Marketing Commons^™

Theoretical Model Testing With Latent Variables, Robert Ping

Marketing Faculty Publications

Topics include improving Average Variance Extracted (AVE), estimating a latent variable with only two indicators, and speeding up the "weeding" (itemizing) of a measure so it is consistent ("fits the data"), is valid and reliable, yet has more than 3 indicators.

The Introduction Of The Philosophy Of Sufficiency Economy And Its Application To Consumer Context, Sasawan Heingraj, Suwakitti Amornpan

Marketing Faculty Publications

Thailand was one of the potential causes of the 1997 East Asian economic recession due to its lack of readiness in dealing with globalization. In fact, globalization can generate double-edged effects on a country’s economic condition. While it can mitigate global inequality and poverty, it can also be considered as the determinant of trade imbalances, income inequality, and deterioration of natural resources. In order to enhance a balanced and sustainable development at society and country level, we believe that the well-being of each individual should be taken into consideration. This article introduces the concept of Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy (PSE) …

Scenario Economic Impact & Marketing Implications For South Texas Saltwater Fishing Tournaments, Yeong Nain Chi, Marvin Lovett

Marketing Faculty Publications

The main purpose of this study is to employ scenario analysis to estimate the economic impact of the expenditures of anglers who participate in saltwater fishing tournaments in Port Isabel/South Padre Island, Texas. Secondly, this study discusses the implications for initiating, maintaining, and/or expanding marketing communications, including event marketing and event sponsorships, to promote saltwater fishing tournaments in South Texas. This study also evaluates impacts on adjacent areas, identifies potential uses for economic impact information, and provides justification for investment and support of programs related to the growing needs of saltwater recreational fisheries management. To accomplish this study, the IMPLAN …

The Brand Relationship Of Cult-Like Following: Developing Scales Of Measurement In Apple And Catholic Devotees, Yi-Chia Wu, Michael Minor

Marketing Faculty Publications

The purpose of this research aims to fill in the gap in the religion-brand relationship, and explores what constitutes a cult-like allegiance to a brand, by examining subjects’ relationship to the Apple brand, comparing survey response by subjects who were “devotees” versus “indifferents” to Catholicism and to Apple. This paper uses Ninian Smart’s (1989)“Seven Dimensions of Religion” as a theoretical framework to develop scales of measurement among Apple and Catholic devotees. The contribution of this research is the development of Catholic and Apple scales. The Catholic scale extracted three factors and the Apple scale generated four factors in CFA.

The Sea Turtle As A Marketing Symbol For The Anti-Plastics Movement, Hannah Chiu

Pitzer Senior Theses

The anti-plastic straw movement uses the sea turtle to bring an empathetic symbol to broaden the scope of the plastics problem in the ocean, giving the public a powerful visual image for the first time in the history of the anti-plastics movement. In this thesis, I build on existing conversations on charismatic megafauna and flagship species, to explore the emerging anti-plastic straw movement and its use of the sea turtle as a symbol. I also provide an analysis of the imagery and comments on social media sites of green marketing companies and non-governmental organizations. These social media sites, such as …

Exploring The Effects Of Mindfulness In Marketing: Mindfulness, Ethics, Emotional Labor And Service Quality, Emma (Junhong) Wang

2019

Mindfulness, i.e., nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness and attention, finds its roots in ancient spiritual traditions, and is most systematically articulated and emphasized in Buddhism. Although arguably relevant to a variety of practices, mindfulness research is sparse in marketing literature. In particular, there is a shortage of empirical research on the application of mindfulness in marketing (Ndubisi, 2014). This dissertation follows a three-paper model to begin to address this shortage in marketing literature. Paper one uses the Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing and Moral Development Model as theoretical lens to discuss how mindfulness could be a viable approach to fostering ethical marketing behaviors. …

