Work alienation of marketing employees: Influence of task,supervisory, and organizational structure factors

This study presents an integrated work alienation model that includes a number of relevant exogenous antecedents from the task, supervisory, and organizational structure domains. The study hypothesizes that these antecedents influence work alienation of marketing employees both directly and indirectly because of the effects they have on employees’ role stress and commitment to the organization. Simultaneous inclusion of relevant antecedents enables the study to establish the relative importance of each antecedent for work alienation of employees. The study also includes a comparative evaluation of the applicability of the proposed model for subgroups of employees stratified by gender. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin and has several years of practical experience in sales management. His research interests are in the areas of sales management, marketing strategy, and international marketing. He has previously published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, and a number of other marketing/international journals. He obtained his Ph.D. at Ohio State University. His practical experience includes international trade of merchandise and sales and supply of industrial plants and equipment. His research interests are in the areas of international marketing and sales management. He has previously published in Advances in International Marketing, International Trade Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, and Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, and has contributed to several national and international conference proceedings. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin and has several years of practical experience in advertising management. His research interests are in the areas of advertising, marketing strategy, and international marketing. He has previously published in the Journal of Advertising Research and has contributed to several national conference proceedings.     

The role of self selection, usage uncertainty and learning in the demand for local telephone service

Telephone services are often characterized by the presence of ‘fixed’ plans, involving only a fixed monthly fee, as well as ‘measured’ plans, with both fixed fees and per-unit charges for usage. Consumers are faced with the decisions of which plan to choose and how much to use the phone and these decisions are not, in general, independent. Due to the presence of a time lag between plan choice and usage decisions, consumers are uncertain about usage at the plan-choice stage. We develop a structural discrete/continuous model of plan choice and usage decisions of consumers that accounts for such uncertainty. Prior research has also found that consumers switch less often from fixed plans to measured plans to gain from potential savings than vice versa. Consumer uncertainty regarding their mean usage levels and different rates of learning by consumers in the two plans is a potential explanation for this phenomenon. We extend our discrete/continuous model to account for consumer learning about their mean usage and estimate different rates of learning for the two types of plans. We estimate our model using data from the 1986 Kentucky local telephone tariff experiment. Even in the absence of any price variation over time, we are able to measure the price elasticities both of usage and of choice of plan. Using our parameter estimates, we simulate the effects of the introduction of a metered plan in a market with only a fixed plan and vice versa, on both firm revenues and consumer surplus. We also find that consumers learn very rapidly if they are on the measured plan but learn very slowly when they are on the fixed plan. We investigate an alternative assumption on the nature of the learning process in which only consumers in the measured plan have an opportunity to learn. We find that our empirical results are robust to this change of specification. We conduct counterfactual simulations to simulate enhanced calling plans from the firm and consumer points of view. Additional simulations to measure the value of information in this category are also carried out. We compute the value of both complete information, where the entire uncertainty about future usage is resolved, as well as that of limited information, where the consumer's uncertainty about mean usage is resolved, but the uncertainty about specific month-to-month usage remains. We find that the value of information is modest. We also find that a large proportion of the value of information is that about the mean usage, with the value of the information about a specific month's usage being relatively small.

Dynamic relationships among R&D,advertising, inventory and firm performance

Firms’ spending on R&D, advertising, and inventory holding affect firm performance, which in turn affects future spending in each of these three areas. Effective allocation of resources across R&D, advertising, and inventory holding is challenging since an understanding of their dynamic inter-relationships is necessary. Past research has not examined these spending issues simultaneously. We estimate inter-relationships among the effects of firms’ R&D spending, advertising spending, and inventory holding on sales and firm value (as measured by its Tobin’s Q) using a vector auto regression model of a panel of publicly listed U.S. high technology manufacturing firms. Insights from the computation of long-term effects indicate that advertising spending and inventory holding increase sales, while R&D spending does not, and advertising and R&D spending increase firm value, while inventory holding does not. In addition, firm spending in all three functions is positively affected by sales but negatively by firm value. We discuss the implications of the study for marketing literature and managerial practice.     

Stages of moral development of corporations

Drawing from the Boulding's (1956) framework for general systems theory, the need to employ richer paradigm in the study of organizations (Pondy and Mitroff, 1979) is reiterated. It is argued that a better understanding of organizational ethical behavior is contingent upon viewing organizations as symbol processing systems of shared language and meanings. Further, it is proposed that organizations, like individuals, develop into collectivities of shared cognitions and rationale, over a period of time. The study adapts Kohlberg's (1983) model of moral development to examine if organizations can be viewed as passing through different stages of moral development depending on the type of moral reasoning employed to explain their behaviors in the face of ethical crises. Several cases raising questions about the ethics of corporate behavior were researched. An instrument entitled Organization Response Analysis was constructed using statements made by various spokespersons representing five of these organizations. The instrument was administered to 246 graduate and undergraduate students of business (N = 246). Results indicated a great degree of concurrence among respondents of differing genders, levels of education and work experience in determining the stages of moral development of organizations. Limitations of the current study and implications for future research and practice are discussed.B. S. Sridhar, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Management at the College of Business, University of Wisconsin — Oshkosh. His research interests include transformational leadership, decision making, attribution, business ethics and cross cultural issues.Artegal Camburn, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Management at the Harold Walter Siebens School of Business, Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, Iowa. His research interests concern the social responsibility of business and decision making in the areas of business ethics and corporate social responsibility.     

