Strategic Management Policy Commons^™

Comparative Price And The Design Of Effective Product Communications, Thomas Allard, Dale Griffin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors propose amodel relating a product's comparative price to the construal level of its associated communications and show how perceived expensiveness shapes consumers' response to the wording of marketing communications. A series of six studies shows that for both absolute low-and high-cost product categories, comparatively expensive (inexpensive) products are preferred when accompanied by high-construal (low-construal) messages, due to the conceptual fluency of the "match" between price-induced psychological distance and construal level. The model provides novel implications for designing effective marketing communications: comparatively expensive versions of objectively low-priced products (e.g., an expensive chocolate truffle) are best promoted through more abstract …

Market Analysis, Management Consulting, And Miscommunication, Brian W. Stout

Marriott Student Review

This article attempts to inform the audience of the importance of market analysis in management consulting. The article states that consulting firms can utilize the power of market analysis as they commit to understand technology, collaborate with researchers to conduct action research, and align market strategies within the consulting firm. This article concludes that by doing these steps consulting firms will lead in their market.

Do Disclosures Of Customer Metrics Lower Investors' And Analysts' Uncertainty But Hurt Firm Performance?, Emanuel Bayer, Kapil R. Tuli, Bernd Skiera

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School of Business

Investors, analysts, and regulators frequently advocate greater disclosure of nonfinancial information, such as customer metrics. Managers, however, argue that such metrics are costly to report, reveal sensitive information to competitors, and therefore will lower future cash flows. To examine these counterarguments, this study presents the first empirical examination of the prevalence and consequences of backward- and forward-looking disclosures of customer metrics by manually coding 511 annual reports of firms in two industries, telecommunications (365 reports) and airlines (146 reports). The results reveal significant heterogeneity in the disclosure of customer metrics across firms and between industries. On average, in both industries, …

Three Essays On Dynamic Capabilities In The Context Of Innovation, Networks And Entrepreneurship, Ken (Yongjian) Chen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

A recent study by McKinsey & Company (Benson-Armer, Otto and Webster 2015) found that half the executives they survey rate capability building as one of their firms’ top three priorities. This research also concludes that building capabilities in the domains of strategic marketing and entrepreneurship represents an urgent task in capability management. The importance of capability development and management is also recognized by leading strategic marketing and entrepreneurship scholars (e.g. Moorman and Day 2016; Day and Schoemaker 2016; Teece 2012). These authors suggest that managers demand new ways to help firms compete in today’s fast-changing environment. Dynamic capabilities are considered …

Entry Of Copycats Of Luxury Brands, Sarah Yini Gao, Wei Shi Lim, Christopher S. Tang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We develop a game-theoretic model to examine the entry of copycats and its implications by incorporating two salient features; these features are two product attributes, i.e., physical resemblance and product quality, and two consumer utilities, i.e., consumption utility and status utility. Our equilibrium analysis suggests that copycats with a high physical resemblance but low product quality are more likely to successfully enter the market by defying the deterrence of the incumbent. Furthermore, we show that higher quality can prevent the copycat from successfully entering the market. Finally, we show that the entry of copycats does not always improve consumer surplus …

Cutting The Cord—A Marketing Case: An Examination Of Changing Tv Viewership, John E. Crawford

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Consumers have more choices for TV programming and how that content is acquired than at any other time in the history of television. Through an action referred to as cord-cutting, many consumers are choosing to drop their cable or satellite programming providers in favor of lower-priced and more consumer-friendly programming providers such as Netflix, Hulu, and others. Consumer choices are being driven by many factors, including economics, lifestyle, technological developments, and social trends. This case discusses the cord-cutting trend and how it is impacting consumer choices and the business of providing television content to consumers. The case can be used …

Customer Acquisition And Retention Spending: An Analytical Model And Empirical Investigation In Wireless Telecommunications Markets, Sungwook Min, Xubing Zhang, Namwoon Kim, Rajendra K. Srivastava

