Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Systematic Review Of Marketing Practices Used In Online Grocery Shopping: Implications For Wic Online Ordering, Leslie Hodges, Caitlin M. Lowery, Priyanka Patel, Joleen Mcinnis, Qi Zhang

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) plans to allow participants to redeem their food package benefits online, i.e., online ordering. As grocery shopping online has become more common, companies have developed strategies to market food products to customers using online (or mobile) grocery shopping platforms. There is a significant knowledge gap in how these strategies may influence WIC participants who choose to shop for WIC foods online. This review examines the relevant literature to (1) identify food marketing strategies used in online grocery shopping platforms, (2) understand how these strategies influence consumer behavior and consumer …

How Social Media Influencer Collaborations Are Percieved By Consumers, Veronica L. Thomas, Kendra Fowler, Faegheh Teheran

Marketing Faculty Publications

Within the social media community, influencers engage in a variety of collaborative practices such as tagging, reposting content from, or forming partnerships with other influencers and brands. While such collaborative efforts are a known practice, less is understood about how influencer collaborations affect consumers' perceptions of the partnering influencers, specifically when a status differential exists within the collaboration. We suggest that such collaborative practices, specifically those where the focal influencer has a higher status than the collaborating partner, may help to weaken consumers' perceptions that the influencer's actions are purely self‐focused. A pilot study, analyzing both influencer–influencer collaborations and influencer–brand …

Two Essays On The Role Of Empathy In Consumer Response To User-Generated Content, Mohammadali Koorank Beheshti

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Empathy is known to be the basis of all human interactions and an essential component of human psychology. Empathy includes a cognitive component (perspective-taking) and an affective component (e.g., emotional contagion). The two essays of my dissertation investigate how each of these components of empathy affect consumer responses to user-generated content.

Essay 1: Although both price and online review ratings are important cues in consumers’ product quality judgment, most previous studies have treated price and review ratings as separate inputs into consumer decision-making. The current research shows that the two cues are intertwined, such that consumers’ perception of the same …

Hacking The Pandemic: Launching Third Space Into Cyberspace, Brittany Bowser

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article discusses importance of the school library as a third space for learning. Topics discussed include need for school library's third space to expand into cyberspace; focus to promote awareness of school librarianship; and need for school librarians to prioritize marketing themselves and their instruction.

Essay 1: How We Feel: The Role Of Macro-Economic Sentiment In Advertising Spending-Sales Relationship; Essay 2: It Was The Best Of Times; It Was The Worst Of Times: The Effect Of Emotional Uncertainty And Arousal On Healthy Food Choices, Leila Khoshghadam

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Essay 1: Controversies regarding the advertising spending-sales relationship have spawned many studies in marketing. Previous research on macroeconomic influencers of this relationship has focused mostly on objective macroeconomic indicators such as cyclical contraction and expansion. Extending these previous studies, the current research argues that sales response to advertising is also contingent upon the pervasive feelings present in the macroeconomic environment, above and beyond the influence from objective macroeconomic factors. Specifically, it argues that future outlook negativity and uncertainty in macroeconomic sentiment can affect the ad spending-sales relationship. Analyzing sales and advertising spending data for salty snacks in conjunction with macroeconomic …

The Role Of Brand Love: Application Of The Hierarchy Of Effects Model, Dooyoung Choi, Tae-Im Han

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Understanding the attributes that build consumer loyalty is particularly critical to fashion companies due to the prevalence of alternatives in the market with low switching costs. The significance of this study is extending the knowledge on the role of brand love using the hierarchy of effects model in the context of fashion consumer behaviors. A questionnaire in which participants provided self-reported responses was created to measure the constructs. A two-step approach, a measurement and a structural model was used for the statistical analysis. The results indicated that consumers who know more about the fashion brands are more likely to have …

Determinants Of Organic Cotton Apparel Purchase: A Comparison Of Young Consumers In The Usa And South Korea, Tae-Im Han

