Global Perceptions of Online Advertising

ABSTRACT

The marketing of professional services is different from marketing in other areas. Indeed, several “distinctive problems” of marketing professional services have been identified. In order to obtain evidence as to whether these “problems” apply to public accounting services and if current accounting graduates understand them, two surveys were conducted of chairpersons of accounting and marketing departments at AACSB accredited schools of business. The results indicate that respondents from both groups of chairs believe that the majority of the “problems” are concerns for the public accounting profession and that current accounting graduates should understand them. However, both groups appeared neutral as to whether current accounting graduates are exposed to many of these “distinctive problems.” It is difficult for students to understand and be prepared to deal with the issues, if they have not been exposed to them.     

The role of accounting information in revenue management

Revenue management (RM) uses differential pricing and other techniques to manage customer demand for a company's products and services. It judiciously trades off yield and spoilage, and brings rational approaches to pricing for goods and services with a limited shelf life. Because many types of businesses find that growing revenue has a disproportionate impact on operating profits, firms that know and manage their customer base often achieve better bottom-line results by growing revenue rather than by cost-cutting. Initially developed as a marketing tool for pricing airline tickets, today's numerous RM applications can benefit from accounting tools that help assess whether applications will enhance operating profit and monitor their success in doing so. Knowledge of a firm's cost structure, operating leverage in particular, and when to treat RM adjustments as special orders, are the principal accounting lynchpins. Opportunity cost variances and insights from the theory of constraints contribute to effective revenue management/profit enhancement programs. Use of proper accounting information and analytic techniques can help a tolerated union of necessity between RM programs and firm strategy become a desirable marriage of mutual choice.     

Marketing by CPAs

Abstract

Until the late 1970s, the AICPA discouraged commercial advertising and some other marketing tactics by practicing accountants. This study contacted 600 CPAs in the U.S. in an attempt to discover what kinds of marketing they employ, how useful they think it is, and how appropriate do they feel the AICPA's rules and regulations are in regard to marketing an individual CPA's services. Most thought the AICPA was fair. Accountants doing the most marketing tend to be younger males. “Conflict of Interest” was the area of most current concern in light of the ongoing problems of public accounting firms doing both auditing and consulting for the same client. “Newspaper” was the preferred advertising medium. Most of those surveyed were pleased the AICPA relaxed its restrictions on marketing and advertising, even though many CPAs still do not market their services to any great extent. This may change as younger accountants fill leadership positions in U.S. accounting firms.     

Marketing Adaptations by American Multinational Corporations in South America

The extent of international marketing mix adaptations by American MNCs has been an unresolved issue despite numerous commentaries and articles. A major contributor to this state has been the paucity of empirical research on this issue. An investigation was undertaken to assess the extent of adaptations in twenty-three marketing mix elements in fifty-eight MNCs operating in South America. The results show that the MNCs adapt their pricing and promotion elements the most and their product and distribution elements the least. Also, the MNCs make obligatory adaptations in the developing countries of South America rather than discretionary adaptations.     

Professional Tax Service Marketing from a Consumer Buyer Behavior Perspective

Professional services marketing such as accounting and legal services are often received as less smhisticated than product marketing. The prime message promulgated from existing research has often focused on the need for professional service firms to establish formal marketing technique; This paper investigates professional services marketing of tax services from a consumer behavior perspective and the implications of developing a marketing plan. Clearly, professional service providers are operating in a different consumer environment and the marketing implications are significantly different from product marketing.     

Factors Affecting the Adoption of the Internet in the Public Sector

ABSTRACT

Research in the area of electronic marketing has focused considerable attention on consumers' and advertisers' perceptions of the Internet as a marketing communication medium. Whilst such research has been undertaken mostly in the private sector, it is important to recognize, and attempt to understand, the growing number of public sector organizations that have an Internet presence. Results of a study of the perceptions of managers in public sector organizations of the Internet as a marketing communication tool are reported. Findings suggest that decision makers in the public sector who feel that there is a need for their organizations to have an Internet presence, are more inclined to adopt the Internet as part of their marketing communications program. Furthermore, they are more likely to feel that use of the Internet will improve their overall marketing effectiveness. It is also interesting to note that the perceived complexity of using the Internet has a significant effect on both the adoption of and attitude towards the Internet as a marketing communications tool. This suggests that there is still some uncertainty amongst public sector organizations as to the usefulness of the Internet in marketing their services.     

