Business Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

The Curvilinear And Conditional Effects Of Product Line Breadth On Salesperson Performance, Role Stress, And Job Satisfaction, Jeff Johnson, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The impact of how product line breadth affects a salesperson is unclear in the existing literature. While numerous product lines can provide certain benefits to the salesperson, they may also have a dark side. This research examines the impact of number product lines handled by the salespeople on their performance, role stress, and job satisfaction. Based on role and schema theories, we test a series of curvilinear and conditional effects, using data collected from salespeople across multiple industries. Our analysis indicates non-linear relationships between number of product lines handled by the salesperson and salesperson performance and role stress. Further, these …

Book Review: Tim Wu, The Master Switch: The Rise And Fall Of Information Empires, Robert A. Mittelstaedt

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

This book is both a chronicle of the past and a look to the future. The author, a law school professor at Columbia University on leave at the Federal Trade Commission when the book was published, reviews the history of the telegraph, telephone, movies, radio (amplitude modulation [AM] and frequency modulation [FM]), and television (broadcast and cable) industries. In all of these, he finds a recurring pattern, a cycle in which the industry begins in a state of chaos with many entrepreneurs competing for the right to provide peoplewith the means of receiving and/or sending information. The chaos period is …

Book Review: Steven D. Levitt And Stephen J. Dubner, Superfreakonomics, James W. Gentry

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

I listened to Freakonomics on audiotape borrowed from the library and liked it sufficiently to spring for the sequel SuperFreakonomics. The authors place great emphasis on the role of incentives in generating human behaviors. One does not need to read the first book in order to enjoy the second book, as the latter is just an extension of the first that focuses on new issues. I do recommend reading both books as they are thought provoking, which is my highest praise for scholarly communication in any form.

The strength of the book is that the problems facing society are …

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 …

Consequences Of Customer Powerlessness: Secondary Control, Matthew Bunker, A. Dwayne Ball

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

This research investigated the consequences of powerlessness when consumers experience service failure with a company that has high-exit barriers. The specific consequences investigated were three types of secondary control, which are grudge-holding, avoidance (predictive avoidance), and retaliation desire. These secondary control coping strategies highlight consumers’ ability to control their personal behaviors and thoughts, even when they cannot completely control the outcomes of a situation. A qualitative study, followed by a scenario-based survey and structural equation model, suggest that the primary direct consequences of powerlessness in commercial relationships are grudge-holding and predictive avoidance, and that both predictive avoidance and a desire …

Sales Buy-In Of Marketing Strategies: Exploration Of Its Nuances, Antecedents, And Contextual Conditions, Avinash Malshe, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

This study uses a qualitative research design with the Grounded Theory method, to explore the multifaceted nature of sales buy-in, i.e. the sales function’s belief that marketers’ proposed strategy is appropriate and has merit. Based on 49 in-depth interviews with sales and marketing professionals, the findings indicate that obtaining sales buy-in consists of four key components: (a) objectivity and rational persuasion (b) sensitivity and responsiveness to reality (c) involvement in strategy creation, and (d) positioning for success. The findings also show that three organizational-level factors play an important role in determining sales buy-in: (1) eliminating interfunctional walls, (2) bridging the …

Underdog Consumption: An Exploration Into Meanings And Motives, Lee Phillip Mcginnis, James W. Gentry

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Marketers frequently position business concerns—whether brands, teams, or stores—as the non market-dominant entity (or the “underdog”). This article examines the motives for underdog support through in-depth interviews and a focus group. Findings suggest that underdog consumers support underdogs out of empathy, as a way to ensure the maintenance of equal opportunity in competition, and as a way to provide personal inspiration. Some motives for underdog support can be interpreted to be anti-consumption (or, at least, anti-corporate) in nature. On the other hand, many underdog consumers support and identify with underdogs not necessarily as a way to keep the top dog …

Does Fair Trade Deliver On Its Core Value Proposition? Effects On Income, Educational Attainment, And Health In Three Countries, Eric J. Arnould, Alejandro Plastina, Dwanye Ball

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Alternative trade organizations (ATOs) based on philosophies of social justice and/or environmental well-being are establishing new channels of trade and marketing. Partisans promote ATOs as systems to transfer benefits from consumers in the wealthy northern hemisphere to producers in the poor southern hemisphere. The central public policy question is whether the well-being of poor agricultural producers in the southern hemisphere is actually being improved by fair-trade practices, or are consumers who buy products on this premise deceived? The research reported here partially answers the question whether participation in a fair-trade coffee marketing channel delivers benefits to smallscale producers in Latin …

Animal-Companion Depictions In Women’S Magazine Advertising, Patricia F. Kennedy, Mary G. Mcgarvey

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Via a content analysis of 1398 advertisements that include both people and pets and that appeared in women’s magazines over a period of four decades, this study examines the changing roles played by companion animals and the changes in themes used in these advertisements. Considering both the pictures and text, the study codes advertisements for themes, pet roles, whether or not the pet appears on a leash, and the physical location of the pet. These data show the movement of companion animals from outdoor protectors and companions to loved family members sharing all areas of the home with their human …

