Recall and recognition effects of brand name imagery

The strategic marketing decision regarding the selection of a brand name has long been an area neglected by academic researchers. This study attempts to apply psychological theory to this important strategic decision area. Specifically, the applicability of a dual-coding theory of memory to brand name recall/recognition is tested in an experimental setting. Results indicate, on average, a significant one hour and two day recall/recognition advantage of high imagery over low imagery brand names across a variety of product categories.     

Earnings on the Information Technology Roller Coaster: Insight from Matched Employer-Employee Data

This article uses matched employer-employee data for the State of Georgia to examine workers' earnings experience through the information technology (IT) sector's employment boom of the mid-1990s and bust in the early 2000s. The results show that even after controlling for pre-boom individual characteristics, transitioning out of the IT sector to a non-IT industry generally resulted in a large wage penalty. However, IT service workers who transitioned to a non-IT industry still fared better than workers who took a non-IT employment path. For IT manufacturing workers, there is no benefit to having been touched by technology, likely because of the nontransferability of manufacturing experience to other industries.     

Information processing and innovative choice

In this paper we examine how the information processing of subjects who make an innovative choice (innovators) differs from that of subjects who make a noninnovative choice (noninnovators). The task involves selection of an alternative within a range of prerated product category innovativeness. We propose that subjects who seek 1) impersonal/uncontrollable sources, 2) higher levels of information, 3) more detailed (versus summary) data, and 4) noncomparative (versus comparative) data are more likely to make innovative choices. The research method is a computerized process tracing experiment utilizing Search Monitor (Brucks 1988).The authors wish to express their gratitude to Merrie Brucks for the use of and help with Search Monitor and to Eric Johnson, Dave Schmittlein, and Mita Sujan for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Estimation of household preferences for long distance telecommunications carrier

The competitive environment in long-distance telecommunications markets changed considerably with the divestiture of AT&T in 1982. A variety of providers appeared, offering myriad services. In this environment, customer selection of preferred long-distance carrier became more complicated and more important.In this paper, we analyze and quantify the determinants of this choice. To our knowledge, this focus is distinct. By contrast, the literature to date has analyzed the behavioral determinants of calling volume (local and long-distance) and the selection of local service options.In our analysis, we allow the alternative carriers to differ in terms of tariffs, reputation, quality, access, and specialized customer services. We quantify the interactive effects of these carrier attributes and customer demographics upon the selection of carrier. Price and income elasticities are estimated. A distinguishing feature of our analysis is that it examines behavioral differences among households in equal-access and unequal-access areas. We find that households assured of the convenience of 1 + dialling for their chosen carrier in equal-access areas display more rational and sophisticated decision making. On the other hand, households in unequal-access areas display greater status quo effects in their decision making.     

Selection dynamics and adaptive behavior without much information

This paper uses the experimental method to investigate behavior in a coordination game when the information available to subjects is limited to their feasible choices and their experienced payoffs. In the experiment subjects converge to an absorbing state at rates that are orders of magnitude faster than reinforcement learning algorithms, but slower than under complete information. This state is very close to a mutual best response outcome. All cohorts converged to the market statistic predicted by the interior equilibrium regardless of the information conditions or the stability conditions. Eric Battalio programmed the graphical user interface. The National Science Foundation and Texas Advanced Research Program provided financial support. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Texas Advanced Research Program.     

Hospitals and material management in the coming decade

The 1990s will be a decade of increasing dramatic and traumatic change for hospitals. Reimbursement, technology, and consumers, either alone or in concert, will be the forces that will shape hospitals in the future. At the end of the 1990s we will have hospitals that offer technology to the critically ill, outpatient surgical services, and comforting care for those in the late years of life. Material management will be important to hospitals because expense control will be as important as ever. However, I believe the role of a material manager will diminish as the services provided change and as the role is folded into the responsibilities of those who manage one of the three critical business areas hospitals will be in. This new hybrid of today's manager will still apply all of the concepts to the distribution of supplies in a hospital as today's material managers do but will use them as only a part of their overall management responsibility.     

Credible assignments in coordination games

This paper uses the experimental method to examine an arbiter's ability to determine the outcome of two-person coordination games. All of the arbiter's assignments in the experiments were strict equilibrium points, but some assignments violated payoff-dominance or symmetry. An assignment that corresponds to the game's outcome is a credible assignment. The experiments test the hypothesis that an assignment to a strict equilibrium is a credible assignment. Our subjects did not find the individual rationality and mutual consistency of an equilibrium assignment to be sufficient reason for implementing the assignment when doing so conflicts with payoff-dominance or symmetry.     

A comparative analysis of perception of dividends by financial managers

This paper is a report about the perception of dividends by Chief financial officers (CFOs). The research encompasses five countries, on three continents, and covers three types of economies. Our cross-sectional study is concerned with both inter- and intra-societal differences that may or may not exist regarding the perception of dividends by those who are in charge of making such decisions in the firm. Using a survey instrument, we find that both similarities and dissimilarities exist inter- and intra-culturally. Perhaps the most important conclusion we reach is that dividend research must take a different track than it has been following so far.