Determinants of Client Expectations for Accounting Services

Abstract

As the market for accounting services becomes more competitive, accounting service providers must strive to continually improve service quality to attract new clients and retain existing clients. Client expectations provide a benchmark that must be met or exceeded for the client to perceive that high quality services have been delivered (Ades 1988; Aquila and Koltin 1992). Based on a review of accounting and service marketing literature, this paper developed a conceptual model that identified potential determinants of client expectations for accounting services. Hypotheses derived from this model were empirically tested using LISREL on survey data from 196 households.

The results of our analysis indicated that client satisfaction with prior services, prior service quality, word-of-mouth communication, and price were significantly related to accounting firm image. Firm image, in turn, was significantly related to client expectations for future accounting services. Importantly, several variables from the service marketing literature were not supported with our sample of accounting service clients. Hence, these results identify the critical determinants of client expectations for accounting services, provide insight into the expectation formulation process for accounting service clients, and offer guidance to accounting service providers who may wish to influence clients' expectations.     

An Evaluation of Marketing Practices in Banks in Ghana

ABSTRACT

This study ascertains the extent to which the marketing concept has been adopted and implemented by banks in Ghana. It addresses a gap in an area that is currently under researched and provides insight into the banking services industry in a developing country. All sixteen licensed banks in Ghana were included in this study. The data was collected through in-depth interviews and self completed questionnaires. The results suggest that marketing departments in the banks are organised mainly within headquarters and headed by marketing and advertising/public relations managers. The marketing activities in the banks are associated with the stage where marketing orientation is perceived as advertising and public relations. There is a partial lack of marketing culture in the banks. The total and formal acceptance and understanding of the marketing concept is at an embryonic stage in the evolutionary process.     

网上银行信息安全产品服务定价策略研究

作为营销新观念,服务营销以客户需求为中心,以提供优质服务为手段和方式,除了向顾客提供满意的产品以外,还注重向顾客提供与之相关的各种服务。本文试图从服务营销中的顾客感知价值的角度出发,运用服务定价的基本理论,将顾客感知价值与网上银行信息安全产品的服务定价联系起来,从顾客感知价值的角度探讨网上银行信息安全产品的顾客服务与服务定价策略,不仅关注网上银行信息安全产品的销售,更加关注顾客的需求、顾客购买和使用产品全过程的感受,旨在通过取得顾客满意度、忠诚度,实现网上银行业绩的持续改善和长期增长。     

Fostering Ethics Research: An Analysis of the Accounting, Finance and Marketing Disciplines

This study compares the level of ethics research published in 25 business-ethics journals and the Top-40 journals for the accounting, finance, and marketing disciplines. This research documents an increasing level of ethics research in the accounting and marketing disciplines starting in 1992. While the level of finance doctorates reported by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) has increased at a higher rate (40.4%) than accounting (18.4%) and marketing (32.2%) since 1995, this increase has not been reflected in the level of ethics scholarship in finance. The level of ethics scholarship in finance remained relatively constant between 1987 and 2005 at an average of seven coauthor-adjusted articles per year. However, both the accounting and marketing disciplines now regularly publish approximately 50 coauthor-adjusted articles each year. Richard A. Bernardi, Professor of Accounting at Roger Williams University, is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew B-52s and FB-111s. Dr. Bernardi received a PhD in Accounting from Union College in 1992. He has published over 80 articles as well as receiving Teaching Excellence Awards from Roger Williams University and the State University of New York. Michael R. Melton, Associate Professor of Finance at Roger Williams University, received a PhD in Finance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is currently the Director of the Center for Advanced Financial Education in the Gabelli School of Business at Roger Williams University. Scott D. Roberts is the Associate Dean and an Associate Professor of Marketing at Saint Edwards University. Dr. Roberts received a PhD in Marketing from the University of Utah in 1988; since then, he has published 50 articles in marketing and consumer behavior journals and proceedings. David F. Bean, the Senior Research Consultant at B. D. & C. Academic Consultants, has extensive public and private accounting experience. In academia he attained the rank of Full Professor and has published numerous journal articles. He was granted his PhD in Accounting from Temple University in 1994. The authors are involved in several research projects and alternate lead author responsibilities; the authors contribute equally to all of their published work.     

