Understanding Consumer Response to Sponsorship Information: A Resource‐Matching Approach

Sponsorship of sporting teams and events has become an increasingly popular form of corporate and brand communication. Despite the continued growth of sponsorship spending, the corresponding literature base is highly fragmented and little agreement exists related to the psychological mechanisms underlying response. This paper integrates several prominent sponsorship research streams in promoting a “resource‐matching” perspective of cognitive elaboration and attitude change. This research holds that in the absence of clear functional fit between sponsor and event, identifying a basis for sponsor–event fit is likely to require some degree of cognitive effort. The results indicate stronger social identification with the sponsored event influences the favorability they attribute to sponsor motives and promotes stronger perceptions of fit between the sponsor and the sponsored activity. Further, the results indicate fit perceptions mediate the relationship between attribution and sponsorship response. Consistent with ELM theory, when cognitive resources are insufficient for the complexity of the fit‐matching task, social identification may still act as a peripheral cue in driving a positive affective response to sponsorship information.     

PERSPECTIVES ON ADVERTISING RESEARCH: Views from Winners of the American Academy of Advertising Outstanding Contribution to Research Award

To gather insights about the current state and future directions of advertising research, as well as to obtain a glimpse of its evolvement over time, testimony was compiled from experts in the field. The experts were selected from individuals who have won the American Academy of Advertising Outstanding Contribution to Research Award. Their responses provide a chronicle of advertising research that is marked by thoughtful observation, personal introspection, and careful speculation. This paper represents a snapshot of advertising research that is panoramic and clear due to the diversity and contemporaneous comments of the participants. Summary comments are offered that bring attention to general themes that emerge from the contributors' thoughts. It is hoped that this paper will serve as a signpost and catalyst for advertising research both now and in the years to come.     

At their wits’ end? Economic stress,motivation and unethical judgement of public servants

ABSTRACT

Through an interdisciplinary approach, this paper addresses the scarcity of research that assesses economic stressors, public service motivation (PSM), work motivations, and unethical judgement in the public square. We argue that motivations have a direct relationship with the acceptance of unethical behaviour, but that economic stress (defined as financial stress and job insecurity) may influence this relationship both direct and indirectly. Using data from the European Social Survey, we develop a path model to test these hypotheses. We find that PSM and work motivation influence unethical judgements, and perceived economic stressors play an indirect role through their relationship with work motivations. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Agriculture and aggregation

We study the shape of the aggregate production function in the presence of land-intensive agriculture. The traditional Cobb–Douglas formulation is corrected to include a “diversification component.” The implied TFP differences across countries are larger than what Solow residuals suggest.     

Entry mode choices in the international new ventures context. A study from different theoretical perspectives

Few studies have investigated the factors that enhance entry mode choice in the context of international new ventures (INVs). In this paper, we hypothesize that the characteristics of INVs’ products or services can explain their preference for equity entry modes. We also hypothesize that the inter-firm networks in which INVs are embedded play a deciding role in their choice of non-equity entry modes. When INVs are in inter-firm networks in which activities are developed to manage them, non-equity entry modes are preferred. We have adopted an effectuation approach to study the influence of different inter-firm network management activities on entry mode choice. In short, we have studied the effect of developing inter-firm network knowledge exchange, coordination, adaptation, conflict resolution and resource sharing management activities. In this paper we attempt to contribute to international entrepreneurship studies by reconciling the most widely accepted approaches to entry mode choice (Transactional Cost Economics, Organizational Capabilities-based and Network perspective) and international new ventures. Our findings show that the technological complexity of INVs’ products/services explain their preference for equity entry modes. Additionally, the development of network management activities among the networked firms determines the INVs’ preference for non-equity entry modes. Our results draw a decision model that differs from the ones derived from previous perspectives, which highlight the role of different characteristics of international new ventures.     

Defining and Understanding Communications Planning: A Current Assessment and an Exploratory Study

This article discusses the concept of communications planning (CP), an approach adopted by Procter & Gamble. One of the basic goals of CP is to make every consumer touch point a unique one so that messages are carefully and specifically targeted. Another goal of CP is to develop an industry-wide approach to measuring ROI so that advertisers have the ability to compare and contrast the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. This article introduces the topic of CP, assesses its role in the advertising and marketing environment and presents the results of an exploratory study. The findings suggest that although some agencies have heard of the concept and a few are actually applying it, CP is an approach that is currently limited in its use. Despite this finding, results also indicate that the basic idea of CP will be accepted and implemented in the future.     

The effect of early international commitment on international positional advantages in Spanish and Belgian international new ventures

Past research into internationalisation processes assumes that prior experience influences both a firm’s capability to absorb foreign market knowledge and its international competitiveness. However, recent international entrepreneurship research seems to suggest that an early international commitment can also contribute to develop competitive advantages. Further study of this relationship will provide a better understanding of the competitive behaviour of international new ventures. This paper focuses on how international new ventures acquire market knowledge from foreign markets and develop sustainable positional advantages there. The hypotheses derived from our model were tested using extended data gathered from samples of Spanish and Belgian new ventures. To support the validity of the scale content used, all the items were taken from a review of related literature. We attempted to ensure that they meet the conceptual definition and reflect all the relevant dimensions. We used confirmatory analysis to evaluate convergent validity. A structural equation model was used to test the research hypotheses. The results of the data analysis allow us to confirm that an early international commitment influences the positional advantages of international new ventures, since it facilitates the development of market orientation.     

Research and Publishing in the Journal of Advertising: Making Theory Relevant

As the latest contributor in this invited article series, I offer my perspective on conducting and publishing advertising research and navigating the review process. I also discuss the importance of the relevance of research to advertising practice, with a particular emphasis on the role that theory plays in making research relevant. In addition, I offer a few general observations about future advertising research.     

Meeting user information needs: The impact of major changes in FASB and GASB standards on financial reporting by colleges and universities

This longitudinal study reports the impact of changes in generally accepted accounting principles on financial statement disclosures for 100 public and private institutions of higher education. Disclosures from the period when all colleges and universities followed the same accounting standards are compared with disclosures in periods after major changes in accounting and reporting standards were made by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) for private institutions and by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) for public institutions. We find that an importance-weighted disclosure index shows that user needs are better met using the new reporting standards for public but not private institutions. An expanded unweighted index, however, shows improvement for both public and private colleges and universities. Using this disclosure index, the improvement for universities reporting under GASB standards exceeded the improvement for those reporting under FASB standards.