Digital Commons Network^™

Marketing, Development, And The Question Of Meaning, Dominique Bouchet

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Originally developed as a sales technique, marketing ended up playing an economic and political role globally. With the advent of globalization and sustainability issues, the importance given to the techniques of marketing in both analyses and in communication limits the possibility of mutual understanding and of social creativity. A profound understanding of what is at stake for society and culture is not what matters when the focus is on the ways to maintain the superficial link to the instrument of power.

The market plays a central role within the fields of marketing, economics and politics. Yet, questions of what the …

Privileging Localism And Visualizing Nationhood In Anti-Consumption, Rohit Varman, Russell Belk

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

The main aim of this research is to understand the genesis and nature of an anti-consumption movement in India and its emphasis on nationalism through localism. This research adopted a case study design, including in-depth interviews and discursive analysis. Through a historical analysis this research shows the influence of anarchist political philosophy in a contemporary anti-consumption movement. It demonstrates that anti-consumption is inflected with discourses of freedom, anti-authoritarianism, and anti-statism, which are central to the anarchist conception of localism. This research shows that anti-consumption movements in India use consumption objects to privilege local over both national and international. This helps …

Establishing Meaning And Values In Marketing And Broadening Perspectives In Understanding Nationhood And Climate Change, Deniz Atik, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Voluntourism On The Camino De Santiago – How Iteration Changes Motives, Stakeholder Interaction, And Reintegration Of Hospitaleros, Andreas Braun

Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism

Hospitaleros who volunteer in the hostels along the Camino de Santiago have, to the best of our knowledge, not yet been examined, from the perspectives of voluntourism and pilgrimage research. This article aims to give an insight into a unique form of volunteering based on 32 interviews with hostel wardens conducted between 2017 and 2021. The results indicate that – while hospitaleros primarily indicate interpersonal motives for their service – the voluntary work serves as a kind of “substitute drug” to satisfy the longing for and dependence on the Camino. With increasing iterations, (1) the strength of the personal motives …

Rogue Entrepreneurship, Russ Mcbride, Mark D. Packard, Brent B. Clark

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

We suggest a new category of “rogue entrepreneurship,” that describes entrepreneurial activity where the core business idea violates established or expert consensus, to be contrasted with “conforming entrepreneurship,” where it does not. There are large entrepreneurial rents hidden behind a bulwark of expert consensus that predicts doom for a venture based upon a rogue and unlikely claim. The “rogue” cases, where the predominant assessment context is different from the entrepreneur’s, result in broad skepticism against the entrepreneurial claim. We explain what rogue entrepreneurship is and how it works.

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on? A …

Ro Khanna, Dignity In A Digital Age: Making Tech Work For All Of Us (2022), James W. Gentry

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Complex Impacts Of Marketization And Digitalization, Deniz Atik, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

From Well-Side Meetings To Pelican Strategy: A Context-Based Approach To Combat Corruption, Lili Yan

Pace International Law Review

This article takes up the question of what strategy is to be used among different communities to eradicate corruption across borders. The debate between two legal scholars, Steven Salbu and Philip Nichols, over the viability of extraterritorial application of anti-bribery laws remains thought-provoking when we look at the effectiveness of the OECD Anti-bribery Convention or FCPA in curbing corruption. Empirical research shows that firms from countries with extraterritorial legal restrictions do not necessarily refrain themselves from paying bribes in foreign transactions. This article ties the Salbu-Nichols’ debate, ISCT, mediating institutions theory, and Pelican Gambits strategy together to structure a context …

Estimate Tourism Model Choice For Pilgrim In The Way Of St. James: The Portuguese Way, Rosa Conde, Ana Pinto Borges, Isabel Neira Gómez, Elvira Viera

Articles

The purpose of this study is to examine how the characteristics of the pilgrims and the attributes of travel influence the choose of the Portuguese. It is important to understand the choices tourists make. This study identifies the factors that influence the tourists’ choice of way. The analysis is based on the official statistics of the Portuguese Way of Santiago between 2003 and 2020.

The study provides several important findings concerning tourism’s model choice. Understanding the tourists’ modal choice behavior help public and private organizations to develop appropriate marketing strategies.