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Strategic resource allocation in growth markets is always a challenging task. This is especially true when it comes to determining the level of investments and expenditures for customer acquisition and retention in competitive and dynamic market environments. This study develops an analytical model to examine firms' investments in customer acquisition and retention for a new service; it develops hypotheses drawing on analytical findings and tests them with firm-level operating data of wireless telecommunications markets from 41 countries during 1999-2007. The empirical investigation shows that a firm's acquisition cost per customer is more sensitive to market position and competition than retention …

Legitimacy Of Local Food In The U.S. Market: Comparative Consumer Perspectives, Ali Asgari

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Measures of legitimacy have been described in terms of four legitimacy types, regulatory, normative, cognitive, and industry. This study provides one of the first and only empirical examinations of legitimacy, particularly with an application to local foods and sheds light on how consumers view various types of legitimacy related to local food. To apply the concept of legitimacy to local foods marketing, we take an empirical survey asking about consumer perspectives of local food, along with different shopping behavior questions.

Using cumulative logit models, results of the legitimacy models suggest that core consumers are more likely to place a high …

Women's Professional Sports: A Case Study On Practices That Could Increase Their Profitability, Danielle H. Mcardle

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Women’s professional sports leagues have often been considered a risky business endeavor. Critics cite low attendance, lack of sponsorships, lack of media rights deals, and numerous other reasons for why women’s professional sports leagues are not profitable. In analyzing the current landscape of women’s professional sport leagues, this paper uses a case study approach to develop a strategy that will highlight lessons learned from past women’s professional sports leagues, current professional sports leagues, sponsorship agreements, fans, social, digital, and mobile marketing strategies, and management practices to show how the business of women’s sports could be made into a more profitable …

Life Beyond The Like: Uses And Gratifications Of Sharing Business Facebook Page Content, Sara M. Nash

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

One of the main reasons businesses create a Facebook Page is to solidify relationships with existing customers who are Facebook users and to leverage those relationships to gain new customers. Many studies have asked Facebook users to articulate the gratifications they receive when “liking” a business Facebook Page. These studies help explain what gratifications users gain by connecting to businesses via Facebook. To expand on these findings, the current pilot study applied the uses and gratifications theory to identify Facebook users’ motivations to “share” business Facebook content within their own personal network. Understanding users’ reasons for “sharing” will help businesses …

Qualitative Data Mining And Sensitivity Analysis, Brian R. Kinard

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

In today’s consumer centric environment, there is no shortage of outlets for consumers to express their level of satisfaction with a company, employee, product and/or service. For instance, websites such as Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Expedia allow customers the opportunity to provide feedback specific to a product, service, and/or organization. Such feedback is vitally important to business firms, as customer reviews are shown to be more trustworthy than descriptions that come direct from manufacturers. For instance, 73 percent of people trust online reviews and 63 percent of people actively seek out online reviews when making a purchase decision. …

Business Framing For Analytics, Beverly Wright

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Both the academic and business practitioner communities are faced with the challenges of discovery, innovation, and constant learning of their field, particularly within the marketing discipline, where content, processes, and even structure are dynamic in nature, with constantly evolving interests and focus. A solid research agenda with excellent analytics to address pertinent business questions is crucial for successfully expanding our understanding of the marketing function.

Collegiate Competition And The Propensity For Gender Bias, Deborah H. Lester, Aberdeen Leila Borders, Terry W. Loe, Keith Tudor

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Since the dawn of time gender has played a starring role in human behavior. The behavioral implications of an individual’s sex have permeated research findings in a wide variety of academic disciplines. This preliminary investigation will explore the concept and definition of gender, gender bias, and gender stereotype on actions and conduct. Specifically, this inquiry will determine the scope and types of gender bias/stereotypes that exist in the business world with a primary concentration on the area of professional sales. The ultimate objective is to discover the type and level of influence a person’s gender contributes to evaluation, performance and …

College Students Use Social Networking Sites For Sharing With Friends, But Guess Who Else Is Looking?, Liz Alexander, Fred Mader, Deanna Mader

