Business Commons^™

Together We Stand: The Solidarity Effect Of Personized Sellers On Essential Workers, Katina Kulow, Kara Bentley, Priyali Rajagopal

Business Faculty Articles and Research

The current research examines how products from personized sellers operate as a source of social support and solidarity for essential workers who are experiencing elevated levels of occupational stress since the advent of COVID-19. A series of experiments show that consumers who view themselves as essential workers prefer products from personized sellers (e.g., Etsy) compared to nonpersonized sellers (e.g., Amazon). These effects are driven by higher feelings of solidarity made salient by the personized seller. Our findings document a novel way by which consumers who are experiencing significantly high levels of occupational stress during the COVID-19 pandemic may seek social …

Capitalising Product Associations In A Supermarket Retail Environment, Michelle L. F. Cheong, Yong Qing Chia

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper explores methods to capitalise on retail companies’ transactional databases, to mine meaningful product associations, and to design product placement strategies as a means to drive sales. We implemented three in-store initiatives based on our hypotheses – placing products with high associations together will induce an increase in sales of consequent; introducing an antecedent that is new to store will bring about a similar impact on sales of consequent based on established product association rules uncovered from other stores. Sales tracking over twelve weeks revealed that there were improvements in sales of consequents across all three initiatives performed in-store.

A Geospatial Analytics Approach To Delineate Trade Areas For Quick Service Restaurants (Qsr) In Singapore, Hui Ting Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

According to Huff, trade area is defined as “a geographically delineated region containing potential customers for whom there exists a probability greater than zero of their purchasing a given class of products or services offered for sale by a particular firm or by a particular agglomeration of firms”. Several methods to delineate a store trade area have been proposed over the years. For drive-time or travel distance analysis method, the trade area is delineated according to how far or how long the customers are willing to travel to patronise the store. Another commonly used method is the Huff Model which …

Tree-Based Algorithm For Stable And Efficient Data Clustering, Hasan Aljabbouli, Abdullah Albizri, Antoine Harfouche

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The K-means algorithm is a well-known and widely used clustering algorithm due to its simplicity and convergence properties. However, one of the drawbacks of the algorithm is its instability. This paper presents improvements to the K-means algorithm using a K-dimensional tree (Kd-tree) data structure. The proposed Kd-tree is utilized as a data structure to enhance the choice of initial centers of the clusters and to reduce the number of the nearest neighbor searches required by the algorithm. The developed framework also includes an efficient center insertion technique leading to an incremental operation that overcomes the instability problem of the K-means …

The Future Of Work Now: The Multi-Faceted Mall Security Guard At A Multi-Faceted Jewel, Thomas H. Davenport, Steven M. Miller

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

One of the most frequently-used phrases at business events these days is “the future of work.” It’s increasingly clear that artificial intelligence and other new technologies will bring substantial changes in work tasks and business processes. But while these changes are predicted for the future, they’re already present in many organizations for many different jobs. The job and incumbents described below are an example of this phenomenon. Steve Miller of Singapore Management University and I co-authored the story.

Don’T Cut Your Marketing Budget In A Recession, Nirmalya Kumar, Koen Pauwels

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Most companies reduce spending in recessions, especially on marketing items that may be easier to cut (certainly relative to payroll). Right now, advertising agencies are struggling to stay afloat, and Google and Facebook are reporting substantially lower ad revenues as marketing spending dives with the business cycle (cyclical marketing). But that is today’s equivalent of bleeding – an old-fashioned but once widespread treatment that actually reduces the patient’s ability to fight disease. Companies that have bounced back most strongly from previous recessions usually did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases actually increased it. But they did change …

Three Essays On Music And Consumer Behavior: The Impact Of Music Type On Product Evaluation And Purchase Intent, Gregory G. Maloney

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Music is omnipresent in consumer environments and is classifiable by multi-dimensional measures of affect. This research explores the relationship between affect perceived within music, and how the resulting affective state created by music influences product evaluations.

Three essays explore the relationship between affect valence and purchase intent, the moderating influence of music arousal, and the effect of positive affect cues perceived in products. Four studies provide supporting evidence that music influences product evaluations in the same direction as the music affect valence. Experienced affect in the listener mediates the relationship between music affect and product evaluations, and arousal moderates the …

Remaking Retail In The Time Of Covid-19, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Short of the successful development of a COVID-19 vaccine, the sight of retail stores re-opening for business is probably the best mood lifter. Not only do lockdown-weary consumers reclaim some vestige of normalcy, businesses reeling from months of decimated income can stem the red ink and perhaps even get back into the black.