The probit model is used to model a relationship between …

How Practices Drive Persistence: The Transformational Consumption Journey Of Native Americans In Higher Education, Gwen Locklear Almodovar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In an academic environment where many higher education institutions tout their diversity and inclusion statistics, there is a decline in the enrollment of Native American students and a decrease in Native American scholars. The President of the United States, in an October 2021 briefing and with the issuance of an executive order named The White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities, saw the immediate urgency to understand the systematic causes and implement evidence-based strategies that will improve and increase student enrollment and academic advancement. This research takes …

Understanding The Interactions Between Conservation Agencies And Rangers: A Mixed-Methods Approach, Christina M. Burton

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Research describing conservation agencies has generally been exploratory and limited in the use of theory. Similarly, organizational theories can provide an understanding for how organizations change and adapt to their given environments, but they have not been applied to conservation agencies with unique challenges and strains from other public bureaucracies or private corporations. In expanding this body of literature, not only were these theories applied conservation agencies, but they were also explored in what Powell and Colyvas (2008, p. 276) called "microfoundations" of organizations, which focuses on the interplay between individuals and organizations. To explore this, a convergent mixed-methods design …

Erasing The Past For Marketability: The Effects Of Selling National Myth In Ybor City's Public Historical Narrative, Janine A. Galindo

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Ybor City is a historical neighborhood in Tampa, Florida, and a tourist attraction known for its immigrant roots and once-thriving cigar industry. This thesis places Ybor City into the context of the burgeoning heritage tourism market, examining how cities financially reliant on tourism often sanitize their public historical narrative. I identify the main actors involved in Ybor City's marketing and preservation by investigating contemporary newspaper articles and multiple National Park Service documents, thereby uncovering the motivations and decisions that led to Ybor's cultural image of a bustling, relatively peaceful early 20th-century "Latin" community. To correlate Ybor's aestheticized public image with …

Relationship Between An Entrepreneur’S Self-Efficacy, Self-Leadership, And Startup Sustainability In Nigeria, Juliet Ehimuan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Self-efficacy and self-leadership have been identified as important indicators of business sustainability. Business owners and investors are concerned about sustainability because most businesses fail within the first five years. Grounded in self-efficacy and self-leadership theories, the purpose of this quantitative correlation study was to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy, self-leadership and startup sustainability. The participants were 156 entrepreneurs who completed the entrepreneurial self-efficacy scale and the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire delivered via email. The multiple linear regression analysis results indicated the model was able to significantly predict startup sustainability, F(2, 129) = 432.47, p < .001, R2 = .87. Self-efficacy provided a significant contribution to the model (t = 8.424, p = < .001, β = .914). In contrast, the contribution of self-leadership was not significant (t = 0.185, p = .853, β = .20). A key recommendation is the utilization of mentoring programs and structured leadership internships that enhance self-efficacy by providing startup leaders with exposure to more seasoned corporate leaders, and successful peers who have had similar experiences to theirs. The implications for positive social change include the potential development of training and capacity-building programs that can be provided to entrepreneurs and other startup leaders to enhance their ability to sustain their startups, leading to more successful businesses, job creation, and economic growth.

2023-January-01-Meet Kristen Surles, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

While growing up in McMinnville, ETSU doctoral student Kristen Surles became involved in community service through her church and school. While she didn’t know it at the time, the yard work she did for the elderly and disabled in her hometown and planting trees was the start of her journey toward a career in public health. Summer service trips with her church involving home repairs and other tasks led to a job for three summers with Group Cares, during which she traveled the country and worked on projects in 38 states. 

“That instilled in me the drive to help people …

Beyond Local Food Consumption: The Impact Of Local Food Consumption Experience On Cultural Competence, Eudaimonia And Behavioral Intention, Bingna Lin, Saerom Wang, Xiaoxiao Fu, Xiaoli Yi

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the relationships among local food consumption experience, cultural competence, eudaimonia, and behavioral intention. Building upon acculturation theory, need hierarchy theory and self-determination theory, the current study develops a conceptual model of local food consumption as international tourists' acculturation process.

Design/methodology/approach: This study collects data from 305 Chinese outbound tourists and uses partial least squares-structural equation modeling to examine the developed model.

Findings: The findings reveal a significant effect of the local food consumption experience, consisting of novel, authentic, sensory and social dimensions, on cultural competence, which subsequently evokes eudaimonia and behavioral response toward local …

Strategies For Sustaining The Profitability Of Small Businesses During Covid-19, Veronica Lee

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on small businesses. Small business leaders have been challenged to maintain profitability during a global crisis. Small business owners are concerned with the covid-19 pandemic because they faced profitability losses and business closures during the prolonged crisis. Grounded in authentic leadership theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies some small business leaders used to remain profitable during the Covid-19 crisis. The participants were four business leaders in Tampa, FL, who have remained profitable despite the pandemic. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis; five …

The War On Tenure, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

Legislative attacks on faculty tenure are proliferating at an alarming rate. Politicians seeking to abolish or restrict the practice argue that tenure encourages bad behavior and impedes warranted terminations, granting undeserving academics “jobs for life.” But does tenure really facilitate—much less incentivize—such undesirable outcomes? This Article marshals an original and unprecedented dataset of “tenured-terminations” as well as existing social science research to show that the likely answer to both questions is “No.”