The Use Of Secrets In Marketing And Value Creation, Ivan Fedorenko

2019

Keeping secrets is common to both corporations and public organizations. However, secrets have, until recently, received little attention in the marketing literature. The research on secrecy, to date, has been focused on the appropriating value from innovation. The purpose of my dissertation is to explore how secrecy can be used to create value for consumers. Paper one integrates the existent research on secrecy to develop an overarching framework and categorize four common types of secrets: reputational secrets, trade secrets, managerial secrets, and marketing secrets. The drivers and consequences of secrecy are identified across all three levels of analysis: individual, organizational …

Consumer Embarrassment – A Meta-Analytic Review And Experimental Examination, Alexander H. Ziegler

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

This dissertation consists of two essays that discuss the influence of embarrassment on consumers. In the first essay, I examine consumers’ coping responses to embarrassment in a meta-analytic review. In essay two, I utilize an experimental approach to investigate the impact of embarrassing encounters on unrelated consumers who merely observe the situation.

In the first essay, the meta-analysis is guided by findings in the literature that demonstrate embarrassment can both promote and detract from consumer well-being. However, despite being investigated for decades, little is known about how consumers cope with embarrassing situations, and when and why consumers respond in positive …

Best Of Both Worlds: Blending Logic To Expand The Customer Value Model, Adam Merkle

AMTP Proceedings 2019

The goods-dominant model of customer value involves a ratio of benefits received in exchange for sacrifices given. Service-dominant logic suggests a different view with the idea that all value is co-created by the customer. But value measurement challenges persist, and definitions of co-creation vary. These problems arise, in part, because goods-dominant thinking about value is largely set aside in the application of SD logic. Yet, the classic goods-dominant customer value model can be blended, joined, and advanced with theoretical principles from SD logic such as co-creation.

Firms no longer rely on simple product quality improvements or additional service benefits to …

Developing Scale Of Tourists’ Attitude Toward Culture Souvenirs, Wei Wang, Gallayanee Yaoyuneyong, Pauline Sullivan, Brigitte Burgess

AMTP Proceedings 2019

A variety of scales exist related to culture, but the literature lacked a scale measuring Attitude Toward Cultural Souvenirs (ATCS). The purpose of this study was to fill this literature gap by developing and testing a scale to measure ATCS. The scale development approach recommended by Churchill (1979) and Netemeyer, Bearden and Sharma’s (2003), which uses theory to guide the conceptualization and development of measurement items, was adopted. The resulting scale proves to be robust and reliable across cultures. Beyond the theoretical value of scale development, the current study broadens the literature by adding findings on attitudes towards cultural souvenirs. …

Content Analysis Of A Collegiate Athletic Twitter Account: Practical Applications For Promotion And Attendance Increase, Steve Shih-Chia Chen

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Twitter global usage has increased as a source of information during the past decade. This study explores different types of Twitter messages sent by a collegiate athletic department and analyzes the impact of these messages on attendance at home athletic events during the NCAA football season. The data examines five message categories: interactivity, content, promotional, information sharing, and noise. Noise accounts for any message that is not related to the studied sport season. Results suggest that while noise is prevalent, messages pertaining to the studied sport are impactful. The types of messages sent by a college athletic department can impact …

Retailers’ Use Of Partially Comparative Pricing In A Usage Category Context: An Exploratory Study, Ellen Campos Sousa

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Partially comparative price (PCP) happens when some products have a comparison price and other products have only the featured retailer’s price (Barone et al., 2004). It is common retailers promote advertisements with products from different product categories, but within the same usage category (e.g., products for Christmas, Mother’s Day, and a barbecue party). However, it is still unexplored how consumers evaluate the non-comparatively priced (NCP) products that belong to the same usage category as a CP product in an advertisement.

