Marketing Commons^™

Voices Of A New Era: A Discursive Psychology Study Of Influencer-Follower Discourse On Tiktok, Andrea Guerrero Hernandez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study researched and investigated the discourse of five mega fashion influencers on TikTok, as well as the discourse of 15 followers engaging with fashion influencer content on the same platform. The theory used to guide this study was discursive psychology theory, which provided the groundwork for understanding how both influencers and followers position their identities, justify their actions and decisions, and construct their reality. The primary aim of this research is to deepen understanding of how influencer discourse shapes follower discourse, identifying recurring patterns, contradictions, and the ways in which tensions are negotiated. The findings reveal a range …

Beyond The Screen: Unveiling Ethical Dimensions Of Consumer Relationships With Virtual Influencers, Heather Morgan, La Toya M. Russell

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Overconsumption And The Role Of The Marketer, Anchiella Angelle

Atlantic Marketing Association Student Proceedings

Consumers value ethical brands and are willing to pay more and repurchase from companies that hold similar values. Consequently, overconsumption initiatives from companies have been shown to benefit brand image and can lead to increased sales due to increased trust. Younger generations, particularly Gen Z and Millennials, are showing a preference for CSR and ESG claims. For this research, a study was carried out with 111 participants to measure repurchase intentions given an impulse purchase from an ethical, neutral, and unethical company. From the study conducted, it was shown that participants have a higher intention to repurchase a product from …

Ethics, Social Responsibility, Sustainable Developmental Goals, Economic Development Strategies: Need Is Stronger Than Ever, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Zeynep Ozdamar Ertekin, Delphine Godefroit-Winkel

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Sensing With Integrity: Responsible Sensor Systems In An Era Of Ai, David Eisenberg

Dissertations

Deep and machine learning now offer immense benefits for consumer choice, decision-making, medicine, mental health and education, smart cities, and intelligent transportation and driver safety. However, as communication and Internet technology further advances, these benefits have the potential to be outweighed by compromises to privacy, personal freedom, consumer trust, and discrimination. While ethical consequences for personal freedom and equity rise from these technological advances, the issue may not be the technology itself but a lack of regulation and policy that allow abuses to occur. A first study examines how emerging sensor-based technologies, limited to only accelerometer and gyroscope data from …

The Ethical Dilemmas Of The True Crime Genre, Jordan Smail

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Along with the recent mainstream popularity of true crime entertainment, the genre has been increasingly criticized for ethical violations. Interestingly, the centuries-long history of true crime and the moral debates around it has led to an abundance of literature on the subject with little to no consensus. The mere existence of true crime entertainment can even be considered controversial in some cases. For those who produce and market true crime content, a lack of common guidelines means receiving a wide range of feedback. This dichotomy of both backlash and praise being published about the same works reveals a gap in …

An Investigation Of Teenagers’ Advertising Literacy In The Context Of The Brand-Rich Environment Of Social Media, Emma Sweeney

Doctoral

Teenagers are avid consumers of social media and consequently, constitute attractive target audiences for marketers. On social media, advertising can be integrated into content such as YouTube videos and Instagram posts which means the boundary between commercial content (the advertisement) and non-commercial content (e.g., the video in which the ad appears) becomes increasingly blurred. Therefore, in this context, the consumer must be able to navigate a minefield of overt and covert advertising that is disseminated by a range of sources, including brands and social media influencers. A resulting concern for academics, parents and policy makers alike relates to young people’s …

Teenagers’ Moral Advertising Literacy In An Influencer Marketing Context, Emma Sweeney, Margaret-Anne Lawlor, Mairead Brady

Articles

Teenagers are avid consumers of social media and also constitute attractive target audiences for influencer marketing (IM). Teenagers can perceive strong, parasocial relationships with influencers, frequently regarding them as being akin to a peer or a friend. Furthermore, influencer endorsements are observed to carry greater credibility and authenticity than traditional forms of advertising. This therefore raises questions about young consumers’ discernment of, and critical evaluation of the overall appropriateness when influencers act as conduits of commercial messages on behalf of brands. This paper reports on a qualitative study of 29 teenagers aged 15–17 years. The aim was to explore the …

The Perceived Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence, Ross Murray

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used by millions of consumers in their daily lives. Although this technology is providing convenience, information, and instant gratification the underlying moral framework that AI uses remains largely unknown to the consumers of the technology. Two of the mostly widely used moral approaches (deontology and teleology), and their implications for AI, are discussed. The context of chatbots that use AI is examined, specifically exploring Amazon’s Alexa. The context illustrates the issue of the latent moral frameworks that AI technologies use when interacting with consumers or the environment. Although AI holds the promise of many potential …