Instead, the data suggest that tenure is largely operating as it should: as a form of “just cause” employment where cause for termination is difficult but not impossible …

Can Marketing Transcend Entrenched Gender Biases?, Thinh Nguyen

Marketing Faculty Publications

Through a feminist lens, Maclaran and Chatzidakis (2022) challenge conventional assumptions about gender, emphasizing its performative nature shaped by social practices rather than inherent traits. This commentary extends analyses of key themes such as gender performativity, the male gaze, and subject-object binaries within marketing. It critiques how marketing strategies reinforce existing power imbalances and systemic biases rooted in historical narratives. The writing also reflects on media interpretations of gender issues through films like 'Turning Red' and 'Barbie'. By contextualizing gendered marketing within broader societal frameworks, this writing contributes to ongoing dialogues in media studies, sociology, and gender studies, highlighting the …

Circular Economy To The Rescue? The U.S. Corporate Disclosure Response To The Plastic Crisis, Wioleta Olczak, Dennis M. Patten, Hyemi Shin

Accounting Faculty Research and Publications

Media attention to the world’s growing plastic crisis exploded in 2018, almost certainly increasing social exposures for companies heavily involved in the material’s manufacture or use. Relying on arguments from media agenda setting theory (Brown & Deegan, 1998), we explore how a sample of large U.S. plastic manufacturers and users responded to the crisis in their standalone CSR reports, with particular emphasis on their use of circular economy terminology to frame that response. Circular economy ideas have been gaining traction with governmental units, non-governmental organisations, and academic researchers, and like the plastic crisis, are seeing substantially increased coverage in media …

Effects Of Corporate Cultural Distance On Private Company M&A Outcomes, Court Carruthers

Theses and Dissertations

Despite nearly $5 trillion of annual global merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, the degree of shareholder value created by M&A remains a topic of debate. The historical view is that M&A does not increase value for acquiring firms, however recent public company financial research suggests that returns are highly variable, rather than uniformly negative. Cultural differences between acquiring and acquired companies, or corporate cultural distance (CCD), are noted as a potential cause of this variability, however, public company findings remain inconclusive. Although private equity (PE) is responsible for approximately 20% of annual M&A transaction value, nearly all prior research is …

Coming To Your Senses: Exploring The Role Of Touch In Physical And Digitally Immersive Consumption Experiences, Joy Shields

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two empirical papers in which I examine the Need for Touch (NFT)in two settings where the ability to touch is disrupted, exploring the role of touch and other senses in physical and metaverse consumption experiences. In the first paper, I investigate the pandemic's influence on consumer shopping behaviors, focusing on the coping mechanisms for reduced tactile interactions. The research uses an exploratory, inductive sequential design to chronicle shopping experiences through longitudinal interviews and autodriving. The findings reveal two primary themes: Shopping as a Reprieve and Fear of Shopping. This research underscores the intricate connection between grieving …

Editorial: Personalism And Moral Psychology: Re-Humanizing Economies And Organizations, Kleio Akrivou, Caleb Bernacchio, Domenec Melé, Germán Scalzo

College of Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Strategies For Sustaining The Profitability Of Small Businesses During Covid-19, Veronica Lee

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on small businesses. Small business leaders have been challenged to maintain profitability during a global crisis. Small business owners are concerned with the covid-19 pandemic because they faced profitability losses and business closures during the prolonged crisis. Grounded in authentic leadership theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies some small business leaders used to remain profitable during the Covid-19 crisis. The participants were four business leaders in Tampa, FL, who have remained profitable despite the pandemic. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis; five …

Nomological Network Retrieval: The Development Of A Methodological Process For The Review Of Knowledge Structures In Academia And Its Application To Marketing Scholarship, Mohammad Ali Simjour

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The increasing supply of peer-reviewed marketing publications indicates that the scholarly community’s understanding of marketing phenomena has increased significantly. However, this significant increase also prevents individual scholars from gaining insight into marketing phenomena simply because the sheer number of publications make a manual review of the literature impossible. This is an important limitation mainly because the validity of knowledge development processes in marketing partially depend on the scholars’ comprehensive understanding of extant knowledge. In this dissertation, I develop a methodological process to address this limitation and enable scholars to gain insight into large samples of peer-reviewed publications. I then apply …

Twenty-Five Years Of New England Journal Of Entrepreneurship: A Bibliometric Review, Younggeun Lee, Satish Kumar, Andrés Felipe Cortés, Riya Sureka, Weng Marc Lim

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose: In 2023, the New England Journal of Entrepreneurship (NEJE) reached its 25th anniversary.To commemorate this major milestone as well as entrepreneurship’s growth as an academic field, the study employs bibliometric methods to provide key trends and research suggestions for entrepreneurship scholars using all original research published in the journal.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors perform two predominant bibliometric techniques, performance analysis and science mapping, using all 251 articles published by NEJE from1998 to 2022.

