Business Commons^™

An Imc Approach To Entrepreneurship: How Generation Z Is Changing The Landscape Of Entrepreneurship, Kylie Nicole Cockrell

Honors Theses

Generation Z entrepreneurs capitalize on the fast-paced environment of the marketing industry and adapt to changing customer needs and expectations to deliver the best product or service from their business. This thesis researches the current media trends and marketing approaches Gen Z entrepreneurs are using in their businesses and how access to entrepreneurial-focused programs make Generation Z the leading generation in entrepreneurship.

Inspired by the researcher’s own experience as an online clothing business owner, this thesis investigates how members of Gen Z are increasingly becoming entrepreneurs. A mixed methodology of primary and secondary research was deployed to explore consumer trends. …

Rainbowashing: Does It Impact Purchase Intention?, Ramon Luis Fille

Honors Projects in Marketing

Cause related marketing efforts by multiple brands have grown over the past few years. With the growth of social media and even more awareness for multiple causes, consumers are pickier when it comes to brands that supports them. While many studies have been done when it comes to “greenwashing” (the tactics of brands to show their green initiatives), there are still more that needs to be done to understand the impact of “rainbowashing” marketing methods on consumer purchase intention. The importance of this study and how it can affect businesses are discussed. To get a feel for the potential effect …

Beyond Decolonising – Some Thoughts On The Future Of Marketing/Marketing Research In The Gulf/Me/Na Region, Bronwyn P. Wood

Arab Economic and Business Journal

There is much the MENA/Gulf region can teach regarding the ever-narrowing hegemonic perspectives in the literature - from selfhood, agency, empowerment, women, collectivism, intersectionality to consumption and business practice.

This paper focuses, briefly, on several very large areas of scholarship to consider the issues raised and the opportunities uncovered, as they pertain to the region. The article introduces some important particularities of the region, an overview of some relevant areas of potential future study and outlines how we, as academics, can contribute to a positive future for the Arabian Gulf/ME/NA overall.

If You Can't Take The Tweet: Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility Through The Lens Of Social Media Marketing, Julia Winterhalter

Honors Projects in Communication

Companies are increasingly taking action on societal issues and are aware of the impact that their corporate voice has on impressionable publics. Existing research focuses greatly on corporate social responsibility and the moral standards that set up companies to market themselves authentically to the values they build themselves on. The current study explores how three companies utilize their platform to share their values in relation to ethical issues arising in the modern world. Through the Twitter accounts of Ben & Jerry's, Patagonia, and Starbucks, a content analysis was conducted on their use of language related to their ethical standpoints on …

The Impact Of Social Media Marketing On The Broadway Industry: A Study Of Hamilton: An American Musical, Jordan Pontelandolfo

Senior Theses

In recent years, social media has become an increasingly important part of the marketing strategies for many Broadway productions. Yet, many Broadway marketing teams do not take complete advantage of their social media channels, instead relying on traditional marketing methods to attract audiences. Hamilton: An American Musical is a recent Broadway production that has used an innovative social media marketing strategy to attract diverse audiences and create a dedicated fanbase. By analyzing the strategy across Hamilton’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, I determine what made its social media so successful and how other Broadway shows can learn from …

Conferencia: Prospección Del Marketing: ¿Cómo Pensar Sobre El Futuro Del Marketing Ahora?, Cristo Leon

STEM for Success Resources

La Escuela de Negocios de la Konrad Lorenz invita a la comunidad Konradista y a la comunidad en general a participar en el ciclo de charlas, en el marco del evento regional de mercadeo bajo la Asociación de Escuelas de Negocios (ACBSP) y en alianza con la Universidad Continental de Perú, el Instituto San Ignacio de Loyola (ISIL) de Perú y la Universidad las Américas de Ecuador.