This research aims to fill this gap, proposing that items that are not naturally within the same product category may …

Service Print Advertisements: The Impact Of Brand Personality Perceptions, Attitudes, And Consumption Intentions, Lisa M. Sciulli

AMTP Proceedings 2019

The purpose of this research is to examine respondents’ perceptions regarding service print advertisements. Brand personality characteristics, attitudes towards the service, the ad itself, and subsequent consumption intentions for these services will be explored. Statistical positioning tools provide analytical evidence whereby identified attribute ratings may yield desired service offerings. Results will be further tested with multiple regression to reveal predictive capabilities of the findings with consumption intentions. An advertising framework for positioning strategies for service organizations is provided with theoretical and managerial implications.

Previous research suggests that before a service is purchased consumers look for cues to make assessments of …

Consumer Social Identity And Competition, Hyewon Park, Rajeev Tyagi

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Consumers belong to various social groups and their social identity plays an important role in their purchase decisions. By buying products that are associated with their social group, consumers can show who they are and which social group they belong to (e.g., iPhones rather than android phones for "cool" professionals, t-shirts with sports logos rather than with hipster logos for athletic teenagers, and Tesla rather than BMW for environmentally-conscious moms). Consuming a product identified with its social group yields a consumer a benefit in being able to show to both in-group and out-group consumers which group she belongs to. There …

Perceptions Of Service Profession-Status Stereotyping: Comparisons Of Turkish And American Millennials, Musa Pinar, Coleen Wilder, Tulay Girard, Sinan Nardali

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Employment opportunities in the service industry have created jobs for both genders and raises the question about how these jobs are influenced and evaluated regarding occupational stereotyping based on prestige and gender (Gottfredson, 1981). For example, Oswald (2003) found that high prestige male occupations were rated significantly higher than high prestige female occupations. Likewise, low prestige male occupations were rated significantly higher than low prestige female occupations, which is indicative of occupational status stereotyping. A relatively small number of studies have been carried out after new service occupations were created from advancements in technology and demographic changes (Belt et al., …

When Not Belonging Means Bad News For The Planet: How A Low Sense Of Belonging Diminishes The Value Of Sustainable Products, Ainslie E. Schultz, Kevin P. Newman, Scott A. Wright

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Consumers increasingly report feeling disconnected from others. They live farther from family, belong to fewer social groups and are more likely to live alone than ever before (Pew Research Center 2015). A low sense of belonging is an aversive state for consumers, since relationships provide access to survival benefits such as resources and protection (Buss 1990). Consumers often use sustainable products to help them experience belonging since these products are typically more expensive than non-sustainable products and can signal that one is a good, cooperative group member who is willing to incur individual costs to maintain a group resource (e.g., …

The Relationship Between Retail Store Types And Consumer Price Expectations, Sua Jeon

AMTP Proceedings 2019

As consumers hold distinct belief about competing retailers, there has been considerable development in the way brands are managed in the field of retailing and firms are making significant efforts to create ever richer and more differentiated store identities (Beristain and Zorrilla 2011). Given the abundant choices of retail formats and diverse product categories and brands available to consumers, retailers use every means available to survive and compete (Kumar et al. 2017).

This study provides useful managerial insights into the roles of price expectations in consumer purchase decisions in different product categories along with both national or store brands. With …

Social Media Listening: Revealing The Indirect Effects Of User Generated Content (Ugc) On Product Adoption, Nga Ho-Dac, Ian Clark Sinapuelas

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Industry studies suggest social media listening espouses several advantages. Evidence from academic research however is lacking and the need to investigate its impact especially in the context of product development is needed. This research explores how UGC influences market outcomes indirectly via its impact on product development. Building on current findings from empowerment-product demand and new product adoption research, we propose that product improvements building on consumer social media conversations are more likely to succeed. Using a system of equations modeling in the open source software context, we verify that increasing forum posts lead to a greater number of codes …

The Effectiveness Of Celebrity Endorsement On Purchase Behavior: Do Celebrities Raise The Bar?, Delancy Bennett, Yana Andonova, Nwamaka A. Anaza

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Research on the interplay between celebrity endorsers, high-low pricing, and quality has not been examined in the literature. This raises the question of whether celebrity endorsement can compensate for the effect of low prices on consumer quality perceptions. Across two studies, one using archival data and one using an experiment, we find evidence that the presence of celebrity endorsers can offset the effect that a low price has on consumer quality perceptions. Further, willingness to purchase is higher for a low-priced product endorsed by a celebrity. These findings have implications for marketing theory and practice.

