Marketing Commons^™

Gone With The Wind: The Evolving Influence Of Social Movements And Counter Movements On Entrepreneurial Activity In The U.S. Wind Industry, W. Chad Carlos, Wesley D. Sine, Brandon H. Lee, Heather A. Haveman

Faculty Publications

Social movements can disrupt existing industries and inspire the emergence of new markets by drawing attention to problems with the status quo and promoting alternatives. We examine how the influence of social movements on entrepreneurial activity evolves as the markets they foster mature. Theoretically, we argue that the success of social movements in furthering market expansion leads to three related outcomes. First, the movement-encouraged development of market infrastructure reduces the need for continued social movement support. Second, social movements’ efforts on behalf of new markets increase the importance of resource availability for market entry. Third, market growth motivates countermovements that …

Introductory Information Systems Course Redesign: Better Preparing Business Students, Gina Harden, Robert M. Crocker, Kelly Noe

Faculty Publications

Aim/Purpose The dynamic nature of the information systems (IS) field presents educators with the perpetual challenge of keeping course offerings current and relevant. This paper describes the process at a College of Business (COB) to redesign the introductory IS course to better prepare students for advanced business classes and equip them with interdisciplinary knowledge and skills demanded in today’s workplace.

Background The course was previously in the Computer Science (CSC) Department, itself within the COB. However, an administrative restructuring resulted in the CSC department’s removal from the COB and left the core course in limbo.

Methodology This paper presents a …

Detecting Discrimination In Small Business Lending, Sterling A. Bone, Glenn L. Christensen, Jerome D. Williams, Stella Adams, Anneliese Lederer, Paul C. Lubin

Faculty Publications

With limited financial sophistication, entrepreneurial consumers approach the financial marketplace more like retail financial consumers than business customers. However, the assumption of both legislators and regulators is that business-borrowers are more financially savvy than consumer-borrowers, and thus do not require as broad-reaching protections. This gap between marketplace policy protections and the lived reality of the vast majority of small business entrepreneurs sets the stage for entrepreneurial consumers to fall through the regulatory cracks and sets the stage for possible exploitation and abuse. This situation is potentially exacerbated for minority entrepreneurs who belong to protected classes that are generally more vulnerable …

Exoskeletons, Entrepreneurs, And Communities: A Process Model Of Opportunity Co-Construction, Stella K. Seyb, Dean A. Shepherd, Trenton Alma Williams

Faculty Publications

Exoskeletons represent a technological breakthrough that presents a diverse range of potential opportunities to overcome human physical limitations. Drawing on data from 16 exoskeleton prototypes, we develop a model of opportunity co-construction that involves mutual adjustment between the actions and beliefs of entrepreneurs and their communities of inquiry. Our study enhances our understanding of potential opportunities as dynamic entities that are (re)constructed as entrepreneurs and community members seek to resolve key tensions throughout the process. Specifically, we identify tensions relating to technological change, shifting power dynamics, and reduced visibility, and explain how actors seek to resolve those tensions through opportunity …

A Mixed-Method Multiple Case Study Of Three Business Models For Local Healthy Food Delivery Systems In Underprivileged Urban Areas, Gretchen Elizabeth Krivak, Garth B. Woodruff, S. Forrest, Hannah Mbungu, Kechler Orcel, Soraya Fish, Sherine R. Brown-Fraser

Faculty Publications

Define a USDA food desert Analyze the three business models for benefits and deficiencies Identify methods for starting a sustainable mobile farmers market program. Over 40% of Berrien County Michigan land use is agricultural. Many products are fruits and vegetables. Yet, the county has six identified USDA defined Food Deserts. Past research, based on a mobile farmers market, confirmed local trends and deficits. The purpose for this research is to define a sustainable business model that delivers healthy local food options to USDA Food Deserts combating food inequity. A mixed method multiple case study was created to test three business …

Neural Networks In Strategic Marketing: Exploring The Possibilities, Kristen Bell Detienne, David H. Detienne

Faculty Publications

A review of the literature indicates that few studies have used artificial neural networks (ANNs) for data analysis in business and marketing research, even though there are many benefits to the use of ANNs. Therefore, this article discusses neural networks (NNs) that can be used in addition to or as an alternative to linear regression for data analysis in strategic marketing. The function and layout of NNs make them ideal for research dealing with nonlinear, incomplete, unspecified, or ‘fuzzy’ data and offer several advantages over linear regression. Unfortunately, in many marketing studies, the information being modeled is far from flawless …

Plastic Fantastic: The Fiberglass Boatbuilding Industry In Holland, Michigan, Geoffrey D. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Plastic Fantastic: The Fiberglass Boatbuilding Industry in Holland, Michigan is a chapter concerning the use of fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) to build boats starting in the 1940s. In the 1950s boat builders discovered that fiberglass would allow them to design boats that would lead to new boat sales and increased profit margins for years to come. This technology steadily spread throughout American boat manufacturing plants, including Holland, Michigan, placing the town among the leaders in the industry.

