Category Archives: Marketing

Information Systems, Marketing

An Exploratory Study of Conflict over Paying Debian Developers

James H Gerlach, Chorng-Guang Wu, Lawrence F Cunningham, Clifford E Young
International Journal of Open Source Software and Processes (IJOSSP),Vol. 7, Issue 3, Pages: 20-38.

This article reports on an exploratory study of the causes and effects of conflict within the open source software project, Debian. Conflict arose when the project leader decided to introduce payment for select volunteers within an all-volunteer project to speed up the release of Debian. The study utilized the theoretical framework of Boltanski and Thvenot for understanding disputes. The results of the survey of Debian developers show that the conditions for conflict were complex and were driven by perception of misuse of …
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Marketing

Health Creates Wealth? The Use of Nutrition Claims and Firm Financial Performance

Zixia Cao, Ruiliang Yan
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing,Vol. 35, Issue 1, Pages: 58-75.

Prior research has investigated consumers’ perceptions of nutritional information but does not detail how the use of nutrition claims on product packages may be associated with a manufacturer’s financial performance. Using data from 38 firms, the authors find evidence that a firm’s stock market performance and sales relate significantly and positively to both the degree of nutritional emphasis and the specificity of nutrition claims on product packages but relate negatively to the diversity of nutrition claims the company uses across …
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Marketing

Manufacturer’s cooperative advertising, demand uncertainty, and information sharing

Ruiliang Yan, Zixia Cao, Zhi Pei
Journal of Business Research,Vol. 69, Issue 2, Pages: 709-717.

We assume a manufacturer-retailer supply chain where the manufacturer opens an online channel and provides a monetary support to the retailer to implement a local advertising campaign. Both the manufacturer and the retailer have their own information about the state of market demand. We thus examine the value of manufacturer’s cooperative advertising and its strategic influence on information sharing of the manufacturer and the retailer. Our results show that the manufacturer’s cooperative advertising coordinates the …
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Marketing

Unraveling religious advertisements’ effectiveness in a multi-religious society

Rajeev Kumra, Madhavan Parthasarathy, Shafiullah Anis
Journal of Indian Business Research,Vol. 8, Issue 2, Pages: 122-142.

The key research issue addressed in this paper is whether individuals perceive advertisements featuring themes from their own religion more positively, and advertisements featuring religious themes from other religions less positively, than neutral ads. In the process, this paper aims to test whether the in-group bias theory (IGBT) and the polarized appraisal theory (PAT) apply in a religious context. Design/methodology/approach Respondents in a large Indian University were shown advertisements featuring Hindu and …
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Marketing

Brands Defined as Semiotic Marketing Systems

Francisco Conejo and Ben Wooliscroft
Journal of Macromarketing, Volume 35 Issue 3, pp. 287-301

Brands are one of marketing’s main foci. But while the American Marketing Association’s official marketing definition continues to evolve, its brand definition has remained stagnant for nearly 80 years. This article argues that the AMA’s simplistic trademark conceptualization of brands is increasingly out of touch with marketing theory and practice. Integrating the consumer culture, marketing semiotics, and General Systems Theory literatures, we re-conceptualize brands as semiotic marketing systems. This follows marketing systems being core to macromarketing. It also obeys marketing systems needing to contemplate their meaning infrastructures given today’s progressively symbolic markets. The antecedents, operation and benefits of this new systems approach to brands are discussed. Brands are re-defined as complex multidimensional constructs with varying degrees of meaning, independence, co-creation and scope. Brands are semiotic marketing systems that generate value for direct and indirect participants, society, and the broader environment, through the exchange of co-created meaning.

Marketing

Time-based Analysis of Changing Consumer Values in India

Madhavan Parthasarathy, Vicki Lane, Mary Lee Stansifer
Journal of Indian Business Research, Volume 7, Issue 3, Pp. 271-291

Purpose – This paper aims to document changes in values of young Indian consumers over a 10-year period from 2004 to 2014. Given increases in per-capita income and living standards and, particularly, the tremendous increase in exposure to global products and ideals via media advertising, and greater one-to-one interaction with Americans and other English-speaking people from individualistic cultures (India has over 250 million Internet users who communicate in the English language), it was proposed that young Indian consumers would adopt values associated with self-enhancement and individualism, forsaking self-transcendence-related ideals such as benevolence and universalism.

