Brand name recall: A study of the effects of word types,processing, and involvement levels

This study extends prior research on brand naming by comparing recall for five types of words in various involvement and processing conditions. Experimental findings show that the differences in recall are higher when there is semantic processing than when there is sensory processing. Involvement is not significant and hence provides no advantage for brand name recall. Several significant interactions among word types and information processing are also observed that extend prior findings in marketing and branding. More specifically, the results showed different recall pattern for the word types between semantic and sensory processing which was not observed in academic literature. Finally, the paper discusses implications for the naming of new products.     

Identifying Customer Loyalty Supporting Factors in the Retail Banking Context: An Empirical Examination

This article aims to identify factors which support customer loyalty, either through dedication or by imposing constraints, and subsequently empirically analyzes the relationship between identified factors and the attitudinal and behavioral component of loyalty in the context of retail banking. Data collected from a sample of 293 retail banking customers have been analyzed through structural equation modeling. The study results suggested two constraint promoting factors and one dedication promoting factor which supported loyalty. The study contributes to knowledge by empirically testing the qualitative model and coming out with empirically proven dedication-promoting and constraint-promoting loyalty supporting factors.     

Access to financing and firm growth

Why do some firms grow faster than others? Although various observed and unobserved aspects of firms have been suggested as potential drivers of firm heterogeneity, economists disagree sharply on the role of financial structure in influencing firm growth. In this paper, I use a sample of quoted and unquoted firms to show that the effect of financial structure on firm growth is statistically significant and quantitatively important. In the presence of external financing constraints, firms rely more on internal funds to finance growth, but the effect of internal financing on firm growth decreases with an increase in the firm’s access to an external bank credit facility. As the external financing constraint is alleviated, the firm relies less on internal funds and switches to external financing as the primary source of financing for its growth. This pattern of transition between internal and external financing is particularly pronounced in small unquoted firms (conditional on their survival). These results suggest a real effect of financial structure on growth via the channel of an external financing constraint.     

Spatial patterns and economic contributions of mining and tourism in biodiversity hotspots: A case study in China

Mining activities and tourism are both growing fast in biodiversity intense areas globally. However, the dynamic and interactions between mining and tourism when they both occur in biodiversity hotspots, and how they together may impact the economy and environment in these biodiversity rich areas, remain unclear. This paper examined how the two industries interact in terms of their economic contributions and spatial patterns in a biodiversity hotspot, Yunnan, China. We used correlation analyses to measure the relationships between mining activities, tourism visits and local gross domestic productions. We also employed a distance-based technique to investigate the nature of any dependency between mining and tourism sites. Results showed that mining activities tend to be in relatively fluent areas while tourism tends to occur in less developed areas. Our results showed that the location of tourism and mining sites are likely to be close to one another but the two industries usually perform better economically when they are apart from each other. These findings can provide insights on how mining and tourism together may impact the economy and environment in biodiversity rich areas, and provide important information for managers and planners on balancing mining and tourism development in these areas.