Category Archives: Marketing

Marketing

Revisiting the Brand Luxury Index: new empirical evidence and future directions

Francisco J Conejo, Lawrence F Cunningham, Clifford E Young
Journal of Brand Management,Pages: 1-15.
Studies increasingly question the robustness of luxury marketing’s most prominent scale, Vigneron and Johnson’s (J Brand Manag 11 (6): 484-506, 2004) Brand Luxury Index (BLI). However, these studies’ isolated and occasionally obscure nature has kept this issue outside marketing’s mainstream. Given the contextual/methodological differences between these studies, calls to evaluate the BLI further, and the importance of ascertaining this instrument’s robustness, this research is the first to systematically address the issue and provide more conclusive evidence of BLI performance. This paper comprises four studies with US students, Chinese students, US consumers, and pooled data. Results consistently indicate that the BLI is factorially unstable. On average, only 30% of its items operate adequately. The present results confirm growing BLI concerns. We conclude that luxury brand dimensionality remains

Marketing

Addressing Construct Intensity in Entrepreneurship: Log-Transformed Guttman Scaling with Need for Achievement as Exemplar

Francisco J. Conejo, Clifford E. Young, Ben Wooliscroft, Madhavan Parthasarathy
Entrepreneurship Research Journal,
Unlike physical science, entrepreneurship lacks measurement units through which to quantify constructs properly. This study explores the viability of logarithmically transformed Guttman scaling (GS). Need for Achievement (nAch), a quintessential entrepreneurial feature, illustrates the technique’s application. A valid and reliable 10-item Guttman nAch scale is developed, its unidimensionality psychometrically confirmed. Compliant with measurement theory, the scale offers concatenatable units that quantify nAch intensity. GS is a viable complement to psychometric methods, a useful addition to entrepreneurship’s methodological repertoire. Researchers are encouraged to expand their view of entrepreneurial constructs. Also approaching them from an intensity perspective offers fertile ground for future inquiry.

Marketing

Better stories for social media branding

Francisco J Conejo
Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing,Vol. 6, Issue 3, Pages: 228-240.
As frequently touted in books, articles and presentations, storytelling plays a vital role in social media branding. However, perusal of what is done in the field reveals that social media storytelling remains lacking. This paper revisits literary theory, without getting too technical, to briefly address some storytelling fundamentals. It covers key elements such as themes, settings, characters and plots. It also discusses ancillary considerations such as story openings and endings, length, temporal linearity, episodes, sub-plots, rhythm and syncopation, tension, authenticity and transmedia distribution. In doing so, the paper provides broad guidelines as to how practitioners might improve their social media storytelling, and thereby, their branding.

Marketing

Bridging past and present entrepreneurial marketing research: A co-citation and bibliographic coupling analysis

Fabian Most, Francisco J Conejo, Lawrence F Cunningham
Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship,Vol. 20, Issue 2, Pages: 229-251.
Purpose Literature in entrepreneurial marketing (EM) continues to grow in volume and diversity. This paper aims to examine the topical structure of EM’s literature toward guiding research in the field. Design/methodology/approach A four-phase bibliometric research design is implemented, encompassing co-citation and bibliographic-coupling analyses, network analysis, factor analysis and correspondence analysis. Findings In total, 14 EM literature clusters, comprising 7 topical meta-clusters, are mapped and discussed: the 7 clusters are resources and capabilities, entrepreneurial orientation (EO), measurement, EO/marketing orientation (MO) integration, MO, international entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. Originality/value These topical streams confirm, refine and extend prior bibliometric studies. A more comprehensive, extensive and reliable picture of EM’s literature is provided, the result of using

Information Systems, Marketing

The Role of Service Recovery in Online Privacy Violation

Bidyut B Hazarika, James Gerlach, Lawrence Cunningham
International Journal of E-Business Research (IJEBR),Vol. 14, Issue 4, Pages: 1-27.
In this study, the authors address the question of whether firms may successfully pursue service recovery strategies after severe online privacy violations. The study treats online privacy violations as a service failure and uses justice theory to measure repurchasing intention after consumer complaints in three different scenarios. The three scenarios differ in the sense that the accountability and the outcome of the service failure are different. The results indicate that despite the different instances of online privacy violation in each scenario, the service recovery efforts consistently created satisfaction with service recovery, significantly increased consumer trust, decreased perceived risk and increased repurchase intentions. The study finds that that both distributive and procedural justice plays an important role in online service recovery while interactional justice did not have any impact. Finally, even in cases of severe

Marketing

A Comparison of Excess Stock Market Return to Standard Marketing Metrics

Vicki Lane, Madhavan Parthasarathy
Research, Practices, and Innovations in Global Risk and Contingency Management (Book),Pages: 20-37.
Marketing metrics provide measures of the impact of various marketing strategies. This paper examines excess stock market return as a potential measure to include in the metric arsenal. Excess stock return reflects investors’ views of the likely impact of a particular strategy. Investors form expectations about how the strategy will affect future cash flows. Consequently, a stock’s price changes to reflect investor “votes” about the strategy’s impact on firm value. By tapping into event study techniques for measuring the impact of an announcement, firms can better understand the value of a particular marketing strategy. An assessment of various marketing measures indicates that excess stock market return compares favorably to other metrics. Excess return yields unbiased estimates, allows direct causal inference, is future oriented, includes all cash flows, accounts for opportunity costs, factors in risk, and takes into account

Marketing

Does brand partnership create a happy marriage? The role of brand value on brand alliance outcomes of partners

Zixia Cao, Ruiliang Yan
Industrial Marketing Management,Vol. 67, Pages: 148-157.
In this paper, we investigate an under-researched issue by examining the financial performances of both partner firms in a brand alliance. We find that a participating firm’s brand value and other brand characteristics are associated with not only its own financial performance but also its partner’s financial gains from the collaboration. Our results show that the participating firm gains higher stock returns when its partner’s brand value is higher. However, brand value differential reduces the positive effect of brand value on the partner firm’s financial performance. In addition, the primary partner’s brand alliance experience helps increase the positive effect of primary partner’s brand value on the stock returns of the secondary partner. The secondary partner’s brand exploitation attenuates the positive effect of secondary partner’s brand value on the stock returns of the primary brand firm.

