The link between customer satisfaction and price sensitivity: An investigation of retailing industry in Taiwan

Are customers less likely to seek bargains once they are satisfied with a product and service? This study examines the relationship between customer satisfaction and price sensitivity. Specifically, satisfaction is divided into economic satisfaction derived from tangible products and social satisfaction provided by service encounters. This survey of 248 retailer–consumer dyads shows that economic satisfaction is negatively associated with price sensitivity. However, social satisfaction is positively related with price sensitivity, especially for female customers and customers with high patronage frequency. Interpersonal relationships emphasized in the Chinese collectivist societies tend to influence customers' price sensitivity. These findings have many implications for researchers and practitioners in the retail sector.     

Ecosocialization or Countermodernization? Reviewing the Shifting ‘Storylines’ of Transport Planning

In recent decades, in most western countries, conventional transport planning has encountered growing social opposition from environmentalists and increasing scientific criticism on the grounds of its unsustainability. In some places, including the United Kingdom, the assumptions, beliefs and values (‘storylines’) about transport have shifted to some degree away from the car in favour of public and slow forms of transport. The article elaborates a concept of ‘ecosocialization’ to describe and explain the various reform pressures that have sought to reorient transport planning away from car‐dominated approaches. We use this concept in preference to the more familiar one of ‘ecological modernization’ in order to foreground the influence of embedded value systems and habits, as well as institutions and rules, on key pathways of social development. Whilst these reformist pressures and their consequences have been evident for decades, it is also apparent that in other contexts, after moments of subordination to alternative policy settings, conventional car‐dominated transport planning has reasserted its pre‐eminence. Our article explores the shifting discourses and practices of transport planning in three national policy settings, charting the contest between critiques of car‐dominated approaches and those ‘countermodernizing’ forces, especially road building institutions, that have resisted this ‘ecosocialization’.     

Factors affecting the use of information in the evaluation of marketing communications productivity

Most prior research on the use of marketing information has studied antecedents of the use of information in new product strategy decisions. This study investigates factors that are related to the use of marketing information in the evaluation of marketing communications productivity. The information used in this context originates from a wide range of internal and external sources. On the basis of organizational theories of information processing, the authors develop and test a conceptual framework explaining the use of information to evaluate marketing communications productivity. Collected survey data indicate that information quality, organization formalization, task complexity, market turbulence, rationality of decision style, and group involvement are all positively related to the use of information in assessing marketing communications productivity. Moderating relationships involving formalization, complexity, decision style, and the degree of group involvement are also found. Implications for managing market knowledge and future research in information use are discussed. George S. Low is an associate professor in the Marketing Department of the M. J. Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. His Ph.D. in marketing is from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He also received an M.B.A. from the Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, and a B.A. in advertising from Brigham Young University. He spent 4 years as a media planner with MacLaren McCann Advertising (Canada). His research focuses on integrated marketing communications and brand management, and has been published in theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Advertising Research, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, and theJournal of Product and Brand Management, among others. He is the recipient of four research grants from the Marketing Science Institute. Jakki J. Mohr is an associate professor of marketing and the Ron and Judy Paige faculty fellow at the University of Montana. She received her B.B.A. from Boise State University, her M.S. in marketing from Colorado State University, and her Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before beginning her academic career, she worked in Silicon Valley in the advertising area for both Hewlett Packard’s Personal Computer Group and Tele Video Systems. Her research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of High Technology Management Research, Marketing Management, andComputer Reseller News. She has recently authored a book,Marketing of High-Technology Products and Innovations. Her research interests lie primarily in the area of marketing of high-technology products and services.     

Canonical vine copulas in the context of modern portfolio management: Are they worth it?

In the context of managing downside correlations, we examine the use of multi-dimensional elliptical and asymmetric copula models to forecast returns for portfolios with 3–12 constituents. Our analysis assumes that investors have no short-sales constraints and a utility function characterized by the minimization of Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR). We examine the efficient frontiers produced by each model and focus on comparing two methods for incorporating scalable asymmetric dependence structures across asset returns using the Archimedean Clayton copula in an out-of-sample, long-run multi-period setting. For portfolios of higher dimensions, we find that modeling asymmetries within the marginals and the dependence structure with the Clayton canonical vine copula (CVC) consistently produces the highest-ranked outcomes across a range of statistical and economic metrics when compared to other models incorporating elliptical or symmetric dependence structures. Accordingly, we conclude that CVC copulas are ‘worth it’ when managing larger portfolios.     

A Comparative Evaluation and Prognosis of Asia Pacific Bilateral and Regional Trade Arrangements

This paper provides an evaluation of the growing regional and bilateral trade arrangements in Asia and discusses some plausible scenarios for Asian regionalism. Changes in international relations, information communications technology, the knowledge-based economy and deregulation have altered trade modalities in the international political economy. The 'new regionalism' activities in Asia appear to be a response to these international developments and to be complementary to WTO-managed trade liberalisation.     

Project System Vulnerability to Political Risks in International Construction Projects: The Case of Chinese Contractors

This study aims to explore the variables affecting the project system vulnerability to political risks in international construction projects. A questionnaire survey was conducted and 138 responses were received from both academia and industry. The exploratory factor analysis was then adopted to uncover the relationships among these variables. The results showed that three exposure factors (i.e., attribute‐based exposure, strategy‐based exposure, and transaction‐based exposure) and three capacity factors (i.e., core competitive capacity, relative bargain capacity, and integrate adaptive capacity) were believed to be the significant underlying factors for the project system vulnerability to political risks. Also, case studies were conducted and the results indicated that the emergent framework was suitable and tractable for application in the future. This study provides a method for measuring the project system vulnerability to political risks; thus, international construction enterprises can decrease their risk exposure and enhance their capacity for dealing with political risks in international construction projects.     

Women’s mountaineering tourism: an empirical investigation of its theoretical constraint dimensions

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived constraints on participating in mountaineering tourism faced by women, and to empirically verify the dimensionality of those constraints. Survey responses from 314 female mountaineers were collected and four constraint dimensions were identified using confirmatory factor analysis. Three of these dimensions: ‘intra-personal’, ‘inter-personal’ and ‘structural’ constraints support earlier findings in the extant literature, both in general and in the adventure literature more specifically. The identification of a fourth dimension relating to ‘family’ constraints represents a theoretical contribution to the literature and an additional barrier to women’s participation in mountaineering tourism. In previous studies, ‘family’ constraints have typically been subsumed within ‘inter-personal’ or ‘intra-personal’ constraints, but have emerged as a distinctly separate constraint category for women in relation to this particular tourist activity. The findings also have important implications for adventure tourism management practice.