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This paper focuses on the problems inherent in the use of student samples in business research.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper focuses on the problems inherent in the use of student samples in business research.
Design/methodology/approach
The subject is examined through the opinions of prior researchers, and the pros and cons are presented. The issues of internal and external validity are discussed, and the dangers of theory development without proper application are highlighted.
Findings
Business researchers are cautioned, especially in the case of scale development and cross-cultural research, to avoid the use of student samples.
Originality/value
While this subject has been the source of debate for many years, business researchers are still regularly using student samples for their research. The dangers are too great to simply be ignored because the price is right.
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Taewon Suh, John Ford, Young S. Ryu and John H.S. Kim
This study aims to enhance the simultaneous utilization of measure in product design by mapping out the possible and potential uses of a measure for both academicians and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to enhance the simultaneous utilization of measure in product design by mapping out the possible and potential uses of a measure for both academicians and practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach
To map out a way for the simultaneous utilization of measure, the authors assessed and portrayed the diverse facets of a four-factor measure for the development of mobile devices by adopting pluralistic techniques through a series of studies and three different study samples.
Findings
This study provided a solution for enhancing the usability of measure in product management, showing that a measure can be developed using a pluralistic methodology so that the results can be incorporated into the practitioners’ design activities that occur and when the gap between theory and practice is a knowledge production problem.
Research limitations/implications
The main positioning of this study involves the science-design interface (Simon, 1992) to bridge the important gap between theory and practice by showcasing a measure development for product design as a strategy of intellectual arbitrage (Van De Ven and Johnson, 2006). Relying on the design scientific approach, the authors focused this study on a prescriptive procedure rather than a more rigorous methodological procedure.
Practical implications
The authors provided product managers with a systematic and synergistic approach to developing a measure and recommended several usages of the developed measure to enhance its simultaneous utilization between academics and practitioners.
Originality/value
Emphasizing pluralistic methodology in the measure development, the authors recommended the concept of intra-examination. The first-order intra-examination, utilizing Bayesian Networks, makes available the thick descriptions of the measure and supports reasoning under uncertainty. The second-order intra-examination examined nomological networks regarding the pragmatic relationships between the four factors that comprise the measure and other important constructs.
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Kristina Marie Harrison, Boonghee Yoo, Shawn Thelen and John Ford
The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of voters’ personal and societal values on presidential candidate brand personality preference. In addition, the research…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of voters’ personal and societal values on presidential candidate brand personality preference. In addition, the research examines which brand personalities are deemed most and least important. This research meets the growing demand to further understand how voters develop preferences for brandidates.
Design/methodology/approach
Voters ranked which presidential brand personalities they deemed most important in a candidate as well as which of the two major candidates they most associated with that trait. Data were collected weeks in advance of the 2020 presidential election from a national online panel representing a balanced mix of voters by party affiliation.
Findings
The results indicate that life satisfaction, political orientation and postmaterialism are significant and provide adequate explanatory power in understanding which brand personality traits are associated with a presidential candidate. Also, using an importance-performance matrix, the authors find which candidate is most identified with various brand personality traits and how important those traits are to voters.
Research limitations/implications
Using the importance-performance matrix for assessing brand/candidate personality preference by consumers/voters provides researchers with a multidimensional method for analyzing how various dimensions influence selection preference. The explanatory power of the independent variables, i.e. political orientation, comparative life satisfaction and societal values, is very low when regressed against personality attributes in general (not assigned to a candidate); however, they provide meaningful results when regressed against personality attributes when assigned to candidates. Understanding the importance of general brand personality attributes is not as important as understanding their importance when associated with a specific brand.
Practical implications
The importance-performance matrix for brand/candidate personality presented in this research clearly indicated and predicted voter preference for the 2020 Presidential election; thus, this tool can be effectively used by political marketers in future elections. Political orientation so strongly influences voter perception of specific candidate brand personality dimensions that they view their preferred candidate to be universally superior to other candidates. Political marketers can appeal to voters based on their political orientation to strengthen the relationship between candidates and voters.
