Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons^™

Tons: A Guide To Teaching On-Line Sales Courses, Cindy B. Rippé, Suri Weisfeld-Spolter, Shannon Cummins, Barbara Dastoor

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Purpose of the Study: This study describes a creative solution to teaching on-line sales(TONS). On-line education is increasingly in demand; yet, many sales instructors are unsure of how to transfer this interactive, skills-based course from face-to-face to an on-line format. The on-line course is described in detail, with weekly topics, assignments, rubrics, and teaching materials available. The skills-based active learning format develops student knowledge and know-how while building to a final project. Importantly, the technological and time considerations for instructors are kept to a minimum.

Method/Design and Sample: This study tests the use of the on-line TONS teaching …

Omni-Channel Research Framework In The Context Of Personal Selling And Sales Management: A Review And Research Extensions, Shannon Cummins, James W. Peltier, Andrea Dixon

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Purpose

This paper aims to develop an omni-channel framework in the context of sales and sales management related to six areas: sales contexts, impact of technology, stages in the sales process, impact on relationships, impact on firm performance and the role of various communication tools and platforms. The paper also offers future reach needs in each of these areas.

Design/methodology/approach

Literature review and research needs development.

Findings

Research in omni-channel marketing in the context of sales and sales management is virtually silent. The authors identify key research gaps and offer recommended future research opportunities.

Originality/value

To date, little research in …

Is The Woman-Owned Federal Contracting Program A Good Choice For Your Business?, Mary L. Graff

White Papers

Set asides narrow the playing field and increase your chance of winning contracts. A contracting specialist explains the federal government set-aside program for woman-owned businesses and explores the advantages and disadvantages.

Customer Service Through Incoterms, Josh Nichol-Caddy

White Papers

Settling for the "one size, fits all" shipping solutions typically offered by large logistics companies, small businesses miss out on customer service options that could help differentiate their products. This paper defines the terms and conditions of all the options Incoterms present.

Five Key Ways To Pitch Your Idea To Investors, Wei Jing

White Papers

Here are five key ways by which a startup can effectively pitch their ideas, focusing specifically on communicating financial information.

Perceptions Of Cause-Related Marketing Tactics, Robert Bernier

White Papers

Study of small business owners in Nebraska reveals reluctance to make judgements about tactics intended to manipulate customers and more certainty about genuine charitable actions.

Do Payment Types Affect Consumer Preferences?, Arvind Agrawal

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Through a survey-based experimental study, we assess the influence of payment type (credit and debit cards) on consumer purchase intentions. We find that consumer use of credit cards stimulates intention to purchase whereas the use of debit cards lessens consumer intention to purchase. We test the influence of payment type on consumer intention across three purchase situations – buy a TV (control condition), buy a TV plus accessories (buy more condition), and buy a more expensive TV (upgrade to better quality condition). Consumers using credit cards demonstrate positive purchase intentions when faced with a decision to “buy more” and when …

Evaluating Educational Practices For Positively Affecting Student Perceptions Of A Sales Career, Shannon Cummins, James W. Peltier, Nadia Pomirleanu, James Cross, Rob Simon

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Despite demand for new graduates seeking a sales position, student reticence toward pursuing a sales career remains. While all students will not choose a sales career, diminishing the existence of sales-related misconceptions among the student population should establish sales as a viable career path for a larger number of students. We test six educational interventions in large Principle of Marketing classes from three different universities (n = 1,355) to help identify educational practices for reducing student reticence toward a career in sales. Our results show that while all six educational approaches raise students’ perceptions and interest in a selling …

The Strengths Of Entrepreneurs In Nebraska, Zach Zimmerman

White Papers

Nebraska has an entrepreneurial spirit in its culture. This study of Nebraska university students using the Gallup Strengths Finder attempts to identify, articulate and analyze what exactly that means.

Small Business And Entrepreneurship In Nebraska, Robert Bernier

White Papers

How does small business and entrepreneurship in Nebraska compare to its counterparts in other regions of the U.S.? What determines the rates of business formation in a community? What are the significant characteristics of Nebraska small businesses?

Growing Your Business By Selling To The Government, Roger Johnson

White Papers

Twenty-three percent of all prime contracts are set aside for small business. This has resulted in more than $83 billion dollars of revenue for small businesses. This is a lot of opportunity you could be missing out on for your business.

A Practical Guide To The Veterans Administration Small Business Program, Jason Bousquet

White Papers

In 2015, the Veterans Administration could spend as much as $12.6B of their $65.3B2 budget with verified (certified) veteran owned firms in both prime or subcontractor roles. Clear up confusion about the certification process.