From Woods To Water: Reviving A G-W Invader, Geoffrey D. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

From Woods to Water: Reviving a G-W Invader is an article concerning the full restoration of a 1972 G-W Invader 10.3' Rally fiberglass boat by high school students Peter Reynolds, Gurjinder Sandhu, and instructor Geoffrey Reynolds, during May and June 2016.

Webinar 1: Marketing And Branding: Asserting Your Value, Michele Villagran

Faculty Publications

Promoting and Enhancing the Advancement of Rural Libraries (PEARL) project: Rural & Small Libraries 4-part Webinar Series with Dr. Michele A. L. Villagran.

Integrating Csr And Behavioral Ethics: Csr And Circles Of Moral Regard, Isaac Smith

Faculty Publications

My hope is to highlight a point of intersection between CSR and Behavioral Ethics research that might serve as a “primer” of sorts, encouraging more integration between the two literatures.

Managerial Segmentation Of Service Offerings In Work Commuting, Steven D. Silver

Faculty Publications

This study reports an implementation of procedures that multivariate methodology make available to assess the relative importance of attributes of service offerings to work commuters. Adaptive choice conjoint analysis was used to derive the importance weights of attributes in available service offering to a commuter sample. A clustering procedure was then used to define homogeneous sub-groups of the sample and the combination of demographic differences that discriminate clusters. Results of this assessment are used to indicate how a market in workcommuting can be segmented on the basis of user indications of the importance of attributes of service offerings.

Being Good For Goodness Sake: The Influence Of Family Involvement On Motivations To Engage In Small Business Social Responsibility, Whitney O. Peake, Philip E. Davis, Marcus Z. Cox

Faculty Publications

Small family and nonfamily firms are acknowledged to serve as important facilitators of social responsibility within their communities; however, both have received relatively little attention in the literature for these efforts or their motivation for undertaking them. Grounded in Enlightened Self-Interest (ESI) and intentions, we explore motivations for participation in socially responsible behaviors and the moderating effect of family involvement. We develop measures for small business social responsibility (SBSR), ESI, and SBSR intentions. Our analyses indicate positive direct effects exist for both SBSR intentions and ESI on engagement in SBSR. We find that family involvement strengthens the relationship between ESI …

Required Donations: An Empirical Test Of Prospect Theory & Framing Of Per-Seat Contributions In Intercollegiate Athletics, Jason D. Reese, Brandon Brown, Gregg Bennett

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine how per-seat contributions are framed, and attempt to understand the effects of different price frames on consumer perceptions and behavior. In doing so, we apply prospect theory to explain how framing an outcome can change preferences and ultimately purchase behavior. The current study used an experimental design to determine which price frame most influences repurchase intentions, when considering three price tiers (e.g. low, moderate, high) determined in a pretest. Our results indicate the best way to increase purchase intentions when implementing per-seat contributions campaigns is to use the Combination price frame (i.e. …

The Medical Tourism Index: Scale Development And Validation, Marc Fetscherin, Renee-Marie Stephano

Faculty Publications

Medical tourism is an estimated $100 billion dollar industry. Despite the increasing number of people, companies and countries involved in medical tourism, we know very little about the key drivers and how countries are perceived as medical tourism destinations. The purpose of this paper is to present the Medical Tourism Index, a new type of country-based performance measure to assess the attractiveness of a country as a medical tourist destination. We followed a rigorous multi-steps scale development procedure by using four empirical studies based on 4995 respondents. The MTI is a multidimensional construct with 4 dimensions (country, tourism, medical costs, …

The Power Of Brand Love, Marc Fetscherin, Ryan Barker, Jeffery Peacock

Faculty Publications

In this article we would like to respond to Romaniuk’s (2013) Viewpoint article "What’s (brand) love got to do with it?" and provide our point of view regarding brand love. While we agree with some of the limitations she points out in Batra et al.’s (2012) article, and acknowledge them, we disagree with her statement that there is ‘no evidence that building brand love leads to higher market share, sales or profitability’ (Romaniuk 2013, p. 185). It is conceivable that there was no evidence when she wrote the article in 2013. However, as this article illustrates, we have since 2013 …