Understanding Students’ Decision-Making Process When Considering A Sales Career: A Comparison Of Models Pre- And Post-Exposure To Sales Professionals In The Classroom, Shannon Cummins, James W. Peltier

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Businesses face a challenge recruiting and maintaining a high-quality salesforce. Increasingly, recruiting focus for entry-level sales positions has turned to university business students and sales centers. Unfortunately, research shows that most students have persistent negative misconceptions about professional sales careers and there is little research examining comprehensive and structured decision-making frameworks used by students when evaluating a sales career. This paper develops and tests an integrative framework that maps students’ decision-making process to their intention to pursue a sales career. Specifically, we examine how perceived sales knowledge, perceptions of selling ethics, perceptions of salespeople, and perceptions of the selling profession …

Profiting From Protecting Small Business Borrowers: Take That To The Bank!, Jerome D. Williams, Sterling A. Bone, Glenn L. Christensen, Alexandra Tebbs

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

While small businesses represent a significant portion of the economy, there is mounting evidence that the playing field is not level for these firms in access to capital. Based on 10 years of matched-paired mystery shopping tests in banks to investigate bank lending practices and customer experience, the results demonstrate that in almost every instance, minorities were treated more poorly than their White counterparts. However, the authors acknowledge the controversy surrounding this issue, as some question the need for government action to push banks in this direction. Before offering evidence of the impact race can have on the treatment of …

Crisis Communication And Executive Leadership: Ethical Shortcomings In Government, Daniel Davidoff

School of Professional Studies

This research thesis project is an analysis of how and why governments fail in their attempts at crisis communication. The hypotheses tested are: there exists a negative correlation between unethical leadership and successful crisis communication practices. And governments are more likely to experience these failures due to ethical disconnects in modern politics. Research includes a review of relevant academic literature regarding crisis communication theory, as well as the ethical framework that can be applied to that theory. Cases considered are Hurricane Katrina, the choking death of Eric Garner, and the COVID-19 global pandemic. The research project concludes with a recommendation …

Dark Clouds: The Ethics Behind A Growing Vape Culture, Matthew Crenshaw

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project addresses the areas of vaping consequences and the overall perception of vaping as a whole from the public. It also successfully answers one primary question: Have vaping companies really done anything “unethical” in terms of marketing and selling their products, or are they just the easiest entity to blame?

Vaping has been referred to as an “epidemic” in recent years. It has gained an immense amount of popularity among America’s youth however little is known about its long-term health risks. Vaping, along with its advertising techniques and unique target audience, has been compared to cigarettes and with that …

Ethics Of Dental Marketing, Min Son

Philosophy and Religious Studies Presentations

While dentistry does not deal with immediate life and death situations like the mainstream medicine, preserving oral health is crucial to protect the people’s overall health. Then, is dental marketing morally impermissible because it is selling people’s opportunity for good health? It is important to note that skills and knowledge of dentists are not the only “products” sold from dental offices, and not all products are related to basic healthcare needs. For example, consider teeth whitening services. While whitening teeth may be necessary to better one’s self-esteem and improve one’s social life, it is not a basic healthcare need—whiter teeth …

The Role Of Normative Marketing Ethics, Gene R. Laczniak, Patrick E. Murphy

Marketing Faculty Research and Publications

This essay highlights the importance of normative thinking in marketing ethics and proposes avenues for future research. It begins with contrasting positive and normative ethics. Then, a brief discussion of the literature in the field is included. Arguments offered by those who tend to avoid normative analysis are examined. Four types of normative ethical theories are presented: consequentialism, duty-based ethics, contract-based morality, and virtue ethics. The essay concludes with seven future research directions for normative marketing ethics and customer-brand relationships.

