Should We Hire David Beckham to Endorse our Brand? Contextual Interference and Consumer Memory for Brands in a Celebrity's Endorsement Portfolio

Imagine that you are browsing through a magazine, and you see one of your favorite celebrities in an advertisement. Then, a bit further into the magazine you see that same celebrity in an ad for a different product. A few hours later, you think of the celebrity again and try to remember the products s/he was endorsing, but what will you actually recall? This paper examines consumer memory for celebrity advertising under conditions where a single celebrity advertises for more than one brand. Using contextual interference as the theoretical lens, the current research posits and demonstrates how brands in a celebrity's “endorsement portfolio” compete with one another when consumers use the celebrity as retrieval cue for information that was contained in the ads. The findings of the laboratory experiment reveal that brands sharing either a high or low match with the celebrity win the battle during retrieval and inhibit consumers’ ability to accurately recall ad information for brands sharing a more moderate match with the celebrity. The theoretical practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Economic Crisis,Poor Governance and the Rise of Populism: The Case of Greece

Intereconomics - Whereas across Western Europe, the salience of an emerging cultural cleavage has triggered the rise of right-wing populist parties that focus on immigration, in Greece the salience...     

Establishing HR Professionals’ Influence and Credibility: Lessons from the Capital Markets and Investment Banking Sector

Through two separate studies involving 47 interviews inside 22 institutions in the capital markets and investment banking sector, we explore the levels of influence and sources of credibility for senior HR professionals, and examine the challenges they face in establishing credibility. We compare these findings against previous research, which has identified several determinants of HR’s influence and credibility. Our findings confirm that HR’s modest influence is contingent on the predispositions and convictions of key stakeholders, notably the CEO, but also depends on the decision being taken. We find that the basis for senior HR professionals’ credibility is more individual than institutional, and that HR professionals and senior business managers differ in the priorities they assign to credibility determinants. Finally, the studies illuminate an enduring inherent tension for HR in establishing credibility, between servicing their internal clients’ needs and retaining a level of independence. We reflect upon the transient nature of HR credibility in this sector and others. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Probabilistic selling vs. markdown selling: Price discrimination and management of demand uncertainty in retailing

Markdown selling (i.e., price reductions over the course of the selling season) is a strategy to implement price discrimination and to manage market uncertainty that has been widely adopted by retailers. This paper explores the potential advantage of introducing an additional tool to the arsenal of retailers, probabilistic selling (i.e., offering consumers a choice to buy a product that can turn out to be any item from a predetermined set of distinct items). We show that both probabilistic and markdown selling strategies serve as price discrimination tools by offering buyers an option to purchase a “damaged” good (an uncertain product under the former and delayed consumption of a product under the latter). However, the two strategies segment markets based on different types of buyer heterogeneity: buyer preference strength under probabilistic selling and buyer patience under markdown selling. Our analytical model reveals that, compared with markdown selling, probabilistic selling can (1) improve margin management by increasing revenue from full-price sales and reducing the magnitude of discounts; and (2) improve inventory utilization by reducing stockouts and the amount of excess inventory. We identify the conditions required for probabilistic selling to be more profitable than markdown selling.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Marketing Communications Within Stores: A Case Study of U.K. Food Retailers

ABSTRACT

The U.K. Government has argued that more transparency in the ways that companies address and manage environmental, economic, and social issues can help improve relationships with employees, customers, and other stakeholders and U.K.'s large food retailers are increasingly keen to report their commitment to CSR. This paper offers a preliminary examination of the extent to which the U.K.'s major food retailers currently use CSR as a means of communicating with customers within their stores.     

The Saliency of Synecdoche: The Part and the Whole of Employment Relations

ABSTRACT Literary and rhetorical tropes invoke a transference of meaning from the common usage of a word or phrase. Organizational analysis research and writing in this area has concentrated upon the trope of metaphor. In this article it is argued that we should extend our attention to other tropes. To that end, the article identifies and illustrates the saliency of the trope of synecdoche through a discussion of employment relations. Following a brief identification of metaphor within writings on employment relations, the article goes onto discuss synecdoche as one of the ‘four master tropes’. We then argue that the trope is important in relation to how we write about and understand employment relations. Use of the trope is then illustrated through analysis of interview comments on local pay in the National Health Service. Finally, the saliency or prominence of synecdoche is argued through two related arguments, the nature of the rhetorical setting and the rhetorical nature of the employment relations setting.     

Trends in neighbourhood inequality of Australian, Canadian, and United States of America cities since the 1970s

It is important to locate recent increases in neighbourhood inequality and economic segregation of Australian cities within the international debate about increasing urban disparities. The present article uses standard inequality techniques to show that neighbourhood inequality is increasing within Australian, Canadian, and USA cities. While the labour market status of people in poor neighbourhoods is similar for Australia and the USA, there is an almost inexorable trend towards increasing income inequality, probably reflecting ongoing labour market deregulation and the stricter welfare regimes that have been in place since the 1980s. Policy options to deal with locational disadvantage and increased economic segregation are also considered in detail.