Brand Stereotyping and Image Transfer in Concurrent Sponsorships

Concurrent sponsorship, that is, when several brands simultaneously sponsor the same event, is a common yet understudied marketing communication situation. The research presented in this article explores the transfer of image that takes place among the sponsoring brands in this situation. The results of two experiments reveal that this image transfer is due to stereotypic processing. Additional analyses delineate more specifically the stereotyping process at work. They show first that the stereotype is ad hoc, rather than based on some a priori developed mental schema, and therefore that it is construed from the images associated with the concurrent sponsoring brands. And second, that brand stereotyping serves a cognitive rather than an evaluative function, thus suggesting a valence-neutral process whose outcomes can be beneficial or detrimental to a focal sponsor, depending on the images initially associated with the other sponsors. The implications of these findings for sponsorship research and practice are discussed, along with research limitations and future research avenues.     

Firm heterogeneity,sunk costs,spatial characteristics and export market participation: Evidence from China

This paper develops a dynamic discrete-choice model to analyze the exporting decisions of Chinese firms in Zhejiang province. The results show that sunk costs are found to be significant and prior export experience, productivity, scale, FDI, export spillovers, coastal area and economic zones are all positively related with the propensity of exporting while state ownership concentration has a negative impact. The export behavior of firms varies with country-specific characteristics.     

The dividend month premium

We find an asset pricing anomaly whereby companies have positive abnormal returns in months when they are predicted to issue a dividend. Abnormal returns in predicted dividend months are high relative to other companies and relative to dividend-paying companies in months without a predicted dividend, making risk-based explanations unlikely. The anomaly is as large as the value premium, but less volatile. The premium is consistent with price pressure from dividend-seeking investors. Measures of liquidity and demand for dividends are associated with larger price increases in the period before the ex-day (when there is no news about the dividend) and larger reversals afterward.     

Audio broadcast technology: Prospects in the USA

In the primary context of the USA, the authors discuss technological possibilities compatible with present equipment, which offer some limited improvements in audio broadcasting. They then analyse more radical possibilities which may greatly increase the number of audio delivery channels. Anticipating a substantially different audio broadcasting system by the year 2000, the authors outline the challenges presented by the various possibilities to public policy makers.     

Testing the addition hypothesis in Vroom's force model

Although Vroom's force model hypothesized that the products of multiplying expectancy E_ij and valence V_j combine additively, no methodologically adequate test of the addition hypothesis has existed. This research reports initial graphic and statistical tests of the validity of the addition hypothesis. Eleven of 22 subjects met both a statistical and graphic criterion for rejection of the addition hypothesis. An alternative hypotheses should be considered by expectancy theorists.     

Diversity in product symbolism: The case of female executive clothing

Many social roles are associated with and identified by product symbols. Yet, frequently, there is much ambiguity among consumers regarding which products denote a given role, and the specific products which communicate desired role attributes. The study examines factors influencing the diversity of clothing symbols associated with the female executive role. A conceptual framework focusing on role-related variables, aesthetic versus instrumental attitudes towards clothing, and information sources consulted in relation to clothing choice is developed and tested on data from a national survey of female executives.     

Developing an empirical socioeconomic typology of counties in five western states

County-level data representing a broad range of socioeconomic variables were obtained for the 190 counties in five western States-California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. A factor analysis of these variables produced eight orthogonal factors: (1) Urbanism, (2) Poverty vs affluence, (3) County tax revenues and services, relative to population, (4) Proportion of aged population, (5) Social stability vs instability, (6) New housing development vs cattle ranching, (7) Crop farming, welfare and unemployment, and (8) Small business activity vs level of federal employment. Several ways of examining scores on these factors were explored and demonstrated: distributions of scores on individual factors across counties were displayed graphically; individual county profiles, comprised of scores on all eight factors, were produced and examined; and groups of counties with similar profiles (representing county “types”) were identified through cluster analysis, and their average profiles and geographic distributions displayed and discussed. Groupings of clusters which were similar in some respects and varied in others were also presented. The utility of these methods for planning activities which may involve individual counties and/or groups of counties is discussed.