Regret and Satisfaction as Determinants of Lapsed Donor Recommencement Decisions

Although a large amount of research has been undertaken into donor acquisition, relationship development, and the reasons why certain donors terminate their support for fundraising charities, few studies have examined the factors that encourage lapsed donors to resume giving to the organizations they have deserted. This empirical investigation sought to contribute to contemporary knowledge concerning this important matter via a survey of 310 lapsed donors (some of whom had resumed giving) to a hospice charity in the south east of England. The variables hypothesized to influence donor revival decisions comprised a person's satisfaction with the charity's work, past communications received from the organization, communications associated with the charity's revival efforts, the individual's donation history and reason for initial lapse, and the ex‐donor's degree of involvement with charity giving. A person's feelings of regret were posited to represent a critical mediating variable between several of the abovementioned factors and a lapsed donor's decision to resume or not to resume giving. The results suggest that regret did indeed play a major role in lapsed donors' revival processes and that an individual's satisfaction with the quality of a charity's communications requesting the recommencement of the individual's support was a crucial determinant of restart decisions.     

Ownership Sentiments Towards the Customer Care Function in E-Business Situations

ABSTRACT

Effective management of customer care is critically important for successful electronic commerce. The executive in charge of the customer care function in a business based on e-commerce might have a technical IT background, a marketing background, or be from general management. This empirical study examined the degrees to which a sample of 86 marketing and IT managers responsible for customer care in e-commerce environments felt they “owned” the customer care function, and the antecedents and consequences of powerful ownership sentiments. It emerged that heads of department with marketing backgrounds reported significantly stronger feelings of ownership of customer care than heads with IT backgrounds. The level of ownership sentiment varied with respect to the extent of the personal investment a manager had devoted to developing the customer care function, the belief that he or she was an expert in customer care, the person's commitment to the organisation as a whole (rather than to a specific function within it), and the degree of centralisation of the firm's decision making. People who felt strongly that they owned their company's customer care function experienced a heavy sense of responsibility for its effective management. However, the same individuals were more likely to be in conflict with managers of other departments and to resist change.     

All the News That's Fit to See? The Sexualization of Television News Journalists as a Promotional Strategy

SUMMARY

This formative investigation employed framing theory to content analyze the nature and extent of sexually appealing newscasters primarily on cable news programs. Overall, 62% of segments contained journalists with “high” sex appeal, and these were predominately female. Specifically, these journalists were physically attractive, suggestively dressed (e.g., open blouses, tight-fitting skirts), and filmed in ways that accentuated these features. Female newscasters on Univision's Primer Impacto, who double as models on its website, always exhibited “high” sex appeal compared to 93% of newscasters on MSNBC, 49% on Fox News, and 39% on CNN.     

An Investigation of Ghana's Tourism Positioning

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of Ghana's tourism positioning and whether a literature-derived positioning framework can further elaborate the latter. Using the face-to-face long interviews among key policy makers, marketing managers and experts, and observation techniques, data were collected and analyzed via the inductive reasoning approach. The results show that Ghana's tourism positioning aim is built around perceptions of a “com petitive middle class tourist destination,” i.e., “profit and status” through the pursuit of “functional” positioning objective. Positioning strategies including “service”, “value for money”, “culture”, “selectivity”, “attractiveness”, “reliability”, “manpower development”, “quality controls” and “ecology” are pursued in order to achieve the aim and objectives. The latter are managed/positioned in the “primal” positioning life cycle stage. Conclusions, managerial implications, future research directions and limitations are noted.     

Personal legitimising: A perspective of marketing management

This paper explains the basic social process of “personal legitimising” and illustrates its influence on marketing activity. Personal legitimising is the process by which individuals manipulate situations to suit their own agenda. The link between personal legitimising and an organisation's marketing activity was discovered using a grounded theory research strategy within a UK management consulting firm.