Use Of Social Media By Sales Students For First Post-Graduation Job-Search: An Exploratory Study, Linda G. Mullen, Randy S. Stuart, Michael L. Thomas

AMTP Proceedings 2019

As students who studied/majored in professional sales approach graduation and start looking for their first post-graduation/entry-level positions, what avenues are used to pursue these opportunities? One might suspect that with the explosion of social media and the millennial generation’s prolific use of said media this would be their preferred choice for job hunting. Are sales students engaging social media and other online activities to land entry-level career positions or are they still using traditional methods (i.e. College/University Career Fairs, College/University Career Services, Internships, etc.) to find these positons? This paper looks at the avenues millennial students who studied/majored in professional …

The Fall Of Sears From Within: How Customer Sentiments Refuted Retail Capital And Authority, Michael D. Harris, Ismet Anitsal, Melek Meral Anitsal

AMTP Proceedings 2019

This research aims to understand the relationship between Sears Holdings Corporation and its customers, while exploiting feedback from customers to identify reasons for Sears’ decline. The problem statement is dependent on identifying aspects that affect consumer behavior most and linking a connection to the increased number of dissatisfied Sears’ customers. In order to analyze this phenomenon, customer attitudes were compiled over the key four years of Sears history using a customer sentiment analysis. This empirical method of research was chosen because of the large impact that consumer sentiments have on spending, allowing the development of both internal and external views …

Join The Club: The Relationship Between Professional Organization Membership And Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Marketing Students, Gary Daniel Futerell

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Professional student organizations (PSOs) are often regarded as valuable learning opportunities for students and a source of distinction for students entering the job market. In addition to allowing students the opportunity to integrate classroom concepts (Hall 2012; Peltier, Schibrowsky, and Kleimenhagen 1995); active participation in PSOs has been shown to increase informal student-faculty interaction (Hall 2012), develop member’s professional attitude (Bent 1957), and aid in the acquisition and practice of leadership skills (Hall 2012).

PSOs allow students the opportunity to connect with those active in their field of study and allows them to dress the part of a professional (Munoz, …

The Dual-Mediation Effect Of Perceived Accuracy And Perceived Connectedness On Consumer Attitude Toward Social Network Advertising, Tao-Sheng Chiu, Kai-Yu Wang, Wen-Hai Chih, Jaime Ortiz, Ying-Ching Lin

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Despite the importance of social media advertising, few studies have investigated the factors that influence its effectiveness (Jung, Shim, Jin, and Khang 2016). Because advertising on social media is a relatively new phenomenon (Okazaki and Taylor 2013), several studies are exploratory in nature and lack a solid theoretical framework (e.g., Campbell, Pitt, Parent, and Berthon 2011; Pehlivan, Sarican, and Berthon 2011; Sashittal, Sriramachandramurthy, and Hodis 2012; Waters and Jones 2011). For this reason, the present study examines the factors affecting consumers’ attitudes toward advertisements they view on social media.

This paper draws on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to investigate the …

Hedonic And Social Drivers Of Millennials’ Engagement With And Donation To Nonprofits: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, Bela Florenthal

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have been increasingly utilizing social media outlets to target Millennials for donations of time and money. These organizations, however, do not always take advantage of the hedonic, social, and normative factors that can influence engagement with and monetary donation to these organizations.

Because monetary donation on SMSs is a relatively new field of investigation, there is only a handful of studies that provide insight into how social, hedonic, and normative motives predict engagement with and donation to nonprofits.

