How does product program innovativeness affect customer satisfaction? A comparison of goods and services

This article attempts to provide deeper insights into the link between the innovativeness of a company’s offered goods/services and customer satisfaction. This study proposes an inverted U-shaped relationship between the innovativeness of the offered goods and customer satisfaction. For the innovativeness of services, information economics and services marketing literature indicate an inverted S-shaped relationship. Two separate studies conducted for goods and services confirm the proposed nonmonotonic effects of the investigated relationships. Both studies use dyadic data from marketing managers to assess innovativeness and from customers to indicate customer satisfaction.     

A difference in informational influences: Services vs. goods

The literature provides little insight as to whether a difference exists between the marketing of services and goods. Most textbooks do not address the issue of possible differences. Their neglect of the topic would seem to indicate a working hypothesis that services and goods do not differ in any meaningful way. Authors of articles and books that do address the service issue typically dwell on implied differences between goods and services. Wyckham (1975) has concluded that “in terms of marketing, services are not different from products (goods).” Wyckham’ argument and most of the other services literature, however, is non-empirical and provides little guidance as to whether a difference between goods and servicesactually exists.     

Product classification and the theory of consumer behavior

Product classifications have been used as a normative framework to generalize product characteristics and market responses. To be more useful in guiding marketing strategy, classification schemes should incorporate the characteristics of the consumer's decision process. This article attempts to establish the link between product classification and consumer decision theory by demonstrating a direct association between Copeland's well-known convenience-shopping goods typology and the Howard-Sheth model of consumer decision-making.     

The impact of services versus goods on consumers’ assessment of perceived risk and variability

With the development of service marketing concepts comes the need to test theory against consumer behavior. This study examines differences in perceived risk and variability between services and goods. In a controlled experiment whereby product stimuli were objectively placed along a goods-services continuum, data from consumers was collected focusing on six types of perceived risk and product variability. The findings of the study provide evidence that services evoke heightened risk and product variability perceptions.     

A general framework for explaining internal vs. external exchange

There is an often overlooked substitute for exchange in the marketplace. Organizational units in the form of house-holds and businesses can create, consume and/or use goods and services internally and thus avoid markets. This article offers a unified discussion of why organizations engage in internal as well as external exchange activity, with the objective of encouraging marketing theorists to integrate internal exchange into the discipline. By addressing internal exchange activity, scholars should be able to construct more comprehensive theories of macromarketing, competitive strategy, and perhaps even a general theory of marketing.     

Foreign market entry mode choice of service firms: A contingency perspective

Research on how service firms choose their initial mode of operation in foreign markets appears to have led to two contradictory conclusions. Findings from one group of studies suggest that factors determining entry mode choice by manufacturing firms are generalizable to service firms. Findings from another group of studies contradict that view. The authors reconcile the two views by means of a classification scheme that allows some services to be grouped with manufactured goods in terms of entry mode choice. A conceptual model of factors affecting the entry mode choice of service firms is proposed, research propositions are developed, and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed. Ikechi Ekeledo is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include international marketing, services marketing, and strategic market planning. K. Sivakumar (Ph.D., Syracuse University, 1992) is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include pricing, international marketing, and innovation management. His research has been published or is forthcoming inBarron’s, International Marketing Review, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Theory & Practice, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theJournal of Social Behavior & Personality, Marketing Letters, Marketing Science Institute’s Working Paper Series, and Pricing Strategy & Practice: An International Journal, and summarized as Editors’ Briefings inHarvard Business Review. He has won several awards for research and is on the editorial boards of four scholarly journals.     

Social exchange in marketing

Exchange is a fundamental and universal aspect of human behavior. Economic exchange models have dealt with the buying and selling of material goods and services, while social exchange models have broadened their scope to include social and psychological aspects of interactions. In its present form, however, the social exchange model exhibits serious shortcomings for the marketing scholar and practitioner; it is largely atheoretical, unrealistic, narrow in applicability, and lacking in its depiction of important facets of man's behavior. In light of these criticisms, the notion of an exchange system is proposed and illustrated as an explanatory framework. Finally, it is suggested that marketing can be viewed as a component of the social system functioning as both a cause and consequence of social change.     