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The purpose of this research was to examine consumers from distinct cultural groups and identify similarities and differences in their green purchase behaviors. The sample consisted of consumers from the U.S.A. and South Korea and the theory of planned behavior was used as a theoretical framework to test the influence of diverse constructs on consumers' purchase intentions toward organic cotton apparel. For both countries, perceived behavioral control (PBC) and descriptive norms were strong predictors of purchase intentions and injunctive norms strongly influenced attitude formation. However, the study also found different results between the two groups. For example, while attitude was …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Social Media Marketing On Individuals’ Attitudes And Perceptions At Nova Community College, Nya Gibson

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

Social media has become prominent in the 21st century. Companies are persistently looking for ways to utilize this new platform within their marketing strategies to increase business growth. Since social media is a networking and communication platform, it is important for companies to create a voice to humanize the business and maintain foot traffic. Although there are studies on how to use social media marketing within a business, there is minimal corroboration available of how social media marketing activities influence a consumer’s buying behavior. This study investigated the effects of social media on consumer attitudes of social media marketing and …

Should Cookie Monster Adopt A Healthy Lifestyle Or Continue To Indulge? Insights Into Brand Icons, Altaf Merchant, Kathryn A. Latour, John B. Ford, Michael S. Latour

Marketing Faculty Publications

Developing a brand icon has been a way for marketers to humanize and forge relationships with consumers. Icon development takes time. During this time, marketers have to face how much they stay true and consistent with their icons and how much they allow their icons to adapt to cultural changes in the marketplace. Little is known about how consumers respond to changing icons, and even less is known about whether there may be certain consumer groups that are more or less receptive to such changes. Four experiments and qualitative interviews were undertaken to gain insights into these issues. People who …

Analysis Off Dependent Discrete Choices Using Gaussian Copula, Arjun Poddar

Mathematics & Statistics Theses & Dissertations

A popular tool for analyzing product choices of consumers is the well-known conditional logit discrete choice model. Originally publicized by McFadden (1974), this model assumes that the random components of the underlying latent utility functions of the consumers follow independent Gumbel distributions. However, in practice the independence assumption may be violated and a more reasonable model should account for the dependence of the utilities. In this dissertation we use the Gaussian copula with compound symmetric and autoregressive of order one correlation matrices to construct a general multivariate model for the joint distribution of the utilities. The induced correlations on the …

Buying Love Through Social Media: How Different Types Of Incentives Impact Consumers’ Online Sharing Behavior, Yueming Zou

Marketing Theses & Dissertations

A key issue in social media marketing is insufficient consumer participation and engagement. Oftentimes companies have to devise tactics to encourage more social sharing of brand messages, such as through the use of incentives and rewards. Previous research has investigated incentive effects under the traditional offline context, which addresses mostly economic exchanges and fails to consider the social dynamics of the social media environment. Addressing this gap, this research aims to answer the following research question: how can companies target different consumers with different incentives to maximize consumer sharing through social media? Specifically, the present research proposes three factors that …

The Role Of Perceived Control In Customer Value Cocreation And Service Recovery Evaluation, Lin Guo, Sherry L. Lotz, Chuanyi Tang, Thomas W. Gruen

Marketing Faculty Publications

Treating customers as passive recipients of service recovery does not account for their naturally elevated desire for control following a service failure. Focusing on value cocreation by customers in service recovery, this study conceptualizes three types of customer perceived control in service recovery: process control, decision control, and information control. Using both a field study and a controlled experiment to test the conceptual model, this study reveals various ways service firms can engage customers in service recovery to enhance their service experience. The results show that customers are motivated to exert influence on and regain control over service recovery because …

Measuring Consumer Expectations Of Salesperson Unethicality: A Scale Development, Amiee Mellon

