Sales and Merchandising Commons^™

Glocal Warming, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Revolutionising legacy brands is not just about that Big Bang. Incremental changes may count for a whole lot more.

The Phenomenon Behind The Bite: Altercasting As It Applies To Apple Technology, Elizabeth Baldwin

Masters Theses

This paper investigates how the brand Apple markets their product so that consumers feel obligated to buy their product. By looking at five main categories of brand loyalty, environmentally friendly practices, being up-to-date with technology, pricing with value and customer service, this paper will rhetorically analyze how successful of a job it does. To get an inside look at what the public thought on the the way that Apple fulfilled their altercasting this paper analyzed what people said about Apple verses competing technology brands. By drawing overall conclusions, recording trends and making observations about the way that people had been …

When On The Mountain Top, Create New Summits, Says Samsung Asia Pacific Ceo, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The past couple of years have been nothing short of phenomenal for Korean electronics giant, Samsung. The company has seen success with a number of their products, particularly in the television business. "For TV, we've been number one in the world since 2005," exclaimed Gregory Lee, President and CEO of Samsung Asia.

F.A.C.E.S. (Faculty Academic Community Education Showcase): Professional Growth Experiences In A Career University, Paul J. Colbert, Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

Institutes of higher education exist for the purpose of developing, fostering, nurturing, and stimulating the intellectual growth and development of students. The core values of a college education provide students conceptual and practical educational opportunities that focus on improving their skills and knowledge. These skills and knowledge translate into purposeful, real-life learning experiences. However, in the academic community, learning is not restricted to students. Faculty, too, must be supported and provided opportunities for personal and professional growth and development. Although professional development is not a novel concept in the education profession, schools often take up the gauntlet, but fall short …

The Sustainability Movement And Its Effects On The Trends Of Beauty Product Packaging, Sarah Danley

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study is to examine industry professionals’ standpoints along with consumer demands and expectations pertaining to sustainable packaging, materials currently used in beauty product packaging, and advances in emerging trends within this sector. Using the information derived from these examinations, this study will predict the industry’s future direction and identify how the industry leaders should change in order to adapt their business practices to remain competitive and profitable within the industry.

This study made use of several research methods to gain insight on the impacts that the sustainability movement has had on the beauty and health packaging …

The Role Of Technology In Enabling Sales Support, Aaron D. Arndt, Jason Harkins

Marketing Faculty Publications

The purpose of this research is to develop a framework explaining how technology can enable sales support. Sales support technology is often used to assist salespeople with a variety of transaction activities, such as prospecting, communicating, scheduling appointments, and processing orders. Sales support technology can be categorized as automation and facilitative technology. Our framework explains when a technology is appropriate for a particular sales activity based on workload and customization. It also proposes who should use a technology based on orientation towards sales revenue or cost control goals. Then, we develop managerial recommendations and propose directions for future research.

Library Marketing And Graphic Design, John M. Passa

Senior Honors Projects

As the University of RI moves into the new millennium, it has created its brand, “Think Big, We Do”.  This brand requires different collaborative marketing strategies for different units within the university.  Academic libraries provide intellectual products, consumed by a specific audience.

Marketing academic libraries entails a market analysis of the target audience, creating a strategic plan to address the library’s marketing audience, and designing a marketing instrument.  The target audience of the University Libraries was  identified as college students under the age of 25 because of academic requirements, cost of textual materials, and access to electronic resources.  Using library …

Mobile Application Adoption By Young Adults: A Social Network Perspective, David G. Taylor, Troy A. Voelker, Iryna Pentina

WCBT Faculty Publications

The use of mobile applications, defined as small programs that run on a mobile device and perform tasks ranging from banking to gaming and web browsing, is exploding. Within the past two years, the industry has grown from essentially nothing to a $2 billion marketplace, but adoption rates are still on the rise. Using network theory, this study examines how the adoption of mobile apps among young consumers is influenced by others in their social network. The results suggest that the likelihood of adoption and usage of mobile apps increases with their use by the consumer's strongest relationship partner. In …

A Theory Of Mental Credit, Jason Soll

CMC Senior Theses

Many philosophical subjects attempt to analyze the basis of human welfare. Theories of desert, distribution of property, and happiness tend to dominate philosophical discourse. Mental credit, which is the mental acquisition of credit for one’s accomplishments and the satisfaction one derives from this credit, is absent from this discourse despite its underlying role in the way people think about their lives. Mental credit is an eternal cognitive good that deserves thoughtful attention and pious decisions for implementation. The following theory of mental credit seeks to serve as a unifying theory for the mental calculations that guide life’s most imperative decisions, …