Personal legitimising has two groupings of behaviour, namely “obstructing existing marketing activity” and “driving new marketing activity”. Within the former are the categories of “stigmatising”, “pseudo endorsing” and “smokescreening”. The latter incorporates the categories of “latching on”, “self indulging” and “bragging”.

The paper has three parts. The first explains the basic social process of personal legitimising. The second shows how grounded theory methodology was used in this context. The third develops the possible contribution of personal legitimising to the understanding of marketing.     

Training and women: Some thoughts from the grassroots

Current assumptions and values with respect to management training for women are examined. A number of suggestions for change are made. The thrust of the changes will move us toward ensuring that education for women does not remain “education for frustration”, that is, education which gives women the desire for change in a world that remains the same. Many women have paid their dues, even a premium, for a chance at a top position, only to find a glass ceiling between them and their goal. The glass ceiling is not simply a barrier for an individual, based on the person's inability to handle a higher-level job. Rather, the glass ceiling applies to women as a group who are kept from advancing higher because they are women. (Morrison, White and Velsor, 1987, p. 13). Breaking the Glass Ceiling Can Women Reach the Top of America's Largest Corporations?     

A Commentary on “Undergraduate Education: The Implications of Cross-Functional Relationships in Business Marketing–The Skills of High-Performing Managers”

ABSTRACT

This commentary reinforces the importance and need for developing the student's knowledge, abilities, and understanding of what is required to collaborate with the firm's internal and external constituencies, in the context of B2B marketing environment. It is an important goal to be achieved in the B2B marketing course. The new era of business marketing is built around achieving “collaborative advantage” with the new breed of customers who demand relatively more complex product and services arrangements as well as nature of relationships from their vendors. Today's customers also expect intellectual input and consultative selling approaches from group of diverse and independent marketing entities, whom they expect to work together to meet their requirements. The firm's success or failure in the market place may indeed be predicated on their ability to achieve this “collaborative advantage”. The commentary also expands the authors' suggestions in the areas of course pedagogy and design for building the student's know-how and capability for practicing the art-of-collaboration.     

Local Heroes,Regional Champions or Global Mandates? Empirical Evidence on the Dynamics of German MNC Subsidiary Roles in Central Europe

SUMMARY

In this paper we analyze the influence of a subsidiary's external environment, of its task and of its mode of ownership and its mode of market entry on the development of its role for the case of German subsidiaries in Central Europe. We define a subsidiary's role as a three-dimensional construct, consisting of a subsidiary's tasks, its value chain activities and its respective geographical scope. Drawing on a sample of 99 subsidiaries from the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, we find that a subsidiary's host country, its tasks and its mode of market entry influence the development of its role. We find no evidence for the influence of subsidiary's mode of ownership. Especially, “geographical market proximity seeking”-subsidiaries seem to follow a different path of development than subsidiaries where this task is of minor importance as they tend to perform a smaller number of value chain activities and tend to expand these value chain activities with regard to their geographical scope more incrementally.     

How to Create Effective Ad Copy for the Small Service Organization

ABSTRACT

This paper reports the results of a study that examined two factors that influenced the individual's selection of an accountant: The qualifications that the accountant may hold and the accountants membership of a professional accounting body.

In Australia, any person can hang a shingle outside their door calling themselves an ?accountant.” In contrast, the law dictates that a doctor of medicine can only use the title “doctor” when he/she has tertiary qualifications and registers with the relevant Health Departments throughout Australia.

Let's be clear on the term accountant–there are accountants in public practice who offer themselves to the public to perform a wide range of duties from income tax preparation, auditing and financial advice. Then there is the accountant who is employed internally in a business to keep the financial reins. It is the accountant who offers public accounting services that this study concerns itself.

Prior research studies conducted in this area are examined for relevance to the study and to determine if the results concur with the outcomes of this study.

The managerial implications of the results are discussed considering the confusion and perceptions that arose with the meaning of “qualification” and “professional body membership.”     