Student’S Attitudes Toward Academic Dishonesty: An Exploration, David J. Burns, Randy S. Stuart, Anne Heineman Batory, Stephen S. Batory

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Academic dishonesty in college/university classrooms is widely recognized as a serious problem (Offstein and Chory 2017). Studies indicate that academic dishonesty is pervasive. Klein, Levenburg, McKendall, and Mothersell (2007), report 40-80 percent of college students are involved in academic dishonesty, whereas McCabe, Butterfield, and Treviňo (2012), report 65-87 percent involvement. Studies also report that cheating activity is increasing (Forsha 2017; Pérez-Peňa 2012), facilitated by increasing levels of tolerance (where instances of academic dishonesty are overlooked by classroom instructors (Coren 2011)), and advances in technology (Best and Shirley 2018). Consequently, academic dishonesty has become an increasingly important area of concern and, …

The For-Profit Prison As Social Enterprise: Problems With Classification And Ethical Assessment, Karen Barbee, Stephen A. Lemay

AMTP Proceedings 2019

This article explores the problems presented to taxonomies and definitions of social enterprise by a specific kind of organization, for-profit prisons. While these organizations are often and rightly criticized for their performance, they are fundamentally social enterprises by many of the definitions and taxonomies offered in the literature. This analysis uses a naïve matrix for classifying social enterprise to outline the problems created by these ethically and socially challenged organizations.

Money, Marketing, And Missions: Ethics And The Structure Of Not-For-Profits, Karen Barbee, Stephen Lemay

AMTP Proceedings 2018

This article explores the relationship between the structure of not-for-profit organizations and the ethical issues, moral hazards, and public perceptions they are likely to face. It offers a preliminary taxonomy of organizations based on their structures and relates key ethical issues to each of those categories. It also ties these issues to the role that marketing plays in both creating and dealing with ethical issues.

The Impact Of Ethical Concerns On Fashion Consumerism: Case-Based Evidence, Lena Cavusoglu, Mourad Dakhli

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

In continuation of our previous work, “The Impact of Ethical Concerns on Fashion Consumerism: A Review,” we present here empirically based reports to support our argument that ethical concerns in the fashion industry affect consumer behavior. In line with Paper I, the initial paper of this series, we address the concept of ethical marketing, with a focus on the two dimensions of sustainable environmental practices and societally appropriate messaging. The linkages of ethical concerns in fashion with corporate image and financial performance are explored, using a set of 15 real-life cases and anecdotes. We identify challenges in this area, offer …

Integrated Marketing Communication As Epideictic Rhetoric And Its Implications For Ethical Branding, Tricia Mcfadden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traced to ancient scholarship, rhetoric, and the philosophy of communication and through interpretive perspectives, rhetoric, narrative and ethics have been established grounding of communication and social structures. IMC has emerged as a contemporary genre of epideictic rhetoric with ethical obligations to our postmodern polis. Through the redefining of the branding metaphor within an ethical, grounded and narrative framework, the focus on ethos and connection to the audience through Schrag’s “fitting response” may combat the previous challenges of narrative and marketing and its deconstructive effects. IMC as communicative praxis engages branding discourse in action with texture as the bonding agent between …

How Third Party Observers Respond To Overheard Service Failures: Implications For Frontline Service Employees And The Firm, Ismail Karabas, Jeff Joireman, Shinhye Kim

AMTP Proceedings 2017

Frontline service employees and unhappy customers have generally been the main focus of the service failures research. It is established that service failures are difficult to prevent and are costly to a firm. Therefore, effective service recoveries have been proposed such as apology or compensation. The recent research extended the service failures literature by focusing on a broader audience during service failures: third party observers in the servicescape. The current work investigates the degree to which overhearing another customer’s interaction with a service employee following a service failure will impact third party observers’ evaluations of the service employees and the …

Modeling The Relationship Between Destination Perceived Value And Tourist Souvenir Buying Intention, Wei Wang, Gallayanee Yaoyuneyong, Pauline Sullivan

AMTP Proceedings 2017

While there is an increasing academic research focusing on value perception in the hospitality and tourism industry, not much study has explore the relationship between tourist’s perceived destination attributes and shopping intentions. Therefore, this research explores the influence of value perceptions on tourists’ souvenir purchase decisions. Particularly, this study seeks to answer two specific research questions: 1) will value perception have a direct influence on tourist souvenir buying intentions? and 2) which aspect of perceived value has stronger ties with tourist souvenir buying intentions.

