Urban Legends: The Word-of-Mouth Communication of Morality Through Negative Story Content

This study investigates factors influencing the diffusion of negative information via word-of-mouth communication of urban legends in the consumer environment. An experiment was conducted in which three aspects of a recent urban legend were manipulated: the intent of the central character (altruistic vs negative), the outcome of the story (positive vs negative), and the presence or absence of a brand name. Results indicate that intent to communicate an urban legend is lowest when the central character is altruistic and the outcome of the story is positive. These results are consistent with previous suggestions that consumers circulate urban legends in order to communicate negative information involving moralistic stories possessing an ironic twist.     

The moderating influence of firm market power on the transaction cost economics model: An empirical test in a forward channel integration context

Transaction cost economics (TCE) has guided a variety of research on governance in the strategic management literature. An important question arises, however, as to whether the TCE framework is equally appropriate for all types of firms in all business settings. In this paper, we argue that TCE is not and suggest that firms with high market power may be able to lower transaction costs under high asset specificity and uncertainty in nonintegrated distribution channels, avoiding the need to utilize highly integrated channels as a result. We test our hypotheses with data collected from 40 manufacturers of electronic and telecommunications products in 109 product‐markets in the United States. The results support our hypothesis that transaction cost factors are better at explaining forward channel integration for firms with low market power than for firms with high market power. Our results indicate that the basic TCE framework must be supplemented by the market power construct to adequately explain forward channel integration decisions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tourists' Motivations to Travel during Financial Crisis

This study aims to describe the motivations of tourists to travel during financial crises and to identify the impact of those travel motivations on the likelihood that tourists would travel during financial crises. The findings suggest short-distance destinations, novelty, and culture would motivate tourists during financial crises; but tourist recreation would deter them from traveling domestically. This study enriches the literature on the travel motivations of domestic tourists, particularly Thai tourists, to travel during financial crises.