Marketing Commons^™

Innovation Reputation And Market Capitalization: The Moderations Of Firm Size, Industry, And Asset Efficiency, Arilova Randrianasolo, Alexey V. Semenov

Funded Scholarship

Purpose – This study investigates the utility of innovation reputation in boosting stock market valuations by examining the influences of firm size, industry and asset efficiency on the focal relationship.

Design/methodology/approach – The moderations were tested across two studies. Study 1 (N = 500) analyzed the influence of innovation reputation on market capitalization and the firm size moderation across manufacturing and service firms. Study 2 (N = 100) assessed the moderations of firm size and asset efficiency in high-vs low-innovation industries.

Findings – Results indicate that innovation reputation significantly predicts market capitalization, with a stronger effect for larger firms. This …

Will Labubu Be A Keeper Like Hello Kitty And Pokémon?, Hannah H. Chang, Joy Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Marketing Hannah Chang and Joy Zhang, a student from United World College of South East Asia, explored the unique qualities that enable certain toy fads to transcend trends and become cultural icons. They also examined the rising popularity of Labubu, offering insights into whether it has the potential to achieve enduring icon status comparable to the likes of Hello Kitty.

2025 January, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for January of 2025.

You’Ll Be Back: Sensory Cognition’S Influence On Audience Retention, Tia Dimicelli

Honors Theses and Capstones

This study explores the impact of sensory elements – specifically ambient scent and music – in theatrical lobbies on audience satisfaction and likelihood of returning. Two general surveys were distributed to gauge what audiences expect from lobby spaces, and what they describe as memorable experiences. Then, two experiments were conducted using a test/control group design during live performances in New Hampshire. Participants completed surveys assessing their perception of the lobby environment, satisfaction with the performance, and likelihood to return to or recommend the venue. While the initial general surveys indicated that participants believed sensory elements would enhance their experience, no …

What Are The Key Considerations Of Social Enterprises Planning To Scale, And How Do These Considerations Interact To Shape The Scaling Journey?, Clodagh O'Reilly

Doctoral

Social enterprises are organisations that pursue dual social and commercial goals. With increasing social issues facing our global society today, as highlighted by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, social enterprises are well-positioned to respond and have a positive impact. Despite the increased recognition of the contribution of social enterprises, research into the phenomenon remains fragmented and underexplored. This study explores how social enterprises scale and what factors and elements are required. Furthermore, the research explores how the factors interconnect, interact and shape the scaling journey.

Anime And Luxury Fashion: Studio Ghibli And Loewe's Unorthodox Brand Merchandizing, Theodore Gournelos, David Marutschke

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

While they might seem counterintuitive to traditional concepts of “luxury,” collaborations between luxury and anime brands are a growing pattern reflecting the growth of both industries for key demographics. This paper argues that luxury brands use these collaborations to establish brand relevance and cultural connection while also positioning themselves advantageously against other brands in an increasingly social and online environment. Through a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of Instagram posts and user comments from Studio Ghibli and the Spanish luxury brand Loewe regarding their three product collaborations, we argue that there is a significant amount of room for differentiation in …

Introducing Sustainable Development Goals In College Curricula: A Way Forward, Christy Ashley, Jason D. Oliver, Hillary Leonard

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

The commentary proposes a blueprint to help guide curriculum innovations, partnerships, and teaching interventions that incorporate the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) into the curriculum. It suggests the utilization of AACSB’s Societal Impact Canvas with Ancona et al.’s (2007) Leadership Capabilities (Sensemaking, Relating, Visioning, Inventing) to provide a blueprint for mission-aligned SDG integration at a local level. It provides an illustrative example from the University of Rhode Island (USA), where the focus is on the Blue Economy. It aims to provide practical guidance for how a college or university can efficiently organize to gain stakeholder input that helps enhance …

An Economic And Production Analysis Of Seaweed Farms In California And The Pacific Northwest, Brian Donovan