A Circle of Influence: Are All the Stakeholders Included?

Traditionally, certified public accountants (CPAs) have served a unique role in the world of commerce and the profession of accounting. They perform an attest function and thereby serve as the chief providers of relevant, high quality accounting information to the decision making public. CPAs are licensed practitioners, who as expert independent accountants express opinions about an entity'sfinancial statements. Their license provides them with the exclusive right to perform this attest function. This monoploy relies on the concept of independence that is the normative standard of accountancy. It is this perceived independence of auditors which provides credibility, reliability and trust in the financial accounting information upon which stakeholders depend to make informed decisions. Now, however, we see the environment in which CPAs operate undergoing rapid change. Both the globalization of business operations and technological advances have radically changed how and where accountants work and the speed at which things happen. The very nature of accounting information services is evolving; moving from a concentration on audits to an increasing reliance on consulting and assurance services. New ethical issues have been raised by this confluence of changes in the accounting environment. Noteworthy is that the application of the principle of independence by CPAs has been called into question by no other than the SEC. Are those stakeholders who depend upon the independence of CPAs at risk? The influence of insiders has significantly increased as accounting firms perform multiple tasks for the same clients. This paper discusses the different groups who can potentially impair the independence of auditors and the steps that are being taken to enhance the "independence" of the auditors.     

Uniform or spatially differentiated? Pricing Strategies for Information Goods under simultaneous and sequential decision-making in multi-market context

Product pricing has been one of the central issues in the field of marketing and consumer services for managers and researchers alike. However, pricing of information goods has not been paid much attention in literature. For information goods the marginal costs of production and transportation of information goods (online movies, video games, etc.) is almost zero. Hence, the pricing decisions need to be thought of purely in competitive profit maximizing terms. This paper proposes mechanisms for managers to evaluate and base their pricing decisions on rational frameworks that takes into account various situations when they enter a new market and when they are incumbent in a new market. This paper addresses the research gap of spatially differentiated pricing strategy for information goods that has not been studied in literature so far. We create stylized theoretical models under both, sequential and simultaneous decision-making conditions. We determine the equilibrium price and the equilibrium profit for the two firms for each of the four possible scenarios based on their pricing strategies. Our analysis reveals that the dominance of one pricing strategy over the other depends on product differentiation factor capturing joint effect of the product substitutability and consumer's price sensitivity under sequential decision making and the market size along with consumer's price sensitivity for simultaneous decision making. As an extension, we propose a generalized model demonstrating the uniform and spatially differentiated pricing strategies of the firms under simultaneous and sequential selection for multiple domestic and international markets.     

The Use of Marketing Plans and Advertising Among Accounting Firms

A decade has passed since accounting firms were allowed to advertise. While the response has been mixed, a more important question is whether accounting firms have embraced a marketing orientation as measured by their use of marketing plans. This study investigates the attitudes toward and use of advertising and marketing plans by accounting firms. The results provide insight into the marketing orientation of the accounting profession and the viability of efforts b marketers to develop a marketing orientation. It is suggested that the current environment provides a real opportunity for marketers to become an important part of the accounting firm's organizational structure and provide the expertise needed for the firm to be competitive into the next century.     

Tracking a Growth Industry: The Development of Marketing Research Services in Canada

The marketing research industry in Canada has grown rapidly during the past twenty years or so, both in the number of users of research and the number of practitioners offering professional marketing research services, and in the type of research being done. The changing nature of the Canadian market-place, coupled with a growing appreciation of the cultural diversity of the country and of the fact that Canadian consumers are not exactly like Americans, has contributed to m increasing acceptance of marketing research in Canadian business. In addition, the use of research techniques in public sector and not- for-profit organisations has become generally accepted in recent years. The techniques used in Canadian marketing research have also undergone considerable change, as researchers are now making much greater use of recently-available technology, computer-based simulations, and automated data capture at the check-outs of retail stores. Possibly the greatest change has been in the increased use of qualitative techniques, reflecting marketers' increased concern for the deeply-held opinions and attitudes of consumers.     