Marketing Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation addresses how and what ethical expectations (prior to conducting business) affect customer trust of the salesperson. In order to do so, this dissertation achieves two things. First, a scale for measuring the consumer’s expectations of salesperson unethicality (CESU) is systematically developed and validated based on the existing ethics literature and previously developed scales. Second, the scale’s properties and potential application are examined through hypothesis testing regarding the effects of (1) word of mouth on brand equity and consumer’s expectations of unethicality, and the effects of (2) brand equity and consumer’s expectations of unethicality on trust of the salesperson. …

Relative Effects Of Lower-Order And Higher-Order Quality Of Work Life On Employee Job Satisfaction And Life Satisfaction: Case Studies Of Service And Manufacturing Sectors In Thailand, Kalayanee Senasu, Anusorn Singhapakdi

Marketing Faculty Publications

This research investigates the relative effects of lower-order and higher-order aspects of quality of work life (QWL) on employee job satisfaction and overall life satisfaction in Thai workplaces. The data were collected by means of questionnaires mailed to employees of 6 selected companies-3 companies in each of the service and manufacturing sectors in Thailand with respective response rates of 72 and 74 percent. The results reveal that the two aspects of QWL in all companies have a positive impact on both aspects of employee satisfaction: job satisfaction and overall life satisfaction. The results also reveal a generally more important role …

How Strong Is The Pull Of The Past? Measuring Personal Nostalgia Evoked By Advertising, Altaf Merchant, Kathryn Latour, John B. Ford

Marketing Faculty Publications

Marketers frequently evoke personal nostalgia in their advertising. To date, scales have been developed to measure the propensity to get nostalgic but not the actual dimensions of personal nostalgia. Results from four studies show that advertising-evoked personal nostalgia comprises four correlated but distinct dimensions: past imagery, positive emotions, negative emotions, and physiological reactions. This multidimensional scale showed a high level of validity and reliability. Moreover, due to careful choice of sampling frames, the study demonstrates a high level of external generalizability. Evaluating nostalgia-based advertising using the study's multidimensional scale may provide marketers with strategic insights for developing and fine-tuning advertising …

Relational Exchange In Nonprofits: The Role Of Identity Saliency And Relationship Satisfaction, Jennifer Anne Taylor

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Research and practice in nonprofit fundraising has increasingly been focused on the benefits of relational exchange. This dissertation examines relationships between donors and nonprofit organizations and their impact on the charitable giving levels using identity salience and relationship satisfaction as key mediators of nonprofit relational exchange. Previous research has shown that there are a plethora of charitable giving motivations that contribute to supportive behaviors in the nonprofit context; however, this research does not provide a comprehensive understanding of the intervening variables. This study modified previous studies by introducing relationship satisfaction in addition to identity saliency, as mediating constructs. Results confirm …

Developing A Pricing Strategy For The Los Angeles Dodgers, Denise Linda Parris, Joris Drayer, Stephen L. Shapiro

Human Movement Sciences & Special Education Faculty Publications

In 2011, the Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium averaged 36,236 fans per game, dropping from 43,979 in 2010 and 46,440 in 2009, an overall loss of about 10,000 fans per game in just two years. In 2011, The Dodgers' attendance ranking fell from first to eleventh in Major League Baseball (MLB), which amounted to a loss of over 800,000 tickets sold per year, as well as the resulting revenue from concessions and parking. Despite the Dodgers' long and storied history, ticket demand had been negatively influenced by inconsistent performance, mounting bad publicity surrounding owner Frank McCourt's divorce, the beating of a …

Dynamic Ticket Pricing In Sport: An Agenda For Research And Practice, Joris Drayer, Stephen L. Shapiro, Seoki Lee

Human Movement Sciences & Special Education Faculty Publications

For decades, the airline and hotel industries have regularly changed prices to keep pace with fluctuating levels of consumer demand. This demand-based approach to pricing is referred to as revenue management. Meanwhile, the sport industry has traditionally underpriced tickets using a cost-based approach in order to maximize attendance and promote fan satisfaction. However, as operating costs have grown, sport organizations are now forced to reconsider these conservative pricing practices. Subsequently, in 2009, the San Francisco Giants were the first team to utilize dynamic pricing, which is a strategy that mirrors the revenue management approach. While data supporting or refuting the …

