How Attitudes Toward Product Categories Drive Individual Brand Attitudes and Choice

Three experiments examine the role of attitudes toward the category to which a brand belongs in consumers’ attitudes toward individual brands. The core findings indicate that what consumers think generally about a category affects their evaluations of singular brands belonging to the category. Study 1 demonstrates that both consumers’ attitudes toward a category as well as their relative attitudes toward a brand versus intracategory competitors drive overall attitudes toward individual brands. Study 2 shows that manipulating attitudes toward a product category affects attitudes toward, and purchase intention of, individual brands belonging to that category. Study 3 demonstrates that more versus less favorably evaluated categories are more likely to exhibit brand positivity effects in judgments of singular brands. The results suggest the practical importance of measuring attitudes toward product categories, as well as the utility of marketing interventions aimed at the category level.     

Information transfer and conference calls

A long-standing literature documents intra-industry capital market co-movements around earnings releases, yet the dynamics of these information transfers remain largely unexplored. We provide evidence on both the sources and channels of information transfers by separating two distinct events within the reporting window using intra-day data and by exploring potential mechanisms of information flows. We document that the co-movement of absolute and signed stock returns over the conference call windows of announcing firms and their industry peers are statistically and economically larger than the co-movement over the corresponding earnings announcement windows. Turning to mechanisms, we find that shared analyst coverage, coverage by analysts providing industry recommendations, shared institutional ownership, and joint financial media mentions are each individually and incrementally associated with higher rate of information transfer over both the earnings announcement and conference call windows. Textual analyses reveal that peer mentions and macroeconomic discussions both significantly contribute to conference call information transfers.     

Understanding sales manager effectiveness: Linking attributes to sales force values

Although sales managers influence a variety of sales force outcomes critically important in the dynamic business environment of the 21st Century, research examining sales manager effectiveness is limited. As such, an investigation of the attributes of effective sales managers, as well as the impact of these attributes on the sales force, is warranted. To explore these issues, the authors employed value laddering, an in-depth interview technique that facilitates the identification of key attributes and the subsequent linkages of those attributes to consequences and underlying values or goals held by respondents. Data collected from sales professionals resulted in 308 ladders that were subsequently aggregated across subjects and used to generate a hierarchical value map (HVM) reflecting the associations among constructs. The HVM highlights the attributes of effective sales managers, as identified by respondents, and reflects three major sales management roles: communicator, motivator and coach. Each of these roles is explored and managerial and research implications are discussed.     

The process of assisted negotiations: A network analysis

This article introduces network analysis as a supplement to current research on the process of negotiations. We briefly review the literature on negotiations involving third parties, and argue that to understand fully the dynamics of dispute resolution, it is important to examine processes in addition to outcomes. We propose social network methods as a way to examine systematically the step-by-step process through which self-interested third parties influence negotiated outcomes. To illustrate, we analyze process data from triads in an agent-assisted negotiation. We describe three classes of results. First, we describe the basic properties of the third-party-assisted negotiation process (e.g., we found agents to be the most active players in the negotiation process—they initiate interactions significantly more frequently than buyers or sellers). Second, we study the changes in the process characteristics due to experimental conditions (i.e., we found the interactive patterns to vary depending on the information made available to the third party). Finally, we examine the relationships between the systematic process measures and standard outcome measures. We argue that these measures are complementary, and that the process should be informative with respect to interpreting, predicting, and managing outcomes.This research was supported in part by a grant from the Dispute Resolution Research Center.     

Retail Demand for Natural Dye Plants and Dye Plant Products: A Conjoint Analysis

Herbalists, fiber artists, and herb growers are increasingly interested in growing, marketing, and using local plants as natural dyes. As the market in the United States and Canada develops, fiber art and quilting stores are the primary retail market outlets for natural dye plants and dye plant products. Conjoint analysis was used to evaluate U.S. and Canadian retailer interest in natural dye plants/dye plant products and to estimate market shares. The largest retail market share was for dyed materials, such as yarn or fabric, that are dyed in primary colors, using certified organic plants, and grown on farms in the United States or Canada.     

Competition in the UK Retail Financial Service Sector: Some Implications for the Spatial Distribution and Function of Bank Branches

Traditionally, banks have tended to operate in a highly stable environment. However, in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in competition in the UK retail financial service sector. Some of the reasons for this increase in competition are discussed in this article as are the implications it holds for the spatial distribution and functions of bank branches. Particular emphasis is given to the different ways in which the same, or a similar, service can be provided and the effects this is having on the skill requirements of bank staff.     

The fallacy of “only the strong survive”: The effects of extrinsic motivation on the persistence decisions for under-performing firms

Under-performing firms persist even though existing theoretical perspectives indicate that they should be selected out of the market. Building upon threshold theory [Gimeno, J., Folta, T., Cooper, A., Woo, C., 1997. Survival of the fittest? Entrepreneurial human capital and the persistence of underperforming firms. Administrative Science Quarterly 42, 750–783.] and using Staw's [Staw, B.M., 1981. The escalation of commitment to a course of action. Academy of Management Review 6 (4), 577–587.] theoretical model of commitment to a course of action, we explore and test the factors that lead entrepreneurs to persist with under-performing firms. We found environmental munificence, personal investment, personal options, previous organizational success, and perceived collective efficacy impact the decision to persist with an under-performing firm. In addition, extrinsic motivation moderates those relationships. This research adds to the growing literature on highly persistent, under-performing firms and complements and extends threshold theory.