Some Attitudinal Predictors of Home-Shopping through the Internet

Economic and political imperatives of the 1980s have seen governments turn to private sector managerial techniques, practices and orientations to enable them to deliver services more efficiently and effectively. Among these is marketing which has received increasing attention as governments have looked to privatize, corporatize or simply introduce some level of “user‐pays” principle into their operations.

Despite the ambitious claims of the marketing discipline, the transposition of marketing to the public sector has not proved to be without problems. This paper reviews why such a transposition might be difficult. It also reviews the claim of marketing to be an appropriate discipline at all for widespread application in the public sector.

The paper concludes that marketers should be cautious as to the extent to which their discipline can be transposed or modified to assist governments identity, plan, deliver and evaluate services more efficiently and effectively.     

Key business dilemmas & the marketing remit in business-to-business marketing services

Various studies examining the business trends and utilisation of marketing techniques have been undertaken by the authors in many fields of marketing services, including advertising, public relations and strategic marketing consultancy. Recently, these findings have been updated through a survey of practitioners' views. From these findings, this paper first explores the core underlying business trends and key resulting marketing issues facing these providers of marketing services. The discussion then expands to examine how these businesses themselves utilise the marketing toolkit, benchmarking current practices against the ‘textbook’ view of good marketing endeavour. For these providers of marketing services the understanding and use of marketing per se differ quite significantly, but all acknowledge the need to improve their own strategic and tactical marketing practices.     

Marketing Accounting Services in the U.S. and Norway

Abstract

This study compares the general perceptions of marketing and the marketing experiences and training by accountants in the United States and Norway. The results of this study indicate there are differences in perceptions of marketing held by accountants in the U.S. and Norway and in their marketing practices. Accountants in the U.S. held stronger opinions on the importance of marketing accounting services, whereas accountants in Norway believed more strongly that reputation for quality work was more important than marketing. Over two-thirds of Norway accountants reported they did not use marketing concepts in their practice while over half of U.S. accountants indicated they did. A majority of Norway accountants indicated they did not need marketing because their clients come to them when they need their services. These findings demonstrate the importance of being cognizant of the differences in marketing professional services as accountants expand their understanding of global business and accounting practices.     

Effects of the Price of Tax Preparation Services and the CPA Credential on the Perception of Service Quality

This paper reports the results of a study that examined two areas of interest in marketing accounting services for fax preparation. First, the question of whether the price charged by an accounting firm has an impact on the perceived quality of the tax preparation service is explored. Second, the effect of the CPA credential on the expected quality of the service provided is examined. The managerial implications of the findings are discussed for organizations with and without the CPA credential and guidelines are offered for analysis of the quality of the accounting service provided.     

A Client Driven Model for Service Pricing

The pricing of services is perhaps the most important and perplexing issue facing marketers today. Success depends on setting it correctly. Although economic principles do provide pricing guidelines, they are often too general to apply in everyday business settings. This article presents an alternative by describing a pricing model meant to help the front-line marketer. The model is "Client Driven" because it is built on client response to price, namely the quantity of services used and the number of clients gained or lost. Its objective is to set a price level, both short and long-term, to maximize profits. It works equally well for the marketing of either services or products. This article explores the model's structure, major findings and implications. A number of interesting results are obtained; for example the relationship between optimal price and market share. The article also illustrates with an actual case how to use the model in practical settings. The model can easily be set up on a personal computer, and is a useful simulation tool for exploring pricing strategy.     

我国医院营销行为中存在的问题及对策分析

本文认为,我国医院营销行为中存在的主要问题有:营销意识淡薄,营销观念滞后;营销组织不健全,营销人才缺乏;市场调研不科学,信息反馈不到位;医疗服务同质化,市场开拓能力较弱;医药费用虚高,医疗服务定价不合理;营销手段单一,宣传力度不够;医疗诚信缺失,过度推销严重等等。文章提出,提高医院营销管理水平,一要树立营销意识,更新营销观念;二要建立健全专职营销组织,积极培养和引进营销专业人才;三要充分发挥营销部门的主导作用,实现医院营销手段和营销主体的有效整合;四要加强诚信教育,完善管理机制,遏制过度推销行为。