Anomie And The Marketing Function: The Role Of Control Mechanisms, Amit Saini, Mike Krush, Jean L. Johnson

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The theoretical notion of anomie is used to examine the impact of top management’s control mechanisms on the environment of the marketing function. Based on a literature review and in-depth field interviews with marketing managers in diverse industries, a conceptual model is proposed that incorporates the two managerial control mechanisms, viz. output and process control, and relates their distinctive influence to anomie in the marketing function. Three contingency variables, i.e., resource scarcity, power, and ethics codification, are proposed to moderate the relationship between control mechanisms and anomie. The authors also argue for the link between anomic environments and the propensity …

Measuring Work Preferences: A Multidimensional Tool To Enhance Career Self Management, G. Ronald Gilbert, Ravipreet S. Sohi, Adriana G. Mceachern

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a multidimensional work preference research instrument, and to relate scores on these dimensions with subjects' real world work choices.

Design/methodology/approach: Repeated samples of 1,002 and 975 adult subjects were used to identify 17 empirically derived constructs, using both EFA and CFA statistical applications. The CFA revealed measurement invariance among the predicted and measured constructs. The 17 validated constructs were culled from career development-related psychology that has variously been identified with learning styles, work interests, work values, and temperament. Using a third sample of 590 subjects, MANOVA analyses of work preference scores …

Causes And Consequences Of Grudge-Holding In Service Relationships, Matthew P. Bunker, Dwayne Ball

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to place grudge-holding as a theoretical construct, measure it, and empirically place it in a nomological net and, additionally to discuss the consequences of grudge-holding in this research.

Design/methodology/approach – A 2 × 2 scenario-based experiment was performed using 320 subjects, approximately 80 people per condition. The size of the exit barrier (high/low) and the effectiveness of the service recovery (good/poor) were varied between each scenario to determine changes in grudge-holding.

Findings – Some consequences of grudge-holding are retaliation desire and communication avoidance. Although trust was tested in this research, and is …

International Trade, Consumer Behavior And Trust: Factors Affecting Agribusinesses In Developing Countries, Ronald Hampton, Ingrid Fromm, Bonani Nyhodo

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

With the increasing complexity of global food systems, producers in developing countries are faced with challenges associated with market access to developed and other developing countries. There is clear evidence that the fastest growing developing countries are the ones engaging in trade and participating in the global market. The difficulty for developing countries, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in those countries is the logistics and agreements needed to enter international markets and benefit from trade. Global production networks are becoming extremely complex. Arms-length trade is now confined to commodities with low returns, thus access to high-income yielding activities requires …

Market Disintermediation And Producer Value Capture: The Case Of Fair Trade Coffee In Nicaragua, Peru And Guatemala, Eric J. Arnould, Alejandro Plastina, Dwayne Ball

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Does participation in Fair Trade coffee marketing deliver added value to small-scale producers in developing countries? Is Fair Trade fair to producers as promised? The present study adopts a survey methodology designed to measure a combination of socio-economic impact indicators as well as measures particular to the Fair Trade coffee growing and marketing experience. We surveyed over 1200 small-scale coffee producers in Nicaragua, Peru, and Guatemala, of which about two-thirds participate in coffee marketing schemes sponsored by Transfair, USA. The study reports selected results related to production, marketing, material quality of life, education, health, and general wellbeing. Results show that …

Service Personalization And Loyalty, A. Dwayne Ball, Pedro S. Coelho, Manuel J. Vilares

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Purpose:

To investigate the effect of service personalization on loyalty, and to measure some of the psychological dynamics of the process.

Methodology:

structural equation modeling.

Findings:

We show that the effect of service personalization on loyalty exists, but that the effect is not all direct. Personalization works through improving service satisfaction and trust. Personalization and improved communication act together in such a way that they account for the variance in loyalty that would be otherwise explained by corporate image.

Research limitations:

Data, though comprising a very large probability sample, are from one economic sector in one European country.

Practical implications: …

A Consumer-Behavior Perspective On Intimate Partner Violence, Debra Lynn Stephens, Ronald Paul Hill, James W. Gentry

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

This research examines women’s experiences of and responses to intimate partner violence using the perspective of the extended self. From in-depth interviews with a demographically diverse group of women in the United States, the primary theme to emerge was that chronic abuse is experienced as the male partner’s ongoing campaign to incorporate the abused woman into his extended self, by appropriating or destroying the aspects of her that give her autonomy. The most important implication for agencies serving abused women is that many of their clients are faced with the daunting task of repairing or reconstructing their core and extended …

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 …

Opportunities For Family Research In Marketing, Suraj Commuri, James W. Gentry

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Family as a consuming and decision making unit is a central phenomenon in marketing and consumer behavior. However, in the recent past, there has been a decline in interest in family as a unit of analysis. Yet, at the same time, the family -- as an institution -- is undergoing a metamorphosis and currently stands at the threshold of significant transformation. In this paper, we argue that the decreased interest in family as a unit of analysis in marketing is largely due to the fact that many interesting propositions about family as a consuming unit remain outside the current perspective …