Frontiers of the marketing paradigm in the third millennium

The domain and theories of marketing have been expanding since the origins of the discipline. Since the 1970s marketing science has been organized around the exchange paradigm. Marketing concepts apply to all forms of exchange, whether it is goods, services, personages, places or ideas, and whether it is between individuals, for-profit and nonprofit firms, governments and NGOs. Marketing theories evolved from a firm oriented view to encompass the exchanging dyad. More recently the paradigm expanded to a network level of explanation, and relational theories have come to the fore. But even as the field struggles to grasp its new fields of explanation, there is a Kuhnian shift happening at its boundaries. The shift significantly bends the marketing worldview as well as the theoretical tools and methodologies we use to study it. In this paper we develop a three-tiered explanation of the emerging field of marketing—its subphenomena (consumer experiences and sensory systems), its phenomena (marketing networks), and its superphenomena (sustainability and development).     

农村公共品供给与农村基层组织创新

科学地安排农村公共品供给,进行农村财政制度创新需要明确农村公共品供给主体.公共品的特征决定了我国农村公共品主体需要重新定位,应该构建农村基层政权、公益性组织和经济合作组织在内的、既分工又协作的规范的农村基层组织体系.     

An exploration of the moderating role of buyer corporate culture in industrial buyer-seller relationships

In this study, the authors examine industrial buyer-seller relationships, exploring the influence of buyer perceptions of their relationships on their repurchase intentions. In particular close relationships as opposed to pure transactions, are examined. Using data collected from buyers of industrial goods and services, the authors examine the association between buyers' perceptions of relationship quality and repurchase intentions and the moderating effect of the corporate culture of the buying firms. The results suggest a significant relationship between buyer perceptions of the relationship and their repurchase intentions, as well as a significant moderating effect of buyer firm corporate culture. The implications of these findings for the study of marketing relationships, as well as for marketing practice, are also offered. Kelly Hewett is an assistant professor of marketing at Winthrop University. Her research focuses on the management of relationships between buyers and sellers as well as between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries in managing the marketing function globally. Her research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of International Marketing, andPsychology and Marketing. R. Bruce Money is an associate professor of international business at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. His research interests include international aspects of business-to-business marketing, word-of-mouth promotion, services marketing, and negotiation. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of International Business Studies, andSloan Management Review. Subhash Sharma is a professor of marketing and the Charles W. Coker Sr. Distinguished Foundation Fellow at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. His research interests include research methods, pricing, CRM, and e-commerce. His research has been published in major marketing and related journals, and he serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Reserch, andJournal of Retailing.     

生产者服务进口对制成品出口技术结构的影响

本文首先运用跨国面板数据进行协整分析,考察了生产者服务进口与制成品出口技术结构的关系,结果表明生产者服务进口与制成品出口技术结构间存在长期均衡关系。接着本文以生产者服务业FDI为替代商业存在式服务进口的变量,运用2004～2010年省级面板数据,进一步检验了中国生产者服务进口对制成品出口技术结构的影响,研究发现生产者服务业FDI对我国制成品出口的技术结构有显著的促进作用。本文的结论是,加大生产者服务业的引资力度,扩大先进生产者服务进口,是提升制成品出口技术结构的重要途径。     

论中国电力企业的组合市场营销

电力商品的技术经济特征是电力企业市场营销的起点,电力经济的运营模式是电力企业市场营销的基础,电力市场的新特征是电力企业确定市场营销策略的依据,电力企业在市场营销的过程中,要结合电力经济的技术经济特征,系统应用市场营销的思想和方法,注意管理学和经济学提供的合作营销、博弈论和期权期货等新思想和新方法的运用。     

Development of a taxonomy of services to gain strategic marketing insights

A theme emerging in the services marketing literature indicates that services marketers should look beyond their own industry boundaries to gain marketing insight. A number of conceptual typologies for grouping services have been developed. However, none of these conceptualizations have been studied empirically. This article presents an empirically based taxonomy, developed through cluster analysis of consumer's perceptions of services. The results of the study offer several insights into strategic marketing for service marketers.     

