Business Commons^™

Interrelationships Among Language Skills, Externalizing Behavior, And Academic Fluency And Their Impact On The Academic Skills Of Students With Ed, J. Ron Nelson, Gregory J. Benner, Stern Neill, Scott A. Stage

Marketing

There is growing interest in understanding the factors that influence the academic achievement of students with emotional disturbance (ED). Structural equation modeling was used to test the interrelationships among language skills, externalizing behavior, and academic fluency and their impact on the academic skills of students with ED. Results showed that language skills exerted a significant proximal effect and distal effect on academic skills.The effect of language skills was mediated through academic fluency (path coefficient = .389) but also had a proximal effect on academic skills (path coefficient = .359). However, externalizing behavior failed to have a statistically significant effect on …

Sustainable Competitive Advantage Of Internet Firms - A Strategic Framework And Implications For Global Marketers, Rajshekhar G. Javalgi, Robert F. Scherer, Glenna Pendleton, Lori P. Radulovich

Marketing

Purpose – At the core of an international marketing strategy is the internet firm’s goal of building and sustaining a competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative framework to explain the role that customer behavior and customer relationship management (CRM) play in developing a profitable, sustainable competitive advantage for internet companies.

Design/methodology/approach – The integrative framework utilizes existing theoretical concepts from the areas of strategy and internet marketing and develops a framework to provide firms with insights into how they can gain the competitive advantage. Findings – This paper links global customer behavior to the …

The Dynamics Of Global E-Commerce: An Organizational Ecology Perspective, Rajshekhar G. Javalgi, Robert F. Scherer

Marketing

Purpose - A classical model of organizational ecology dynamics which is utilized to characterize an ecosystem called the internet is proposed and a parallel is drawn between the population ecology model and the current global e-commerce environment.

Design/methodology/approach - Survivorship theory is applied to global e-commerce. The Verhulst-Pearl logistic equation can be used to describe the inhibition of growth within an ecosystem. The approach is to apply the Verhulst-Pearl logistic equation to describe international growth dynamics of the internet.

Findings - When applying the Verhulst-Pearl equation to the internet environment around the world, the number of domain names or host …

A Distribution Services Approach For Developing Effective Competitive Strategies Against "Big Box" Retailers, Clifford S. Barber, Brian C. Tietje

Marketing

According to one theoretical approach, the primary economic function of retailers is to deliver products together with distribution services. We use this framework to identify competitive niches for smaller retailers competing against big box stores. We compare the distribution services offered by the Home Depot versus smaller retailers using both in-store measures and consumer perception data, and the relative importance of distribution services as determinants of store choice. The results show that the Home Depot’s superiority in pricing and assortment attracts a significant market, but smaller retailers can secure niche markets by delivering higher levels of ambiance and information.

Competency Requirements For Managerial Development In Manufacturing, Assembly, And/Or Material Processing Functions, Brian C. Tietje, Clifford S. Barber

Marketing

Organizations that include a manufacturing, assembly and/or material processing (MAMP) functions have become increasingly complex, competitive, and dynamic. These organizations demand increased emphasis on recruiting, developing, and retaining management talent to gain a competitive edge. This paper uses a modified Delphi triangulation approach to identify and categorize first-level MAMP management competencies perceived to be important by three critical stakeholder groups – an expert MAMP upper management panel, first-level MAMP managers who have been employed between one to three years, and business management faculty members. The results identify 14 knowledge, skill, and value-based competencies and three higher-order factors as essential components …

Is The Implicit Association Test A Valid And Valuable Measure Of Implicit Consumer Social Cognition?, Frederic F. Brunel, Brian C. Tietje, Anthony G. Greenwald

Marketing

This article discusses the need for more satisfactory implicit measures in consumer psychology and assesses the theoretical foundations, validity, and value of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a measure of implicit consumer social cognition. Study 1 demonstrates the IAT’s sensitivity to explicit individual differences in brand attitudes, ownership, and usage frequency, and shows their correlations with IAT-based measures of implicit brand attitudes and brand relationship strength. In Study 2, the contrast between explicit and implicit measures of attitude toward the ad for sportswear advertisements portraying African American (Black) and European American (White) athlete–spokespersons revealed different patterns of responses to …