To address this gap, the first aim of the present study is to propose an integrated approach to monetary …

Are Customer Reward Programs Really Rewarding?, Michael Mccall, Dave Mcmahon

AMTP Proceedings 2019

The concept of a customer loyalty program can be traced back over 300 years when merchants would give customers wooden coins in return for their patronage. Two points are clear: Customer reward loyalty programs are prevalent and costly aspects of most hospitality firms’ marketing strategy. From an academic viewpoint our understanding of the theoretical drivers of these programs is muddled and confused. That is, despite many years of existence there is scant research suggesting the underlying theoretical logic of a program. In this paper, we briefly review the current reward program landscape suggesting that the overwhelming presence of reward programs …

Digital Tipping Intimidation At The Counter, Jennifer Bechkoff

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Although tipping for counter service at fast casual restaurants/cafes is not expected etiquette, it seems to be headed in the direction of becoming a social norm as tip jars next to registers are now a common sighting. However, as cash becomes less prevalent of a payment method, businesses are turning to mobile digital point of sale (POS) technologies with preset tipping options for customers. Oftentimes, businesses using digital POS systems will utilize touch-based tablets for sales that the counter staff can swing around for customers to add tips and sign with their fingers. If there are other customers standing behind …

Role Of Sponsor-Selection In Marketing Communications Of New Local Hallmark Events: A Perspective Of Image Transfer, Jerred Jungi Wang, James J. Zhang

AMTP Proceedings 2019

With the rapid growth of sport popularity throughout the world, developing local hallmark events have become an emerging trend in many urban and suburban communities. Yet, the underdeveloped brand equity of new events makes marketing communications challenging. Built upon the balance theory, the schema theory, and the elaboration likelihood model, this study was designed to examine the image transfer from the sponsor-end to the event-end in the context of new local hallmark events while considering potential moderating effects of image fit (IF) and sport identification (SID) in this process.

The balance theory suggests that to achieve the cognitive consistency, people …

Understanding And Measuring Esports Online Spectator Motivation: Development Of A Scale, Tyreal Yizhou Qian, James J. Zhang

AMTP Proceedings 2019

The esports industry has found itself at a critical stage in the quest for continuous growth and sustainable development, facing both tremendous opportunities and challenges. For achieving enhanced revenue generation and consumer retention, understanding esports as a spectator entertainment is essential for the inchoate yet burgeoning industry, especially in an online environment through which a majority of fans follow the competitive scene of esports. In this investigation, two studies were conducted to understand the dimensions and develop a measure of esports online spectator motivation. Integrating Sloan’s sport motivation theories (Sloan, 1989; Zhang et al., 2003) and the uses and gratification …

How Customer Engagement And Customer Participation Translate Across High-Involvement Purchases (Like Higher Education), Wendy Gillis, Douglas Johansen, Shiri D. Vivek

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Previous research suggested that customer participation resulted in greater customer satisfaction for the service provider. Specifically, earlier research differentiated Service Customer Engagement (CE) from Service Customer Participation (CP), where the former was ideation and the latter was practical application/execution. In other words, CE was more psychological, where customers think, feel, and trust. Conversely, CP was more behavioral, or physical, where customers act and do.

The point of this research is to translate previous learning to other high-involvement purchases. Research indicates that services high in credence, high contact, as well as high-involvement (Sharma and Patterson 1999) seem to be particularly relevant …

Diversity In Emerging Markets: The Case Of Latin American & The Caribbean, Neleen S. Leslie, Celia Mckoy, Everett Hyatt

AMTP Proceedings 2019

Latin America and the Caribbean encompasses over 40 countries in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Cultural influences in this region include Africa, the native groups, India, as well as the former colonizers from Europe - the British, Spanish, French, Dutch, and Portuguese, making it one of the most diverse markets in the world. Country populations within the region are also varied and range from as small as St. Kitts & Nevis with a population of only 52,175 to as large as Brazil with a population of 207,353,391, according to the CIA World Factbook (2017).

Despite lower incomes, the …