Search results

Although there is a common agreement that children participate and impact parental purchase decisions, the research results are rather inconsistent. One of the reasons for the differences in the findings could be attributable to different operationalisations of a child engagement variable in surveys. This study aims to classify the instruments used to measure children engagement in parental purchase decisions and to develop a typology of these instruments.

In total, 67 articles that reported details and results of the surveys where a variable of children engagement in family decisions was operationalised were selected on a systematic basis. In total, 82 measures were extracted, reviewed and assigned to the particular category.

The typology of measures of children engagement into parental purchase decisions was developed. The features of particular measures, as well as their applicability for different types of child engagement measurement, are discussed.

The sample of articles was limited to nine major scholarly databases and framed for 1985-2015, excluding conference presentations, dissertations, studies and other types of primary research publications.

The analysis demonstrates that authors who had seemingly similar or the same purpose of measuring variable of child engagement into parental purchase decision in fact have used different measures. The differences in measures tend to produce different size of engagement effect. The proposed typology will support scholarly community in establishing more clear definitions and measures of children engagement in parental purchase decision domain.

The typology of measures of children engagement into parental purchase decision is the first attempt to introduce systematised approach toward different domains within the field and their measurement.

The purpose of this study is to seek to investigate whether and how country of origin (COO) cues – category-country image (CCI) and typicality – and importers’ domain-specific innovativeness (DSI) influence importers’ propensity to the trial new value and premium products. Moreover, it aims to understand whether and how the relationship between the COO effect and industrial purchase intentions is moderated by importers’ propensity to innovate (DSI).

International importers completed a quantitative online survey. Factor analysis was used to summarize the latent constructs into orthogonal scores. General linear modeling was applied to the scores to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that importers’ propensity to trial value products is directly influenced by CCI and importers’ DSI. For premium products, typicality has a positive effect on their propensity to trial. Also, CCI and DSI have positive effects on the trial of value products, and the effect is more pronounced than for premium products. Importers’ DSI positively moderates CCI in premium product trials, while it negatively moderates typicality in value products.

This research provides important managerial implications for practitioners seeking to increase foreign sales, strengthening importers’ product perceived value through COO cues. Exporters should distinguish between value and premium products and, in the selection of international channel partners, they must be attentive to importers’ personal characteristics, such as their propensity to innovate. Exporters selling value products should communicate CCI more clearly and, when targeting innovative importers, opt for atypical products instead of traditional ones. For premium products, which require more complex decisions, exporters should especially underscore product typicality and, with innovative importers, emphasize positive CCI.

By focusing on the two critical issues of product selection and price levels, this study’s original contribution is to emphasize that, for the same product category, in industrial purchasing decisions of value versus premium products, the COO effect can be different. It also highlights the importance of investigating the COO effect by concentrating on industrial buyers’ personal characteristics, here the DSI of importers, as moderating variables.

This study aims to examine how employee advocacy, via the value and credibility of their professional social media content, affects their followers’ attitudes toward the brand through the mediating role of parasocial relationships.

A quantitative research was used, and questionnaires were answered by LinkedIn users who follow at least one person they consider to be an employee advocate. A total of 390 responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that the credibility of an employee advocate positively impacts the parasocial relationship between the user and the employee, which, in turn, impacts the user’s attitude toward the brand represented by the employee advocate.

The results of this study suggest that employee advocacy on LinkedIn can shape positive attitudes toward the advocate’s brand. These findings suggest that organizations should consider employee content and credibility as strategic tools in marketing communications.

This study delineates the linkages between the credibility and content value of the employee advocate, the parasocial relationship they have with followers and their attitude toward the brand. This research contributes to the literature on employee advocacy and studies on the concepts of parasocial interactions and relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of social media marketing on new venture performance utilizing Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) theory.

A survey approach was employed, and questionnaires were sent out to the representatives of new ventures established in the previous six years at the time of data collection. Measures were adapted from SCP theory and the measurement model examined. A total of 248 responses were analyzed using structural equation modelling (LISREL 11).

The results indicate that social media marketing capabilities have a positive impact on the marketing performance of new ventures through a mediating effect of social media marketing performance. Thus, social media marketing performance affects new venture performance through marketing performance.

This research supports the vitality of social media in the lives of new firms and the importance of social media when executing marketing activities. The perceptive measurement of social media marketing capabilities on the firm level can be useful for new ventures to evaluate their competencies related to social media, and thus help firms improve those capabilities over time.