Originality/value
This research investigates how personal and societal values impact voters’ preference for brand personality traits in a presidential candidate. Voter preference for presidential brand personality traits is assessed generically, i.e. not associated with a particular candidate, as well as when they are linked to a specific candidate, i.e. Biden and Trump.
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Sarah Mady, John B. Ford and Tarek Mady
This paper aims to examine the effect of intercultural accommodation efforts on service quality perceptions among ethnic minority consumers. Specifically, the paper postulates…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effect of intercultural accommodation efforts on service quality perceptions among ethnic minority consumers. Specifically, the paper postulates that during an intercultural service encounter, the impact of the service provider’s language and ethnicity on the consumer’s service quality perceptions is moderated by the level of service involvement, consumer acculturation and perceived discrimination, which, in turn, influence purchase intent.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design with an online nationwide consumer panel of Hispanic consumers was conducted where 377 participants were randomly assigned to a series of service encounter scenarios in the banking service context to manipulate accommodation efforts (yes vs no) and the level of involvement with the service (high vs low).
Findings
When such language and ethnicity accommodations were offered, highly acculturated minority consumers regarded the service encounter less favorably than low acculturated minority consumers. Moreover, during low-involvement service encounters, intercultural accommodations positively impacted consumer’s service quality perceptions compared to situations involving high-involvement services. Also, minority consumers with perceptions of past discrimination had less favorable evaluations of the service quality than when such perceptions were nonexistent when intercultural accommodation efforts were made by the service provider.
Research limitations/implications
The findings add to the sparse literature that examines the effectiveness of intercultural accommodation and focuses on the combined use of service provider’s language and ethnicity as a means to enhance service quality.
Practical implications
The study delivers cautions for service firms not to generalize the receptivity of intercultural accommodation efforts. Given the increasingly sizable segments of minority customers, this study offers insights for service providers to develop suitable recruitment strategies and training programs when devising effective ethnic targeting strategies.
Originality/value
This research is among the first to explain why the effect of target marketing is not homogenous by expanding the research on intercultural accommodations toward a new context considering service involvement levels among varied minority consumer groups.
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Michel Laroche, Maria Kalamas and Mark Cleveland
To examine the impact of culture on customer service expectations, specifically, how individualists and collectivists use internal and external sources of information to formulate…
Abstract
Purpose
To examine the impact of culture on customer service expectations, specifically, how individualists and collectivists use internal and external sources of information to formulate their service expectations.
Design/methodology/approach
The context was the airline industry and the subject pool consisted of experienced consumers. A survey was employed to measure individualism/collectivism, various internal/external information sources, and the functional and technical dimensions of “should” and “will” service expectations. Hypothesized relationships were tested using a structural equations modeling approach.
Findings
Both individualists and collectivists relied more on external information sources in formulating their service expectations, gave variable weight to the functional and technical components, and used more realistic “will” expectations to judge service offerings. Internal (external) information sources were relatively more important in forming expectations for collectivists (individualists) than for individualists (collectivists), and “will” (“should”) expectations were more diagnostic for collectivists (individualists) than for individualists (collectivists).
Research limitations/implications
Generalizability of the findings is limited due to the specific industry under study (airlines), the sample (two geographically‐proximate sub‐cultures), and the scope of the cultural variables considered (individualism/collectivism).
Practical implications
Whether managers should leverage the functional and/or technical components of services depends in part on the cultural orientation of their customers. Managers should also recognize that customers’ usage of various information sources in forming service expectations is also, in part, culturally determined.
Originality/value
In this era of globalization, researchers and managers alike need to consider the subtle influences of culture on marketing theories and the formulation of service expectations respectively.