Impact Of Country Of Origin And National Identity On Air Travel Purchase Decisions For Prospective Buyers: The Case Of American Travelers, Talha Harcar, Ersem Karadag

Journal of Global Business Insights

This study focuses on how the concept of country of origin (COO) and national loyalty affect purchasing decisions of prospective travelers when purchasing airline tickets. The objectives of this study are to understand: (a) the relationship between demographic structures of travelers and their national loyalty status, (b) the relationship between national loyalty and national airline perceptions, (c) the construction and analysis of the measurement of national airline preference scale, and (d) testing the relationship between national loyalty, national airline perception, and preferences of foreign airlines. Data collected from 136 people residing and employed in three districts of Pennsylvania. The study …

Student Perceptions Of Teaching Excellence: A Comparison Of A Public And Private University, Stephen L. Baglione, Louis A. Tucci, Patrick Woock

Journal of Global Business Insights

The purpose of the study was to examine student perceptions of teaching excellence at different types of higher education institutions. The pressure to publish, larger class sizes, globalization, technological innovation greater accountability for learning, and justification of a college degree’s worth make teaching excellence more difficult to attain. A byproduct of this pressure is an increased emphasis on student evaluations. Using two conjoint studies from a large public and a medium-size private university, assignments, exams, and grading were identified as the most important components for students in assessing teaching excellence. The least important was the faculty-student interaction, which may be …

Social Media And Marketing As A Means Of Planning And Promoting The 2022 Camp Polyhacks Hackathon, Amy Gillham, Olivia Gerraty, Elizabeth Anderson

Communication Studies

The recruitment of attendees and promotion of Camp PolyHacks, an annual Hackathon hosted by Cal Poly, required marketing strategies which were informed by relevant communication theories applied to event marketing campaign strategies. The theories utilized included Social Marketing Theory (SMT), Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT), Consistency Theory (CT), and elements of persuasion and visual communication. The marketing strategies used by the Camp PolyHacks 2022 Marketing and Social Media team included social media marketing in the form of Instagram posts, stories, and direct messages, and external marketing in the form of presentations, emails, booths, and posters. This paper examines the utility of …

Brand And Culture Fusion: How Marketing Directors Lead Brand And Culture Alignment At Private Non-Profit Higher Education Institutions, Erin Hales

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to identify and describe, through the lens of activity theory (AT), the challenges and best practices of marketing directors at private, non-profit higher education institutions on how they lead brand and culture alignment.

Methodology: This phenomenological study collected, analyzed, and triangulated data through 15 semi-structured interviews and the collection of artifacts. Data was then coded into themes, frequencies were calculated, and data was organized into the four categories of AT: tools, rules, community, and division of labor.

Findings: Examination of the data found that marketing directors experienced six challenges representing all four …

Rise Of Social Media Influencers As A New Marketing Channel: Focusing On The Roles Of Psychological Well-Being And Perceived Social Responsibility Among Consumers, Jihye Kim, Minseong Kim

Integrated Strategic Communication Faculty Publications

This empirical research investigated the structural relationships between social media influencer attributes, perceived friendship, psychological well-being, loyalty, and perceived social responsibility of influencers, focusing on the perspective of social media users. More specifically, this study conceptually identified social media influencer attributes such as language similarity, interest similarity, interaction frequency, and self-disclosure and examined the respective effects of each dimension on perceived friendship and psychological well-being, consequently resulting in loyalty toward social media influencers. The authors collected and analyzed data from 388 social media users in the United States via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk with multivariate analyses to test the hypothesized associations …

Describing Rosé: An Embedding-Based Method For Measuring Preferences, Anirban Mukherjee, Hannah H. Chang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, we present a novel preference-measurement method for experiential products and develop a novel embedding-based utility model to value product attributes and attribute-levels from participant choices between products described in (unstructured) prose.

Reconsidering Services Marketing As A Discipline, Mark S. Rosenbaum, German C. Ramirez

Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism

This viewpoint suggests that foundational theories and concepts which characterize the services marketing discipline may no longer be valid due to the global pandemic. The authors discuss the impact of the Great Resignation on both consumers and organizations and posit that many consumers now accept lower levels of service offerings and performance. They further question whether organizations will ever return to pre-pandemic service levels. Further, the authors contend that the discipline’s focus on employee-customer relationships has now shifted to customer-technology exchanges and that human interactions, in many service exchanges, are diminishing in importance. The authors put forward future research questions.