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Jobvite, a recruiting platform for the social web, reports from their annual 2012 survey of recruiters that 92% of U.S. companies are using social networking sites (SNS) for hiring purposes (Jobvit, 2012). Career Builder reported in 2009 that 45% of employers were using SNS to screen and research applicants (CareerBuilder, 2009). It is important that faculty and support staff working to place students, and the students themselves, understand the developments and practices in the use of social networking sites for job search and recruiting and the best methods, as well as detriments when marketing themselves. This study examines corporate recruiters’, …

Perceived Risk Reduction In E-Commerce Environments, C. Michael Powell, Chris Conca

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

During the past three decades, the growth of e-commerce has presented marketers with many new arenas for research and application. Certainly e-commerce has become a significant portion of the world economy and in particular the consumer sector. As previous literature has consistently considered perceived risk as a major factor consumer purchase decisions, this research identifies several major components of consumer perceived risk (PR) and their normative implications in the e-commerce environment

A Systematic Review Of Anti-Brand Website Literature: What We Know And What We Need To Know, David L. Williams, Ellen Kolbas

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The emergence of Web 1.0 began an evolution in electronic communication. This platform resulted in a unidirectional communication flow (e.g. firm to consumer) that featured firms generating messages for public consumption. Web 1.0 gave rise to Web 2.0 and 3.0 platforms that facilitate bi-directional communication between firms and the public. This new method has resulted in an increase in consumer empowerment to create and disseminate marketing messages of their own (Williams, Crittenden, Keo, & McCarty, 2012). Third party stakeholders are disseminating electronic word-of-mouth communications about companies through the use of video, reviews, forums, microblogs and multiple other channels (Gil-Or, 2010). …

An Application Of Social Media Marketing For Community Sustainable Development, Lei Huang, Amelia Clarke, Wen Tian, Natalie Heldsinger

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Though the social marketing approach has been developed from commercial marketing, it is a holistic approach from various social sciences disciplines like marketing, psychology, sociology, mass communication and economics. It is basically an art to explore new ways of analyzing problems and solving them effectively. For instance, social marketing influences sustainability through the use of marketing principles to increase awareness, understanding, change attitudes, and motivate the society to change, adopt, or sustain a particular behavior. This paper attempts to explore a framework of social media in light of disseminating the knowledge of a community-wide sustainability plan among various stakeholders. Policy …

Being Green And Social Responsibility: Basic Concepts And Multiple Case Studies In Business Excellence, Alan D. Smith, Steven R. Clinton, William T. Rupp

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Through a qualitative business case approach, three major manufacturing firms in Pittsburgh, PA were reviewed for their eco-friendly sustainability strategic initiatives and products/services. Undoubtedly, use of green best practices are value adding steps for a company may be initially difficult to justify to spend the time and resources developing such a process. This is especially true when other core business needs are present, such as driving revenue, product development and meeting governmental or consumer expectations. However, green and sustainability initiatives may not be currently dictated needs, but many companies feel strongly that charting such a course would be to their …

A Research Agenda For Advancing The Marketer's Understanding Of Ethical Consumption In A Post-Modern World, Julie M. Pharr

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The attribution of moral significance to the choice of everyday consumer goods may well mean that personal consumption is increasingly viewed as an ethical exercise and not simply an economic transaction.

Consumer behavior has emerged as an important moral battleground in the 21^st century. Those in doubt of this statement need look no farther than their local Catholic church. In a church encyclical released 06.18.15, Pope Francis called for radical transformation not only of global politics and economics but of individual lifestyles in the battle to confront the environmental deterioration of Earth. An encyclical is a document that serves …

The Role Of Corporate Social Responsibility Information In The Consumer-Brand Relationship, Lei Huang

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Given the increased interest and empirical research in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and irresponsibility (CSI), the interest of this paper is given to the impacts of corporate operational performance (COP) and corporate social performance (CSP) on consumer brand advocacy and brand trust. In this consumer-brand continuum, customers evaluate brand trustworthiness by two scopes: (1) the product or service the firm offers (i.e., product brand) that is usually associated with COP (Rust, Moorman, & Dickson 2002); and (2) the firm which provides the products and services (i.e., corporate brand) that is connected with CSP (Korschun, Bhattacharya, & Swain 2014). In addition, …

Modification And Investment Intention In The Consumer-Possession Relationship, James D. Doyle

