Consumer responses to different degrees of advertising adaptation: the moderating role of national openness to foreign markets

We investigate the moderating role of national openness to foreign markets on consumer responses (attitude to ad, brand and purchase intention) to different degrees of advertising adaptation in Belgium, Iran and India. We operationalize three levels of advertising adaptation (standardization, glocalization and adaptation) by manipulating the model (international versus local celebrity) and advertising copy (international versus local advertising copy). The results show that societies with a low openness to foreign markets respond more positively to fully adapted ads than to glocalized and standardized ads. The differences in responses decrease with national openness.     

Editorial: Special Issue on the Impact of Business Ethics on Public Life

Even though management scholars have offered several views on the process of corporate sustainability, these efforts have focused mainly on the technical aspects of sustainability while omitting the fundamental role played by individual moral competences. Therefore, previous work offers an incomplete and somewhat reductionist view of corporate sustainability. In this article, we develop a holistic framework of corporate sustainability in which both the moral and technical aspects of sustainability are considered. We do so by integrating the ethical, normative perspective of the Catholic social teaching (CST) with the competitive view of the natural resource-based view. This framework highlights the importance of CST principles and ideas in developing executive moral competences such as moral sensitivity and awareness, and moral cognition and motivation. Moral competences, in turn, influence the organizational selection of environmental strategies, giving leaders the intrinsic motivation to promote both a longer-term stance on corporate sustainability efforts and a relentless search for greener business models. Such strategies move the firm closer towards achieving environmental sustainability. Hence, by bridging the individual, normative-ethical with the organizational, implementational levels of corporate sustainability, our framework provides a more realistic, coherent, and complete perspective on the complex process of achieving corporate sustainability.     

Seeing Without Looking: The Effects of Hemispheric Functioning on Memory for Brands in Computer Games

The authors hypothesize that the effectiveness of in-game advertising is influenced by two inborn traits, bisected hemispheric functioning and physiological arousal, that are at the core of human behavior. A 2 (preattentive processing type) × 2 (arousal level) between-subjects design was employed in both Experiment 1 (well-known brand placement) and Experiment 2 (lesser-known brand placement). The results from the two experiments reveal that people show better recognition memory for in-game ads when brand names are presented peripherally in the right visual field and brand images are embedded peripherally in the left visual field. In addition, people can remember more brand ads when they experience less arousal (Experiment 1). This effect, however, is attenuated when unfamiliar brands are placed in the game (Experiment 2). Implications are discussed for further investigation.     

The Marketers’ Prismatic Palette: A Review of Color Research and Future Directions

Color carries meaning and can influence consumers’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Many disciplines, such as neuroscience, psychophysics, visual cognition, and biology have used new technologies to gain insights in understanding the complexities of color perception, yet there exists relatively little research in the field of marketing. This paper aims to reestablish the importance of color research in marketing, draw attention to the complex nature of this research, and to fuel further investigation and the development of new insights about color as it relates to marketing. The authors offer an integrated conceptual framework centered on the embodied and referential meanings of color and highlight the complexities and nuances that researchers must consider in order to develop this area. Insights from and gaps in the extant literature are highlighted to present a set of questions and propositions for future research in this area of investigation.     

Identifying key determinants for new product introductions and firm performance in small service firms

Small firms have gained increasing attention in the innovation literature. Focusing mainly on manufacturing based literature we identified several key factors that contribute to the innovative potential of small firms. However, we do not know if these factors are recognised and used in small service firms. Distinguishing various types of service industries, our goal with this paper is threefold. First, we describe to what extent service firms use the key factors to their advantage. Second, we try to establish if there is a relation between the key factors and new product introductions. Third, we want to see if new product introductions indeed contribute to firm performance. After a survey among 502 Dutch service firms, we reveal some major differences between various types of service industries.     