Warranty And Price As Quality Signals: The Effect Of Signal Consistency And Unexpectedness On Product Perception, Sultan Alaswad Alenazi

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation investigates the effect of signal consistency/inconsistency and signal unexpectedness on a consumer's evaluation of a product. It consists of two studies. Study One examines the effect of signal consistency/inconsistency on product quality, where consistent signals are those of the same valance. Prior research has found that a positive cue not only was unable to improve product quality perception, but also had a negative effect on perceived quality when a positive cue was combined with a negative one. The results of Study One indicate that when signals are inconsistent, consumers engage in an attribution process to explain inconsistency. If …

Remembering To Remember And The Consequences Of Forgetting: The Role Of Prospective Memory In Consumer Intentions, Eyad M. Youssef

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Picking up your dry cleaning after work, returning library books before the due date, picking up a friend at the airport; all of these tasks have one underlying feature that links them together. The tasks cannot be completed when the initial intention is formed. Prospective memory can be defined as remembering to remember (Winograd, 1988). It can also be defined as either remembering to do something at a particular moment in the future or as the timely execution of a previously formed intention (Kvavilashvili and Ellis, 1996). Remembering to do things (prospective memory) is just as much a use of …

Does Service Matter? An Examination Of Donor Perceptions Of Service Quality In College Athletics, Stephen L. Shapiro

Human Movement Sciences & Special Education Faculty Publications

Service quality has been recognized as a strategic tool for improving organizational performance. Many non-profit organizations have taken a market-based approach to fundraising, which enhances the importance of service excellence. The purpose of this investigation was to examine donor perceptions of service quality in college athletics. First, an adapted version of Sargeant's (2001) non-profit service quality instrument was examined to assess its appropriateness within the context of college athletic donors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and validity and reliability analyses provided evidence of an adequate model fit. Subsequently, three multiple linear regression models were developed to examine the relationship between service …

Promotion Induced Competitive Effects: Two Essays, Rajeev Airani

Marketing Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the empirical generalizations related to retailer promotions. Two essays are developed addressing the generalizations. The first essay addresses the contradiction in the calculations of primary and secondary demand effects. A mathematical proof is developed to show that under Nested Logit modeling, competitors' gain assumption is violated. An alternative explanation is provided to calculate the primary and secondary demand effects. The second essay focuses on the empirical generalization of the neighborhood price effect. The effects of share and quality in shaping the neighborhood price effect are hypothesized and tested. Further, based on the evidence that neighborhood price …

The Impact Of Collective Animosity And Collective Guilt On The Judgments Of And Preferences For Japanese Products, Amro Maher

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Collective animosity and its effects on consumers' perceptions of and preferences for foreign products from the perpetrators' country of origin has received considerable attention in the marketing literature (Ettenson and Klein 2005; Klein, Ettenson and Morris 1998; Klein 2002; Nijseen and Douglas 2005). Collective animosity however is only one possible emotion that might be experienced towards other groups (Smith 1993; Smith 1999; Mackie, Devos and Smith 2000). Collective guilt is one of these possible emotions that have received considerable attention in the social psychology literature. Collective guilt refers to the distress that one might feel due to moral transgressions performed …

A Social Relational Model For Firm-Hosted Virtual Communities: The Role Of Firm Support, Tung Duy Cu

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Since the ease of participation and the usefulness of information provided by online groups continue to proliferate in the World Wide Web, people increasingly participate in different forms of virtual community (i.e. online forums, bulletin boards, message boards, chat rooms) for their purposes, such as solving problems, building social relationships, sharing passions, developing professionals.