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The present-day automobile is at once a source of physical transportation, of course, but also an extension of self, a potential platform for self-expression and image enhancement, a source of social approval as well as psychological and physiological stimulation, and, perhaps, an object of beauty. This study examines motivations and antecedents of various vehicle-directed consumer behaviors, including modification and the intention of consumers to invest in their relationship with their vehicle. In this study, vehicle modification refers to the voluntary actions taken by a user or owner of a vehicle to differentiate the functional or aesthetic characteristics or performance of …

Fitting Consumer Needs To Perceived Product Value: The Example Of Apple Versus Samsung Products, Yi-Chia Wu, Arturo Vasquez-Parraga

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

This study explores the fitting of consumer needs to product perceived value using the example of two lines of competitive products in the area of communication electronics, Apple products versus Samsung products. Five types of needs regarding digital communication and three types of related product value are evaluated for these two brands in order to know if product value differences have a distinctive effect on consumer needs.

This study focuses on the impact of perceived product values on certain consumer needs. We use Apple products and Samsung products to accomplish this.

Dalian Port Transformation Development Strategy Research, Weiyuan Huang

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Research On Market Analysis Of Special Break-Bulk Cargo, Shuangshuang Jiang

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Research On The Container Shipping Alliance And Its Influences On Chinese Shipping Enterprises, Haolin Zhang

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Research On Cruise Supply Chain In China : The Case Of Shanghai, Danbi Zhao

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Does Brand Licensing Increase A Licensor's Shareholder Value?, Adina B. Robinson, Kapil R. Tuli, Ajay K. Kohli

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines 171 brand licensing announcements and subsequent changes in the licensor firms' shareholder values using the event study method. We find that although brand licensing announcements lead to positive abnormal returns on average, nearly 44% of the announcements in our sample are followed by negative abnormal returns. We argue that investors react more favorably to a brand licensing announcement when they believe (i) the brand has greater ability to stimulate licensee product sales (and thus generate higher royalties for the licensor) and (ii) the licensor firm has greater ability to limit licensee opportunism (and thus limit brand dilution …

Rinse, But No Need To Repeat, Srinivas K. Reddy

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Unilever promotes water sustainability through product innovation. By October 2007, it had become apparent that competition in the laundry products segment in Vietnam was heating up rapidly. Huyen Bui, the senior brand manager for Comfort at Unilever Vietnam, was contemplating how to stay ahead of long-time rival, Procter & Gamble (P&G), in terms of market share. In April 2007, Unilever launched Comfort One Rinse, a fabric conditioner designed to reduce water use in hand-washed laundry by 66 percent. Six months later, P&G responded by launching Downy One Rinse, a nearly identical product.

Become A Future-Focused Leader: Use Three Megatrends To Grow Your Rural Business, Connie Reimers-Hild, Alyssa Dye

Community Vitality Initiative

No one can predict the future; however, rural entrepreneurs and business owners can use a future-focused leadership approach, which includes examining megatrends, to shape the future of their businesses. Megatrends are global shifts that influence society, the economy and the environment. This article discusses three megatrends shaping the future of rural businesses:

1) The Rise of the #GigEconomy

2) Living with Purpose and Meaning

3) The Decentralized Marketplace

The article also provides coaching tips for rural entrepreneurs on how to use megatrends to grow their businesses.

While many companies are struggling to keep up with the rapid rate of change, …

Innovation And Leadership: When Does Cmo Leadership Improve Performance From Innovation?, Adam J. Bock, Andreas B. Eisengenrich, Dmitry Sharapov, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Ensuring that organizational innovation generates value increasingly requires effective marketing management. Prior studies, however, report conflicting effects of chief marketing officer (CMO) leadership on how well the firm exploits innovation. These inconsistencies may be associated with firm-level innovation effort, customer focus, and industry type. We analyze archival data from 587 interviews with global CEOs to explain the effect of CMO leadership on outcomes of organizational innovation. CMO leadership of the firm's primary innovation mode is positively associated with product-market innovation effort but not marginal revenue from innovation. CMO leadership also moderates the relationship between customer focus and innovation revenue. Predictive …