The relationship between major-league sports’ official sponsorship announcements and the stock prices of sponsoring firms

This study presents analysis of the impact of “official product” sports sponsorships with the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) on the stock prices of sponsoring firms. The primary finding of the study is that, in the main, announcements were accompanied by increases in shareholder wealth. The 53 sponsors analyzed experienced mean increases in stock valuations of about $257 million. A multiple regression analysis of firm-specific stock price changes and selected corporate and sponsorship attributes indicates that official product sponsorships with the NBA, NHL, and PGA and those with smaller market shares were associated with the largest gains in share prices. Although corporate cashflow (a proxy for agency conflicts) is statistically unrelated to shareholder approval, sponsorships by high-technology companies were associated with stronger stock price reactions than otherwise. Finally, product congruence with the sponsored sport was positively related to changes in stock prices. T. Bettina Cornwell (b.cornwell@business.uq.edu.au) is Professor of Marketing and Leader of the Marketing cluster in the UQ Business School at the University of Queensland, Australia. She was formerly Professor of Marketing in the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas. Her research focuses on promotion and consumer behavior, especially with regard to international and public policy issues. Other articles on the topic of sponsorship-linked marketing have recently appeared in theJournal of Advertising, the Journal of Advertising Research, theJournal of Business Research, andPsychology & Marketing. Stephen W. Pruitt (pruittst@umkc.edu) is the holder of the Arvin Gottlieb/Missouri Endowed Chair of Business Economics and Finance in the Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He received his Ph.D. from Florida State University. He has published more than 45 articles, most of which employ event study methodologies, in journals such as theJournal of Finance, theJournal of Political Economy, Financial Management, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, and theJournal of Advertising Research. John M. Clark (clarkj@cba.usm.edu) is an assistant professor of finance at the University of Southern Mississippi. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Alabama. His research interests include options and other derivatives, investments, and the impact of real events upon the stock prices of corporations. His work has appeared in scholarly outlets such as theJournal of Advertising Research, theFinancial Review, and theJournal of Business Ethics.     

Fallacious convergence? Williamson’s real wage comparisons under scrutiny

The idea of manifest real-wage convergence for unskilled workers in the latter half of the nineteenth century stems from an article from 1995 by Jeffrey G. Williamson. That article presented real wage comparisons of unskilled urban workers for seventeen countries. Sweden, along with the rest of Scandinavia, is found to be an influential case in accounting for much of the alleged factor price convergence taking place. This paper takes a closer look at all the three steps that have to be taken in order to establish real wage comparisons, focusing on Sweden in relation to the US and the UK. The most important findings are twofold. First, that the US–Sweden wage gap is considerably smaller for manufacturing than for building workers, and second, that the rate at which Sweden’s real wages approached the American and the British has been grossly overestimated. Swedish real wages did grow rapidly, but not as rapidly as Williamson’s comparison will have us to believe, because his real wage series does not constitute a representative account of the Swedish unskilled real wage experience. It is argued that, as we suffer from a serious paucity of data for narrow and comparable samples of late nineteenth century unskilled workers, resorting to more encompassing wage measures is a more viable option. That also implies a questioning of the American unskilled wage series, which makes considerably slower progress than the wage series for manufacturing workers.     

民营企业基层员工高离职率问题探讨——基于南安市M民营企业的调查

目前,国内很多民营企业都面临招工难、留工难等问题。很多学者已深入探讨过这些问题,并得出薪酬福利是员工离职的最主要因素。然而,在多数民营企业中,基层员工离职率的比例最高,且不因工资增长而降低,主要是福利待遇起着主导作用。通过对南安市M民营企业进行调查研究和相关资料收集,从员工福利的角度分析如何解决民营企业基层员工高离职率的问题,以进一步促进民营企业劳动关系的和谐发展。     

Rethinking marketing: Peter Drucker’s challenge

Just as Peter Drucker pointed out the importance of assessing whether a company’s “theory of business” is relevant, marketers need to consider whether the current “theory of marketing” still fits in a world of rapid change. The author examines how Drucker challenged the theory of business at financial services firm Edward Jones, helping to identify new market opportunities. For example, he urged the company to move into metropolitan areas, which now account for 60 percent of the firm’s business. The article then considers how the field of marketing needs to reexamine its own mental models. Finally, the article considers how Drucker’s seminal insights on marketing, particularly his emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach, might point the way to new approaches.     

A city of trades: Spanish and Italian immigrants in late-nineteenth-century Buenos Aires,Argentina

The city of Buenos Aires in the 1890s is an extreme case in immigration history since the native workers accounted for less than one-third of the labour force. In this paper, we look at the labour market performance of Argentineans vis-à-vis the largest two immigrant groups, Italians and the Spaniards. We find that, on average, Argentineans enjoyed higher wages, but workers specialised in particular occupations by nationality. Immigrants clustered in occupations with lower salaries. Despite higher literacy levels and the language advantage, Spaniards did not outperform Italians in earnings. Ethnic networks facilitated the integration of immigrants into the host society and played a role in the occupation selection of immigrants. Our results suggest that Italian prosperity in Buenos Aires was not based on superior earnings or skills but on older and powerful networks.     

