Business Commons^™

Covid-19 And Consumer Eating Patterns: Analysis Of The Impact On The Meal Kit Industry In The United States, Dorian Bizeau

Honors Program Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze consumer eating patterns through the emergence of COVID-19, and explain the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Meal Kit industry. Through the utilization of qualitative and quantitative analysis, the paper will apply source material to the research question. The research question for this study is: “How did COVID-19's emergence impact the Meal Kit industry?” An overarching theme is social behaviors adaptation. Adaptations occurred as a result of COVID-19's emergence. The qualitative data suggests the behaviors correlated with the strengths and weaknesses of the Meal Kit industry. A key finding revealed in …

Fashioning The Flapper: Clothing As A Catalyst For Social Change In 1920s America, Julia Wolffe

Honors Program Theses

Fashion has been a catalyst for social change throughout human history. Fashion in 1920s America in particular reflects society's rapidly evolving attitudes towards gender and race. Beginning with how corsetry heavily restricted women for nearly four hundred years up until the twentieth century, this thesis explores how clothing has acted as a tool for societal progression following World War I and Women's Suffrage and during the Jazz Age and The Harlem Renaissance. Specifically, this thesis examines how the influence of jazz music and dance that originated from Black American communities led to the creation of the flapper evening dress. The …

Racial Composition In Advertisements And Its Effects On White Consumers' Perceptions And Purchase Intention, Chung-Ting Wang

Honors Program Theses

Previous marketing research has generally not examined how ethnic majority consumers perceive advertisements featuring mixed racial compositions of model groups. This paper presents an investigation into how White consumers’ perceptions and purchase intentions change depending on the racial composition of the people represented in an advertisement. The study uses a single 12-condition experiment, in which we examine the type of advertisement (product vs. social advocacy advertising), racial composition (all-White vs. diverse mix vs. all-Black), and racial priming effects (racially-primed vs. racially-neutral message). Additionally, consumers’ levels of self-referencing to the ad and strength of ethnic identification are explored as possible mediation …

Moving Beyond Traditional Sponsorships: Understanding The Structure And Dynamics Of Minority Equity Sponsorship Agreements, Furkan Amil Gur, Adrien Bouchet, Brian Walkup, Jonathan A. Jesen

Faculty Publications

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to understand the structure and dynamics of minority equity sponsorship agreements and the motivations for organizations to go beyond traditional sponsorships by acquiring minority equity in the sponsored organization.

Design/methodology approach - This paper adopts a qualitative methodology and presents interview data from key actors involved in minority equity sponsorship agreements. Findings - The findings of the paper include major characteristics of minority equity sponsorship agreements including the motivations, dynamics, and resources exchanged by sponsoring firms and clubs in these relationships, based on the experiences of key actors from firms, clubs, and …

Brand Hate And Brand Forgiveness - A Dynamic Analysis, Alexandra Sampedro

Honors Program Theses

Purpose – Despite the vast research regarding customer brand relationships, and the positive feelings towards brand, there is little research on negative feelings towards brand. Despite the importance of brand hate and brand forgiveness, no research assesses how brand hate evolve over time and how this relates to brand forgiveness. The purpose of this thesis is to address this gap. Design/Methodology/Approach – We used a multi-method approach. First, we conducted a series of 30 in-depths interviews to explore these concepts and develop our research model. Second, we conducted a survey by using MTurk to obtain U.S. representative sample of 506 …

The Medical Tourism Index: Scale Development And Validation, Marc Fetscherin, Renee-Marie Stephano

Faculty Publications

Medical tourism is an estimated $100 billion dollar industry. Despite the increasing number of people, companies and countries involved in medical tourism, we know very little about the key drivers and how countries are perceived as medical tourism destinations. The purpose of this paper is to present the Medical Tourism Index, a new type of country-based performance measure to assess the attractiveness of a country as a medical tourist destination. We followed a rigorous multi-steps scale development procedure by using four empirical studies based on 4995 respondents. The MTI is a multidimensional construct with 4 dimensions (country, tourism, medical costs, …

The Power Of Brand Love, Marc Fetscherin, Ryan Barker, Jeffery Peacock

Faculty Publications

In this article we would like to respond to Romaniuk’s (2013) Viewpoint article "What’s (brand) love got to do with it?" and provide our point of view regarding brand love. While we agree with some of the limitations she points out in Batra et al.’s (2012) article, and acknowledge them, we disagree with her statement that there is ‘no evidence that building brand love leads to higher market share, sales or profitability’ (Romaniuk 2013, p. 185). It is conceivable that there was no evidence when she wrote the article in 2013. However, as this article illustrates, we have since 2013 …

Consumer Brand Relationships Landscape, Marc Fetscherin, Daniel Heinrich

Faculty Publications

This article sheds light on the current state of research on consumer brand relationships (CBR) and presents two distinct taxonomies, respectively, theoretical frameworks that help to classify CBR research. First, the 'brand connection matrix' that classifies brand relationships into functional-based (low versus high) and emotional-based (low versus high) connections to brands. This framework leads us with a 2 × 2 matrix consisting of four quadrants, each of which are discussed. Second, the 'brand feeling matrix' classifies consumer's relationships with brands by grouping them into the strengths of relationships (weak versus strong) and the consumers' feeling toward the brand (positive versus …

Quality Signals And Franchising Growth, Laura Lucia-Palacios, Victoria Bordonaba-Juste, Melih Madanoglu, Ilan Alon

Faculty Publications

The goal of this article is to demonstrate how signaling support services and contractual arrangements that create value for incumbent franchisees can help to create value for the whole network by attracting prospective franchisees.

