Business Commons^™

Connected Consumers: Cognizance Of Provision Networks In Mundane Consumption, Stephen T. Weaver

Marketing Dissertations

Many types of product meanings have been investigated in the consumer behavior literature, and these layers of meaning have been shown to influence consumer behavior. However, very little research has attempted to investigate product meanings having to do with provision networks, that is, the people, places, resources and processes involved in creating products and delivering them to the consumer. In addition, researchers in several fields have argued that consumers have lost an awareness of provision networks due to their increasing size and complexity in the modern economy. This research indicates that some consumers are indeed cognizant of the systems of …

Risk And Visibility In Global Supply Chains: An Empirical Study, Hung V. Nguyen

Marketing Dissertations

Working with international suppliers in global supply chains, manufacturing firms now are faced with substantial supplier risks which could be triggered by disruptions in either their suppliers or the supplier’s market. Reactive actions to the risks, however, have usually been shown to be inefficient and sometimes ineffective. In this dissertation, therefore, I develop a theoretical framework linking some key relationship-specific capabilities to supplier risk. My contention is that the capabilities, when developed, can help proactively mitigate the risk. Thus, the model in this study is grounded in the resource-based and the relational views.

In this study, the survey method has …

The Role Of Dynamic Capabilities In Outsourcing Sales And Marketing Functions: A Resource-Advantage Perspective In The Context Of Consumer Packaged Goods, Belgin Unal

Marketing Dissertations

Outsourcing refers to contracting out the functions to a third party instead of conducting them in-house. The main contribution of this dissertation is to develop and test a model of successful outsourcing in the accomplishment of headquarters selling task. Specifically, it intends to (a) provide a theoretical framework for outsourcing partnership performance, (b) explore the potential complementarities construct in the context of a dyadic outsourcing relationship, (c) examine the role of learning dynamic capabilities in turning potential complementarities into outsourcing success, and (d) explicate the role of structural social capital as an antecedent to learning dynamic capability construct . The …

Understanding The Barriers To The Assimilation Of Interorganizational Technologies In Channel Relationships, Jennifer L. Fries

Marketing Dissertations

Organizations are increasingly focusing on their value chain activities in an effort to improve their performance, especially in the recent economic times. Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their channel activities has become a focal point for many organizations. Interorganizational systems (IOS’s) have played an important part in this effort. While in theory, IOS’s have the ability to enhance the degree of cooperation and coordination between two channel partners, often the results obtained are not what is expected. Hence, it becomes very important to understand the barriers to the assimilation of these technologies. Drawing upon theoretical perspectives of governance, including …

The Drivers Of A Successful Corporate Sponsorship And The Quantified Financial Impact: Applying The Attitudinal Triad Of Cognition, Affect, And Conation And Customer Lifetime Value To Corporate Sponsorships, David Nickell

Marketing Dissertations

While the volume of research on corporate event sponsorships as a marketing tool has increased markedly over the past decade, the results have done little to help marketers to justify sponsorship spending. Not only do marketers have little knowledge of a sponsored event’s financial return, they also struggle to demonstrate any impact on consumer behavior at all.

Using multi-wave survey data, we quantified the financial impact of a sponsorship. We predicted the number of new buyers based upon changed brand attitudes, consistent with a hierarchy of effects model. We then established the financial return on the sponsorship spending by estimating …

The Mediating Role Of Ethical Decision Making In The Relationship Between Job Characteristics And Job Outcomes: An Examination Of Business-To-Business Salespeople, G. Alexander Hamwi

Marketing Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine how the ethical decision making of a salesperson is influenced by job characteristics, and how ethical decision making then influences job outcomes. This research is important because the field of ethics draws from diverse disciplines that have minimal agreement with each other. While calls have been made for a uniform standard of ethics, a better decision may be for each discipline to look internally to determine both what ethics is and how it functions in relation to other variables on in each disciplines unique field. This study examines first how the exogenous …

Fair Or Foul? Determining The Rules Of The Fair Pricing Game, Jodie Lynne Ferguson

