Business Commons^™

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 …

U.S.-Based Fast-Food Restaurants: Factors Influencing The International Expansion Of Franchise Systems, Ilan Alon, Liqiang Ni

Faculty Publications

Studies of international franchising are scant, but increasing, and can be divided into two streams of research: those focusing on environmental predictors of internationalization and those focusing on strategic, firm-level characteristics. Examingin the latter category, this study empirically explores a set of firm-level attributes as predictors of decision-making on whether or not firms seek international expansion. using longitudinal data from Bond's Franchise Guide 2001-2000, we draw on a sample of U.S.-based fast-food franchise systems to test our hypotheses. Specifically, out database is comprised of 1,058 observations of 158 chains and we estimate a semi-parametric logistic modlel for international franchising. The …

Assessing The Export Competitiveness Of Chinese Industries, Marc Fetscherin, Ilan Alon, James P. Johnson

Faculty Publications

This article presents a framework for measuring, illustrating and comparing industry export competitiveness that takes into account (i) industry specialization, (ii) industry export growth rate and (iii) relative industry size. We apply the framework to a data set of 97 different industries from China over a 5-year period (2001–2005). According to our results, over 70 per cent of Chinese industries are ‘dynamic’, meaning that their export growth is higher than the world average export growth. Almost 50 per cent of the Chinese industries examined are competitive in global markets, with 20–25 per cent of the world export market share in …

30 Years Of Foreign Direct Investment To China: An Interdisciplinary Literature Review, Marc Fetscherin, Hinrich Voss, Philippe Gugler

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to examine how scholarly research on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the People’s Republic of China has evolved and been shaped using bibliometrics analysis of 422 journal articles published in 151 journals between 1979 and 2008 on that topic. The literature is dominated by the fields of Economics, followed by Business and Management, Planning and Development and International Relations, which together account for 95% of all publications. Ten percent of the most productive journals are responsible for 40% of all publications and 63% of all citations received. By means of citation mapping, four main …

The Impact Of Groups And Decision Aid Reliance On Fraud Risk Assessment., Anna Alon, Peggy Dwyer

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the brainstorming component of Statement of Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 99 influences decision aid use and reliance, and the effectiveness of fraud risk assessment. The research framework links the influences of the fraud assessment setting and decision aid reliance. The hypotheses are tested in an experiment with two manipulated factors: setting (group or individual) and decision aid (provided or not provided). The results of the study provide insight on how the brainstorming impacts fraud risk assessment, decision aid use and decision aid reliance. The results show that groups using a decision …

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

Dimensionality Of Business Ethics In China, Marc Sardy, J. Mark Munoz, James Jianmin Sun, Ilan Alon

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the ethical dimensions in China. It reviews the extant business ethics literature on China, collects data on ethical conduct from a large Chinese university, and analyzes the data to examine emerging trends. Design/methodology/approach – Factor analysis and multidimensional scaling (MDS) are applied to an established survey instrument after reliability is confirmed. Findings – Principal-components factor analysis uncovers six main factors. MDS further reduces the explanatory variables into four ethical dimensions, while increasing the number of useable observations. These four dimensions are then correlated with some demographic and psychographic variables. Results …

Usage Of Public Corporate Communications Of Social Responsibility Within Brazil, Russia, India And China (Bric), Ilan Alon, Christopher Lattemann, Marc Fetscherin, Shaomin Li, Anna-Maria Schneider

Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to analyze the status of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communications in BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). The four countries are among the biggest emerging markets, forecasted to have increasing influence in economic and political spheres. How these countries manage their corporate communication in regards to CSR is, thus, the focus of our investigation. Design/methodology/approach: This paper compares the extent and content of corporate communication with respect to CSR from a sample of over 100 companies from the BRIC nations by investigating the nature of CSR motives, processes, and stakeholder. Findings: The …

The Role And Importance Of The Chinese Government For Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investments, Marc Fetscherin, Philippe Gugler

Faculty Publications

Chinese outward direct investments show a strong positive trend over recent years and have attracted considerable attention from academia and the business press. Many observers and commentators express interest in the role the Chinese government plays in the activities and decision-making of Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) in connection with their foreign direct investments (FDI). This article makes a contribution by investigating the relationship between the Chinese government and MNEs in connection with their outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). We present a 2x2 matrix where one dimension includes the interest (high/low) of the Chinese government and the other the interest of …

Development Of Franchising In The Emerging Market Of Croatia, Ilan Alon, Mirela Alpeza, Aleksandar Erceg

Faculty Publications

Franchising is a new sector in transitioning and emerging Croatia. Those companies involved in retailing, distribution, and wholesaling operations are now becoming aware of the benefits (and costs) of franchising as an organizational method and are considering its adaptation to the local context. However, franchising is underdeveloped with only a handful of active firms, lack of regulatory structure, lack of support from institutions, disinterested banks and little experience in the marketplace. Our contribution is an assessment of the franchising model in the Croatian context.