Romanticism,Introspection and Consumption: A Response to Professor Holbrook

This paper is concerned to challenge representational discourses which profess to identify the existence of a distinct and objectively identifiable “women's market” for financial services. Aided by an array of postmodern deconstructive techniques this paper reveals the discourse of a “women's market” as productive of, as well as constituted by, a particular form of modern society, one dominated by mass consumption to individualised subjects desperate for a sense of collective meaning and identity both as distinctive and embedded in a recognisable culture.     

A Case Study to Determine the Impact of Offering Selective Menus on Customer Satisfaction in a Health-Care Foodservice Operation

Abstract

In an effort to improve patients' satisfaction with healthcare foodservice, many hospitals are implementing a selective menu program. The purpose of this study was to identify the impact of a selective menu program on customer satisfaction in a health-care foodservice setting in Korea. The results of this study indicate that patients' perceptions of food and service dimensions are significant predictors of overall satisfaction with hospital foodservices. Patients who opted for a selective menu program at high levels of frequency showed more satisfaction with the selective menu program than those in the low-user group. “Food variety,” “taste,” and “offering nutritional information about menu items” are the key drivers of overall satisfaction.     

The Future of Managing Customers as Assets

SUMMARY

Most companies do a very poor job of determining the economic value of their customers. There are three primary reasons that this has been the case: (1) inadequacy of technology, (2) managements' internal focus on products (as opposed to customers), and (3) inadequacy of accounting systems. Each of these areas, however, has undergone rapid transformation in terms of their sophistication and managerial usefulness. As a result, it is manifest destiny that asset valuation and management will evolve to the evaluation of a company's most fundamental asset, its customers (i.e., customer lifetime value). Most managers have come to accept this inevitability. What managers fail to realize is just how radically an understanding of customer lifetime value will transform the business landscape. It will dramatically impact the breadth and type of data collected; the way managers view and segment customers; the types of experiences firms offer customers; the metrics executives provide to the financial markets; and the way companies structure and staff their organizations.     

Students,Patients, Citizens,and Believers as “Customers”: A Cross-National Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT

Executives in 94 large UK companies engaging in cause related marketing (CRM) completed a questionnaire concerning (i) their firms' approaches to the management and evaluation of CRM, (ii) the benefits perceived to accrue to the practice, and (iii) whether these businesses applied commercial rather than philanthropic principles when selecting CRM partners. It emerged that, in general, the sample firms employed mainly commercial criteria when choosing CRM projects, that selections were frequently influenced by employee opinion, and that most of the evaluation techniques conventionally used to appraise commercial sponsorship and advertising were also utilised to assess CRM programmes. Companies were reported to demand close and obvious links between their products and the activities of partner charities. Typically, they preferred to affiliate with well-known charities and tended to dislike “controversial” causes. In the main the respondents held low opinions of their charity partners' marketing abilities. The article concludes with a number of recommendations regarding the ways in which charities should formulate proposals when inviting businesses to participate in CRM programmes.     

Combining Strategic Technologies to Facilitate the Teaching of International Business

SUMMARY

Strategic Planning, globally, is an important business activity. In today's competitive world the best of “soft” and “hard” support tools are required. Leading edge technologies can be used to overcome some of the problems which come from a group of human beings (and their history) sitting down to plan. Group Support System technology (GSS) (Lewis, 1993) allows issues to be divorced from the people proposing them. It allows discussion and organisation of ideas in a debate-like way. It provides instantaneous evaluation for prioritising. Strategic Conferencing (Phillips, 1984) with the help of a multi-attribute value model aims to support shared understanding and provide modelled scenarios of the consequences of allocating strategic resources in a particular way. Mental imagery, a “human technology,” releases the imaginal so that strategic ideas are fired with imagination as well as facts and forecasts. The case study used these three technologies for the planning of Health Care. They proved to be a viable combination.     