Design/methodology/approach – Data pertaining to the Rokeach value scale (RVS) were collected in New Delhi in 2004 and 2014 and tested using MANOVA.

Findings – The results strongly support the contentions, save a couple of surprises. Implications of this dramatic change in values in a relatively short period are discussed from a marketing perspective.

Originality/value – This is the first paper that empirically measures changing consumer values in India.

Marketing

A time-based analysis of changing consumer values in India

Madhavan Parthasarathy, Vicki Lane, Mary Lee Stansifer
Journal of Indian Business Research,Vol. 7, Issue 3, Pages: 271-291.

Purpose-This paper aims to document changes in values of young Indian consumers over a 10-year period from 2004 to 2014. Given increases in per-capita income and living standards and, particularly, the tremendous increase in exposure to global products and ideals via media advertising, and greater one-to-one interaction with Americans and other English-speaking people from individualistic cultures (India has over 250 million Internet users who communicate in the English language), it was proposed that young Indian …
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Marketing

Measuring the financial value of marketing strategy with excess stock market return

Vicki Lane
International Journal of Risk and Contingency Management (IJRCM), Volume 3, Issue 4, Pp. 16

This paper proposes excess stock market return as a way to measure the impact of marketing strategy on firm value. First, it provides an overview of event study method. An event study examines the excess return to a firm’s stock price after the release of information that is relevant to the firm’s financial success. Second, it shows how excess return captures a marketing strategy’s impact on firm value. It presents a model that illustrates how a marketing strategy impacts consumers, future cash flows, firm value, investor’s expectations, and excess return. Third, a comparison shows that excess return stacks up well against standard marketing 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 the time value of money.

Business Analytics, International Business, Marketing

Apology Strategies for Informal Complaints in Service Recovery and CRM Systems

Deborah L. Kellogg and Lawrence F. Cunningham
International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change, Volume 5 Issue 3

This paper reports the results of a quasi-experiment designed to identify linkages between customer attributes and apology types in service recovery in informal resolution settings. Understanding these relationships is critical for enabling more effective and dynamic social relationships between the service provider and the customer/client with the use of technology, namely Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM). The authors find that simple apologies decrease anger, restore distributive and interactional justice, and increase satisfaction. More importantly, the paper suggests that there are significant nuances in apology types and complex relationships between customer types and effective deployment of the apology in informal resolution settings. Further, the analysis suggests that apologies with explanations are more effective among customers with service experience and that apologies with compensation are most effective for all customers. When apologies are used with successive failures there is some evidence that the apology explanations are not equally effective for all customer types. The paper concludes with a discussion of the linkages between apology, service recovery and CRM systems in informal complaint resolution to improve senior level decision making, employee performance in service recovery, and customer satisfaction in for profit and non-profit organizations.

Marketing

Service Perceptions in China

Lawrence F. Cunningham, Clifford E. Young and Hongxia Zhang
Journal of International Marketing Strategy,Vol. 1, Issue 2, pp. 39-XX

This study investigates customer-based views of generic services from a Chinese consumer perspective. The data for the study were collected using students in a university setting as surrogates for Chinese consumers and were analyzed using a multidimensional scaling technique. The study indicates that only two dimensions, customization/standardization and person/object are responsible for most of the variance in the classifications. The paper discusses the implications of the findings in both the context of theory and for service businesses operating in the Chinese environment. The study is limited by the use of university students as surrogates for consumer and the limitations of multi-dimensional scaling. Despite these limitations, the study is useful to Chinese managers of service organizations because it provides information on how Chinese consumers view generic services in general and in relation to each other in the Chinese environment. Chinese managers may gain insight into the possible ways that these managers may reposition their service in relation to other services. For Chinese service managers, this information may lead to the formulation of better strategy especially in the area of non-technical services.
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Marketing

How Task Structure and Outcome Comparisons Influence Women’s and Men’s Risk-Taking Self-Efficacies: A Multi-Study Exploration

