Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Predicting Mobility Using Limited Data During Early Stages Of A Pandemic, Michael T. Lash, S. Sajeesh, Özgür M. Araz

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed consumer behavior substantially. In this study, we explore the drivers of consumer mobility in several metropolitan areas in the United States under the perceived risks of COVID-19. We capture multiple dimensions of perceived risk using local and national cases and death counts of COVID-19, along with real-time Google Trends data for personal protective equipment (PPE). While Google Trends data are popular inputs in many studies, the risk of multicollinearity escalates with the addition of more relevant terms. Therefore, multicollinearity-alleviating methods are needed to appropriately leverage information provided by Google Trends data. We develop and utilize …

Typology Of Tweets And User Engagement Generated By U.S. Companies Involved In Developing Covid-19 Vaccines, Priyanka Khandelwal, Leslie Ramos Salazar, Soni Khandelwal

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

This study analyzes 295 tweets by four U.S. companies engaged in discovering a vaccine for COVID-19. Tweets were analyzed to understand how their Twitter feeds balanced corporate and product branding (vaccine, medicines, etc.) and disseminated scientific information relating to COVID-19. The results suggest that these companies were actively embedding technical information about COVID-19 in their corporate and product branding. Tweets providing technical and scientific information about the progress made toward developing a COVID-19 vaccine garnered high levels of user engagement from their target audience. Findings from this study indicate the growing importance of technical communication in corporate settings during a …

Starbucks Strategic Analysis, Jillian Jacoba

Honors Theses

Starbucks is a multinational chain of coffee shops and roasteries that was founded in 1971. Starbucks has continued to grow for the past 51 years and continues to dominate the coffee industry. This strategic analysis evaluates the general environment using a PESTEL analysis, the industry using Porter’s Five Forces, and the company’s overall strategy and competitive advantages. This paper will evaluate Starbucks’ position in the industry and the strategic choices that have led the company to its extraordinary success.

The Effects Of Received Grandmothers’ Affection On Adult Grandchildren’S Health Behaviors Using Affection Exchange Theory, Leslie Ramos Salzar, Priyanka Khandelwal, Yvette Castillo

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Background: Affection exchange theory (AET) explains the value of received affection for overall wellbeing in family relationships. However, this study extends prior work by investigating AET in grandmother-grandchild relationships and grandchildren’s individual well-being. This study seeks to understand the relationships between adult grandchildren’s received grandmother affection and health-related behaviors such as diet, exercise, substance abuse, and sleep.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 229 university student participants. Multiple regression analyses were performed to analyze received grandmother affection and grandchildren’s health behaviors.

Results: Using cross-sectional survey methods, it was found that grandchildren’s reports of received memories and humor, and celebratory affection influenced …

Social Media & Hr: A Bibliometric Analysis, Divyanshu Pawaskar Mr., Priya Sharma Ms., Sanjay Bhattacharya Mr., Monica Kunte Dr., Netra Neelam Dr., Preeti Mulay Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

From an HRM standpoint, the better an organisation is able to manage their workforce, the better their performance will be. In doing so, social media nowadays play a major role to this end. Be it talent acquisition, employee engagement, talent management or enhancing employer value proposition, social media profiles are playing a big role for organisations. The onus of which lies to a large extent on the shoulders of the HR department. Merely having pages on social media platforms do not suffice. Proper management and audience engagement become the key for HR. It is not sufficient to just have a …

Digital Marketing And Smes: A Systematic Mapping Study, Abdurrahman Rahim Thaha, Erna Maulina, R Anang Muftiadi, Mohammad Benny Alexandri

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have a high priority for many governments because of their important economic contribution and the number of people they employ. The very rapid development of ICT in the digital era has an impact on various lines of life, including changes in business environment and consumer behavior. Therefore, the need to find out about research trends and themes in digital marketing in SMEs is important. The objective of this paper is to classify, and identify related themes and trends in the literature that are directly related to digital marketing and SMEs over the past 10 years. …

Arbor Day Foundation Consultation, Drew Spadaro, Leigh Hanson, Demi Van Reeuwijk, Fran Munro, Mason Smalley, Trevor Lockard

Honors Theses

Over the past 4 months, our team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Business Honors Academy has been working directly with Nebraska’s own, Arbor Day Foundation, or Arbor Day, in hopes of applying our skill sets and mindsets to solve a pressing problem Arbor Day currently faces. We have been tasked with the challenge of identifying creative, scalable, and profitable new business ventures for Arbor Day that will aid the generation of new revenue sources. With these sources of revenue, Arbor Day desires to further inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees and in turn solve some of the world’s …