Spatial Aspects of ICT Development in Russia

The paper investigates the potentials of ICT in Russia for tackling the challenges of huge territory, strong regional disparities, segmentation of economic space and over-centralisation by Moscow. The Internet currently imposes a definite regional discrimination in Russia based on complex criteria, which are not limited to household incomes. After initial polarisation in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Internet use is now concentrated in a dozen Russian regions, marking a shift to polycentric polarisation, but Internet service activities remain concentrated in Western Russia. A new wave of centrifugal trends is starting thanks to offshore outsourcing in software development, in which Russia is preferred to China and India.     

The mitigating effects of uncertainty on ‘e’ innovation propensity: some service sector evidence

This paper reports the findings of a study that sought to explore a range of technical, financial and social issues that the literature suggests influences e-innovation propensity. The research was conducted on a sample of knowledge-intensive business service SMEs in Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and New Zealand within a business-to-consumer context. Qualitative methodologies (in-depth interviews and projective techniques) were employed to investigate the research problem. The findings highlight a number of specific issues that call into question the value of an e-business strategy, such as uncertainties surrounding knowledge acquisition, disintermediation effects and sustainability of an e-business. These issues continue to negate e-innovation propensity. The paper proposes practical suggestions to alleviate the mitigating effects of uncertainty that are impacting on e-innovation propensity. The conclusions derived from this research, along with the modelling of the uncertainty factors extend existing knowledge and also set the precedent for further empirical research in other country and industry settings.     

Personality and balanced psychological contracts: The mediating roles of epistemic curiosity and rule‐following behavior

This study extends prior research on the relationships between personality constructs and types of psychological contracts by exploring how the Big Five traits predict balanced psychological contracts. Further, we determine whether epistemic curiosity and rule‐following behavior are key mediators of the proposed relationships. We tested our proposed hypotheses using three‐wave time‐lagged data from 469 respondents. The results indicated that openness to experience was positively associated and both conscientiousness and neuroticism were negatively associated with balanced contracts. Extraversion and agreeableness were not associated with balanced contracts. We also established the mediating role of epistemic curiosity in the relationships between personality traits and balanced contracts, but there was no support for the mediating role of rule‐following behavior in the present study. These findings have important implications for managers and organizations in terms of selecting the right person for a job (person‐job fit) and ensuring employee retention (person‐organization fit), hence having a bottom‐line effect on firm performance. Future research directions are also discussed.     

Nature Imagery in Non-Green Advertising: The Effects of Emotion,Autobiographical Memory,and Consumer's Green Traits

Images of pristine nature constitute frequent elements of visual advertising design. Research on the effectiveness of such imagery has been scarce, however. Which psychological processes are involved? Do all individuals react equally to nature advertising imagery? Based on environmental psychology theory, the present research analyzes the effectiveness of the use of nature imagery in non-green advertising and the underlying processes involved. We conduct three experimental studies, two with student samples and one with a representative population sample, to test the effects of visual advertising stimuli featuring nature versus urban and indoor scenery. Findings contribute to research in two ways: First, emotional ad responses that are similar to the feelings experienced in nature as well as the retrieval of positive autobiographical memories are identified as intervening processes by which nature advertising imagery increases attitude toward the ad (Aad) and brand (Abr). Second, results indicate these processes are moderated by consumers’ green traits, with green consumers being more susceptible to the persuasive effects of nature advertising imagery even though advertisements were non-green. The processes are further moderated by the accessibility of memory of past nature experiences. These findings enrich our knowledge on the effects of specific visual appeals and provide practical implications for visual advertising effectiveness.     

The influence of gender on the effectiveness of probability markers in advertising

The results of two studies reveal that gender plays a moderating role on the effects that the use of probability markers (hedges – e.g., possibly, could help; and pledges – e.g., definitely, without a doubt) in advertising copy has on consumers' attitudes towards the brand advertised and purchase intentions. Women, as comprehensive processors, are not particularly sensitive to probability markers, which function as heuristic cues. Men, on the other hand, display higher levels of sensitivity towards probability marker usage; more precisely, their responses show preference towards the use of hedges over both pledges and no probability markers in advertising copy. Interactions with product category involvement, buying motivation (hedonic or utilitarian), and familiarity with the brand advertised are also explored.