Exploring deception and puffery in television advertising

Public policy decisions dealing with deceptive advertising have relied extensively on case-by-case adjudication with the Federal Trade Commission. Unfortunately, behavioral evidence has not been considered in the vast majority of these cases. The final determination rests with the Commission’s own expertise in judging an advertisement’s “capacity to deceive.” Consumer response data are not required, although recent developments suggest the FTC is seriously considering the inclusion of meaningful behavioral evidence in policymaking and adjudicative proceedings. This study is one of a series dealing with dimensions of perceived deception across different respondent populations (including students, lawyers, housewives, children, and minority groups). The focus here is on the semantics of deception, i.e., the way in which subjects evaluate selected television commercials which were unofficially rated for deception by FTC staff attorneys. The factor analytic paradigm provides one approach for generating summaries of viewer’s evaluative (affective) responses, and thereby providing some normative or benchmark data of potential value in the regulatory process.     

Establishing human brands: determinants of placement success for first faculty positions in marketing

Based on primary data spanning 5 years, we examine factors that influence the entry-level placement of marketing doctoral candidates at U.S. universities and colleges. Contributing to the emerging research on human brands, we identify marketing doctoral candidates’ intrinsic and extrinsic brand cues that influence their number of AMA interviews, campus visit offers, and starting base salary. The strongest brand cue is the research productivity of candidates’ doctoral degree-granting departments. A related cue that also predicts initial salary is the candidates’ advisors’ research record. Further, when beginning the job search, doctoral students who have a top research publication, who have a dissertation proposal defended with data, and who have attended the AMA-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium receive a substantial entry salary premium. Based on branding frameworks and theories of academic rewards, this study adds to the emerging knowledge on both the concept of human brands as well as the growing literature on issues relating to marketing academia.     

企业劳动力市场薪酬的博弈分析

可用博弈分析的方法来帮助劳资双方就薪酬问题找到谈判均衡点,达成一致,从而有利于双方节约成本.建立动态博弈模型分析企业与应聘者关于薪酬的博弈过程,可以发现,企业与应聘者 "讨价还价"的过程,实际是企业和员工对员工自身关于产值和成本的议和估量过程,若企业付给员工的工资大于员工给企业带来的价值,则企业盈利小于员工得益;反之,企业盈利大于员工盈利.     

地区财政收入影响因素的实证分析--以淮南市为例

在分析财政收入影响因素的基础上,对淮南市历年来的财政收入及各项数据的分析,建立了线性回归模型,初步确定国民生产总值、固定资产投资、在岗职工工资作为淮南市财政收入的影响因素。检验对财政收入影响最显著的因素,创新性的将在岗职工工资作为解释变量,进行了相关的检验与技术分析。说明这些实证研究的经济学意义,以及对淮南市政府缓解财政收入矛盾的借鉴作用。     

A comprehensive model of customer direct and indirect revenge: understanding the effects of perceived greed and customer power

This article develops and tests a comprehensive model of customer revenge that contributes to the literature in three manners. First, we identify the key role played by the customer’s perception of a firm’s greed—that is, an inferred negative motive about a firm’s opportunistic intent—that dangerously energizes customer revenge. Perceived greed is found as the most influential cognition that leads to a customer desire for revenge, even after accounting for well studied cognitions (i.e., fairness and blame) in the service literature. Second, we make a critical distinction between direct and indirect acts of revenge because these sets of behaviors have different repercussions—in “face-to-face” vs. “behind a firm’s back”—that call for different interventions. Third, our extended model specifies the role of customer perceived power in predicting these types of behaviors. We find that power is instrumental—both as main and moderation effects—only in the case of direct acts of revenge (i.e., aggression and vindictive complaining). Power does not influence indirect revenge, however. Our model is tested with two field studies: (1) a study examining online public complaining, and (2) a multi-stage study performed after a service failure.     

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.     

国际贸易对我国收入分配的隐性影响——基于行业要素报酬的实证分析

近年来国际贸易飞速发展,巨额的贸易总额带动生产要素的跨国(跨地区)流动,对居民的收入分配产生了不可避免的影响.采用转换成本函数法,结合面板数据GLS估计方法,对1997年～2009年国际贸易对中国34个工业行业的工人工资的影响进行了实证研究,从而得到贸易对中国收入分配的隐性影响.与理论预期相悖的是,研究结果表明:贸易的发展并没有增加对劳动的相对需求、提高工人的工资收入份额:SS定理在中国的适用性有待考证.文章试图从要素市场扭曲的角度去寻找提高工资收入份额的途径,为我国贸易政策的调整提供一定的实证依据.     

Wage and employment determination in volatile times: Sweden 1913–1939

The paper studies wage and employment determination in the Swedish business sector from the mid-1910s to the late 1930s. This period includes the boom and bust cycle of the early 1920s as well as the Great Depression of the early 1930s. The events of the early 1920s are particularly intriguing, involving inflation running at an annual rate of 30 percent followed by a period of sharp deflation where nominal wages and prices fell by 30 percent and unemployment increased from 5 to 30 percent. We examine whether relatively standard wage and employment equations can account for the volatile economic development during the interwar years. By and large, the answer is a qualified yes. Industry wages were responsive to industry-specific firm performance, suggesting a significant role for “insider forces” in wage determination. Unemployment had a strong downward impact on wages. There is evidence that reductions in working time added to wage pressure; yet, estimates of labor demand equations suggest that cuts in working time may have slightly increased employment as firms substituted workers for hours per worker.     

