How ‘social’ are social media? A cross-cultural comparison of online and offline purchase decision influences

Traditional word of mouth (WOM) involves personal communications among family, friends, and others. Today, social media sites like Facebook offer the possibility of electronic word of mouth (eWOM), a mediated form of WOM. Little is known about the best way for marketers to use social media. Even less is known about international differences in consumer usage of social media and how eWOM influences consumer decision-making. This study helps address that research gap and uses cultural dimensions to compare the use of social media and other information sources for consumer decision-making across 50 countries. The results indicate that the use of information sources that influence online purchase decisions strongly varies by culture. For example, relationship-oriented collectivists rely to a greater extent than individualists on social media, which are an alternative for interpersonal WOM communication. Interestingly culture affects the influence of social media on purchases differently than the influence of traditional WOM through family or friends. Furthermore, there are major differences in online complaint behavior by country, due to cultural variations.     

Developing an empirical socioeconomic typology of counties in five western states

County-level data representing a broad range of socioeconomic variables were obtained for the 190 counties in five western States-California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. A factor analysis of these variables produced eight orthogonal factors: (1) Urbanism, (2) Poverty vs affluence, (3) County tax revenues and services, relative to population, (4) Proportion of aged population, (5) Social stability vs instability, (6) New housing development vs cattle ranching, (7) Crop farming, welfare and unemployment, and (8) Small business activity vs level of federal employment. Several ways of examining scores on these factors were explored and demonstrated: distributions of scores on individual factors across counties were displayed graphically; individual county profiles, comprised of scores on all eight factors, were produced and examined; and groups of counties with similar profiles (representing county “types”) were identified through cluster analysis, and their average profiles and geographic distributions displayed and discussed. Groupings of clusters which were similar in some respects and varied in others were also presented. The utility of these methods for planning activities which may involve individual counties and/or groups of counties is discussed.     

Bribery

Bribery has previously been viewed as a two-party transaction between the bribe-offerer and the bribe-taker. But there is a third party: the one who has a prior claim on the bribe-taker's loyalty. Breaking the first contract in response to the offer of a bribe is alienation of agency (a category that strictly includes bribes): alienation of agency is the additional immorality of bribery beyond any immorality of the act solicited by the bribe.     

An approach for the identification of cross-sell and up-sell opportunities using a financial services customer database

The collection, management and manipulation of customer data are key to the successful operation of many relationship marketing and customer relationship management endeavours. To make effective use of the data, however, requires that organisations know how to analyse it in order to generate valuable information for marketing purposes. One of the key challenges to maintaining an ongoing relationship with customers is to be able to predict what products customers will need to buy next and at what point so that appropriate marketing offers can be made. This paper illustrates an analytical approach that can be used in such a situation. Using actual customer data from a financial institution, the paper illustrates the application of segmentation analysis, purchase acquisition trees and survival analysis. While the results are of particular interest to financial institutions, the methodology has applicability in a number of contexts where customer data are available.     

Reliability of Assessment of Reading Ability in Three Countries

Over the last few decades, there have been a number ofnational and international programmes to assessperformance in key subjects. For example theInternational Association for Evaluation ofEducational Attainment (IEA), International Assessmentof Educational Progress (IAEP), and the ThirdInternational Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS)programs have aimed to compare performance betweenparticipating countries.Such exercises have different requirements from thosetests, such as public examinations, which aim toassess the attainment of individuals. National andinternational assessments aim to cover a very widerange of materials, and often use the technique ofmultiple matrix sampling to do so.The investigation is based on generalizability-typeanalyses of three national data sets at two ages, andlooks not only at the variance components arising fromsampling of schools, and of pupils within them, butalso at the variation between different assessmentinstruments, and between items within assessmentinstruments. If interpreted with care, such resultscan be of value in the design of future studies. Thispaper concentrates largely on the precision ofestimates of overall means, but analyses of the typedescribed could also be used to compare theperformance of subpopulations.     

An empirical analysis of sustained advantage in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry: impact of firm resources and capabilities

The authors test a model of the relationships among firm resources, firm capabilities, and sustained competitive advantage between 1971 and 1989. Sustained comparative advantage was captured by two variables: therapeutic differentiation and global NCEs. The results show that R&D and salesforce expenditures have indirect and direct effects, respectively, on sustained competitive advantage. Firm capabilities were differentiated into component and integrative capabilities. Component capabilities were captured by the firm’s internal R&D efforts and therapeutic market focus, while integrative capabilities were concerned with the firm’s ability to obtain FDA approvals and to develop radical new drugs. Findings on each of these four capabilities on therapeutic differentiation and global NCEs are mixed. The direct and indirect effects of these resources and capabilities on therapeutic differentiation and global NCEs suggest important managerial implications in the way firms coordinate and combine their assets so as to achieve sustained competitive advantage. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Little Fish in a Big Pond: Legitimacy Transfer,Authenticity, and Factors of Peripheral Firm Entry and Growth in the Market Center

Research summary : How do peripheral firms compete and secure future growth? Building on literature in strategy and organizational theory, we test a model of peripheral entry and growth in the mainstream market segment. Using data from 289 craft breweries over 11 years, we find evidence that niche producers are increasingly entering the mainstream market and competing with market‐center firms. We identify two mechanisms contributing to these actions: legitimacy transfer and cognitive claims of authenticity. As hypothesized, imitation of niche products by macro breweries facilitates craft beer entry into mainstream markets. Moreover, two authenticity‐based identity codes are found to reliably influence craft brewery growth: a local identity (i.e., operating in one's local market) and a product proliferator identity (i.e., offering a more diverse set of products) . Managerial summary : How can small niche firms compete with larger, more established organizations? By examining the rapidly expanding craft beer industry, this study explores how craft breweries are able to both enter the market space of these larger competitors and secure sustained patterns of growth. Specifically, we highlight two factors influencing the success of craft breweries. First, as major beer producers mimic niche products (i.e., faux craft beer), smaller niche firms are allowed to enter the market by exposing the typical consumer to the tastes of craft beer. Second, craft breweries enjoy increased success if they (a) emphasize the local elements of their company, and/or (b) offer a larger number of products . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.