David Forlani
Psychology & Marketing, Vol, Issue 12, pages 1088–1107, December 2013

To explore inconsistent findings in the perceived self-efficacy and entrepreneurship literatures as they relate to the type of complex, risky decisions (i.e., those that commit financial resources to generate new revenue) made by marketing managers, entrepreneurs, and corporate intrapreneurs, this paper uses a series of four theoretically driven, empirical studies to investigate gender differences in risk-taking self-efficacies (i.e., one’s perceived abilities to make financially risky, business development decisions). The results indicate the following: (1) no gender differences in risk-taking self-efficacies absent a task; (2) after performing a complex, risk-laden task, the risk-taking self-efficacies of subjects receiving negatively valenced outcome information and women were less than those of subjects receiving positively valenced outcome information and men; (3) this effect remains for women when experience in the task domain is high and when diagnostic information about prior outcomes is provided; (4) the reason for the effect appears to be that men and women use information about their prior decision’s outcomes differently when assessing their risk-taking self-efficacies; and (5) the effect disappears when social cues intended to facilitate accurate performance comparisons are introduced into the task environment. These findings support existing theories, identify areas needing development, and show how these effects can limit participation in both complex, risk-laden tasks and careers that are thought to involve performing such tasks.

International Business, Marketing

Comparing Hybrid Services in the United States and China

Lawrence F Cunningham, Clifford E Young, Zuohao Hu
International Journal of Information Systems in the Service Sector (IJISSS), Vol 5 Issue 1, 2013, 17-32

This paper examines how customers view a set of hybrid services (eleven generic and self-service technologies) in the US and China. The data are collected using questionnaires on location in the US and China and are analyzed using multidimensional scaling. The study indicates that two dimensions, customization/standardization and high/low contact, explain over 80% of the variance in the classifications. Although there are differences when comparing the results of the US and China samples, the results are very …

Marketing

Wedded bliss or tainted love? Stock market reactions to the introduction of cobranded products

Zixia Cao, Alina Sorescu
Marketing Science,Vol. 32, Issue 6, Pages: 939-959.

We examine whether cobrandingthe practice of using two established brand names on the same productincreases the market value of parent firms. Using data from the consumer packaged goods industry, we document that the average stock market reaction to the announcement of cobranded new products is approximately+ 1.0%. We hypothesize that this reaction is significantly higher than it would have been if these same products were single branded, and we find evidence consistent with this hypothesis. We also examine …
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Marketing

Personifying brands to improve their design, management and effectiveness

Francisco Conejo
INCAE Business Review, Volume 2 Issue 7, p2-8.

Brands have evolved into complex symbols which are difficult to manage. Personify the brand reconciles brand’s abstract meanings with practitioner’s pragmatism. That is, conceptualizing brands as if they were people, attributing human qualities to them. This approach not only allows the development of more competitive brands.

Marketing

Corporate Social Responsibility and Its Impact on Service Quality, Consumer Trust and Loyalty

Moonkyu Lee, Hae, Ryong Kim, Kwanghee Yoo, Lawrence Cunningham, and Namin Kim
Journal of International Marketing Strategy,Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 52-XX

This study investigates the effects of Corporate Social Responsibility (or CSR) fulfillment on consumer loyalty in the service market environment by comparing them with the effects of marketing mix strategies. This study also examines two potential mediating factors (i.e., service quality and consumer trust) in understanding how CSR relates to consumer loyalty. The results show that CSR performance builds customer trust, which leads to customer loyalty. CSR activities also affect customer perceptions of service quality although their effect is weaker than that of marketing mix strategies. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study for researchers and marketers.

