they continue to show their conviction in their initial positions and try to convey that their subsequent positions flow logically from the previous ones. Finally, IM involves navigation between symbolism and substance, and companies tend to strive toward harmonizing their symbolic and substantive actions as stakeholder pressure increases.     

从道德的视角看员工对印象管理的运用

印象管理的研究文献中迄今几乎没有从道德的视角研究员工对印象管理的运用。本文借用道德理论和社会影响理论来提出如下命题:(1)道德认知发展水平高的员工运用印象管理策略的可能性要低于道德认知发展水平低的员工。(2)员工对道德推理的使用在道德认知发展水平与印象管理策略运用之间的关手上起到调节作用。(3)使用印象管理策略的员工比不使用者达到所希冀的结果的可能性要大。(4)道德领导在印象管理策略对所希冀的结果的作用上起到调节作用。     

Internal marketing as a change management tool: A case study in re-branding

This article examines the rational, power and political considerations of internal marketing (IM) when implementing a change management initiative, such as re-branding. Based on the findings of a qualitative case study of a Canadian university and the views of multiple stakeholder groups, additional considerations have been identified that relate to the transformation or ‘control’ stage of change. Particularly, tactics have been presented that are believed to facilitate the transition or re-branding process. This research provides important perspective on the role of IM in the context of organizational behavior. Using a grounded theory research method, an adapted model is proposed that comprises elements of internal marketing as well as change management.     

The Moderating Effect of Impression Management on the Organizational Politics–Performance Relationship

This study investigates the complexities in the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and performance ratings by examining the moderating effect of impression management on that relationship. Expectancy theory was employed to better understand the moderating effect. We proposed that two kinds of impression management tactics occurred: supervisor-focused and job-focused, respectively. It was hypothesized that increased exercise of impression management would mitigate the negative effects of perceptions of organizational politics and performance ratings. Data were collected from 290 full-time employees of ten state-owned enterprises in Taiwan. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis of data revealed that the job-focused tactics exerted a significant moderating effect on the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and performance ratings. When perceptions of organizational politics are low, employees who engage in high levels of job-focused impression management tactics are more likely to gain better ratings than those who employ low-level tactics.     

Effects of Conditional Sales Promotion Tactics on Consumers' Feelings of Unfairness

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the negative effects of the conditional sales promotion tactics on nonpreferred consumers' feelings of unfairness from the viewpoint of motivation. A two-by-two between-subjects design experiment was conducted to examine the consumers' psychological mechanism. The results show that three types of consumers' perceptions—tactic attractiveness, task difficulty, and tactic irrationality—positively affected their feelings of unfairness. The results show an important mediating role among consumers' perceptions, short-term consumption intention and long-term satisfaction. This research provides new insights for future research and concrete strategic suggestions for retailers.     

The Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge,Identification of Commercial Intent and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames—the Role of Media Context and Presence

Across two studies, the authors investigate the extent to which children’s persuasion knowledge of an advertising tactic (advergame and TV commercial) and their level of engagement with the medium (presence) influence their identification of commercial content and persuasion outcomes. In line with theoretical predictions of the persuasion knowledge model, results showed that those children who had more knowledge about advertisers’ tactics were more likely to identify brands and commercial content in the advergame and less likely to be influenced. However, a high level of presence in the medium moderated the effect of persuasion knowledge on persuasion outcomes.     

Using virtual reality to increase charitable donations

Marketer interest in using virtual reality (VR) as a persuasion tactic continues to rise. Notably, one sector at the forefront of utilizing this tactic for persuasive means is nonprofit marketing. Many charities have devoted considerable resources to creating VR appeals under the assumption that this medium will increase donations over and above present tactics. However, research has not yet examined the persuasive consequences VR may provide over more traditional channels. This research seeks to understand the opportunities and limitations this emerging tactic can offer marketers. Specifically, we examine the donation effectiveness of three real VR charitable appeals by assessing actual donation behaviors, and find that VR appeals increase donations compared to a two-dimensional (2D) format. This work addresses a timely and relevant issue for practitioners and opens doors to future research investigating VR’s applications to marketing.

     

资源匮乏、拼凑策略与中小企业产品创新关系研究

资源对创新的作用研究多集中在资源富余的一面,但是在竞争日趋激烈的今天研究资源匮乏的作用同样很有必要。尤其是,已成为社会创新中坚力量的中小企业在资源普遍匮乏的同时,又灵活通过拼凑致力于创新,分别有研究据此推断资源匮乏和拼凑策略可能引致中小企业创新,但是这些论断尚需细化分析与验证。文章分类分析并以科技型中小企业为样本证实：资源匮乏和中小企业产品创新之间存在显著的倒U型关系;只有选择拼凑有利于中小企业产品创新,并行拼凑的作用恰好相反;连续拼凑负向调节资源匮乏和中小企业产品创新关系,选择拼凑则正向调节这一关系。分类别和多角度探讨资源匮乏、并行策略对于中小企业创新的作用表现是对相关研究的拓展和推进,对理解和促进我国当前中小企业的创新实践也具有参考价值。     

Relationship marketing effectiveness: The role of involvement

The term relationship marketing has been used to describe a wide range of marketing tactics. In this article, three dimensions that may be used to categorize these tactics are identified: personalization, individualization, and continuity. Research is presented demonstrating that the effectiveness of each type of tactic is influenced by buyer involvement in the product category, although the nature of this influence differs by country and gender. This suggests that managers contemplating relationship marketing programs should consider buyer involvement levels, and that researchers studying relationship marketing effectiveness should control for this variable. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Understanding the Determinants of User Acceptance of Enterprise Instant Messaging: An Empirical Study

As modern organizations increasingly depend on information systems (IS) to enhance work productivity and seek new business opportunities, communication effectiveness has become one of the key factors that underlie the effective performance of IS implementations and applications. Instant Messaging (IM) presents a revolution in enterprise communication. As more organizations are findings ways to utilize this near-synchronous computing communication technology to enhance communication effectiveness in the workplace, there is a compelling need to understand the factors that are important for the adoption of enterprise IM. We have developed an integrative model based on constructs of the existing IT adoption models as well as theories on motivation, innovation diffusion, and critical mass. Using responses from 140 intended subjects, we have found the results of survey data support the contentions that perceived usefulness, compatibility, enjoyment, and security are significant predictors of intention to use enterprise IM. Although perceived connectivity did not predict the intention directly, it did indirectly through perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Implications and future research are discussed.     

美国对目标公司反收购行为的规制:商业判断规则之运用

在敌意收购中 ,目标公司的董事无疑是最大的利益受损者 ,因为敌意收购一旦成功 ,他们很有可能丧失工作或名誉扫地。因而 ,目标公司董事往往会运用手中掌握的经营公司的权力 ,采取各种措施挫败敌意收购者。对于这种反收购行为 ,美国判例法援用原有的商业判断规则 ,并在其基础上发展出了一系列测试标准 ,用以评判目标公司董事的反收购行为是否符合董事的注意义务 ,主要有 :主要目的测试标准、相当性测试标准、最大价值测试标准、公正拍卖者测试标准等。