Business Commons^™

Enhancing Online Consumers' Anticipatory Behavior: An Application Of Transportation Theory, Seon Jeong Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

Identifying effective persuasion strategies to encourage consumers’ anticipatory behaviors on the Internet is important for marketers. With the development of technology, consumers tend to access the Internet before they make any purchase decisions. However, the extant literature has not fully investigated the role of persuasion in the online environment. This study aims to explore a relatively new persuasion theory—transportation theory—in the online context to investigate the impact of sensory, brand relationship, and social review type cues on consumers’ transportation experiences in the online environment. This dissertation consists of two studies that examine how sensory attributes, and personal and situation factors …

Effects Of Psychological Contract Breaches On Mergers And Acquisitions, Kristine M. Murphy

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates breaches in the psychological employment contract during mergers and acquisitions. An employee's contract is incomplete in regards to mergers and acquisitions (M&A). In its place, psychological contracts are formed. Common psychological contracts breached in the M&A process include raises, bonuses, promotions, job responsibilities, job security, and career development. Employees who have experienced an M&A were surveyed to test the severity of various psychological contract breaches and their effect on employee performance, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, organizational deviance, and turnover using t-tests, Structural Equation Modeling, and ANOVA. The mediating effect of feelings of violation was also tested. …

The Effects Of Advertised Exclusivity On Consumer Behavior, Danny Clyde Upshaw Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

Retailers routinely counter price competition by matching or beating competitors' prices. However, in addition to offering price-matching guarantees many retailers are increasingly adopting a differentiation or product assortment strategy of using "advertised retailer exclusive products" (AREPs) that are not directly comparable to competitor offerings. Such goods may offer added utilitarian and hedonic benefits to the consumer. With this tactic, products are advertised and labeled as "exclusive," but the nature of the exclusivity may range no further than an exclusive label to more pronounced differences, such as unique or additional features. However, the effectiveness of such tactics at: (1) decreasing search …

What Messages To Post? Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Social Media Communications Based On Market And Offering Characteristics, Kunal Swani

Doctoral Dissertations

Marketers are struggling with the successful implementation of social media executions in their marketing efforts. The effectiveness of their social media campaigns may be realized when their customers transmit company brand messages across their unique networks of friends and associates (Berger and Milkman 2012). Indeed, marketers using social media try to determine what messages will engage their customers. In essay one, we provide guidance to B2B (business-to-business) managers by examining the usage and effectiveness of social media message strategies. Building on B2B advertising, organizational buying, and word-of-mouth theories, we highlight key differences in B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) social media message …

Sociotechnical Consumption: A Digital Story Of Empowerment And Social Consumer Experiences, Mujde Yuksel

Doctoral Dissertations

Digital technologies have become a ubiquitous element in contemporary consumption practices. Consumers shop online, take online classes, play fantasy sports, date online, have virtual personal trainers in their phones and even live virtual lives. How do such digital experiences integrate into and reflect upon consumption experiences in the material world? In this dissertation, I propose a theory of sociotechnical consumption that explores this relationship through the digital empowerment (technical) and social interaction (social) elements embedded in consumer products and services in digital spaces. Accordingly, I extend the concept of sociotechnical to the study of consumer behavior, advocating the perspective that …

Production, Marketing, And Handling Practices To Export Mcintosh Apples To Central American Markets, Mildred L. Alvarado Herrera

Doctoral Dissertations

Latin America offers a marketing opportunity for fresh produce, since many countries are entering into global integration and international trade as part of their portfolio of economic growth. However, to take full advantage of these opportunities, many questions associated with the implementation of marketing approaches, fresh produce quality retention, and profitability need be answered before undertaking this business opportunity. When it comes to developing countries such as those in Central America, and in particular - El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala - language, culture, technology, competitiveness, regulations, poverty, and other barriers become challenges to enter these markets successfully. In order to …

Exploring The Consequences Of Shopper-Facing Technologies: Their Effect On Shopper Experiences And Shopping Outcomes, Brian Ijams Spaid

Doctoral Dissertations

Just as technology has influenced nearly every facet of the modern consumer’s life, it is also significantly changing how those consumers shop and how it influences their purchase decisions. Understanding how technology impacts these shoppers within the retail environment is crucial for retail managers who are expected to deploy and manage these sources of continuous change.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the phenomenon of shoppers experiencing technology in the retail environment. Specifically, our primary goal is to understand how shopper-facing technologies impact shoppers’ experiences and behaviors and subsequently affect outcome variables that matter to retailers. To that …

