Business Commons^™

An Application Of Social Media Marketing For Community Sustainable Development, Lei Huang, Amelia Clarke, Wen Tian, Natalie Heldsinger

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Though the social marketing approach has been developed from commercial marketing, it is a holistic approach from various social sciences disciplines like marketing, psychology, sociology, mass communication and economics. It is basically an art to explore new ways of analyzing problems and solving them effectively. For instance, social marketing influences sustainability through the use of marketing principles to increase awareness, understanding, change attitudes, and motivate the society to change, adopt, or sustain a particular behavior. This paper attempts to explore a framework of social media in light of disseminating the knowledge of a community-wide sustainability plan among various stakeholders. Policy …

Profile Of Corporate Social Media Consumer Segments, Beverly Wright, Aberdeen Leila Borders, Paul H. Schwager, S. Scott Nadler

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The trade and academic literature is replete with commentary about the need for companies to develop promotional strategies and to adopt media platforms that are more engaging and conversational with customers than the traditional top-down company directed one-way communication strategies of the past (Thomas, Peters, Howell and Robbins, 2012; Foster, West and Francescucci 2011; Deighton and Kornfeld, 2009). This viewpoint is supported by Christodoulides (2008) who reported that many customers view information about a company or brand that they obtained from blogs, social networking sites and the like as being more relevant, believable and important to them in their interactions …

An Exploratory Analysis To Understand Organic Food Market In The United States In Comparison To Europe, Alfiya Ansar, Ismet Anitsal, M. Meral Anitsal

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

To meet the increasing continuous demand of food, many techniques are used for mass production food but these techniques in turn have diminished the quality of many products. The negative effects associated with such production methods make them controversial in nature and thus requires discussion. One such method is the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), which involves genetically modifying the Deoxyribose Nucleic Acids (DNA) of plants or animals of interest to introduce certain traits such as resistance to pests or diseases. Food allergies are on a rise and researchers estimate that up to 15 million Americans suffer from vast …

Being Green And Social Responsibility: Basic Concepts And Multiple Case Studies In Business Excellence, Alan D. Smith, Steven R. Clinton, William T. Rupp

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Through a qualitative business case approach, three major manufacturing firms in Pittsburgh, PA were reviewed for their eco-friendly sustainability strategic initiatives and products/services. Undoubtedly, use of green best practices are value adding steps for a company may be initially difficult to justify to spend the time and resources developing such a process. This is especially true when other core business needs are present, such as driving revenue, product development and meeting governmental or consumer expectations. However, green and sustainability initiatives may not be currently dictated needs, but many companies feel strongly that charting such a course would be to their …

A Research Agenda For Advancing The Marketer's Understanding Of Ethical Consumption In A Post-Modern World, Julie M. Pharr

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The attribution of moral significance to the choice of everyday consumer goods may well mean that personal consumption is increasingly viewed as an ethical exercise and not simply an economic transaction.

Consumer behavior has emerged as an important moral battleground in the 21^st century. Those in doubt of this statement need look no farther than their local Catholic church. In a church encyclical released 06.18.15, Pope Francis called for radical transformation not only of global politics and economics but of individual lifestyles in the battle to confront the environmental deterioration of Earth. An encyclical is a document that serves …

An Exploratory Investigation Of The Public's Attitude On The Effects Of Global Warming: The Media's Role In Influencing Opinions As Moderated By Having Lived Through A Major Storm, George W. Stone, Percy Willians, Britney Hamilton

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

While the debate over changing global weather patterns and the negative role mankind plays in altering the earth’s climate continues to rage, there appears to be no real movement in the views of entrenched participants on either side of the argument, or, for that matter, in the culture at large (Whitmarsh 2011). Even though global warming advocates claim the debate is now “settled science” and that a consensus of climatologists has emerged indicting mankind as one of the prime culprits in changing global climate patterns, an equally compelling argument has been made that naturally occurring phenomenon (e.g., such as volcanic …

The Clothing Swap: Social, Sustainable, And Sacred, Mary M. Long, Deborah Fain

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

While there is much focus on recycling household waste such as paper, plastic, and metal, there is less focused attention on the waste produced by clothing and textiles. As noted by Joung (2013), consumers dispose of clothes by recycling, donating to charities, or giving to friends and family. But when individuals are not motivated to do this or are unaware of recycling options, they simply discard unwanted clothing where it ends up in landfill sites.