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Since the early 2010s, the seaweed aquaculture industry has steadily expanded in the United States, with states like Alaska, Maine, Hawaii, and Connecticut leading the way in the development of this emerging sector. However, information gaps remain concerning certain aspects of the domestic seaweed aquaculture industry. The purpose of this study was to examine the status of the seaweed aquaculture industry along the West Coast of the United States; specifically in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Seaweed farmers in these states were invited to voluntarily complete surveys asking important production, economic, and commercial questions regarding their operations. Data …

Harvest Gold Distillery, Alexis Mackey, Alexander Grecco, Cole Smith, Maggie Patterson, Blake Benko

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of our research project is to establish and grow Harvest Gold Distillery: a corn-based liquor distillery in Ohio that aims to produce and sell high-quality spirits while offering unique services that enhance outreach in the community. The motivation behind this business venture is rooted in one of our team member’s family traditions; Alex’s family makes homemade liquors, which has fostered an in-depth understanding of the distillation process. Alex’s firsthand experience with the craft provides a solid foundation, yet we recognize that starting a distillery involves significant challenges and requires thorough research in several functions of business. This project …

Selling Trust: The Evolution Of Relationship Selling In The Investment Industry, Kaden N. Kroslak, Frederik Beuk

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This honors research project examines how relationship selling in the investment industry, especially within registered investment advisory firms, has evolved over time. Advisor-client relationships are being shaped by technology, analytics, regulations, and a frenzy of information. This literature review explores whether the stated factors of technology, credibility, regulations, information access, and fiduciary duty, caused change in how investment advisors create, maintain, and grow client relationships within the context of trust. The project styling, in form of a literature review analyzes peer-reviewed studies on financial technology, artificial intelligence, psychological approaches, and regulatory systems. The outcome is a paper which helps fill …

Customer Service Operations: A Gatekeeper Framework, Maqbool Dada, Brett A. Hathaway, Evgeny Kagan

Faculty Publications

Customer service has evolved beyond in-person visits and phone calls to include live chat, AI chatbots and social media, among other contact options. Service providers typically refer to these contact modalities as “channels”. Within each channel, customer service agents are tasked with managing and resolving a stream of inbound service requests. Each request involves milestones where the agent must decide whether to keep assisting the customer or to transfer them to a more skilled – and often costlier – provider. To understand how this request resolution process should be managed, we develop a model in which each channel is represented …

Personalized Persuasion In The Digital Age: A Data-Driven Approach To Effective Communication, Annye Braca

Doctoral

This thesis investigates the potential of Machine Learning (ML) to personalize persuasive marketing messages. It explores the identification of individuals receptive to specific persuasion techniques based on their psychometric profiles. By developing ML models that incorporate these profiles, the thesis aims to predict the impact of tailored messages and improve the effectiveness of marketing communication.

Identity-Based Autonomy And Its Impact On Connections With Identity-Linked Products And Brands, Keri L. Kettle, Carter Morgan, Americus Reed Ii

School of Marketing and Innovation Faculty Publications

We introduce a new characteristic of identity into the identity-based consumer behavior literature called identity-based autonomy: the autonomy (i.e., freedom from others' influence) versus heteronomy (i.e., real or perceived external influence) that people feel when enacting an identity. This new dimension thus captures how consumers enact a salient identity in an identity-relevant context. We create a new measure of identity-based autonomy to capture how this dimension varies across identities. We show that autonomous identities foster a greater sense of control over when, where, and how one uses identity-linked products. As a result, we demonstrate that people feel stronger connections …

How Art Centers In Michigan Use Social Media To Communicate Mission, Alexandria Milot

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The use of social media for marketing purposes has become a widespread practice for nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Social media can assist in communication efforts in many ways, including communicating an art center's mission. However, with limited documentation of the use of social media marketing within these organizations, it can be challenging to know how current art centers are using social media and if their social media marketing strategy is reaching their intended audiences. This research explores how art centers in Michigan use social media to communicate their mission to their audience and if it matches the organization’s original purpose …