Measuring personal cultural orientations: scale development and validation

Cross-cultural studies using Hofstede’s national scores to operationalize his five cultural factors at an individual level suffer from ecological fallacy, and those using self-report scales treat cultural factors as unidimensional constructs and provide little or no evidence of the construct validity and measurement equivalence of these scales. This paper reconceptualizes Hofstede’s five cultural factors as ten personal cultural orientations and develops a new 40-item scale to measure them. It also establishes the validity, reliability, and cross-cultural measurement equivalence of the new scale, and discusses its advantages over other scales.     

Understanding the adoption of new brands through salespeople: a multilevel framework

So far there has been scant empirical attention paid to the role of the sales force in the adoption of new brands in the early implementation stages. We test a framework of internal (sales manager and salespeople) brand adoption using an empirical multilevel study. Our findings suggest that the construct of expected customer demand (ECD) plays an important role in sales force brand adoption. First, ECD directly influences salespeople’s and sales managers’ brand adoption. Second, ECD serves as a cross-level moderator of new brand adoption transmission. We find the influence of sales managers’ brand adoption on salespeople’s brand adoption to be stronger when salespeople’s ECD is lower.     

Social influence on salespeople’s adoption of sales technology: a multilevel analysis

The implementation of sales force automation applications (SFA) often fails owing to the lack of adoption by salespeople. Previous studies investigating drivers of salespeople’s SFA adoption have mainly scrutinized predictors on the level of salespeople (within-level analysis). Hence, these studies have mostly neglected the social influence of coworkers’ and superiors’ SFA adoption on salespeople’s SFA adoption. We introduce a new perspective using a multilevel framework of SFA adoption at several hierarchical levels. The findings demonstrate that coworkers’ and superiors’ SFA adoption has a positive effect on subordinates’ SFA adoption which goes beyond the commonly tested determinants. Also, results reveal differences among predictors of the Technology Acceptance Model (within-level effects) examined at three different hierarchical levels.     

藏区家庭自然灾害应急物资储备意愿的影响因素研究

较高的储备意愿可以显著提高家庭应急物资的储备水平和家庭自然灾害应对能力。本文以四川甘孜藏族自治州为例,通过问卷调查了解藏区家庭应急物资储备意愿,运用相关分析法和回归分析法探索影响家庭储备意愿的因素,进而提出相应的对策建议。研究发现,家庭老人或小孩的数量、家庭房屋坚固程度、家庭年收入与家庭自然灾害应急物资储备意愿显著负相关;家庭拥有的牲畜数量与家庭自然灾害应急物资储备意愿显著正相关。根据研究结论,本文提出可以通过定期开展灾害知识教育、加大财政补贴力度等方式提高家庭自然灾害应急物资储备意愿。     

An empirical analysis of spokesperson characteristics on advertisement and product evaluations

This article reports the results of an experimental investigation of the influence of a communicator’s characteristics on respondent’s evaluation of an advertisement when the communicator is in the role of a spokesperson. Specifically, the author assesses the impact of the physical attractiveness, sex and race of a spokesperson, the sex of the respondent and product advertised on respondent’s attitude toward the advertisement, and respondent’s perceptions of the advertised product. The results presented indicate that the effectiveness of the factors mentioned are dependent on the specific objective of the communication. A main effect of physical attractiveness was noted on a subject’s attitude toward the advertisement, on perceptions of product quality and intent to purchase. The sex of the communicator impacted on a subject's perception of product quality and interacted with the race of the communicator to effect the intent to purchase variable. Race was shown to effect the subject’s perception of product quality. A main effect of the sex of the subject was noted for the cognition variable.     

高校共青团组织服务大学生创业的若干问题研究

大学生创业是时代的召唤和教育发展的客观要求,越来越多的高校毕业生选择了自主创业的道路.现今,大学生创业有着极佳的机遇和优势,但同时也面临着很多的问题.共青团是中国共产党的助手和后备军,是为广大青年群众服务的组织之一,怎么样服务大学生创业是共青团所肩负的重要任务.文章从沈阳市高校的实际情况出发,对高校共青团服务大学生创业做了一些粗浅的研究,指出高校共青团组织服务大学生创业方面存在不足以及高校共青团促进服务大学生创业的相关对策.     

Consumer response to physicians’ advertisements

Although the Federal Trade Commission has initiated a number of rulings to reduce professional societies’ prohibitions against advertising in order to stimulate competition, there is little research regarding the subject. Certainly, this is true of the potential effects of doctors’ advertising. In this study, subjects received illustrative physicians’ advertisements with varying levels of price, service, and competency. In analysis with various attitudinal and intentional measures as dependent variables, these factors were shown to have statistical significance.