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Information Systems, Marketing

The Influence of Open Source Software Volunteer Developers’ Motivations and Attitudes on Intention to Contribute

Chorng-Guang Wu, James H Gerlach, Clifford E Young
Open Source Software Dynamics, Processes, and Applications, pp. 231-259

This study differs from previous studies on open source software (OSS) developer motivation by drawing upon theories of volunteerism and work motivation to investigate the motives and attitudes of OSS volunteer developers. The role of commitment is specifically interesting, which is well established in the volunteerism and work motivation literature as a predictor of turnover and positively related to work performance, but has been overlooked by OSS researchers. The authors have developed a research model relating …

Marketing

The Eyes Have It: How a Car’s Face Influences Consumer Categorization and Evaluation of Product Line Extensions

Susan M. Keaveney, Andreas Herrmann,
Rene Befurt, and Jan R. Landwehr
Psychology and Marketing Vol. 29, Issue 1, pages 36–51

This research focuses on a previously unexamined risk associated with the widely used new product development strategy of line extensions. Specifically, it explores consumer reactions when line extensions become too visually similar and examines both short-term and longer term strategies for solving the problem. Examined in the context of consumer durables, specifically, automobiles, the results show that consumers who make categorization mistakes when trying to distinguish between two visually similar product lines have more negative attitudes not only toward the product but also toward the parent brand. The results of Study 1 confirm that providing a design vocabulary that articulates the car’s design features is effective in reducing consumer’s categorization mistakes. In addition, results of Study 2 indicate that changes to the car’s “eyes” (headlights) are more effective than changes to the car’s “mouth” (grille) in helping consumers to differentiate among cars in the line.

Entrepreneurship, Marketing

Do satisfied customers bad-mouth innovative products?

Parthasarathy, Madhavan and Forlani, David
Psychology & Marketing; Dec. 2010, Vol. 27 Issue 12, pp. 1134-1153

For many years marketing academics have recommended, and practitioners have implemented, organization-wide programs that measure customers’ levels of satisfaction with a firm’s offerings because it is believed that satisfied customers are both more likely to continue using a previously adopted product and less likely to engage in negative word-of-mouth communication. Given the ubiquity of product-review forums resulting from today’s increasing levels of e-commerce, this paper pairs cause constructs from the diffusion literature with effect constructs from the satisfaction and services literatures to reconsider that perspective. Specifically, it examines the relationships bet-ween six perceived innovation attributes known to influence a new product’s diffusion process and two post-adoption behaviors, satisfaction and negative word-of-mouth communication. The results quash previous assumptions that satisfaction mediates negative word-of-mouth communication and reveal that satisfied customers do speak ill of previously adopted products. Implications for both theory and practice are also presented.

Marketing

Do satisfied customers badmouth innovative products?

Madhavan Parthasarathy, David Forlani
Psychology & Marketing,Vol. 27, Issue 12, Pages: 1134-1153.

For many years marketing academics have recommended, and practitioners have implemented, organization-wide programs that measure customers’ levels of satisfaction with a firm’s offerings because it is believed that satisfied customers are both more likely to continue using a previously adopted product and less likely to engage in negative word-of-mouth communication. Given the ubiquity of product-review forums resulting from today’s increasing levels of e-commerce, this paper pairs cause constructs from the diffusion …
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Marketing

A longitudinal exploratory study of changing perceptions toward an iconic brand in a developing country

Madhavan Parthasarathy, MaryLee Stansifer, and Rajeev Kumra
Journal of Indian Business Research, Vol. 2 Iss: 3, pp.138 – 152

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the changing perceptions of an iconic American product, namely Levi Jeans, in a rapidly developing country, namely Costa Rica, over a 20-year period from 1988 to 2008.

Design/methodology/approach – Changing perceptions were measured with regard to product attributes (e.g. relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and risk), and experience-related attributes (e.g. product durability, fit, comfort, and price). Further, the changing influence of these variables on repurchase intentions was measured. Data collected in 1988 and again in 2008 at a large Costa Rican university were compared.

Findings – The results suggest that globalization, increased competition, and cultural individualization have reduced Levis’ attribute advantages and thus brand equity. Implications for branding in other developing countries, especially India, are provided.

Practical implications – Modern Indian consumers are more picky, and are more concerned with lifestyle fit and observability issues. This combined with the growing affluent youth market in India leads to specific suggestions on how Levi can approach marketing strategy in the Indian market.

Originality/value – The paper is unique in that it is a longitudinal study of changing perceptions with data collected over a 20-year time period. Further, it provides specific recommendations for apparel manufacturers aiming to enter the Indian and other rapidly developing markets.