A Proposal Digital Marketing Strategy For Marcheluzzo Srl: Training And Evaluating A Prediction Model For The Number Of Adv. Impressions, Charles Alves De Castro

Articles

This research aims to describe a digital marketing strategy elaborated to be deployed in the MarcheluzzoSrl Company located in Italy. In addition, it intends to give a wide range of information to the company about its customers, target, competitors, market, digital marketing strategy, and potential recommendations. It is also important to highlight that this strategy is focused on the Brazilian market. Most of the information collected for the situational analysis and many other components for this research were gathered through the author`s perception during his internship in the company. The methodology includes secondary data collected through field observation in the …

Integrating Anticipative Replenishment-Allocation With Reactive Fulfillment For Online Retailing Using Robust Optimization, Yun Fong Lim, Song Jiu, Marcus Ang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: In each period of a planning horizon, an online retailer decides on how much to replenish each product and how to allocate its inventory to fulfillment centers (FCs) before demand is known. After the demand in the period is realized, the retailer decides on which FCs to fulfill it. It is crucial to optimize the replenishment, allocation, and fulfillment decisions jointly such that the expected total operating cost is minimized. The problem is challenging because the replenishment-allocation is done in an anticipative manner under a “push” strategy, but the fulfillment is executed in a reactive way under a …

Regional Household Economic Stress And Retail Sales Fluctuations, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Ana P. Gutierrez-Zubiate

Departmental Papers (E & F)

Economic stress indices are used to monitor business cycle conditions in several regions.Although the deployment of these tools is spreading, there have been relatively few efforts to empirically assess the performance of these gauges, especially at the regional level.This study takes advantage of one such index that is published monthly and has more than 15 years of historical data.Results obtained confirm an inverse relationship between household economic duress and retail sales activity, but it is not found to be statistically reliable over the long-run.Deviations from equilibrium are found to last for 142 months.More relevantly, a 1-point increase in the index …

Sales Position Mobility: Exploring Women's Mobility In Sales Positions, Nyatasha Jackowicz

Honors Projects in Marketing

This thesis consists of literature research and a survey study to answer the question "Is there a consistent movement over the course of a sales career from outside sales to inside sales among women" The survey will help find correlations between specific job qualities and how they link to inside and outside sales positions. The survey will find qualitative information on specific sales professional's career paths and provide an in-depth view on motivational and job factors that have also affected female salespeople's decisions to pursue inside sales roles over outside sales roles.

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

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 …

Customer Satisfaction And Its Impact On The Future Costs Of Selling, Leon Gim Lim, Kapil R. Tuli, Rajdeep Grewal

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although scholars have established that customer satisfaction affects different dimensions of firm financial performance, a managerially important but overlooked aspect is its effect on a firm’s future cost of selling (COS), that is, expenditures associated with persuading customers and providing convenience to them. Accordingly, this study presents the first empirical and theoretical examination of the impact of customer satisfaction on future COS. The authors propose that while higher customer satisfaction can lower future COS, the degree to which a firm realizes this benefit depends on its strategy and operating environment. Analyzing almost two decades of data from 128 firms, the …

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 …

The ‘Store Of The Future’ In Popular Culture: Trends In Press Coverage Of Experiential Retailing, David Loranger, Marla Greene

WCBT Faculty Publications

Since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the global retail market has witnessed massive demographic and technological changes that have re-defined consumer experience. Such changes include the rise of the millennial consumer cohort, and the introduction of retailers implementing enhanced artificial intelligence (AI) data methodology to analyse business, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to enhance experience and co-customization interfaces. Two seminal pieces of literature regarding consumer experience are Ballantine and Parson’s analysis of consumer experience factors and Pine and Gilmore’s (1999) Experience Economy. However, these studies were conducted nearly a decade ago, leaving a void in the …

Customer Satisfaction Index Of Singapore 2019: Full Year Overview, Institute Of Service Excellence, Smu

Research Collection Institute of Service Excellence

The Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) computes customer satisfaction scores at the national, sector, sub-sector, and company levels. The CSISG serves as a quantitative benchmark of the quality of goods and services produced by the Singapore economy over time and across countries. The fourth quarter results mark the end of measurement for CSISG 2019. Singapore’s 2019 national score was computed using the data collected during these four quarters.

2020 Spring Convocation Program, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications And Marketing.

Communications and Marketing Publications Archive

Spring convocation program held on January 8, 2020.

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.

Incentivizing And Re-Engaging Lapsed Health Club Members, Teresa Hurley, Corinne Faure, Seamus Kelly

Articles

Purpose – This quantitative research paper examined factors influencing re-engagement intentions and re-engagement behavior of lapsed health club members and identified which sales promotion incentives are most effective in re-engaging this lapsed member market. While previous studies examined reengagement intentions and re-engagement behavior in isolation, no research could be located which examined both simultaneously and the impact of promotion incentives in the health and fitness industry.

Design/methodology/approach – Study A (mail survey) examined re-engagement intentions of one hundred lapsed members of a medium size suburban health club. Study B (an experimental field study) measured actual true re-engagement behavior using price …

Identity Authentication Security Management In Mobile Payment Systems, Feng Wang, Ge Bao Shan, Yong Chen, Xianrong Zheng, Hong Wang, Sun Mingwei, Li Haihua

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

Mobile payment is a new payment method offering users mobility, reachability, compatibility, and convenience. But mobile payment involves great uncertainty and risk given its electronic and wireless nature. Therefore, biometric authentication has been adopted widely in mobile payment in recent years. However, although technology requirements for secure mobile payment have been met, standards and consistent requirements of user authentication in mobile payment are not available. The flow management of user authentication in mobile payment is still at its early stage. Accordingly, this paper proposes an anonymous authentication and management flow for mobile payment to support secure transaction to prevent the …