Short-Term Rental Versus Small Hotel Industry Amid Covid-19 Pandemic: What Drives Millennials’ Accommodation Choices?, Tammy Wee, Melissa L. S. Liow

Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism

This paper aims to establish the motivation factors behind the accommodation choices made by millennials for stays at short-term rental properties and small hotels amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a topic that remains under-represented in the hospitality and tourism literature. Using data from a survey of 145 millennials who stayed at an Airbnb property and a small hotel in the past year, a non-parametric test was utilized to compare six motivation factors that affect millennials’ accommodation choices, guided by the push-pull motivational framework. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test results showed that the millennials significantly considered price and reviews as their common pull …

Market Segmentation Of Wine In Ireland: Are We Fostering A Desirable Consumption Culture?, Enea Bent

Dissertations

The aim of this research is to evaluate the wine sector in Ireland and its impact on the wine consumption culture that is being promoted here as a result. With supermarkets leading in terms of sales, this study evaluates the product offering of the various types of retailers and the attainability of the same to different demographics of consumer. A high level of government intervention in the industry is highlighted throughout the study, the intention and subsequent successes and failures are examined. A comparison to the rest of Europe and the United Kingdom is carried out to understand Ireland’s position …

Defining Health Care Marketing, Gary Futrell

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2022

A review of the leading textbooks published for health care marketing courses shows that they do not adequately define the disciple. This paper promotes the use of the two-word form of health care and defines health care marketing as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, & exchanging any good, service, or idea; performed to restore, maintain, or enhance the well-being of an individual or population. This paper fills a gap in the literature by providing linguistic and practical justification for using the two-word form of health care and connects the modern wellness paradigm of health …

Promoting A Walk/Run Event To Expand Services For Individuals With Disabilities, Mckenzie Rodgers

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The Suzanne Vitale Clinical Education Complex (CEC) at WKU provides services to many individuals and families affected by autism spectrum disorders and other developmental delays and disabilities. As a nonprofit organization, the clinic relies heavily on donations and fundraisers as sources of income. One of the CEC’s primary fundraisers is the annual LifeSkills Run/Walk for Autism. This event is held each April during autism awareness month, at the Bowling Green Ballpark, providing an opportunity for the community to support the clinic in an enjoyable way.

For an honors capstone experience, the author promoted the 15th annual LifeSkills Run/Walk for Autism …

Network Orientation, Organisational Improvisation And Innovation: An Empirical Examination, Ao Zhang, Weiyong Zhang

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

In today's highly competitive world market, businesses can hardly maintain their competitiveness without strong innovation abilities. In the past, many Chinese enterprises have enjoyed success through imitation. But to continue to succeed in a global marketplace, they must develop ambidextrous innovation abilities. The resource‐based theory eloquently posits that competitive advantage is associated with different and heterogeneous resources. To obtain such resources, firms must establish an external network to acquire necessary knowledge and skills. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model linking network orientation, organisational improvisation, ambidexterity and competitive tension. We postulate that organisational improvisation has a mediating effect and …

Social Media Marketing Strategies For Improving Customer Relationships, Candel Cuffie

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite the potential benefits of social media marketing (SMM) to improve customer relationships, some small business leaders lack SMM strategies to improve customer relationships. Small business leaders who fail to improve customer relationships may observe a decline in their customer base, leading to decreased profitability. Grounded in Berry’s relationship marketing theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore SMM strategies small business leaders used to improve customer relationships. Data were collected via reviews of company documentation, participants’ social media pages, and online semistructured interviews with five small retail business leaders who used SMM strategies to improve …

Improving Arts Management/Marketing Efficiency: Optimizing Utilization Of Scarce Resources To Produce Artistic Outputs, Theresa A. Kirchner, Linda L. Golden, Patrick L. Brockett

Marketing Faculty Publications

Purpose

This longitudinal research examines US symphony orchestra sector organizations to determine individual efficiencies in allocating resources (donations, governmental/private funding, etc.) for desirable outputs (concerts, educational programs, community outreach). It provides researchers and managers with a tool for identifying, assessing and mitigating organizational inefficiencies.