Findings: The authors find that the impact of entrepreneurship research published at NEJE is growing consistently and that the challenge of the future will be to maintain …

What Makes Travelers Choose Japan Over Other Destinations: The Application Of Customer-Based Brand Equity Theory And Tourism Xenophilia, Midori Yamazaki

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Customer-based brand equity (CBBE) has been extensively applied to examine a variety of travelers' behavioral intentions and tourism destination choices. However, from the perspective of competition among destinations, the use of the overall destination brand equity (ODBE) dimension is still in its experimental stage. The objective of this research is to determine the impact of destination brand awareness (DBA), image (DBI), quality (DBQ), and value (DBV) on ODBE. Specifically, this study focuses on the case of Japan tourism from the view of American travelers. Moreover, this study aims to incorporate tourism xenophilia (TXI), which is an emerging concept in tourism …

Exploring Prosocial Theories For Teaching Civility In Baccalaureate Level Business Communication, Mikelle Barberi-Weil

Theses and Dissertations

The paralysis of civility and the heightened acrimony in both public and private fora is considered a detriment to the health of a high-functioning and prosperous society. In the context of contemporary culture, the potential conflict between people with antithetical values and antithetical ideologies in a nonconsensual and neutral-ground locale is at a heightened level. When two people are obligated to each other in professional environments, they need to get along. Yet, as organizations have flattened and gone casual over recent decades, the boundaries of traditional politeness and respect have diminished (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). Leadership and organizational environments are …

Mortgage Broker Strategies To Overcome The Volatility Of Inconsistent Sales, Marissa Blackwell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many mortgage brokers leave the mortgage industry because of unforeseen changes andvolatility. Mortgage brokers are concerned with adequate strategies to mitigate industry volatility and inconsistent sales, which is important to successful sustainability during challenging times. Grounded in relationship marketing theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore the strategies seven mortgage brokers from a single organization used to sustain sales during volatile times. Data were collected using semistructured interviews by telecommunication, a reflective journal, LinkedIn, Facebook, and broker websites. Through thematic analysis, three themes emerged: maintaining a presence with new and existing clients, understanding client needs, …

Mortgage Broker Strategies To Overcome The Volatility Of Inconsistent Sales, Marissa Blackwell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many mortgage brokers leave the mortgage industry because of unforeseen changes andvolatility. Mortgage brokers are concerned with adequate strategies to mitigate industry volatility and inconsistent sales, which is important to successful sustainability during challenging times. Grounded in relationship marketing theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore the strategies seven mortgage brokers from a single organization used to sustain sales during volatile times. Data were collected using semistructured interviews by telecommunication, a reflective journal, LinkedIn, Facebook, and broker websites. Through thematic analysis, three themes emerged: maintaining a presence with new and existing clients, understanding client needs, …

Relationship Between An Entrepreneur’S Self-Efficacy, Self-Leadership, And Startup Sustainability In Nigeria, Juliet Ehimuan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Self-efficacy and self-leadership have been identified as important indicators of business sustainability. Business owners and investors are concerned about sustainability because most businesses fail within the first five years. Grounded in self-efficacy and self-leadership theories, the purpose of this quantitative correlation study was to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy, self-leadership and startup sustainability. The participants were 156 entrepreneurs who completed the entrepreneurial self-efficacy scale and the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire delivered via email. The multiple linear regression analysis results indicated the model was able to significantly predict startup sustainability, F(2, 129) = 432.47, p < .001, R2 = .87. Self-efficacy provided a significant contribution to the model (t = 8.424, p = < .001, β = .914). In contrast, the contribution of self-leadership was not significant (t = 0.185, p = .853, β = .20). A key recommendation is the utilization of mentoring programs and structured leadership internships that enhance self-efficacy by providing startup leaders with exposure to more seasoned corporate leaders, and successful peers who have had similar experiences to theirs. The implications for positive social change include the potential development of training and capacity-building programs that can be provided to entrepreneurs and other startup leaders to enhance their ability to sustain their startups, leading to more successful businesses, job creation, and economic growth.