Enough is enough! When identification no longer prevents negative corporate associations

Negative publicity has the potential to create negative corporate associations. However, consumers’ identification with a company might moderate the extent of this effect. This article examines the impact of consumer-company identification on reactions to variable levels of negative publicity about a company. Exposing consumers who had strong identification with a company to moderately negative publicity was found to result in less negative corporate associations than for consumers who had relatively weak identification. In contrast, consumers’ levels of identification did not affect reactions to extremely negative information, resulting in equally negative corporate associations for those with strong versus weak consumer-company identification. Thus, strong identification mitigates the effects of moderately negative publicity but does not attenuate the effects of extremely negative publicity. Consumers’ perceptions of and thoughts regarding negative information about a company partially mediated the effect of identification on attitudes and behavioral intentions. Sabine A. Einwiller (sabine.einwiller@fhso.ch) is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. She worked on this research as a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California, visiting from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, where she received her Ph.D. She has published in journals such as theJournal of Consumer Psychology and thePersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Her research interests include causes and the measurement of corporate reputation and stakeholder-company identification. Alexander Fedorikhin (sfedorik@iupui.edu) is an associate professor in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His research focuses on the intersection of affect and cognition in consumer decision making. He has published in such journals as theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, andOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Allison R. Johnson (ajohnson@business.queensu.ca) is an assistant professor of marketing in Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University. She received her Ph.D. from the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. Her research interests include corporate social responsibility, customer-company identification, and consumer emotion. Michael A. Kamins (mkamins@marshall.usc.edu) is an associate professor at the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business. Dr. Kamins’s current research interests he in pricing strategy in the context of online auctions as well as in the impact of color on consumers’ perceptions of products. He has published over 40 academic articles and proceedings in major academic journals, including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Advertising, and theJournal of Advertising Research.     

Possession enhancement in an interpersonal context: An extension of the mere ownership effect

The mere ownership effect (Beggan, 1992) is defined as the tendency of an owner to evaluate an object more favorably than a nonowner. The present research extends this idea to how people evaluate their property in comparison to others' property. The general hypothesis was that people would display an interpersonally based mere ownership effect and evaluate their possessions more favorably than others' possessions. Study 1 provided an initial confirmation of this hypothesis by showing that people associated more good traits with their possessions than the possessions of others. Studies 2, 3, and 5 ruled out alternative explanations for the ownership effects. Study 4 found that the attributes owners used to describe a possession were more positive than the attributes used by nonowners. Implications of the results for marketing and marketing research are considered. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Wettbewerbsmessung im Bankensektor: alternative Maße — divergierende Ergebnisse

Precise assessment of the competitive conditions is the necessary foundation of numerous stability, productivity and profitability analyses of the banking industry. From a theoretical point of view, a wide range of alternative approaches are available. Nonetheless, the operationalisation of these measures has proved difficult due to regional market conditions, individual business models and generally high data requirements. Considerable divergences and contradictory results are revealed by a comparison of more than 50 studies from four decades. In reference to the resilience and comparability of regulatory inferences, the question remains as to which measure should be favoured in the future.     

Measuring income tax accrual quality

We develop and validate a measure of tax accrual quality. Tax accrual quality captures variation in the extent to which the income tax accrual maps into income tax-related cash flows, with lower variation indicating a higher quality tax accrual. Low tax accrual quality arises from (1) management estimation error and (2) financial reporting standards that lead to differences between income tax expense and income tax cash flows not captured by deferred tax assets and liabilities. We validate our tax accrual quality measure by showing it is associated with firm characteristics that capture both constructs and by demonstrating it predicts future tax-related restatements and internal control material weaknesses. We illustrate the importance of our measure by showing that investors view tax expense as more informative in firms with better tax accrual quality. Future researchers can use tax accrual quality to address questions related to estimation error in the income tax account.     

The development of contract research organisations in Sweden: health care,privatisation and neo‐liberalism

This paper examines changes in local working conditions instigated by the development of contract research organisations in pharmaceutical development. These developments are seen as occurring in the context of Sweden's ‘circumscribed neoliberalization’. It is shown how staff remain ambivalent about the shifts of location and identity that these developments imply.