Beyond Instrumentalism: A Relational Approach To Negotiation, Marc-Charles Ingerson, Kristen Bell Detienne, Katie A. Liljenquist

Faculty Publications

Instrumentalism, the philosophy that rational people will behave in ways that promote self-interest, is often the default assumption that scholars and practitioners rely upon when interpreting and predicting human behavior in negotiations. Instrumentalism, however, need not be the only lens through which negotiators and negotiations are viewed. In this article, we discuss some of the problems associated with too heavy a reliance on instrumentalism and propose an alternative relational approach, one in which negotiators see themselves as agents embedded in a system of relationships, who are motivated to understand and advance the welfare of others. We discuss some of the …

Consumer Brand Relationships Landscape, Marc Fetscherin, Daniel Heinrich

Faculty Publications

This article sheds light on the current state of research on consumer brand relationships (CBR) and presents two distinct taxonomies, respectively, theoretical frameworks that help to classify CBR research. First, the 'brand connection matrix' that classifies brand relationships into functional-based (low versus high) and emotional-based (low versus high) connections to brands. This framework leads us with a 2 × 2 matrix consisting of four quadrants, each of which are discussed. Second, the 'brand feeling matrix' classifies consumer's relationships with brands by grouping them into the strengths of relationships (weak versus strong) and the consumers' feeling toward the brand (positive versus …

Satiation From Sensory Simulation: Evaluating Foods Decreases Enjoyment Of Similar Foods, Jeff Larson, Joseph P. Redden, Ryan S. Elder

Faculty Publications

We demonstrate in two studies that people get more satiated on a food after repeatedly rating or choosing among similar foods shown in pictures. Repeated evaluations of food apparently have an effect similar to actual consumption—decreased enjoyment of foods that share a similar taste characteristic (i.e., sensory-specific satiety). We provide mediation evidence to show that satiation manifests because considering a food engenders spontaneous simulations of the taste of that food item, which by itself is enough to produce satiation. These findings establish sensory simulations as an important mechanism underlying satiation, and provide behavioral evidence that simple evaluations can produce sensory-specific …

Quality Signals And Franchising Growth, Laura Lucia-Palacios, Victoria Bordonaba-Juste, Melih Madanoglu, Ilan Alon

Faculty Publications

The goal of this article is to demonstrate how signaling support services and contractual arrangements that create value for incumbent franchisees can help to create value for the whole network by attracting prospective franchisees.

Fixing Advising: A Model For Faculty Advising, Robert M. Crocker, Marlene Kahla, Charlotte Allen

Faculty Publications

This paper addresses mandates to fix the advising process with a focus on faculty advising systems. Measures of student success and satisfaction, administrative issues, and faculty concerns are among the many factors discussed. Regression analysis is used to explore long-voiced faculty complaints that students do not follow advice. A case study is used to illustrate changes in one department’s advising process and measures of student satisfaction are reported. A model of advising components is offered to illustrate practices suggested to realize the full potential of the advising process.

A Stakeholder–Human Capital Perspective On The Link Between Social Performance And Executive Compensation, Peter M. Madsen, John B. Bingham

Faculty Publications

The link between firm corporate social performance (CSP) and executive compensation could be driven by a sorting effect (a firm’s CSP is related to the initial levels of compensation of newly hired executives), or by an incentive effect (incumbent executives are rewarded for past firm CSP). Existing empirical work focuses exclusively on the incentive effect. In contrast, in this paper we explore the sorting effect of firm CSP on the initial compensation of newly hired executives. In doing so, we develop a novel theoretical approach based on an integration of stakeholder theory and human capital theory, suggesting a positive association …

Consumer Behavior In “Equilibrium”: How Experiencing Physical Balance Increases Compromise Choice, Jeff Larson, Darron M. Billeter

Faculty Publications

The authors propose that the physical sensation of balance can affect consumer judgments and decisions. A series of six experiments demonstrates that certain consumer behaviors, such as leaning back in a chair while shopping online, can activate the concept of balance and thereby affect the consumer decision-making process. Specifically, consumers experiencing a heightened sense of balance are more likely to choose compromise options. The authors propose and show evidence for the mechanism underlying these effects: that the concept of balance is metaphorically linked in the mind to the concept of parity and that activating balance increases the accessibility of the …

Utilization Of Social Media In Marketing Classes, Charlotte Allen

Faculty Publications

The goal of this paper is to highlight how instructors may integrate the different social media into various marketing classes. The paper will address the major social networks, and then follow with discussions of microblogging, media sites, and social gaming. Given that there is a great deal of research highlighting the effectiveness of utilizing social media in academic classes, this paper focuses on providing practical guidance as to how social media could be integrated into the classroom, homework, and project experience.