Information Systems, Marketing

Factors affecting the long-term survival of eBay ventures: a longitudinal study

Dawn Gregg and Madhavan Parthasarathy
Small Business Economics, Vol. 49, Issue 2, August 2017 pp. 405–419

With 40% of the world able to access the internet, online marketplaces provide the small entrepreneur with a hitherto incomprehensible opportunity to reach a global audience with very low barriers to entry and low risk. Yet, academic research has not studied the factors unique to online businesses that affect their long-term survival. This study is the first of its kind that does so using data gathered from eBay’s feedback system in 2004, 2009, and 2013. The results present data on the rate of discontinuance of eBay ventures. Further, a logistic regression analysis suggests that unique factors such as venture size, age, and feedback reputation positively influence the likelihood of long-term survival of an eBay venture. Based on these results and the ensuing discussion, implications for researchers and practitioners are provided.

Information Systems, Marketing

The Impact of the Internet on Values in India: Shifts in Self-Enhancement and Self-Transcendence Amongst Indian Youth

Vicki R Lane, Jiban Khuntia, Madhavan Parthasarathy, Bidyut B Hazarika
Journal of Global Information Management (JGIM),Vol. 25, Issue 3, Pages: 98-120.

In this study, the authors examine how the internet is changing two critical personal value dimensions of India’s youth. Based on values theory, and using data that spans a decade from 2004-2014, they contend that time spent on the internet is an influential factor in changing self-enhancement and self-transcendence values. Given the tremendous increase in exposure to western products, ideals, and people-to-people interaction via internet connectivity (India has over 275 million internet users who communicate in the …
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Marketing

Improving Social Media Brand Personas Using Archetypes

Francisco J. Conejo
Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing,Vol. 5, Issue 2, Pages: 189-202.
Conventional social media brand personas, mirroring target markets, suffer limitations: they lack consistency, uniqueness, genuineness and unity, which affects the overall brand positioning. To improve social media brand personas, Jungian archetypes are advised. Not only do archetypal brand personas overcome the above limitations, but they are particularly suited for the social media context. Stemming from the collective unconscious, archetypal brand personas tap into fundamental patterns hardwired into the human mind since ancestral times. They are more meaningful and engaging, and better able to cut through the current social media clutter. This paper presents an archetypal brand persona development process, and insights as to how it might be better implemented.

Marketing

Product returns, asymmetric information, and firm performance

Ruiliang Yan, Zixia Cao
International Journal of Production Economics,Vol. 185, Pages: 211-222.

There has been a scarcity of research that studies the value of product return information to supply chain firms. In this research, we assume that the online retailer has the product return information but the manufacturer does not. Our results show that a two-part price contract can motivate the online retailer to share its private information only under certain condition, but the revenue sharing contract plus profit split mechanism always is a valuable strategy to be utilized to seek sharing the online retailer’s private information and …
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Business Analytics, Marketing

A Technical/Strategic Paradigm for Online Executive Education

Marlene A Smith, Susan M Keaveney
Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education,Vol. 15, Issue 1, Pages: 82-100.

This article discusses the development and delivery of online courses for the executive education audience. The goal is to introduce a new framework, the technical/strategic paradigm, that will help educators to identify the pedagogical needs of disparate executive groups and adjust their online course development plans accordingly. We describe how four key elements of online courses (course structure, content-based learning materials, assignments, and learning assessment) should be fashioned in a way …
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Marketing

Is brand alliance always beneficial to firms?

Ruiliang Yan, Zixia Cao
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,Vol. 34, Pages: 193-200.

In this research, we develop a fresh analytical model to examine the impact of brand quality on the firms’ performances when two firms selling substitute products form a brand alliance. Our results indicate that when two products have equal brand qualities, brand alliance is always a beneficial strategy for two firms to employ. However, when two products have different brand qualities, brand quality differential shows a positive relationship with the profit of the firm with the low-quality brand but demonstrates a …
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Marketing

Exploring Brand Personality Scale Development Using Rasch Modelling

Francisco J. Conejo, Ben Wooliscroft, Andrea Insch
Marketing Bulletin,Vol. 27, Issue 1, Pages: 1-23.
Scales in marketing rarely comply with measurement theory’s unidimensionality, invariance and concatenation requirements. To address this, Rasch Modelling is applied to the Brand Personality (BP) construct, redefined as the set of human mental traits consistently associated to brands across situations and time. Ten Rasch BP scales are developed, positive and negative ones for each Big Five personality dimension. A first step towards actual BP measures, these scales lay the foundations for refinement. Addressing the notion of measurement itself, this paper highlights the importance of considering constructs from an intensity perspective, likely fertile ground for future marketing research.

Marketing

Revisiting the causes of organizational discontinuance: A diffusion theory approach offers new insights

Madhavan Parthasarathy, David Forlani
Journal of Business Market Management,Vol. 9, Issue 2, Pages: 650-676.

The purpose of this research was to develop a framework capable of classifying the reasons behind the discontinuance of supplier-distributor relationships. Using a sample of CEO’s who manage intra-national and multi-national firms, a study was run to test a typology of discontinuance built around diffusion theory’s source of influence construct (eg, the origin and valence of the information that initiates a discontinuance decision). The three types are called New Day, Strike 3 and Greener Grass. Results support the proposed typology and …
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