The Ranking Of Contractors To The U.S. Department Of Defense According To Integrated Power Blocs Among The Contractors, F. Gregory Hayden, Elliot G. Campbell, Shannon Cummins

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Knowledge about the power and misbehavior of defense contractors is substantial; yet their power continues to grow in full view of a record of waste, fraud, corrupt activity, and the failure to perform contracts. The knowledge base about defense contractors has not been sufficient to effectively oppose their extensive power. Knowledge is needed about how the boards of directors of the defense corporations are interlocked. That work is initiated in this article by ranking the top defense contractors in terms of the number of power blocs to which the corporations belong in the defense contractors' power-bloc network.

Consumer Behavior In The Online Context, Shannon Cummins, James W. Peltier, John A. Schibrowsky, Alexander Nill

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to review the consumer behavior and social network theory literature related to the online and e-commerce context.

Design/methodology/approach

To conduct the review, the authors draw on a sample of 942 articles published from 1993 to 2012 addressing consumer behavior or social network issues in the online or social media context. The sample is analyzed by both era (incubation, expansion and explosion) and primary topic.

Findings

Eight categories of online consumer behavior research are described. In the order from largest to smallest, these are: cognitive issues, user-generated content, Internet demographics and segmentation, online usage, cross …

A Parsimonious Instrument For Predicting Students’ Intent To Pursue A Sales Career: Scale Development And Validation, James W. Peltier, Shannon Cummins, Nadia Pomirleanu, James Cross, Rob Simon

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Students’ desire and intention to pursue a career in sales continue to lag behind industry demand for sales professionals. This article develops and validates a reliable and parsimonious scale for measuring and predicting student intention to pursue a selling career. The instrument advances previous scales in three ways. The instrument is generalizable across academic settings and is shown to be sensitive to differences across varied course coverage and learning activities. The instrument is parsimonious and offers a high reliability coefficient. Finally, the instrument is validated both before and after exposure to a sales module, thus capturing perceptual and attitudinal changes …

Investigating The Portrayal And Influence Of Sustainability Claims In An Environmental Advertising Context, Shannon Cummins, Timothy M. Reilly, Les Carlson, Stephen J. Grove, Michael J. Dorsch

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The ability of consumer judges to identify sustainable messages in environmental advertising and the effect of these messages is explored. A content analysis provides insight into these judges’ perceptions of the depth of environmental advertising messages. An experiment investigates the influence of sustainable messages and includes collection of cognitive response data to evaluate the cognitive dimension of sustainability messages. Content analysis results suggest that sustainability messages may influence how environmental advertisements are perceived. These findings are supported by the cognitive response data, which shows cognitive differences across advertisements, and the experimental manipulation that suggests sustainable ads may be more involving …

Influences On Consumers' Recycling Intentions Of Compact Fluorescent Lamps—Mercury As A Factor, David M. K. Treumann, Jonna Holland

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The purpose of the current study is to understand consumers’ behavioral intentions in situations involving both positive and negative potential impacts on the environment. The case of energy efficient Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) with their potential for mercury pollution is an example of this type of trade-off. Past studies have confirmed the usefulness of the Theory of Reasoned Action for identifying the antecedents influencing recycling rates, however, none have looked at situations where conflicting environmental trade-offs were involved. Stepwise regression analysis was used to develop a core model which explains R2=.561 of the intention to recycle. Significant antecedents include the …

Encouraging Entrepreneurship: Microfinance, Knowledge Support, And The Costs Of Operating In Institutional Voids, Subrata Chakrabarty, A. Erin Bass

Marketing and Management Faculty Publications

This study focuses on the supplemented strategies of microfinance institutions (MFIs), in which the MFI offers nonfinancial services, such as entrepreneurship related knowledge, in addition to financial services to impoverished borrowers at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP). We examine two contextual factors–foreign direct investment (FDI) and loan defaults–to better understand the relationship between providing knowledge support to encourage entrepreneurship and costs of operating at the BoP for MFIs. In contexts where FDI is low and loan defaults are high, providing knowledge support to encourage entrepreneurship aggravates the MFI's costs of operating at the BoP. However, in contexts where FDI …

A Critical Review Of The Literature For Sales Educators, Shannon Cummins, James W. Peltier, Robert Erffmeyer, Joel Whalen