Analyzing Relationships Using Macneil'S and Menger'S Approach to Exchanges

Abstract

Recent developments in understanding of the concept of “relationships ”have resulted in recognition that exchanges involve a range of complexity and duration. However much current work is at a rather macro-level dealing with “the relationship ”and/or “the exchange. ”A more micro-level approach indicates both a need to disaggregate what is exchanged into its component attributes and to recognize the role of individuals in the process of creating and maintaining a relationship. This paper summarizes both Menger'S insights into the nature of exchange and Macneil'S conceptualization of the norms within which exchanges operate. Then building on this, and using Day'S concept of value equations, the nature of exchanges will be considered.     

Challenges for B-to-B Doctoral Programs: A Commentary on “Doctoral Programs in Business-to-Business Marketing: Status and Prospects,” by Erwin Danneels and Gary L. Lilien

ABSTRACT

The fast-paced development of the Internet as a mechanism for efficient communication and transactions has led to the growth of diverse forms of electronic business-to-business marketing linkages. Such linkages have profound implications for the development and exploitation of newer constellations of supply chains as well as for the re-design and re-orientation of existing ones. Newer sources of value and competitive advantage enable firms to better manage their existing relationships with suppliers and customers. Moreover, firms are now equipped with better tools for engaging in advantageous alliances with other firms possessing complementary resources.

While various Internet-based business-to-business (B2B) business models have failed in recent times, most existing B2B exchanges can be classified into a general typology based on the type of linkages, access and governance. Three major types of B2B buyer-seller linkages are identified as “net marketplaces,” “industry consortia,” and “virtual private networks.” This paper evaluates the comparative properties of these major types of exchanges and identifies various antecedent factors that would impinge on a firm's decision to participate in any of these types of exchanges.     

Managing for Excellence in the Food and Beverages Industry

Abstract

In order to understand how to manage for excellence in the food and beverages industry, one must recognize some key principles that are utilized by top companies in this industry. The following article will provide detail examples of three top organizations to let the readers realize the strategies used by each company and what makes them superior than other competitors. The first example is about Nestlé's excellent achievement on market research and successful story about “Wellness strategy”. The second example shows how Coca-Cola produces the world's best known product and implements “Total Quality Management” and “Just-In-Time” system. The third example reveals the success secrets of McDonald's franchise kingdom and “three-legged-stool” relationship with its franchisees and suppliers. To be the top leader in the food and beverage industry, we suggest learning these skills.     

A review of the marriage analogy in relationship marketing

This paper offers a review of the marriage analogy in relationship marketing as used by many marketing authors. Accepting a Christian view of marriage as adopted in Levitt's seminal paper, marriage is seen as a successful, public, contractual, and monogamous relationship, freely entered into by two consenting adults of different genders, which is intended to endure a lifetime. However, while parallels do exist in relationship development, the metaphor fails to deliver on issues concerning the number of parties involved in the relationship, on the attendant costs and benefits, on the willingness of the parties involved and on the “ideal” timescale of the relationship. Parallels from the full range of relationships between the sexes, both functional and dysfunctional, suggest polygamy, prostitution, stalking, rape, and seduction may be more apposite.     

Giving to the Giver: Can Charities Use Premium Incentives to Stimulate Donations?

SUMMARY

A projective role-playing research technique was applied that simulated 3 situations wherein a hypothetical person was presented with an incentive to donate to a charity. Participants were then asked (i) to state what they believed this hypothetical person should do, and (ii) to complete a questionnaire concerning some of their personal characteristics and tendencies (e.g., deal proneness, relationship proneness, need for social recognition, and personal involvement with the act of giving to charity). A multinomial logistic regression analysis was completed to predict the participants' responses on the basis of the abovementioned personality traits plus certain other variables.     

Benefits or Problems as Market Segmentation Bases—A Comment

Abstract

This comment constructively re-examines Van Auken's and Lonial's (1984) article in regards to its capacity to (1) conclude that problems and benefits are independent theoretical constructs and (2) to determine the suitability of segment congruence analysis (SCA) and the log-linear modeling in market segmentation research. A few conceptual and methodological caveats are identified, with the objective of facilitating future research into the potential of “problem data” and the value of SCA and log-linear modeling.