When And How Frontline Service Employee Authenticity Influences Purchase Intentions, Lynn Matthews, Meike Eilert, Les Carlson, James W. Gentry

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

In this manuscript, we investigate the central role of perceived frontline service employee (FSE) authenticity and the process by which it impacts purchase intentions, taking into account the represented brand's authenticity. While brand authenticity has previously been shown to enhance consumer outcomes, we find that FSE authenticity is a separate significant predictor of purchase intentions. Further, we find that FSE authenticity enhances purchase intentions by increasing perceived trust and perceived quality. However, this finding only holds for brands that do not emphasize their authenticity, indicating that brand managers should differentially emphasize FSE authenticity based on their brand's positioning. Furthermore, we …

Ethical Purchasing Dissonance: Antecedents And Coping Behaviors, Tim Reilly, Amit Saini, Jenifer Skiba

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The pressure of oversight and scrutiny in the business-to-business purchasing process has the potential to cause psychological distress in purchasing professionals, giving rise to apprehensions about being ethically inappropriate. Utilizing depth interviews with public sector purchasing professionals in a phenomenological approach, the authors develop the notion of ethical purchasing dissonance to explain the psychological distress. An inductively derived conceptual framework is presented for ethical purchasing dissonance that explores its potential antecedents and consequences; illustrative propositions are presented, and managerial implications are discussed.

How Female Online Businesses And Brands Are Using Instagram Stories, Hannah N. Vanderslice

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

Instagram is one of the newest forms of social media that impacts its audience on a visual level, since the content is centered on photos and videos. Their newest feature, Instagram stories, is temporary videos and/or photos strung together to form a gallery, which has been compared to Snapchat’s version of live stories. Instagram stories offer a unique opportunity for businesses to take advantage of the temporary, 24-hour platform that shows specific frame-by-frame analytics that help create efficient and compelling content to repost permanently that helps organic search engine optimization. As a cost-effective means of advertising, early adopter large and …

Male Breadwinner Ideology And The Inclination To Establish Market Relationships: Model Development Using Data From Germany And A Mixed-Methods Research Strategy, Michaela Haase, Ingrid Becker, Alexander Nill, Clifford J. Shultz Ii, James W. Gentry

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

A pattern found in many marketing systems, “male breadwinning,” is contingent upon overlapping and shared ideologies, which influence the economic organization and thus the type and number of relationships in those systems. Implementing a mixed-methods research methodology, this article continues and extends previous work in macromarketing on the interplay of markets, ideology, socio-economic organization, and family. A qualitative study illuminated the main ideologies behind male breadwinning and a model was developed to advance the theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of male breadwinning. An experiment in the form of a vignette study was subsequently designed and administered. The qualitative study and …

Life Beyond The Like: Uses & Gratifications Of Sharing Business Facebook Page Content, Sara M. Nash

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

One of the main reasons businesses create a Facebook Page is to solidify relationships with existing customers who are Facebook users and to leverage those relationships to gain new customers. Many studies have asked Facebook users to articulate the gratifications they receive when “liking” a business Facebook Page. These studies help explain what gratifications users gain by connecting to businesses via Facebook. To expand on these findings, the current pilot study applied the uses and gratifications theory to identify Facebook users’ motivations to “share” business Facebook content within their own personal network. Understanding users’ reasons for “sharing” will help businesses …

Become A Future-Focused Leader: Use Three Megatrends To Grow Your Rural Business, Connie Reimers-Hild, Alyssa Dye

Community Vitality Initiative Collections

No one can predict the future; however, rural entrepreneurs and business owners can use a future-focused leadership approach, which includes examining megatrends, to shape the future of their businesses. Megatrends are global shifts that influence society, the economy and the environment. This article discusses three megatrends shaping the future of rural businesses:

1) The Rise of the #GigEconomy

2) Living with Purpose and Meaning

3) The Decentralized Marketplace

The article also provides coaching tips for rural entrepreneurs on how to use megatrends to grow their businesses.