Marketing Dissertations

Past research on perceived price fairness has examined outcome fairness, or the fairness of an offered price in respect to other prices (e.g., Campbell 1999a; b). In this research consumers’ perceived fairness of the process used by the retailer to set the price, as well as outcome perceived price fairness (PPF), were examined. In the first of two studies, twelve price-setting practices were evaluated on procedural fairness, pervasiveness (i.e., commonness of price-setting practice in the marketplace), and social acceptability within six contexts. Social acceptability was found to be highest when the price-setting practice was both procedurally fair and perceived to …

The Performance Implications Of Planning, Implementation, And Evolution Of Market-Oriented Strategy By Top Management, Jeffrey R. Foreman

Marketing Dissertations

Participating in the growing research stream involving the market orientation-performance relationship, this investigation explores the impact of firms’ planning, implementation, and evolution of market orientation on financial performance. A longitudinal approach is used to capture the formation and evolution of market orientation. Evidence of market orientation as depicted in top management’s stated strategy is assessed through content analysis of 150 SEC filings (S-1s and 10-Ks) of seventy-five initial public offering (IPO) firms. The sample covers companies that went public in the years 2001-2003, and the study spans a six-year period from 2001-2007. Customer and competitor orientation are independent variables tested …

Salesperson Behavioral Determinants Of Customer Equity Drivers: Mediational Role Of Trust, Ramana K. Madupalli

Marketing Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of different types of salesperson behaviors on building and managing customer equity drivers. It is proposed that customers develop positive attitudes towards different value drivers through developed trust by different salesperson behaviors. Specifically, it is hypothesized that customer trust effects customers’ perceptions of brand value, product value and relationship value; the customer trust in turn is affected by different salesperson behaviors, namely, adaptive selling, customer oriented, selling oriented and un/ethical behaviors. Thus, this dissertation integrates selling behaviors literature with customer equity literature. This dissertation builds on past literature and proposes a conceptual model using nine …

Determinants Of Brand Sensitivity In Organizational Buying Contexts, Brian Paul Brown

Marketing Dissertations

Business-to-business (B2B) marketing practitioners are increasingly relying on branding strategies though academic researchers have been slow to study branding in organizational contexts. By integrating existing conceptual models and research findings, this study examines the noteworthy differences between the B2B and the consumer market contexts and the implications of those differences on the formulation of B2B brand strategies. We introduce a conceptual model that suggests the conditions that are likely to increase or decrease organizations’ propensity to select branded products versus lesser-known or generic products when selecting suppliers, otherwise referred to as brand sensitivity. The proposed model is grounded in risk …

Structure And Process Of Channel Program Selections: Retailers Choice Among Parity Trade Promotions, Amit Poddar

Marketing Dissertations

This research tried to explain the role of calculative commitment, loyalty commitment and power asymmetry on behavioral commitment in a business to business scenario. We specifically looked at the trade promotion scenario since retailers face more trade promotions than they can accept and extant research suggests that retailers always choose trade promotions that offer the greatest immediate benefit. This dissertation addressed the following managerial question, “How does a firm select a program (trade deal) when all its vendors offer the same short term economic incentives”. We proposed that other aspects of retailer’s relationship with its vendors determine / influence the …

Online Product Information Load: Impact On Maximizers And Satisficers Within A Choice Context, Jill Renee Mosteller

Marketing Dissertations

Information load at various thresholds has been asserted to cause a decline in decision quality across several domains, including marketing (Eppler and Mengis 2004). The influence of each information load dimension may vary by study and context (Malhotra 1982; Lurie 2002; Lee and Lee 2004). Given the explosion of information available on the internet, attracting an estimated 144 million U.S. users (Burns 2006a), this experimental research examined how three dimensions of online product information load influenced consumers’ perceived cognitive effort. To the researcher’s knowledge, online product breadth, depth, and density have not been empirically tested together, in a multi-page within …

