An investigation of the relative efficacy of four alternative approaches to importance-performance analysis

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science - Importance-performance analysis is a tool which has been used in several contexts to transform research results into practical marketing actions. The...     

Media allocation model using nonlinear benefit curves

An integral part of planning advertising campaigns involves the selection of those media vehicles that maximize the effectiveness of the advertising effort. This article describes a media allocation model designed to provide the media planner, responsible for a particular advertising campaign, with relevant information for use in selecting the most appropriate media vehicles and in determining the number of insertions in each vehicle. It is based on the derivation of nonlinear benefit curves for candidate media vehicles that can be derived from commercially available response data and from subjective estimates gathered from media planning experts. When tested in an actual advertising campaign, the results serve to provide relevant information that can make the media allocation decision a more objective one.     

Trade Credit Management and the Decision to Use Factoring: An Empirical Study

This paper examines the firm's decision to use factoring amongst a cross-sectional sample of 655 manufacturing companies using a rich firm-level database. The paper develops and tests hypotheses that explain this particular choice of credit and financial management policy. We find strong evidence of a 'financing demand' explanation for the use of factoring, and also some support for theories which relate the decision to use a factor to the firm's product characteristics, to market characteristics and to the preferences of the factor (supply constraints). The motivation to use factoring, however, appears to be related more to a demand for asset-based finance from small companies than to firm-level choices about organisational structure.     

Airline Schedule Recovery after Airport Closures: Empirical Evidence since September 11

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, repeated airport closures due to security breaches have imposed substantial costs on travelers, airlines, and government agencies in terms of flight delays and cancellations. Using data from the year following September 11, this study examines how airlines recover flight schedules upon reopening of airports that have been closed for security reasons. As such, this is the first study to empirically examine service quality during irregular airport operations. Our results indicate that economic considerations, particularly the potential revenue per flight, have predictable effects on service quality following airport closures. Airport concentration, hub destination, and various logistical factors also significantly influence flight outcomes.     

BlackBerry in red China: Research in motion navigates institutional barriers in an emerging market. Case comment: RIM in China

Research in Motion's (RIM's) entry into the Chinese market during a time when many distractions —principally a patent dispute with NTP—occupied management's attention was not a foregone conclusion. China remained a difficult market to crack. One holdup was an impasse with regard to RIM's use of encryption technology and the Chinese authorities' desire to monitor e‐mail traffic and content. Here the technical and political concerns were entangled. To further complicate things, the entirety of RIM had until recently been preoccupied with the legal settlement with NTP in the United States. Issues in this study highlight real‐world dilemmas in a thriving firm. The founders are still in charge, and new markets present themselves regularly. A very real challenge is divided attentions. The standstill over market entry calls for integrative thinking—bringing together disparate and contradictory elements for resolution. RIM's way out will invariably involve embracing complex relationships in order to find a resolution to the various conflicting institutional forces. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.