State Space Modelling Of Dynamic Choice Behavior With Habit Persistence, Kang Bok Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present a new approach to capturing dependence across time in dynamic choice data. To achieve this, I develop a state space dynamic choice model and a novel algorithm to fit the data. Instead of capturing dependence in outcomes through lagged response variables, referred to as state dependence, I introduce a lagged utility term through the latent state equation. The lagged utility term captures habit persistence, which has not been explored directly in earlier models (Heckman, 1981b). The autoregressive nature of the lagged utility provides a significantly richer summary of prior utility than a lagged outcome variable. …

May I Help You? How Stereotypes And Innuendoes Influence Service Encounters, Lauren Michelle Brewer

Doctoral Dissertations

"You only get one chance to make a good first impression." The dissertation focuses on marketing agents; among the most visible is the "service provider." Previous research establishes the important role of cognitive social schemata in determining the way consumers react to different types of marketing agents, including service providers. In the literature review, a classification schema is developed for service provider stereotypes derived from theory using social stereotypes. The development of the Service Provider Perception Framework (SPPF) creates a classification for the individual service provider along two main dimensions: competence and affect.

In services design (particularly situations involving a …

Sales Performance And Intuition – The Role Of Gut Feelings, David Locander

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation extends the dual theory of salesperson information processing by examining the relationship between salespersons' emotional intelligence (EI) and their preference for and use of decision-making styles (intuition and/or deliberation) in the selling process. This dissertation contains two studies, Study 1 employs a descriptive research design and Study 2 uses experimental manipulations to investigate the role that intuition and deliberation play within the sales process. Data for both studies come from a sample derived from a national online panel of business to business salespeople.

Study 1, using a survey approach, assesses two competing models and one post hoc model …

Interaction Privacy: A Study Of Threats And Consequences, Carol Lee Esmark

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of the dissertation is to explore interaction privacy, a person’s ability to control the amount of access others have to the self during relational encounters in attempts to achieve ideal levels. According to marketing research, a positive shopping experience is becoming all the more important (Achrol & Kotler, 2012; Deighton et al., 2012), which could be enhanced with adequate levels of shopper privacy. Using reactance theory (Brehm 1966) as guidance, the model examines privacy encroachments through visual and physical dimensions which lead to threats that cause an individual to realize control has been lost and …

Taking It To The Streets: A Multimethod Investigation Of Street Credibility And Consumer Affinity Toward Street Credible Endorsers, Delancy Howard Sterling Bennett

Doctoral Dissertations

Celebrity endorsers are featured in 10 to 20 percent of commercials in the United States (Agrawal and Kamakura, 1995). While firms have invested significant capital in celebrity endorsers, they traditionally shy away from those who have been involved in illegal or immoral acts (Briggs, 2009; Creswell, 2008). However, the rules of endorser selection appear to be changing. Recently, a new type of endorser whose celebrity is built in part upon criminal activity or violent history has emerged. These celebrities, often rappers, successfully endorse major brands such as Vitamin Water and Chrysler. They are frequently described as having another form of …

The Functional Approach To Creating The Self, Obinna O. Obilo

Doctoral Dissertations

Studying consumers is at the heart of the sub-discipline of consumer behavior; to truly understand the core of said consumers however, the marketing literature has focused on studying the self. The extant literature has discussed the self from several conceptual view points. As such, this study provides a rich theoretical review reaching back into the 19th century literature and extending into more recent developments related to cognitive social psychology. James' (1890) global tripartite model of the self is adopted, and the various avenues by which consumers create their `selves' are then explored, with particular focus on James' material self (bodily …

A Systemic Analysis Of The Defection Process In The Small Parcel Logistic Industry, Darrell J. Gualco

Doctoral Dissertations

The study of customer-initiated defection from one provider of services to another has been studied extensively in the business-to-consumer market. The reason to study defection patterns and analytics is to allow businesses to identify and control antecedents to defection that in turn will generate increased customer loyalty, market share, and profitability. Keaveney's study of defection was the starting point for understanding the key criteria individuals used to switch their purchasing criteria.

This research adds to existing defection theory by addressing the narratives of eight individuals who switched their vendor relationship in the small-parcel package industry. Prior to this research, no …