How Personalized Chatbots Win Customer Loyalty, Jaeha Lee, Dooyoung Choi

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

The study applies affordance theory to investigate how perceived personalization influences loyalty through cognitive, affective, and social drivers. Data was collected from 220 participants who watched a video of a chatbot interaction and then assessed their loyalty intentions. While all paths were significant between personalization and consumer’s willingness to stay, the effects of personalization on consumer’s willingness to recommend the retailers to others were slightly different. If companies aim to capitalize on word-of-mouth marketing, it will be better to prioritize cognitive and affective qualities of chatbot over social qualities, because the latter did not contribute significantly to word-of-mouth intentions about …

(In)Attention To Attractive Brand Alternatives, Danielle J. Brick, Veronica L. Thomas

Marketing Faculty Publications

Understanding how consumers maintain their brand relationships has important implications for marketers as committed consumers contribute significant value to firms. In the present research, we propose and test one such way consumers protect their brand relationships, namely through attentional avoidance of attractive alternative partners. Across multiple studies, we find support for our theory that committed consumers avoid attending to alternative brand partners by recalling less about and spending less time focused on attractive alternatives. We further find that this inattention occurs because consumers view the competing brand as a threat to the consumer’s current relationship. In addition, we investigate a …

Anatomical Depiction: How Showing A Product's Inner Structure Shapes Product Valuations, Seo Yoon Kang, Junghan Kim, Arun Lakshmanan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Anatomical depiction is a technique where the product is decomposed into components that are spatially arranged in a layer-by-layer manner to visually explicate its inner structure. The authors demonstrate that anatomical depiction, compared to non-anatomical depiction, enhances product valuation. This effect occurs because anatomical depiction elicits a ‘coming together’ of the inner components in consumers’ minds thereby evoking a gestalt image of the product – a process labeled simulated assemblage. The elicitation of simulated assemblage in turn boosts their confidence in the product’s performance. Two field experiments first demonstrate that anatomical depiction leads to greater engagement in online settings such …

Blurred Vision: Understanding Barriers To Initiating Collaborative Market Driving, Kim Feddema, Daniel Schepis, Liudmila Tarabashkina, Sharon Purchase

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Purpose: This paper aims to examine why many producers of origin-bound products struggle to collectively drive increases in market value, despite shared interests. The authors apply a collaborative market driving (CMD) lens to the early stages of collective efforts, to identify the key motivators, visioning processes and explore why CMD can fail to initiate. Design/methodology/approach: The authors present a qualitative case study of the Western Australian monofloral honey industry. Data includes 64 producers’ and distributors’ online content and 30 interviews with stakeholders. Leximancer was used to map marketing communications, and participant narratives were thematically analysed using terroir and authenticity frameworks. …

Navigating Technological Disruptions: The Interplay Of Ai-Based Stakeholder Engagement, Marketing Agility, And Firm Performance, Ali N. Tehrani, Sanjit K. Roy

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Purpose – This study aims to examine how artificial intelligence (AI)-based stakeholder engagement can enhance marketing agility and improve firm performance, particularly in environments with high technological turbulence. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected through a survey of 335 companies across diverse industries in Australia, using validated scales for AI-based stakeholder engagement, marketing agility, firm performance and technology turbulence. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data. Findings – The results indicate that engaging stakeholders through AI technologies positively influences marketing agility, which in turn enhances firm performance. These effects are amplified in conditions of high technology …

Unveiling The Charisma Of Artificial Intelligence: How Voice Assistants Captivate Users And Emotionally Influence User Experience, Bibaswan Basu, Sanjit K. Roy, Chrysostomos Apostolidis

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Although studies have explored user experience (UX) with artificial intelligence (AI)-powered voice assistants (VAs), the cognitive, psychological, and emotional factors affecting user engagement and experience with VAs have yet to be investigated in depth. Drawing on cognitive absorption and broaden-and-build theories, this study investigates how VAs captivate users, enhance positive emotions, and influence the overall UX. To address these questions, we conduct three types of analyses—exploratory, confirmatory, and configurational—utilizing data from 125,600 user reviews on a popular VA platform (Google Assistant) from 2017 to 2024. First, we employ bidirectional encoder representations from the transformers (BERT)topic modeling to unearth relevant cognitive …