Integrating The Hofstede Dimensions And Twelve Aspects Of Negotiating Behavior: A Six Country Comparison, Lynn E. Metcalf, Allan Bird

Marketing

In the more than 25 years since Hofstede's seminal work on culture first appeared, cross-cultural research has explored seemingly all aspects of behavior. With regard to cross-cultural negotiating behaviors, there is an embarrassment of riches. As data continue to accumulate, the search for a comprehensive synthesis seems not only appealing as a means of facilitating understanding, but also a necessary element of true knowledge creation. In the following analysis, we relate Hofstede's dimensions of cultural variability to cross-cultural negotiating behavior in six countries. We propose that a careful application of Hofstede's framework to the large body of work on cross-cultural …

An Empirical Investigation Into The Relationship Between Computer Self-Efficacy, Anxiety, Experience, Support And Usage, Mary Helen Fagan, Stern Neill, Barbara Ross Wooldridge

Marketing

Organizations make significant investments in information technology. However, if individuals do not use information system applications as anticipated, successful implementation can be hard to achieve. In order to investigate some key factors thought to affect an individual's use of information technology, this study draws on Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), Triandis's Theory of Interpersonal Behavior (TIB), and the computer anxiety literature to develop its conceptual model and research hypotheses. An empirical investigation (n=978) found support for the majority of the hypotheses. As suggested by SCT, experience and support were positively related to computer self-efficacy, and computer self-efficacy was negatively related …

When Do Rewards Have Enhancement Effects? An Availability Valence Approach, Brian C. Tietje

Marketing

It is commonly argued that although rewards induce behaviors, they undermine attitudes and motivation for subsequent action. This perspective has been applied in a consumer setting to suggest that sales promotions such as coupons will undermine consumer brand evaluations and brand loyalty. Instead of focusing on the undermining effects of promotional rewards, this research applies the availability valence hypothesis (Tybout, Sternthal, & Calder, 1983) to predict and explain when rewards will enhance recipient response. Two experiments demonstrate that an immediate reward from a product-related source enhances product evaluations by making favorable information more accessible than unfavorable information. Promotions enhance the …

Support For Computer Users: Concept Development And Measurement, Mary Helen Fagan, Barbara Ross Wooldridge, Stern Neill

Marketing

This study explores how support for computer users can be conceptualized and measured in information systems research. A number of studies have proposed that support for computer users plays an important role in the acceptance and utilization of information technology applications. In these studies, the support concept has been conceptualized in a variety of ways, and the findings have often not been as hypothesized. The paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding support for computer users, and then describes the development of an instrument to measure support for computer users in a business school lab environment. The paper should help …

The Effect Of Store Name, Brand Name And Price Discounts On Consumers' Evaluations And Purchase Intentions, Dhruv Grewal, R. Krishnan, Julie Baker, Norm A. Borin

Marketing

This paper develops and tests a conceptual model of the effects of store name, brand names and price discounts on consumers' evaluations (store image, brand quality perceptions, internal reference prices, and value perceptions) and purchase intentions. The moderating effects of consumer knowledge and prior ownership on the proposed relationships in the model are also explored. A store's perceived image is influenced by the store name and the quality of merchandise It carries. Results also indicate that internal reference price is influenced by price discounts, brand name, and a brand's perceived quality. The influence of price discounts on a brand's perceived …

Creating A Market Orientation, John C. Narver, Stanley F. Slater, Brian C. Tietje

Marketing

A market orientation is a business culture in which all employees are committed to the continuous creation of superior value for customers. However, businesses report limited success in developing such a culture. One approach to create a market orientation, the approach taken by most businesses, is the “programmatic” approach, an a priori approach in which a business uses education programs and organizational changes to attempt to implant the desired norm of continuously creating superior value for customers. A second approach is the “market-back” approach, an experiential approach in which a business continuously learns from its day-to-day efforts to create and …

Market Power And Performance: A Cross-Industry Analysis Of Manufacturers And Retailers, Kusum L. Ailawadi, Norm Borin, Paul W. Farris