Working For A Higher Purpose: A Theoretical Framework For Commitment To Organization-Sponsored Causes, John B. Bingham, Bret W. Mitchell, Derron G. Bishop, Natalie J. Allen

Faculty Publications

We explicate the theoretical foundations of employee commitment to organization-sponsored causes—voluntary, socially responsible practices or programs espoused by an organization—as targets of employee commitment. Although scholarly interest in organization-sponsored causes is increasing, little is understood about the mechanisms for employee involvement in organization-sponsored causes, since the motives and context for participation may differ significantly from participation in such causes outside of work. We propose that commitment to organization-sponsored causes can be conceptualized in terms of affective and normative mindsets and suggest that these mindsets, both separately and in combination, influence employees' behavioral support for the cause. We also draw upon …

Advertising Budget And Sales Paths Under The Dynamics Of The Student Work Control Problem And Regularity Requirements, Aharon Hibshoosh

Faculty Publications

Consider a firm promoting a product in a fast expanding industry by using advertising as its single promotional tool. The firm's objective is to minimize the overall cost of advertising necessary for reaching certain target sales of the product by the end of a given planning period. We adopt the Student Work Control problem (SWC) framework for modeling this marketing context, in general, and the advertising-sales response function, in particular. We compare the SWC's optimal control budgeting principle with the solutions of equally effective, alternative advertising budgeting principles, which require strong regularity conditions on the path of either the advertising …

The Importance Of The Historical Tang Dynasty In Place Branding Contemporary Xi'an, Norman Harry Rothschild, Ilan Alon, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the opportunity of utilizing Tang dynasty history, heritage, buildings and names in the effort to place brand the contemporary city Xi'an.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a conceptual framework for place branding cities consisting of two main dimensions. The first describes the continuum of functional versus emotional values within a city; the second measures the degree to which the image of a place is historical or contemporary. The paper then employs historical analysis to examine the meaning and construction of a Tang dynasty brand for place branding twenty-first century Xi'an. …

A Study Of Visual Puffery In Fragrance Advertising: Is The Message Sent Stronger Than The Actual Scent?, Mark Toncar, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose - This paper investigates visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects’ expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations.

Design/methodology/approach - By means of a semiotic analysis we capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and we supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t-tests are used to compare …

A Comparative Study Of Prospective Natural Gas For Vehicle (Ngv) Buyers' Behavior Intention In Thailand, Howard W. Combs, N. Likitsuwannakool, S. Chaipoopirutana

Faculty Publications

This study examines the prospects of how Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) could gain more popularity, and more consumers, throughout Thailand. A survey of 500 potential consumers, comprising l00 respondents in each of the five separate regions, identified relevant geographic locations, demographic factors and their impact on behavior intention. The results of the study suggest that consumer’s behavioral intentions toward NGV are affected by factors pertaining to social influences and NGV attributes. Each group contains several sub-variables and is used in verifying its individual impact on consumer’s behavioral intention, while the differences in vehicle factors did not strongly affect the behavior …

The Impact Of Moral Stress Compared To Other Stressors On Employee Fatigue, Job Satisfaction, And Turnover: An Empirical Investigation, Kristen Bell Detienne, Bradley R. Agle, James C. Phillips, Marc-Charles Ingerson

Faculty Publications

Moral stress is an increasingly significant concept in business ethics and the workplace environment. This study compares the impact of moral stress with other job stressors on three important employee variables—fatigue, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions—by utilizing survey data from 305 customer-contact employees of a financial institution’s call center. Statistical analysis on the interaction of moral stress and the three employee variables was performed while controlling for other types of job stress as well as demographic variables. The results reveal that even after including the control variables in the statistical models, moral stress remains a statistically significant predictor of increased …

Science Diplomacy With Swissnex China: A Swiss Nation Brand Initiative, Flavia Schlegel, Olivier Jacot, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Switzerland has a long tradition of expertise in the fields of science, research and education, with “science diplomacy” (SD) now assuming an important role for innovation economies. Past experience shows that international scientific cooperation can have valuable outcomes for the involved countries and complements traditional foreign policy and diplomacy. In Switzerland, a worldwide network of science and technology outposts under the auspices of the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research (SER) in cooperation with the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) was established in 2000. The very swissnex network around the world defines one of those established science diplomacy …