Motives for recycling clothes can range from altruistic (e.g., donating to a clothing drive for the poor or victims of a natural disaster) to economic …

What Drives Conspicuous Consumption? - The Case Of Chinese Consumers, Y. Henry Xie

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Conspicuous consumption refers to a type of consumer behavior that people display wealth by spending a large proportion of their incomes on luxury products and services (Trigg, 2001). Different from other goods, the satisfaction that conspicuous goods provide buyers often comes from audience’s reaction, as opposed to product’s actual use (Wong, 1997). In other words, consumers exhibit certain conspicuous consumption behaviors due to their hopes to be seen more favorably in the greater social hierarchy (Podoshen, Li, & Zhang, 2011).

National Culture Dimensions And Consumer Digital Piracy: A European Perspective, Irena Vida, Monika Kukar-Kinney, Mateja Kos Kokli, James Reardon

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Digital piracy as a ubiquitous phenomenon affects a number of stakeholders, such as consumers, enterprises, and governments. Considering its global nature, it has been of particular interest to consumer researchers. Hence, a large body of digital piracy literature sheds light on the demand side and illuminates various predictors of digital piracy behavior (Harris & Daunt, 2011). Despite these efforts, very little attention has been devoted to applying international perspective in investigating digital piracy across different countries (Ki, Chang, & Khang, 2006). This study aims to fill this void by examining the digital piracy behavior in three EU countries. In addition, …

Can Scalability Be A Marketing Liability For Sustainability?, Dennis F. X. Mathaisel, Clare L. Comm

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

A common principle of modern business marketing is that growth is good. It is usually thought that all businesses should market themselves with the goal of increasing their revenues and gaining market share. Scalability is developing products or services that people want and figuring out how to produce and promote many of them for lower costs while selling more of them (Dudnik 2010). It is the purpose of this paper to show that some businesses, especially small ventures with unique value propositions, should not necessarily seek to grow or scale up. There are numerous examples of new ventures failing for …

Do You Feel Financially Secured? The Investigation Of Economic Indicators Of Financial Well-Being, Tommy Hsu, Leona Tam, Ryan T. Howell

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The economy has been in downward movement in the past few years in the United States as well as different parts of the world. Consumers’ financial situations have been found to influence their purchase behaviors. While some personal finance experts blame consumers’ (lack of) spending plans for their financial situations, others suggest that consumers’ perception of their financial standing influences their purchase plans. Using a nationwide large scale survey study, we examined the value of applying economic indicators as proxy measure of financial well-being. Instead of income or debts, wealth was found to be the most important economic indicator of …

Contolling And Informational Planned Behavior: Self-Determination Theory And The Theory Of Planned Behavior, J. Paul Leavell

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Self-determination theory (SDT) is a paradigm of human motivation and an approach to personality that focuses on an individual’s psychological needs and how those needs interact with self motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000). SDT explores the foundation of intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan, 1985) which can be applied as marketing theory. Additionally this theory offers the opportunity for comparison and integration with the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Deci and Ryan (1985) published this theory within the same year that Ajzen (1985) published the theory of planned behavior (TPB). While SDT has a predominantly intrinsic focus, TPB maintains a primarily …

The Staff Is More Important Than The Price: A Study Of The Consumer Loyalty Model In A Coffee Shop In Korea, Mikyoung Ha, Ji Young Jung, Hyo Jin Eom

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The market of a coffee shop has matured and competition among coffee shops has gotten fierce in Asia. In Korea, the number of take-out coffee shops has increased by 21.6% per year since Starbucks launched in 1999. Sustaining customer loyalty has been regarded as an effective strategy for the profitability enhancement of companies in the maturity stage. Since loyalty has been defined in both behavioral and attitudinal perspective, attitudinal loyalty was measured by repurchase intention of each brand and behavior loyalty was measured by repurchase behaviors (Olsen, 2002; Yi & La, 2004). This study aims to analyze both attitudinal and …

Taking The Plunge: Online Data Collection Using Mturk, L. Jean Harrison-Walker

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing service created in 2005 by Amazon.com, is gaining in popularity among academics as a source of subjects for survey research. The initial attraction is based on access to a very large pool of participants who can be accessed online producing rapid response at low cost with minimal effort on the part of the researcher. For the uninitiated, however, the task of designing and running a research project on MTurk is rather daunting.