A convenience sample of 380 respondents from a southeastern US university filled out survey instruments. The …

“Contemporary Breadlines”: A Field Study Of Fast-Food Drive-Thru Service Delivery, Jon M. Martin

AMTP Proceedings 2017

This study focuses upon US fast-food drive-thru delivery, assesses its cycle times, identifies its common delays and inefficiencies, and proposes solutions for improvement. The author, having become a live-alone bachelor since 2012 admittedly has routinely been a regular fast-food consumer, and as a researcher has over the past 4 years convenience-tallied this field study of fast-food drive-thru delivery. The average drive-thru wait time for these fast-food establishments was .81 minutes with average processing times of 3.6 minutes for a total average of 4.45 minutes with an average standard deviation of 2.1 minutes. This data suggests statistically (assuming a normal distribution) …

The Impact Of Ethical Concerns On Fashion Consumerism: A Review, Lena Cavusoglu, Mourad Dakhli

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Ethical and sustainable business practices have become some of the most significant concerns in the highly globalized fashion industry. Firms in this multi-billion dollar industry are taking these concerns seriously, and are carefully monitoring and responding to consumers’ actions that can range from expressing displeasure via social media to holding protests or even calling for boycotts of certain brands and firms. In this paper, the first output from a larger project on ethics of fashion, we review the extant literature on the ethical aspects of the global fashion system; and set the stage for further empirical and conceptual work.

The Influence Of Consumer Freeloading Behavior On An Observer's And Perpetrator's Affective Commitment, Mohamad A. Darrat

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation explores the relationship between customer affective commitment and freeloading behavior. Consumer freeloading results when a consumer takes advantage of a system or market procedures in a way that allows him or her to obtain benefits from a value proposition with no or reduced monetary costs. Thus, the freeloading consumer works the value equation in his/her favor at the expense of the marketer and/or other consumers. In addition to examining the point of view of the consumer performing the unethical behavior, the dissertation also examines the impact of such behavior on a third party observer. How do loyal consumers …

Understanding Employer Needs And Expectations From The Perspective Of Human Resources, Tulay Girard, Daniela Ngounou

AMTP Proceedings 2016

This pre-test study attempts to understand employers’ current needs and expectations of recent graduates from a 4-year business program at higher education institutions from the perspective of human resource managers/specialists. After conducting a literature review and a pre-test survey, the authors developed scale items that measure the importance of certain knowledge and skill sets as well as behavioral traits from the perspectives of human resource specialists. The feedback received from the human resource specialists who participated in pre-test survey identified additional skill sets, knowledge areas, and behavioral traits that are most important to employers’ needs. After pre-testing the measurement items …

Changing The World Of Higher Education: Creating A Student Capital Management System, Kathleen Houlihan

AMTP Proceedings 2016

Higher education is plagued with new concerns regarding government oversight and the college “rating system” that will hold schools accountable for student outcomes. This research supports the development of a student capital management system (SCM) that controls and protects student information while ensuring student outcomes data quality. Presented is an empirical model that connects colleges to the business world, while allowing higher education to access student data after they graduate. The first phase in developing a secure validated network of student data is the connection with the workforce and to the government in a system that offers granular access to …

Effectiveness, Efficiency, And Ethics Of Marketing Analytics, Julia Hopkins

Honors Theses and Capstones

Abstract

The concept of big data has influenced the marketing field in numerous ways. By having access to more information about their consumers than ever before, marketers are presented with a unique opportunity to make the marketing process more streamlined and effective than ever; however, this also creates a challenge in understanding how this targeted advertising affects the brand’s perception by consumers. This study looks at the concepts of data marketing and re-targeted ads from three aspects. First, are marketers being as effective as possible to ensure they are sending the right advertisement, to the right customer, at the right …

An Examination Of The Marketing Of A Floundering Sport: The Case Of Powerboat Racing, Sam Fullerton

AMTP Proceedings 2016

A sample of 308 attendees at an APBA sanctioned powerboat race in July of 2015 provided insight regarding a number of key considerations germane to the decision to attend the race. Race organizers were seeking ways to reinvigorate interest in what they see as a floundering – if not sinking – sport. A self-administered survey was distributed at the race with those completing it having a chance to win a souvenir shirt from the races. The results indicate that better marketing is needed. WOM represented the most common means by which attendees learned about the event; much of this was …

Seeking Complex Health Services In The Age Of Self-Referral, Lindsay R.L. Larson, Dora E. Bock

AMTP Proceedings 2016

This study investigates the relationship between consumers’ information search and service satisfaction, specifically focused on the search for mental health professionals. The selection of a mental health provider is of interest because practitioners work from a highly diverse set of theoretical bases, may hold a wide range of different credentials and provide drastically different therapeutic approaches, therefore making the selection complex and difficult for consumers to self-navigate. Data sampling from patients of mental health suggest that consumers selecting a provider based on self-performed searches, rather than receiving external input (referrals from physicians, relatives, or friends), report lower satisfaction with their …