Developing A Culturally Responsive Classroom Collaborative Of Faculty, Students, And Institution, Paul J. Colbert

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

Culture is integral to the learning process. It is the organization and way of life within the community of students and teachers and directs the way they communicate, interact, and approach teaching and learning. Although founded in particular values and principles, the academy, like most organizations, is impacted day-to-day by its culture. Yet, the traditional higher education institution has not been designed to operate within a racially or ethnically diverse student population. The social, political, economic, and cultural forces that support the institution influence the teaching and learning environments. To better address cultural diversity in the classroom, faculty must first …

Consumers And Benefits Of Genetically Modified Vegetables, Megan Carter Judge

Master's Theses

With the adoption of biotechnology in many agricultural products with first-generation biotechnology traits such as increased pest resistance, greater herbicide resistance, and increased yields the growers have accepted them. The next wave of biotech crops have second-generation traits, such as improved nutrient content, extended shelf life, reduced pesticide and herbicide application (a consumer demanded trait), and better taste. Will these consumer benefits offset any concern that the consumer has regarding biotechnology? What are those benefits and how should the information be communicated to the consumer?

Three focus groups give insight to the proposed questions. The focus groups were done in …

Simpler Packaging, Tomiko Oden

Graphic Communication

This project explains how product packaging is become more "green", and thus more simple. Packaging needs to go beyond just simplifying materials and graphics - it needs to create a simpler process in order to reduce wasted time, energy, and resources.

Technology Adoption: Influence Of Availability And Accessibility, William S. Mcconnell

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Farmers are small business leaders using available technology to remain competitive. The availability of technology is dependent on the suppliers' use of the marketing mix 4Ps theory--product, price, placement, and promotion. The purpose of this study was to determine how the relation between availability and accessibility influences the adoption by rural farmers of new technological innovations, specifically internet services. Results indicated availability factors (product, price, placement, and promotion) positively correlated to accessibility factors (perceived usefulness, ease of use, and behavioral intention). The study provides empirical support for an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) that includes availability factors as external variables.

Role Of The Sales Manager And Its Intersection With Sales Technology, Stephen Kennelly

Masters

The area of sales management and technology is an expanding and dynamic field of research. Examining the impact and facets of technology in the arena of sales management has been steadily increasing over the past few decades as sales managers and industry seek to benefit from the multiple uses of technology. Large scale quantitative sales research itself in Ireland has been limited over the past 15 years and not since De Burca and Lambkin (1991) performed an analysis of the industry has there been any wide scale research in Ireland. This body of work seeks to follow on from De …

Customer Behavior In An Online Ordering Application, Walter Lee Booker

The Corinthian

The purpose in writing this paper is to exemplify how the online activity of customers has changed the playing field of retail sales over the years. Online retail sales have increased substantially over the past few years. For example, sales reached a staggering $14.8 billion in the November 1 to December 26, 2004 time period: a 29% increase over the same period in 2003. More importantly, online sales growth has consistently outpaced in-store sales growth-in-store sales rose only 4.5% in the same period mentioned above. Leading brick-and-mortar retailers such as Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Gap, …

Obesity, Educational Attainment, And State Economic Welfare, Martin W. Sivula Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

For the first time in history, estimates of the overweight people in the world rival estimates of those malnourished. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) ranked obesity among the top 10 risks to human health worldwide. In the early 1960s, nearly half of the Americans were overweight and 13% were obese. Today some 64% of U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5% are obese. Even more alarming, twice as many U.S. children are overweight than were twenty years ago, a 66% increase. Non-communicable diseases impose a heavy economic burden on already strained health systems. Health is a key determinant of development …

Sampling Concepts, Paul Boyd, Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

The usefulness of any research is dependent upon how well the group studied represents the group about which decisions are to be made or conclusions drawn. That is, it depends upon how well the sample reflects relevant characteristics of the population. When it is possible to study every member of that group there is no problem, for on these occasions we can easily calculate the exact attribute (parameter) of interest for our population.

For example, if we were interested in determining the average number of gallons of gasoline sold to customers at our service station yesterday, we …

A Study Of Sales Training Within The General Aviation Industry, Clyde Eli Harris Jr.

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The study analyzed the manner in which the five leading utility aircraft companies conducted their sales training activities, the reasons for their methods of sales training, and the problems encountered in their sales training program. Sales training, as defined in this paper, refers to an organized attempt by the management of a business organization—in this instance a utility aircraft manufacturer—to advise, assist, prepare, discipline, teach, and educate the organization’s selling personnel at all levels so that better results—greater sales with less effort at lower costs—can be attained. Sales training in the general aviation industry appears to be important for three …