Accordingly, an increasing number of companies are now attempting to exploit this phenomenon by hosting and supporting their own online community for commercial and non-commercial purposes, such as building relationships with their customers, getting their feedback, strengthening the brand, and reducing customer service costs by enabling …

Inter-State Economic Development- Powered By Utilities, John R. Lombard

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

In 2000, a group of state business recruiters from New England joined to promote New England to corporate real estate and site selection consultants at IDRC’s1 World Congress in New York City. At roughly the same time, the two metropolitan areas of Hartford, Conn., and Springfield, Mass., formed the Hartford-Springfield Economic Partnership (HSEP). These informal ventures that cross state borders represent coalitions of business, academic, political and policy leaders working together to foster the combined regions’ economic well-being.

Antecedents And Consequences Of Consumer Ethnocentrism Across Russia's Three Sub-Cultures, Shawn Thelen

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Shimp and Sharma (1987) extended the concept of ethnocentrism to commercial products with the development of a 17-item Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale [CETSCALE]. Consumer ethnocentrism is the belief that purchasing imported products harms the local economy, increases unemployment, and is morally wrong (Skimp and Sharma 1987). Shimp and Sharma (1987) called for studies to determine antecedents to consumer ethnocentrism and to apply the CETSCALE across geographic and regional segments. This dissertation addresses a void in the literature by examining antecedents; Inglehart's Materialism/Post Materialism (1977) and Holbrook's Nostalgia (1993), and outcome variables; product purchase preference, of consumer ethnocentrism across sub-cultures postulated to …

Deception In Advertising: A Content Analysis Of The Legal Parameters Of Deception, E. Carla Mitchell

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

One of the primary attributes of a free market economy is the uninhibited flow of truthful information regarding the goods and services available in the marketplace (Azcuenaga 1995). This free flow of information, in the form of advertising, enhances market performance by informing consumers and enabling firms to compete equitably based on the attributes of their offerings. Studies reveal that, for the vast majority of marketing managers, the regulatory environment serves as the primary influence in advertising strategy development and decision-making (Davis 1994). However, in their theory development, behavioral researchers often ignore the legal aspects promulgated by the FTC. Furthermore, …

Understanding The Digital Divide As It Relates To Electronic Commerce, Franklin D. Gaillard

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

There exists an electronic digital divide within the United States. This digital divide concerns access to the Internet and its corresponding technologies. The U.S. government is concerned about the digital divide because it appears that certain ethnic groups and income levels are being excluded from computer technologies and the Internet. These groups include African Americans and Hispanics, who are lagging the Caucasians significantly in gaining access to the Internet. For a while the gap between majority and minority groups appeared to be widening. Since Internet access is a prerequisite to electronic commerce, an understanding of the relationship between the digital …

Sales Training Practices In Malaysia: Comparisons Of Domestic And Multinational Companies, Mohamad Asri Jantan

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation expands the domestic sales training research into international settings by examining and comparing sales training practices of domestic and multinational companies (MNCs) in Malaysia. Fourteen hypotheses were proposed and examined: (1) the two groups' comparative sales training practices; (2) the two groups' sales managers' perceptions toward important sales training tasks; (3) the relationships of the different perceptions toward important sales training tasks to sales 9 managers' performance measures; and (4) the effect of two groups' demographic variables on perceived adequacy of the overall sales training programs.

Cross-sectional data were collected via self-administered questionnaires distributed to sales managers, marketing …

A Content Analysis Of Advertising In Magazines Directed At United States And United Kingdom Seniors, Ray Markham Smith

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The seniors (55+) market is a growing, attractive market. While this market represents almost one-fourth of the total population in the United States and is slightly higher in the United Kingdom today, this segment is projected to grow to approximately one-third of the population over the next quarter century.

Relative to their proportion of the total population, seniors, and especially women, have historically been underrepresented as general advertising models. When seniors are portrayed, they are often used in supporting roles or in a negatively stereotyped manner. While the aging process is associated with declines in mental and physical capabilities, and …