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The Journal of Marketing Education is publishing a special issue on Sales Education and Training in August 2014. In this article, we review the sales education literature from four primary journals and the business literature at large. The four primary journals are the Journal of Marketing Education, Marketing Education Review, Journal of Education in Business, and the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. Of the 107 identified articles, experiential learning, assessment, and career development were the three most prominent topics. Future research opportunities in sales education, including those for the special issue, are offered across nine topical …

A Critical Review Of The Literature For Sales Educators, Shannon Cummins, James W. Peltier, Robert Erffmeyer, Joel Whalen

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

The Journal of Marketing Education is publishing a special issue on Sales Education and Training in August 2014. In this article, we review the sales education literature from four primary journals and the business literature at large. The four primary journals are the Journal of Marketing Education, Marketing Education Review, Journal of Education in Business, and the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. Of the 107 identified articles, experiential learning, assessment, and career development were the three most prominent topics. Future research opportunities in sales education, including those for the special issue, are offered across nine topical …

Marketing Strategy And The Board Room Network, Shannon Cummins

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This dissertation introduces and catalogues marketing strategic schema to the business literature. The complexity of marketing strategic schema is described and measured using qualitative review of 90 firms’ annual reports. I show that firms with more complex marketing strategic schema benefit from enhanced financial performance as measured by Tobin’s q, profitability, and sales; but are not rewarded by the stock market or in terms of market share. Additionally, I show that board of director networks, created when firms share board members either directly or indirectly, moderate the relationship between marketing strategic schema and firm financial performance. I show that firms …

The Impact Of Board Members On Firm Performance And Management Effectiveness, Shannon Cummins, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the impact of industry connectedness through board members on firm financial performance and management effectiveness. Board member selection is most often attributed to industry expertise and connections. However, marketing is yet to study how industry-specific connections formed through board member linkages may impact firm level outcomes

Ritual Characteristic Congruence Between Consumers’ Consumption And Production Practices, Shannon Cummins, Sanford Grossbart

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

This paper explores characteristic congruencies between ritual consumption and ritual production. While ritual consumption and coproduction are topics of study in marketing, ritual production has not been explored. This paper expands upon previous research on ritual consumption to develop a typology of ritual production including four metaphors: production-asexperience, production-as-classification, production-as-play, and production-as-integration. The typology is used to provide a framework for understanding the ritual tendencies of individuals who engage in ritual production and consumption in materialist and nonmaterialist ways.

An Information Technology Therapy Approach To Micro-Enterprise Adoption Of Icts, Peter Wolcott, Sajda Qureshi, Mehruz Kamal

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

The advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has opened up new opportunities for micro-enterprises to improve their businesses. However the challenges to using ICTs are impeding these businesses from growing into the drivers for development that they can be. This suggests that a potentially important driver of development needs to be supported. This paper investigates the adoption of ICTs in eight micro-enterprises in an underserved community of Omaha, Nebraska. Following an action research study, this research provides insight into the key challenges and opportunities facing micro-enterprises in their use of ICTs to create value for their businesses. Its contribution …

Employing Social Capital By Small & Medium Enterprises To Bear Fruit From Wireless Communications, Abdelnasser Abdelaal, Mehruz Kamal, Peter Wolcott

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Wireless and mobile communications can save Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) significant time, money, and effort due to the mobility, flexibility, and ease of use mobile devices provide. SMEs that use such innovations can improve productivity, decrease costs, and enhance the quality of the business process. Lacking technical skills and financial resources, SMEs need special support from local communities and governments in order to survive the severe competition of big chain stores. This paper proposes a model for SMEs to adopt new innovations—those of wireless communications—by employing social capital. We have used a case study approach to show that social …

Racial Barriers To African American Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Study, Joe E. Feagin, Nikitah Imani

Black Studies Faculty Publications

Much has been written in the ethnic entrepreneurship literature about the contrasting business performance of African American entrepreneurs and those from other minority and immigrant groups. Yet very little research has been conducted by social scientists on the business experiences of black entrepreneurs. In this exploratory study we examine the situation of black contractors in the U.S. construction industry, utilizing 76 in-depth interviews in one of the South's metropolitan areas. We document the nuanced character of the racial barriers faced by black contractors in several areas of the construction industry. We find racial discrimination in unions, in white general contractors' …

The Business Incubator: A Rural Economic Development Tool, Raymond A. Marquardt, Steven A. Schulz

Marketing and Management Faculty Publications

In the 1980s universities and economic development agencies encouraged the establishment of business incubators to bolster economic development. Business incubators are designed to cultivate the formation of new business ventures in an environment conducive to success.