Marketing

Two recent studies of manufacturer and retailer profitability in the food industry have raised questions about whether the widely cited, but empirically untested, shift of power from manufacturers to retailers has really occurred. Has the marketing community been operating under a misconception or are these studies flawed? This paper uses more complete measures of exercised and potential market power and a broader sample of industries and retail classes to address this critical question. Not only do our measures have strong theoretical grounding in the industrial organization, finance and accounting literature, they incorporate in them the impact of actions that have …

A Sensitivity Analysis Of Retailer Shelf Management Models, Norm A. Borin, Paul Farris

Marketing

A shelf management model was developed to assist retailers with the decision of which products to stock and how much space to allocate to those products. Due to the non-linearities in the formulation a closed form solution is not possible. Borin, et al. develop a search heuristic based on simulated annealing and compare the solution against a known optimum. A barrier to the use of such models is the fact that managers typically do not have access to error-free estimates of the parameters required for the model construction (shelf elasticities, search loyalty, and consumer preferences). In this article we analyze …

A Model For Determining Retail Product Category Assortment And Shelf Space Allocation, Norm Borin, Paul W. Farris, James R. Freeland

Marketing

We develop a category management model to aid retailers in the space constrained decisions of which products to stock (assortment) and how much shelf space to allocate to those products. The model is formulated as a constrained optimization problem with two basic decision variables: assortment and allocation of space to the items in the assortment. The non-linearities in the objective function and the zero-one decision variables disallow a closed form solution. We develop a heuristic solution procedure based on simulated annealing and test it on a problem with a known optimum. We also apply the technique to a larger problem …

A Pilot Test Of Discrimination In The Japanese Distribution System, Norm A. Borin, Cynthia Van Vranken, Paul W. Farris

Marketing

Japanese trade practices continue to receive a great deal of discussion in both academic and trade circles. Foreign manufacturers of consumer goods believe that Japanese channel members do not provide foreign goods with the same level of support that domestic goods receive. Unfortunately, this has been difficult to validate since the level of analysis usually neglects merchandising support at the store level-where the success or failure of a product is often determined. A pilot study was conducted to develop a methodology that compared the relative levels of distribution and merchandising support for foreign and domestic brands. An intensive analysis of …

An Empirical Comparison Of Direct Product Profit And Existing Measures Of Sku Productivity, Norm Borin, Paul Farris

Marketing

DPP (direct product profitability) has been heralded as one of the more important advances in supermarket shelf management, yet its acceptance by managers in the industry has been slow. Not only is DPP complex and expensive to calculate, but some question exists about whether decisions based on DPP are different from those based on traditional criteria such as gross margin and movement. A data base of nine dry-grocery categories is used here to compare DPP with other SKU indices. DPP is shown to lead to significantly different rankings in some categories, but not all. A Merchandising Attractiveness Index (MAl) is …

Integrating Multiple Criteria Decision-Making Models Into The Decision Support System Framework For Marketing Decisions, Rajshekhar G. Javalgi, Hemant K. Jain

Marketing

The paper focuses on integrating the multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) models within the decision support system (DSS) framework to encourage greater use of these models. A DSS framework and the criteria used for the choice of a model is discussed. Based on these criteria MCDM models generally used in the marketing field are evaluated. The possibility of using a mixture of MCDM models within the DSS framework is also explored. Following this, the role of the MCDM models in DSS is delineated. It is argued that, within the problem-solving process, the confluence of MCDM models and DSS plays a …

Global Competition For Environmental Markets - The Case Of The Water-Pollution Control Equipment Industry, Andrew C. Gross

Marketing

Describes how pollution control spending around the world is set to increase from $70 billion (1979) to $115 billion in 1990 in real terms. Expands on the theory that cleaning up - or preventing mistakes - in the environment makes for financial and healthwise good sense. Posits that cleaner air leads to fewer respiratory problems and cleaner water in most areas of manufacturing results in lower fuel use. Focuses on trade, end use competitive modes and marketing patterns regarding water pollution control equipment (WPCE). States that WPCE shipments world wide are projected to rise from $3.3 billion in 1979 to …

Market Research In Guided Market Place, Andrew C. Gross, László Szabó

Marketing

Reports on the rapid organizational growth of market research in Hungary. Improvement in the production orientation of managers and the existence of sellers' markets; Coordination of state and enterprise planning; Development of autonomous market research institutes oriented toward domestic markets.