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John Donaldson, J.H. Arkell and R. Davies
November 9, 1972 Master and Servant — Redundancy — “Dismissal” — Employees taken to and from work free of charge — Transport discontinued by employers because uneconomical …
Abstract
November 9, 1972 Master and Servant — Redundancy — “Dismissal” — Employees taken to and from work free of charge — Transport discontinued by employers because uneconomical — Employees' notice — No evidence diminished requirements of work — Whether proper test to consider future availability of work if transport continued — Redundancy Payments Act, 1965 (c.62),s.l(2). Industrial Court — Judicial precedent — Whether decisions of Divisional Court binding — Whether Industrial Court bound by own decisions.
This article makes a significant contribution to the debate about changes in the management of employee relations over the 1980s. Drawing upon data from 40 organisations, the…
Abstract
This article makes a significant contribution to the debate about changes in the management of employee relations over the 1980s. Drawing upon data from 40 organisations, the author attempts to assess the extent of these changes in typical, rather than special case, companies. He finds that the management of people is now much more likely to be linked to competitive position, and to be principally the concern of line managers.
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The 1979–82 recession in the US car industry has been accompanied by both technological change and the rebirth of the human relations approach to industrial relations. This…
Abstract
The 1979–82 recession in the US car industry has been accompanied by both technological change and the rebirth of the human relations approach to industrial relations. This article considers the state of play in the technological and industrial relations “revolutions” of US car manufacturers in the early 1980s.
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John B. Ford, Michael S. LaTour, Earl D. Honeycutt and Jr
Compares adult women’s perceptions of sex role portrayals in advertising across demo‐graphically‐diverse samples from the USA, New Zealand, Japan and Thailand. Tests a structural…
Abstract
Compares adult women’s perceptions of sex role portrayals in advertising across demo‐graphically‐diverse samples from the USA, New Zealand, Japan and Thailand. Tests a structural equations model using EQS. The findings indicate that there were varying degrees of criticism across the samples with regard to sex role portrayals, company image and purchase intentions. Finds a significant structural linkage between criticality of role portrayals and company image as well as between company image and purchase intention. Identifies the existence of “feminist consciousness” across the various samples and also examines its impact on perceptions and intentions to purchase. Presents implications for global advertisers.
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Sharon Purchase, Sid Lowe and Nick Ellis
An earlier researcher, Wood, proposed that cinema is the most appropriate metaphor for interpretation of contemporary life and organizations. The paper adopts the enthusiasm for…
Abstract
Purpose
An earlier researcher, Wood, proposed that cinema is the most appropriate metaphor for interpretation of contemporary life and organizations. The paper adopts the enthusiasm for the cinema metaphor and explores the implications for industrial marketing and business networks, with particular reference to the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group research.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper outlines the Cartesian picture theory of the early Wittgenstein, the comparable “pictures agenda” within the IMP, then the post‐Cartesian “language gaming” approach adopted by the later Wittgenstein, and associates it with an agenda to introduce a more “cinematographic” approach, introducing issues within the “linguistic turn” to the study of business networks.
Findings
The transformation of the contemporary “post‐Cartesian” culture from “written” to “visual” was not fully appreciated until the invention and mass appeal of cinema and the concomitants of a visual culture became more apparent. In the notion of the “spectacle”, Debord was amongst the first to show that the postmodern visual culture was one where social relations are dominated by commodified images. The images that prevail, from this critical viewpoint, are “social opiates” masquerading as progress that control actors through addictive consumption and acquisition by spectator consumers. In this context, business to business relationships are about how these image‐based addictions are maintained within business cultures.
Research limitations/implications
The adoption of a cinematographic metaphor would appear to be a pertinent development for understanding of business network relationships.
Originality/value
The advantage of a cinematographic metaphor over other, less visual, metaphors is that cinema is more visually sophisticated and entirely embedded in cultures dominated by commodified images. It is appropriate, therefore, that visual literacy, realities as increasingly “image‐dominated” and “virtual” business networks are better understood through the lens of a cinematographic metaphor.
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