Consumer reliance on intangible versus tangible attributes in service evaluation: the role of construal level

The services marketing literature has traditionally characterized intangibility as the most critical distinction between services and goods, but in practice service production and consumption often involve both intangible and tangible elements. While prior research has examined and debated service intangibility from the firm’s perspective, what is missing is an understanding of how consumers weigh the relative importance of intangible versus tangible attributes in their service evaluation. Drawing on construal level theory, the authors propose that consumers with a high (vs. low) construal level rely more on intangible (vs. tangible) attributes in service evaluation. Furthermore, the effect of construal level on service evaluation is mediated by imagery vividness, with service type (e.g., experience vs. credence services) serving as a boundary condition. The authors conduct two field studies and two lab experiments and find that under a high construal level, consumers rely more on intangible attributes in their service evaluation and choice formation; under a low construal level, consumers rely more on tangible attributes in their service evaluation and choice. The findings not only offer new insights to help reconcile the disparate perspectives on service intangibility in the literature but also have practical implications on service firms’ positioning strategies that vary across time (e.g., advance selling vs. on-site selling) and space (e.g., near vs. distant outlet), as well as which attributes to emphasize in their marketing communications.     

生产性服务进口与高技术制成品出口复杂度——基于跨国面板数据的实证分析

高技术制成品技术复杂度越高,生产过程中需要的高级生产性服务投入就越多,生产性服务进口可通过提供更多更好的中间服务投入来促进一国专业化生产和出口高复杂度的高技术产品,从而提升一国商品尤其是高技术制成品的出口复杂度。本文根据52个国家的跨国面板数据进行实证分析,结果发现:与所有商品出口复杂度相比,生产性服务进口对高技术制成品出口复杂度的促进效应更大;与发展中国家相比,生产性服务进口对发达国家出口复杂度的影响更突出;不同部门生产性服务进口对高技术制成品出口复杂度的促进效应存在较大差异,其对发达国家和发展中国家高技术制成品出口复杂度的影响也差异明显。     

我国商业银行服务营销中的问题与策略

银行服务营销是以客户服务为中心,以利润最大化为目的,通过各种营销组合策略的实施,将金融产品转移到客户手中的动态管理过程。随着我国金融体制改革的不断深化,金融行业逐步开放,致使银行业竞争日趋加剧。因此,在当前形势下,制定适合自身实际情况和发展需要的营销模式是各家商业银行面临的迫切问题。通过分析我国商业银行服务营销现状及存在的问题,并结合国外商业银行的成熟经验,探讨适合我国国情的商业银行服务营销新模式,以提高我国商业银行的整体竞争力。     

农产品贸易竞争关系的研究方法综述

我国农产品贸易备受全世界关注,也是我国对外贸易中一个重要而又难以解决的问题。本文结合出口相似性指数、贸易互补性指数、贸易集中率指数、贸易强度指数、贸易专业化指数以及产业内贸易指数等贸易流量指数分析方法,对我国农产品贸易竞争关系的研究方法进行综述。     

市场营销渠道关系中的几个焦点问题

市场营销渠道的功能是有效地进行商品流转 ,基于对渠道策略焦点问题的分析 ,我国企业在建立渠道网络时 ,应合理平衡成本与服务水平的关系 ,建立完整的关系营销渠道 ;选择适合企业发展的终端销售网点的密度决策 ;对销售渠道进行有效的评价 ;形成垂直营销系统     

顾客让渡价值分析：基于中国奢侈品消费者的消费心理

本文从消费需求和消费动机两方面对中国奢侈品消费者的消费心理进行分析，通过顾客总价值和顾客总成本解析奢侈品消费者独特的顾客让渡价值。本文认为，中国奢侈品营销策略一定要基于消费者独特的消费需求、消费动机以及顾客让渡价值。