Business Commons^™

Framing Esports’ Jedi Issues: A Case Study In Media Irresponsibility, David Painter, Brittani Sahm

Faculty Publications

Purpose: This investigation analyzes Asian, European, and North American coverage of esports’ justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) issues as a case study of media organizations’ communications on these topics.

Design/methodology/approach: This quantitative content analysis describes coverage of esports’ race, gender, age, and social class issues to draw inferences about media organizations’ abilities to meet their social responsibilities when reporting on organizational JEDI issues.

Findings: There were significant differences across continents; however, most stories only mentioned gender and age, seldom noting esports’ race or social class issues.

Research limitations/implications: Although all stories analyzed were published in English, the findings extend …

A Dichotomy Of Sport Sponsorships: Does The Nature Of Competition Among Sponsors Matter?, Thomas Doellman, Brian Walkup, Adrien Bouchet, Brian Chabowski

Faculty Publications

In this paper, we argue that the firm value implications of sport sponsorships for sponsors may depend on the competitive environment during the bidding process for different types of sponsorships. More specifically, we contend that the bidding environment for professional football (soccer) kit sponsorships represents a form of common value auction, while the bidding environment for corporate logo sponsorships on teams’ shirts does not. As common value auctions are prone to winner’s curse, the firm value implications should be different for kit sponsorship announcements than for shirt sponsorship announcements. Our results suggest that shareholders indeed perceive the value derived from …

Capabilities, Human Development, And Design Thinking: A Framework For Gender-Sensitive Entrepreneurship Programs, Tonia Warnecke

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the ways that capabilities and human development theory can guide the creation of entrepreneurship programs, utilizing a framework of human-centered design thinking. It is well known that a variety of institutional factors shape gender outcomes and gender inequality within entrepreneurship, particularly with regard to necessity versus opportunity entrepreneurship and informal versus formal sector entrepreneurship. Failure to understand the diversity of entrepreneurial activity among women, and the connection (or lack thereof) of such activity to human freedom, leads to biased entrepreneurship programs. This paper links social economic theory and practice by: (1) discussing the ways that capabilities and …

Consumer Brand Relationships Research: A Bibliometric Citation Meta-Analysis, Marc Fetscherin, Daniel Heinrich

Faculty Publications

This study examines how scholarly research on consumer brand relationships has evolved over the last decades by conducting a bibliometric citation meta-analysis. The bibliography was compiled using the ISI Web of Science database. The literature review includes 392 papers by 685 authors in 101 journals. The area of consumer brand relationships research is notably interdisciplinary, with articles mainly published in journals for business and management, but also applied psychology and communication. We show the impact of universities, authors, journals, and key articles and outline possible future research avenues. The study explores seven sub-research streams and visualizes how articles on consumer …

How Are Brand Names Of Chinese Companies Perceived By Americans?, Marc Fetscherin, Adamantios Diamantopoilos, Allan K.K. Chan, Rachael Abbott

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to conduct an experimental design of Americans’ preferences for the English version of Chinese brand names by drawing from prior research in psychology, linguistics and marketing. The impact of string length and semantic relevance to English on meaningfulness, memorability and likeability of brand names from Chinese companies was assessed. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 × 2 experimental design was used, whereby brand names are categorized by string length (short vs long) and semantic relevance to English (with vs without). Respondents’ perception of the Chinese language in terms of pronounceability, language familiarity and language …

Targeting The ‘Invisible’: Improving Entrepreneurship Opportunities For Informal Sector Women, Tonia Warnecke

Faculty Publications

In the wake of global economic downturn, policymakers in many developing countries are turning their gaze upon two things: private sector-led strategies for economic growth and women’s potential to contribute to this growth. As a consequence, female entrepreneurship has been an area of particular interest to policymakers, businesses, and non-governmental organizations, and many female-targeted policies and programs have been implemented, ranging from microfinance and subsidized loans to training and incubator programs. However, the focus on entrepreneurship as a development strategy conceptualizes entrepreneurship in a particular way—as opportunity entrepreneurship. Opportunity entrepreneurs can identify available opportunities and exploit them; they are often …

Corporate Social Responsibility In Emerging Markets - The Importance Of The Governance Environment, Marc Fetscherin, Shaomin Li, Ilan Alon, Christoph Lattemann, Kuang Yeh

Faculty Publications

• This study examines how country-level, industry-level, and firm-level factors affect the extent of corporate communication about CSR in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC). In particular, using the data of 105 largest MNCs from BRIC, we investigate the CSR motives, processes, and stakeholder issues discussed in corporate communications.
• On the country level, we use a newly developed framework of the governance environment which differentiates between rule-based and relation-based governance. Our study reveals that the governance environment of a country is the most important driving force for the communication intensity about CSR.
• Our results show that firms communicating …

Tao Of Downfall: The Failures Of High-Profile Entrepreneurs In The Chinese Economic Reform, Wenxian Zhang, Ilan Alon

Faculty Publications

Through historical reviews and case studies, this research seeks to understand why some initially successful entrepreneurs failed in the economic boom of past decades. Among various factors contributed to their downfalls are a unique political and business environment, fragile financial systems, traditional cultural influences and personal characteristics. Notwithstanding that these factors should be further tested through empirical studies, those high-profile entrepreneurs are oblivious but essential actors in the grand theatre of China's economic transformation and their failures have contributed to the swift development of the Chinese entrepreneurship over the last 30 years.

Executive Perks: Compensation And Corporate Performance In China, Ilan Alon, Pattarin Adithipyangkul, Tianyu Zhang

Faculty Publications

Many studies have examined CEO compensation in developed countries, where a long tradition of disclosure renders data readily available. In emerging economies, particularly in China, where market-based compensation is a relatively new phenomenon, there are few studies of CEO compensation. In addition, information on the use of non-cash compensation is almost absent. Building on the general literature on CEO compensation, and Chinese economic and management studies, this article singularly contributes to the extant literature by (1) examining the motivational determinants of CEO perk compensation, on the one hand, and (2) exploring the relative contribution of perks to performance. We anticipate …