This paper begins with an introduction to MTurk. We review the language of MTurk and explain how a researcher goes about setting up …

The Role Of Corporate Social Responsibility Information In The Consumer-Brand Relationship, Lei Huang

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Given the increased interest and empirical research in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and irresponsibility (CSI), the interest of this paper is given to the impacts of corporate operational performance (COP) and corporate social performance (CSP) on consumer brand advocacy and brand trust. In this consumer-brand continuum, customers evaluate brand trustworthiness by two scopes: (1) the product or service the firm offers (i.e., product brand) that is usually associated with COP (Rust, Moorman, & Dickson 2002); and (2) the firm which provides the products and services (i.e., corporate brand) that is connected with CSP (Korschun, Bhattacharya, & Swain 2014). In addition, …

Chinese Consumers' Involvement In Wine Consumption And Their Willingness To Visit Wineries In California, Mahmood Hussain, Roblyn Simeon, Lutfus Sayeed

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

This research fills a gap in wine tourism literature, taking into account the effects of consumers’ involvement in the pre-purchase stages on their willingness to visit wineries in California or in a foreign country. The theoretical framework presented in this paper provides support for a strong linkage between product involvement, consumption, and eventual propensity to visit a wine destination. As of this writing this paper constitutes the first of its kind econometric study of these effects.

Modification And Investment Intention In The Consumer-Possession Relationship, James D. Doyle

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The present-day automobile is at once a source of physical transportation, of course, but also an extension of self, a potential platform for self-expression and image enhancement, a source of social approval as well as psychological and physiological stimulation, and, perhaps, an object of beauty. This study examines motivations and antecedents of various vehicle-directed consumer behaviors, including modification and the intention of consumers to invest in their relationship with their vehicle. In this study, vehicle modification refers to the voluntary actions taken by a user or owner of a vehicle to differentiate the functional or aesthetic characteristics or performance of …

Fitting Consumer Needs To Perceived Product Value: The Example Of Apple Versus Samsung Products, Yi-Chia Wu, Arturo Vasquez-Parraga

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

This study explores the fitting of consumer needs to product perceived value using the example of two lines of competitive products in the area of communication electronics, Apple products versus Samsung products. Five types of needs regarding digital communication and three types of related product value are evaluated for these two brands in order to know if product value differences have a distinctive effect on consumer needs.

This study focuses on the impact of perceived product values on certain consumer needs. We use Apple products and Samsung products to accomplish this.

Electronic Intervention And Platforms And Their Impacts On Crowdfunding Behavior, Susan Cockrell, Dan Meyer, Alan D. Smith

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Crowdfunding is a method of raising funds for projects, creative pursuits, peer-to-peer lending, and charitable causes. The idea of crowdfunding stems from the more encompassing concept of crowdsourcing, which refers not only to the gathering of funds, but to group participation in the convergence of ideas and content creation. Thus, crowdfunding can be considered to be one type of crowdsourcing. The following study examines the crowdfunding behavior of a sample of business professionals located in the service sector of metropolitan Pittsburgh, PA. In general, the empirical findings suggested that smaller goals tend to have better success ratios, while getting the …

Is Marketing Still Part Of Supply Chain Management, And Should Marketing Academics And Practitioners Care?, Stephen M. Rutner, C. David Shepherd

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Over the last twenty years, there has been a shift in emphasis in many colleges of business to incorporate Supply Chain Management (SCM). The questions of how to include this material and who are the responsible parties to deliver it impact the focus, depth and topics included in the SCM material. Since true SCM is boundary spanning in both academic and practitioner arenas, it is an important question to examine the role of Marketing in the overall process.

Over the past twenty years Supply Chain Management (SCM) has exploded as both an academic field of study and a critical competency …

Supplier Collaborative And Ethical Consideration In The Vendor Selection Process, Amy Melton, Terry Damron, Magan Calhoun

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Abstract

This examination of location strategy implementation by Pittsburgh-based service firms, particularly eco-friendly initiatives, was pursued via a case-study approach. The factors selected for comparison were site size and cost; air, rail, highway, and waterway systems; zoning restrictions; proximity to markets/suppliers/competitors; and environmental impact issues. The study included five service-based firms, most of which made decisions concerning new locations within the last few years, and highlighted those factors most significant in the location strategies of local service firms. Findings evidence proximity to market/suppliers/competitors was the most heavily weighted factor in site selection among Pittsburgh-based service firms. The least considered factor …

Supplier Corporate Social Responsibility Policies From A Strategic Perspective, William T. Rupp, Alan D. Smith