Future Orientation, Chronological Age And Product Attributes Preference, Yujie Wei

Marketing Dissertations

This dissertation examines what motivates individuals to prefer certain types of product attributes over others. It is proposed that consumer preference regarding product attributes is fundamentally connected to an individual’s future orientation, i.e., how a person perceives, thinks about, and copes with time left in life. Specifically, it is posited that future orientations play key roles in shaping a person’s criteria in product evaluation. Thus, this dissertation seeks to integrate the study of future orientation with research on socio-emotional selectivity influences on consumption. Building on past research, this study proposes a conceptual model including four constructs: future orientations, chronological age, …

The Differing Effects Of Satisfaction, Trust, And Commitment On Buyer's Behavioral Loyalty: A Study Into The Buyer-Salesperson And Buyer-Selling Firm Relationship In A Business-To-Business Context, Brian Rutherford

Marketing Dissertations

This study is one of the first studies to fully address the relationship that business-to-business buyers have with both the selling firm and salesperson within an integrated model. Finding from this survey research support 14 of the 26 original hypotheses and the 2 additional linkages using structural equation modeling. This study finds that the relationship customers have with the selling firm is a stronger predictor of continuance than the relationship that the buyer has with the salesperson. While this relationship is stronger between the buyer and the selling firm, findings suggest that the salesperson can have a direct negative impact …

Impact Of Customer Crowding On Frontline Service Employees: Theoretical And Empirical Implications, Anita H. Whiting

Marketing Dissertations

This study investigates the impact of crowding on frontline service employees. In particular, this study examines how customer crowding affects frontline service employees’ stress, emotions, job performance, and displayed emotions. This study pioneers a new avenue by investigating employee (as opposed to consumer) reactions to customer crowding and addressing the gap in the literature on employees’ interaction with the physical environment. The underlying theoretical framework of the study is rooted in Lazarus’s (1966; 1991) model that links appraisal, emotional response, and coping in a sequential process. Applying theory to the context issue of customer crowding, the major constructs for this …

A Communication Based Perspective On Customer Relationship Management (Crm) Success, Alex Ricardo Zablah

Marketing Dissertations

Although little empirical evidence exists to support this contention, the extant literature suggests that firms can potentially achieve two types of benefits from developing a CRM orientation: (1) increased efficiency in the allocation of resources destined for relationship building and maintenance activities, and (2) enhanced exchange relationship outcomes through the provision of superior customer value (Zablah, Bellenger, and Johnston 2004). This effort focused on the latter of these purported benefits and sought to answer the following two fundamental questions: (1) does a CRM orientation influence the outcome of customer-provider relationships and, if so, how; and (2) does CRM technology have …

Attitudes Toward Consumer-Customized High-Tech Products: The Role Of Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease Of Use, Technology Readiness, And Customer Customization Sensitivity, Margarita B. Guilabert

Marketing Dissertations

Theoretical research on mass customization of consumer products/services has emphasized the importance of consumers embracing customized products as a prerequisite for this strategy to be successful. It seems obvious that if final consumers are not interested in customization there is no need to pursue customization strategies. Although an important body of literature on mass customization has recently emerged, there is a need to know more about customization from the consumer’s point of view. In that sense, this research examines consumers’ attitudes toward customized products/services in the context of high technology. Focusing on high-tech products that can be customized by consumers, …

An Examination Of Contemporary Marketing Practices Used By Organization With Different Culture Types: A Test Of The Convergence Theory In The Us And Cote D'Ivoire, Victoria Lynn Miller

Marketing Dissertations

A framework for a strategy fit with national and organizational culture holds several implications for multinational business managers. First, culture is a critical variable in the strategy process and it should be explicitly examined as a part of the process. Second, culture might encourage and support organizationally a particular business level strategy and may affect marketing practices. This approach views transactional and relational practices as part of a continuum. This study has examined over 250 firms in the United States and the Cote d’Ivoire on the dimensions of their organizational culture, national culture and contemporary marketing practices. In essence, this …