A comparative analysis of differential consumer response across supermarket and specialty store in the candy category

Retailing industry has undergone tremendous change in its complexity and sophistication over the past few years. Globally we are witnessing the evolution of retailing industry from traditionally micro-managed small retail formats like mom and pop store to modern corporate-managed large retail formats like supermarkets. Consumers are also shopping across these various store formats even for the products in similar categories. In this research, we posit that consumer purchases in the similar categories may very well be characterized by differential responses to marketing mix across different store formats. The proposed model accounts for the influences that these diverse response parameters and preferences have on one another as well as consumer heterogeneity. Our results show that sensitivities to marketing mix as well as correlations in preferences do indeed vary across formats for consumer purchases in similar categories.     

Optimal Resource Allocation with Time-varying Marketing Effectiveness,Margins and Costs

The importance of optimal marketing communications mix decisions is well-recognized by both marketing scholars and practitioners. A significant volume of work has addressed the problem of dynamic marketing mix optimization assuming constant effectiveness of marketing instruments. However, the effectiveness of marketing communications varies over time for a variety of reasons. Moreover, due to factors such as inflation or deflation in media prices and/or raw material inputs, there can be differential changes in the costs of communications and/or margins on the good (or service) sold over time. The academic literature offers little normative direction on how time-varying marketing effectiveness and costs drive optimal marketing-mix levels and their relative allocation. The authors shed light on these issues by solving a monopoly firm's finite horizon dynamic marketing communications mix optimization problem involving two marketing instruments with time-varying parameters, i.e., the marketing effectiveness parameters, media costs, and product margin are all allowed to vary over time. First, they find that the structure of the solutions is similar to that of the classic Nerlove–Arrow model, for a completely general nature of time-varying effectiveness. Second, their model can be used by managers to exactly determine whether and when to switch their marketing-mix emphasis (defined by the marketing element receiving the dominant portion of the budget) over a finite planning horizon. In sum, the authors expand knowledge on optimal allocation of marketing resources with time-varying effectiveness. They also extend their solution to incorporate multiple (more than two) marketing instruments.     

Bayesian estimation of discrete games of complete information

Estimation of discrete games of complete information, which have been applied to a variety of contexts such as market entry, technology adoption and peer effects, is challenging due to the presence of multiple equilibria. In this paper, we take a Bayesian MCMC approach to this problem, specifying a prior over multiple equilibrium selection mechanisms reflecting the analysts uncertainty over them. We develop a sampler, using the reversible jump algorithm to generate draws from the posterior distribution of parameters across these equilibrium selection rules. The algorithm is flexible in that it can be used both in situations where the equilibrium selection rule is identified and when it is not, and accommodates heterogeneity in equilibrium selection. We explore the methodology using both simulated data and two empirical applications, one in the context of joint consumption, using a dataset of casino visit decisions by married couples, and the second in the context of market entry by competing chains in the retail stationery market. We demonstrate the importance of accounting for multiple equilibrium selection rules in these applications and show that taking an empirical approach to the issue, such as the one we have demonstrated, can be useful.     

The Impact of Go‐Shop Provisions in Merger Agreements

We examine whether go‐shop provisions in merger agreements are used to benefit target shareholders or for agency/entrenchment reasons. We find that go‐shop provisions are more likely in deals involving the negotiation selling method, financial buyers and all cash financing, and in targets with less valuation uncertainty. We confirm that go‐shops have a positive association with the initial offer premium. Results suggest that deals with go‐shop provisions are more likely to have a competing bid and an upward revision of the initial offer premium. Collectively, our results indicate that go‐shops are effective contractual devices used to further target shareholder interests.     

Venture capital and private equity investors,governance, and success of IPOs: Evidence from India

In this article, we examine the role of domestic and foreign venture capital and private equity (VCPE) firms in India. We find robust evidence that portfolio firms backed by foreign VCPE firms incorporate effective governance structures after the initial public offering (IPO). Specifically, these firms are associated with smaller, more independent, and gender-diverse boards. Furthermore, our results suggest that foreign VCPE firms continue their association with their portfolio firms in the post-IPO period by nominating directors to the boards. Our results also suggest that portfolio firms backed by foreign VCPE firms are associated with better long-term operating performance and profitability. This positive effect is exacerbated by the presence of independent and female directors. Collectively, our results support the view that good governance practices are key to the long-term success of a business, especially in economies that lack good legal systems, developed financial markets, and alternative investment opportunities and where developing trust between parties in a transaction is crucial.     

Investigating cross-media effects in a multichannel marketing environment: the role of email,catalog, television,and radio

Marketing Letters - We empirically examine the cross-media effects of personalized and mass media on consumers’ purchase incidence in a multichannel shopping environment. We capture the...