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a corporate initiative to assess and take responsibility for the company's effects on the environment and impact on social welfare (www.Investopedia.com). The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all others who may also be considered stakeholders. The term generally applies to company efforts that go beyond what may be required by regulators or environmental protection groups. CSR policies function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby a business monitors and ensures its active compliance with …

A Perspective On Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices: Message Development, Media Selection, Medication Adherence And Health Literacy, Yvette L. Bonaparte

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

According to the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy issued in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, health literacy is a multi-faceted concept and has importance for multiple sectors. Stakeholders typically involved in the health literacy discussion include government, public health officials, practitioners and those concerned with health promotion (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2010). In addition to these stakeholders, there is the opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry to be an active participant in the health literacy discussion.

Given the variation in health literacy levels among the U.S. population and the impact of …

The Effect Of Advertorial Format And Copy Length On Attitudes Of Female (Target) And Male (Non-Target) Audiences, Cynthia B. Hanson

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The use of promotional messages that resemble editorial content is a long-standing practice in advertising, occurring in all major media, from advertorials in newspapers and magazines, to infomercials on television, to, most recently, digital “native” advertising on the internet. However, we have arguably never experienced as much growth in these advertising-editorial “hybrid” messages, as they are sometimes called (Balasubramanian 1994) as we have in recent years, as their use in existing media has grown while new forms have emerged with new media.

One of the older forms of hybrid message, the magazine advertorial presents an interesting hybrid message format for …

Investigating The Ichthus (Fish) Christianity Symbol On Perceived Source Credibility Of Service Providers Under Different Service Evaluation Contexts, Jeri L. Jones, Mahmood T. Shandiz

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Combining religious practices with commercial pursuits for profit is neither a novel nor an insignificant trend (Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry 1989; McDannell 1995). Today, marketplace use of Christian symbols in secular advertising is becoming more common, especially in certain geographic locations within the United States. Christian religion-based messages and symbols regularly appear in a wide range of advertisements. The Christian elements in these ads often include Bible verses, crosses, doves, and often, the Christian fish symbol (Ichthus). Similar Christian messages are often observed in outdoor advertising, retail store signage, product packaging, and even the daily newspaper. These examples illustrate that …

What Is Consulting Services? Our Approach To Supporting The Needs Of The Scholarly Community, Allen Sprague

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group

An outline of the thought and approach behind bepress's Consulting Services model.

Paramedicine And Social Work: Case Studies In Authentic Student Recruitment, Nathalie Collins, Lynelle Watts, Renee Strauss, David Hodgson

eCULTURE

Selling the course experience to future students has been corporatised across the Higher Education sector. At many universities marketing and sales specialists, such as ECU’s Student Recruitment Team, rather than academic staff, field prospective student enquiries. Representing courses authentically is crucial to matching future students with an appropriate course experience and career, as well is managing future students’ expectations. A challenge for academics is communicating the course/career experience to university sales agents (recruiters). A challenge for recruiters is conveying an authentic course experience to future students when they have not taken a course themselves. This paper selects two ECU courses, …

Wanderlust, Kaylee Harris

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

Purpose: The purpose of my design is to create a look that is simple and easy to wear while still being superbly unique and daring. My ultimate goal was to create a garment to be worn in a festival setting where there are no rules or boundaries according to dress and personal style. I wanted to create something that would stand out in a crowd and still be wearable and flattering. Process: The process of designing this piece was really quite simple. I knew I wanted to have a basic and flattering silhouette, which I achieved with a slightly flared …

Vivido Déesse, Andrea Eklund

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

Purpose: The purpose of this design was to integrate various apparel construction techniques used throughout history in one creative garment.

Process: Inspiration for the design came from recent trips to Paris, London, and Milan. My imagination was sparked while I was engrossed in the stories and images of these historical cities were people have lived their lives and fashion evolved over hundreds of years. Drawing inspiration from a boat ride down the Seine River in Paris and the miles-long network of canals, the monuments and carvings at Westminster Abbey, the Wedding Dress 1775-2014 exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum, …

The Common Star, Emma Mahr

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

The purpose of my design was to create the perfect garment that a woman on-the-go could wear, from running errands to a spring walk in the park. The touches of gold in the sleeves and pant cuffs represent stars peeking out of the night sky, which is also mirrored in the depths of the blue bodice and black pants. During the creation process, I started with a pair of capris pants. For the top, I wanted something that would have some flow as the model walked. I decided to have flowing sleeves. After I made the sleeves gold, I thought …