Design/methodology/approach

This study assesses relative efficiencies in performing arts organizations using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a widely-used nonparametric data-intensive benchmarking technique that determines an optimal “production frontier” of best-practice organizations among their peers and assesses their abilities to turn multivariate inputs into multivariate desired outputs.

Findings

This analysis highlights efficiency differences in a wide range of …

Pandemic, Perceived Risk, And Cognitive Dissonance As Antecedents To Need For Cognitive Closure, Ruchika Sachdeva

WCBT Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to examine the influence of the pandemic, perceived risk, and cognitive dissonance on the need for cognitive closure. A consumer today wants an aversion towards the ambiguity that is created due to this pandemic. The data is collected using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk panel. All of the filled questionnaires are analyzed using stepwise regression. The findings suggest that perceived risk, pandemic, and cognitive dissonance influence the need for cognitive closure, and perceived risk is the major predictor of cognitive closure. These results enrich our understandings with regards to the importance of designing the marketing strategies …

Exploring Strategies For Small Business Owners Operating In A Small Town, Jacqueline Rabb

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Brick and mortar small businesses are the hubs of many small towns. However, some small business owners lack strategies to operate in a small town impacted by unstable economic conditions. Brick and mortar small business owners may experience a higher risk of failure if strategies to overcome the challenges of operating in a small town are not effectively implemented. Grounded in the contingency theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies some brick and mortar small business leaders could implement for survival in a post-recession, small-town economy. The participants comprised three small business owners in …

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 …

Goodwill Going Green: How Green Branding Can Generate $1m In Revenue, Elia Meltzer, Esha S. Vartak, William M. Crone, Ryan T. Richards

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Goodwill Industries is a nonprofit organization. Not only do they specialize in charity work, but they also have a chain of stores that focus on thrift shopping. Additionally, Goodwill provides other services, such as recycling clothing, electronics, and other goods. Recently, Goodwill of Akron, Ohio received a grant of five million dollars, where the money for the grant would have to be utilized in five years. The main objective of this project was to find a way for Goodwill to use grant money efficiently, to generate revenue for a new transportation initiative.

Our team has recommended utilizing the most popular …

Invited Perspective - Engaging Aspirations To Nurture Communities, Kentaro Toyama

Subsistence Marketplaces

For subsistence communities, the question is whether aspirations can be applied to motivate behavior that is, on the one hand consistent with people’s aspirations, but which might otherwise be difficult to elicit. Could poorer households be encouraged to save, to spend more on their children’s education, or to act against unhealthy social norms? A couple of examples suggest this is not only possible, but highly successful in contexts where other appeals fail.

Examining The Brand Image Of Paul College, Rebecca E. Milbury

Honors Theses and Capstones

The idea of a company’s brand image is a marketing subject that many companies need to consider. How consumers see or feel about a company is extremely important especially for higher education. Business schools are very competitive and in order to succeed, they need to understand how their students, alumni, faculty, and staff feel about their school. The results of the brand image survey are compared to those from a recent study completed in 2016. There are a few changes made to this survey, including adding alumni, faculty, and staff to the respondent pool. In doing so, this research will …

Saving Face: Comparing The Effects Of Endorsement Marketing Strategies On Millennial Americans, Alessandra Noli, Sindy Chapa, Daniela Castillo, Tim O'Hara, Anna Dean, Tyler Trobert

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2022

The rapid boom of social media in the 21^st century has positioned it as a key instrument in the realm of marketing. Social media has also given rise to a new kind of endorser: the influencer. The present study tested the effects of expert influencers vs traditional celebrities on brand attitude and purchase intentions of makeup products, within a cohort of millennials. Results showed respondents tended to favor the expert influencer in terms of perceived expertise, brand attitude and purchase intention. This has important implications for marketers when it comes to deciding upon an endorser for their brand, with …