While many companies are struggling to keep up with the rapid rate of change, …

Dispersion Of Marketing Capabilities: Impact On Marketing’S Influence And Business Unit Outcomes, Michael T Krush, Ravipreet Sohi, Amit Saini

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The marketing function of firms continues to evolve into many configurations, including the dispersion of marketing capabilities. This study evaluates the effects on the marketing function’s influence when marketing capabilities are dispersed across multiple boundaries. Using a sample of marketing executives, we study the effects of two forms of marketing capabilities dispersion: intra-organizational dispersion and inter-organizational dispersion. We examine the impact of these forms on marketing’s perceived influence within the firm. We also investigate marketing’s influence on customer responsiveness, along with three distal outcomes: marketing strategy implementation success, relationship portfolio effectiveness, and business unit performance. Our findings reveal that marketing’s …

Relational Behavior Of Leaders: A Comparison By Vocational Context, G. Ronald Gilbert, Robert C. Myrtle, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Organizational researchers widely acknowledge that positive relational behavior is associated with leadership effectiveness. In this exploratory study, we seek to extend previous research examining contextual factors that influence leadership style based on the characteristics of person–vocation fit. Using information derived from a 360° assessment that included one’s top managers, peers, and subordinates (N = 934), we find that leaders working in settings that attract Holland’s Social (S) types demonstrate more positive relational behavior than those who work in Realistic (R) type work settings. Our research also indicates that the relationship between leadership style and perceived effectiveness varies based on …

Deception In Cosmetics Advertising: Examining Cosmetics Advertising Claims In Fashion Magazine Ads / 化妆品广告中的欺骗:分析时尚杂志广告中的化妆品广告, Jie G. Fowler, Timothy H. Reisenwitz, Les Carlson

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The FDA has only focused upon the physical safety of cosmetics and has ignored the significant reasonability of advertising claims. As such, the present article is intended to examine/ascertain the extent to which cosmetics claims contain deceptive content in fashion ads. Through a content analysis, the study reported herein revealed that cosmetics claims were not evenly distributed. To that end, the preponderance of the claims appeared to be described primarily by three categories (scientific, performance and subjective). The results also showed that more cosmetics claims were classified as deceptive than were deemed as acceptable. Close examination of these trends revealed …

A Conceptualization And Empirical Examination Of The Effects Of Marketing Alignment On Franchising Relationships, Joseph Matthes

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Franchising is a widely utilized business format that continues to grow in popularity both domestically and abroad. Through the recruitment of franchisees as agents, franchisors are able to access additional resources and rapidly expand their networks. The marketing relationship between franchising partners presents unique opportunities and challenges due to this captive and codependent channel structure. In order to fill a gap in the literature and better understand franchisee-franchisor relationships, the author conceptualizes marketing alignment as being comprised of both agreement and cooperation across the dimensions of strategies, operations, and values. A conceptual model is developed that addresses the following research …

The Prevalence And Influence Of The Combination Of Humor And Violence In Super Bowl Commercials, Benjamin J. Blackford, James W. Gentry, Robert L. Harrison, Les Carlson

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The growing concern over violence in the media has led to vast amounts of research examining the effects of violent media on viewers. An important subset of this research looks at how humor affects this relationship. While research has considered this subset in television programming, almost no research has explored this in the context of advertising. This paper builds on the little research that exists by examining the effects of combining humor and violence, as well as the theoretical approaches that underlie these effects. A content analysis is conducted to identify the prevalence of violence, humor, and the combination of …

What Makes Strategy Making Across The Sales-Marketing Interface More Successful?, Avinash Malshe, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Extant research on marketing strategy making (MSM) lacks process-based theoretical frameworks that elucidate how marketing strategies are made when sales and marketing functions are involved in the process. Using a grounded theory approach and data collected from (a) 58 depth interviews with sales and marketing professionals and (b) a focus group with 11 marketing professionals, we propose that MSM within the sales-marketing interface is a three-stage, multifaceted process that consists of Groundwork, Transfer and Follow-up stages. Our process-based model explicates the specific activities at each stage that are needed to develop and execute marketing strategies successfully, the sequence in which …

The Role Of Relational Knowledge Stores In Interfirm Partnering, Jean L. Johnson, Ravipreet S. Sohi, Rajdeep Grewal

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Drawing on the notions of relational capabilities and absorptive capacity, the authors examine the effects of interactional, functional, and environmental knowledge stores on relationship quality and relationship portfolio effectiveness. The results suggest that the knowledge stores affect the outcome variables differently and that the effects vary by levels of industry turbulence.

