Business Commons^™

Successful Marketing Strategies For Promoting Event Destinations, Evease Iniece Tucker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Travel and tourism has been recognized as being an important driver of jobs, growth and economic recovery in the United States. Meetings, events and incentive travel contribute $98.7 billion of the direct spending, $15.0 billion in taxes and 859,000 jobs. As a result, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) in the United States are taking advantage of this impact for growth in their destinations. As a destination marketing organization's main job responsibility is to promote their destination to attract visitors, which requires superior marketing strategies to achieve these goals.

This research investigates the marketing strategies of DMOs in the United States. The …

A Roadmap To Mindful Consumption Through Informative Labeling Practices: The Effects Of Sustainability Disclosure Formats On Consumer Product Evaluations, Yoon-Na Cho

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the interest of consumers in sustainable and environmentally friendly products, only a limited number of studies have focused on sustainability level disclosures for consumer packaged goods. The general overarching purpose of this dissertation is to extend the internal reference point and information processing literatures to better understand how consumers will process sustainability disclosures. Applying the theoretical lens of assimilation bias in conjunction with self-enhancement offers an important extension to prior work. Across two retail lab studies and four online experiments, I demonstrate that the perceived sustainability utility (i.e., the difference between a specific brand's level of sustainability and category-level …

Understanding Collaborative Dynamics: A Critical Review And Inductive Investigation, Amydee Mackley Fawcett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Collaboration has been a topic of discussion for over 20 years. Managers are consistently calling for better collaboration and researchers have argued that managing tightly coupled relationships creates a co-mingling of complementary competencies that establishes distinctive advantages for firms. Even though there have been a few exemplar companies that have been capable of truly developing these complementary competencies, few companies truly understand the dynamics of a collaborative capability. This dissertation reviews the theoretical conceptualization and operationalization of tightly coupled relationships and through an interpretive analysis, begins to provide clarity to the following questions:

* Under what conditions are tightly coupled …

The Legitimation Of Novel Technologies: The Case Of Nanotechnology, Anastasia E. Thyroff

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanotechnology is the control, manipulation, and application of matter on an atomic and molecular level. The technology is complex and confusing to consumers, and its long-term safety and effect on the human body, as well as the environment, are unknown. However, for the past decade, nanotechnology has been used to develop consumer products and food with novel and attractive attributes.

Since nanotechnology is still not well known, it is not legitimized; that is, it has not been deemed safe and accepted by society. However, the market for nanotechnology is in the legitimation process. It will take an entire network of …

Communicating Product Sustainability: Consumer Responses To Sustainability Labeling In A Retail Laboratory Environment, Siqi Feng

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

In effort to enhance sustainable development, manufacturers and retailers have collaborated to develop a standardized sustainability index based on supply chain life cycle information. However, it is unclear whether this index will help consumers make more sustainable purchases. Research conducted in a retail laboratory addresses consumer attitudes, purchase intentions, and product choices with and without a credible standardized sustainability index, and with or without provision of background sustainability information. Results from a pilot study and two mixed design experiments indicate that, on average, consumers focus more on brand equity than on sustainability levels when they make brand choices. While the …