A Study Of Visual Puffery In Fragrance Advertising: Is The Message Sent Stronger Than The Actual Scent?, Mark Toncar, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose - This paper investigates visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects’ expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations.

Design/methodology/approach - By means of a semiotic analysis we capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and we supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t-tests are used to compare …

The Importance Of The Historical Tang Dynasty In Place Branding Contemporary Xi'an, Norman Harry Rothschild, Ilan Alon, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the opportunity of utilizing Tang dynasty history, heritage, buildings and names in the effort to place brand the contemporary city Xi'an.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a conceptual framework for place branding cities consisting of two main dimensions. The first describes the continuum of functional versus emotional values within a city; the second measures the degree to which the image of a place is historical or contemporary. The paper then employs historical analysis to examine the meaning and construction of a Tang dynasty brand for place branding twenty-first century Xi'an. …

Science Diplomacy With Swissnex China: A Swiss Nation Brand Initiative, Flavia Schlegel, Olivier Jacot, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Switzerland has a long tradition of expertise in the fields of science, research and education, with “science diplomacy” (SD) now assuming an important role for innovation economies. Past experience shows that international scientific cooperation can have valuable outcomes for the involved countries and complements traditional foreign policy and diplomacy. In Switzerland, a worldwide network of science and technology outposts under the auspices of the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research (SER) in cooperation with the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) was established in 2000. The very swissnex network around the world defines one of those established science diplomacy …

The Main Determinants Of Bollywood Movie Box Office Sales, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

The Indian film industry produces more movies and sells more tickets than any other movie industry, with revenues second only to those of the US film industry. We employ a two-by-two research design using a set of multiple regression analyses for two different countries of destination for Bollywood movies for two dependent variables. By examining data and testing our hypotheses on a sample of 330 films, we identify effects related to brand, product, distribution and consumers on opening week as well as total box office sales both individually and collectively. Our results show that the categories of variables affecting Bollywood …

Branding In China: Alternative Brand Strategiesbranding In China: Global Product Strategy Alternatives, Ilan Alon, Romie F. Littrell, Allan K.K. Chan

Faculty Publications

This article reviews and discusses issues in translation of international brand names to Chinese, and provides a framework for international brand managers who want to expand into China. Linguistic differences between Chinese and English are wide and deep, making translation of brand names difficult. Cultural context, pronunciation, written vs. oral language, and meaning of characters are just a few examples of such difficulties. We discuss four global-product-naming strategic alternatives available to country/brand managers, along with their usage, and give examples of brands utilizing the different approaches. The four approaches we discuss include (1) dual extension, (2) brand meaning extension, (3) …

The Effects Of The Country Of Brand And The Country Of Manufacturing Of Automobiles: An Experimental Study Of Consumers' Brand Personality Perceptions, Marc Fetscherin, Mark Toncar

Faculty Publications

Purpose: This paper offers a new perspective of country of origin effects on consumers’ brand personality perceptions of domestic and imported automobiles. It assesses the perceived similarities and differences between automobiles from two countries with respect to the country of origin of the brand (COB) and the country of manufacturing (COM) of that same brand.

Design/methodology/approach: An experimental design was used to investigate developed country consumers’ brand personality perceptions of three cars; a domestic car, a car manufactured in a developing country by a developing country manufacturer, and a car from developing country manufacturer that is manufactured in the developed …

The Determinants And Measurement Of A Country Brand: The Country Brand Strength Index, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose: A strong country brand can stimulate exports, attract tourism, investments, and immigration. The purpose of this paper is to construct and present a country brand strength index (CBSI) which assesses the strength of a country brand based on objective secondary data.

Design/methodology/approach: By applying a company-based brand equity approach, we present a standardized country brand strength index.

Findings: Our results show that the countries with the strongest country brand are smaller, developed countries in Europe. Our proposed index leads to results similar to the widely used Anholt GfK Roper Nation Brand Index (NBI), which measures perceptions of a country …

Valuating Brand Equity And Product Related Attributes In The Context Of The German Automobile Market, Marc Fetscherin, Mark Toncar

Faculty Publications

The concept of consumer-based brand equity has been discussed widely in the literature and there are a wide variety of both quantitative and qualitative measures used to assess it. For the most part, previous research has studied the way a brand and product attributes are perceived in a consumer’s mind and the empirical data used in most studies is based on self-reported survey data. In this research, objective data from the largest German Automobile Association, including actual prices, objective quality ratings of product attributes and market share of brands are used to estimate their effect on the actual price set …

The State Of Research On Multinationals And Emerging Markets, Rajesh K. Pillania, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Emerging markets are increasingly becoming the growth drivers of the global economy and there is increased scrutiny and interest in emerging markets since the 1990s. The interest can be viewed from a demand and supply perspective. With a huge population and increasing income, emerging economies provide a big market for goods and services. Also, with talented manpower and low costs, emerging economies are supplying more and more goods and services to the world (Pillania, 2009). Multinational corporations (MNCs) play a very important role in global business and economy. There is an increased interest in research and explanation for emerging markets …