The Development Of Interfirm Partnering Competence: Platforms For Learning, Learning Activities, And Consequences Of Learning, Jean L. Johnson, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

This study investigated factors within the firm that encourage organizational learning activities. The authors suggest that when the appropriate factors are present, the firm will more likely engage in learning activities integral in the development of interfirm partnering competence. The conditions for building partnering competence are found in the firm's culture and climate in the form of learning intent, receptivity, and transparency. In addition, the authors suggested that learning-related activities would generate some positive influence on specific interfirm relationships (IFRs). The authors tested these ideas on data from a multiindustry mail survey. Results largely conformed to expectations. The platform variables, …

It Competency And Firm Performance: Is Organizational Learning A Missing Link?, Michael J. Tippins, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Many companies have developed strategies that include investing heavily in information technology (IT) in order to enhance their performance. Yet, this investment pays off for some companies but not others. This study proposes that organization teaming plays a significant role in determining the outcomes of IT. Drawing from resource theory and IT literature, the authors develop the concept of IT competency. Using structural equations modeling with data collected from managers in 271 manufacturing firms, they show that organizational learning plays a significant role in mediating the effects of IT competency on firm performance.

The Influence Of Firm Dispositions On Interfirm Relationship Formation In Business Markets, Jean L. Johnson, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The central premise of this paper is that firm level characteristics or behavioral traits, referred to as predispositions, influence how the firm behaves and interacts in its interfirm relationships (EFRs). This augments traditional approaches that focus on the intra-relationship perspective and/or on environmental influences on the relationship. Firm predispositions of strategic intent and relational proclivity are expected to individually, and in combination, increase the extent of connectedness between partners in interfirm relationships. In turn, through connectedness, they affect relationship effectiveness in terms of reciprocity, information exchange, and cooperation. Results indicated that the predispositions increased connectedness, but combinational effects were not …

The Role Of Motivated Reasoning In Vendor Consideration, Ju-Young Park, Ravipreet S. Sohi, Ray Marquardt

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

This is a conceptual article dealing with the role of motivated reasoning in vendor selection. The authors argue that organizational buyers' motivated reasoning, along with the task characteristics of perceived importance and familiarity, plays an important role in determining whether an open or a closed consideration will be used for vendor selection. Based on the relationship between motivated reasoning and task characteristics, the authors develop several propositions.

The Effects Of Environment Dynamism And Heterogeneity On Salespeople's Role Perceptions, Performance And Job Satisfaction, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

This article develops a structural equations model which examines the effects of environmental dynamism and heterogeneity on salespeople’s role conflict, role ambiguity, performance and job satisfaction. The model is tested with EQS, using data collected from 230 salespeople in multiple companies and industries. Indicates that environmental dynamism reduces satisfaction and performance, and increases role conflict and ambiguity. Notes that environmental heterogeneity also reduces performance and increases role conflict, but does not have a significant effect on role ambiguity.

Communication Flows In Distribution Channels: Impact On Assessments Of Communication Quality And Satisfaction, Jakki J. Mohr, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

We develop and test a model of the relationships between: (1) norms of information sharing and communication flows of frequency, bidirectionality, and formality, (2) these communication flows and dealers’ assessments of the quality of communication and satisfaction with communication; and (3) formality of communication flows and dealers’ distortion and withholding of information. Based on data collected with a survey mailed to a national sample of computer dealers, our findings offer insight on channels communication to both researchers and practitioners. By examining the impact of communication flows on summary judgments of communication, managers can focus their efforts on vital communication flows …

Salespersons’ Perceptions About Sales Contests: Towards A Greater Understanding, William H. Murphy, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Aims to improve understanding of an important and widely used management tool for motivating the salesforce – sales contests. Begins by introducing the question: what factors are associated with salespeople's feelings towards a sales contest? Several potentially relevant characteristics that are expected to be associated with various feelings towards contests are discussed. To test the hypotheses, data were collected through verbal protocols and surveys from salespeople belonging to a division of a Fortune 100 firm. Results indicate that salespeople's self-esteem, commitment level, and career stage play a role in influencing feelings towards the sales contest.

The impetus for this research …

Dual Diffusion: Analysis And Implications For Sales Force Management, Madhavan Parthasarathy, Ravipreet S. Sohi, Ronald D. Hampton

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Retail resistance to an innovation can hamper its supply to consumers, thereby influencing product adoption behavior. Given this, a dual diffusion process consisting of both retail and consumer adoption is more appropriate in today's dynamic marketplace. Sales emphasis by manufacturers can strongly influence retail and consumer adoption behaviors, which would be reflected in the shapes of their respective patterns. In this paper, the authors examine the nature of retail adoption and its impact, both positive and negative, on consumer adoption. Following this, they present a strategic framework that lays out the sales management implications of the dual diffusion process.