This research contributes to the existing knowledge on linkages between social media marketing capabilities and new venture performance acknowledging the role of a turbulent market environment. Therefore, the recognition of industry structure articulated by a turbulent market environment, social media marketing capabilities and social media support for competitive marketing strategy answers the question of how social media marketing capabilities drive competitive marketing strategy and subsequently influence performance.

This research aims to examine business students’ geographic interests and motivations for study abroad.

Two hundred sixty-seven undergraduate business students from a midwestern university completed the survey on perceived benefits and obstacles of studying abroad (personal and professional), geographic regions where willing to study (rated by psychic distance [PD]), the format for willing to study (length and faculty-led) and respondent characteristics.

Results indicate students who perceive high professional benefits chose higher PD countries, whereas those perceiving higher personal benefits chose medium PD countries. Students with higher professional obstacles, such as concerns of timely degree completion, avoid high PD countries, whereas students expressing high personal obstacles prefer low PD countries. The research results also connect student classification, gender and school funding source to the perceived benefits and obstacles.

The outcome of this study is to aid study abroad programs in segmenting their users and to better serve business students with more targeted communications and enhanced program offerings. It extends the marketing literature by using the theory of PD to explain and guide these strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to theorize country-of-origin (COO) to be important to retail buyers in making purchase decisions. However, this question has not been addressed in the literature and leaves a critical gap in determining how COO ultimately affects consumer purchase options.

Retail buyer behavior is empirically tested with both premium and value brands from Italy. A sample retail buyers was taken from a LexisNexis database and provided 205 completed surveys. Construct scales were taken from existing literature and tested using composite reliability. SEM was used to analyze the data.

Results showed that retail buyers are affected by COO; that low involvement purchases are not differentially affected compared to high involvement; product typicality enhances likelihood of purchase and this typicality is more important for high involvement goods.

Retail buyers are affected by COO and will make product choices for their stores accordingly. Companies should be aware of this and take it into consideration to strengthen their acceptance by retail buyers. Trade organizations within countries may consider advertising approaches to distinguish themselves and stimulate positive COO among retail buyers.

This is the first time that retail buyer behavior has been studied with regard to COO effects using consumer models. Results showed that use of these models is more appropriate than only using industrial buying models. Retail buyers are found to indeed be affected by COO, which in turn influence buying choices for consumers and offerings from retailers.

Intellectual property theft amounts to billions of dollars per year worldwide. The first step in stemming this loss is to understand the underlying precursors of this behavior. This paper aims to propose and test a model of consumer choice to purchase or pirate intellectual property, specifically music. This paper combines and applies the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and Becker’s theory of crime to develop a more comprehensive model of digital piracy behavior. Culture was tested as an antecedent to the attitudes and the perceptions of risk associated with music piracy.

A survey of 4,618 participants was conducted across 23 countries. Construct measures were validated using confirmatory factor analysis in LISREL. A conceptual model was tested using logistic structural equation modeling in MPlus. Respondents were asked about the last music they acquired to test a behavioral model of music piracy.

The results indicated that culture, specifically rule orientation and uncertainty avoidance, had a significant impact on attitudes toward the music industry, ethical perceptions of music piracy and risk perceptions. Respondents’ ethical perceptions of downloading had the highest impact on music piracy behavior. The personal/copy risk associated with the illegal downloading of music had a significant impact while the relative channel risk did not. The market value, quality and selection also had a significant impact on downloading behavior, as did the respondent's ability to find and download music.

While this paper was limited by focusing on the illegal downloading of music, the results can provide guidance in the design of future research concerning the piracy and unlicensed downloading of other types of intellectual properties such as movies/videos, TV, paywall content and e-books.

In recent years, improved access to music and video through online streaming and online stores has significantly decreased music piracy. This research indicated that further inroads into this behavior could be made through better online purchase access and through consumer education about the ethics and results of digital downloading. Further, efforts are more efficient by targeting cultures with lower levels of rule orientation with ethics education and targeted risk messages in countries with higher uncertainty avoidance.

Yearly losses to the music industry amount to about $5-29bn. Many find music and video downloading and “sharing” as acceptable. The model developed in this research has implications to affect this mass loss of revenue to the music industry and perhaps the societal view of downloading behavior that is illegal but commonly accepted.

This model is the first to integrate cultural aspects into models of digital piracy. In addition, the model is developed from a strong theoretical base (TRA and Becker’s theory of crime) to integrate multiple antecedents to intellectual property theft research.

With the phenomenal growth of direct order marketing with the Internet and catalogs as alternative channels, customers increasingly face more choices of where to purchase goods and services. This paper develops a formal consumer model to explain channel switching behavior. Becker’s theory of time allocation is expanded to consumer decision making between distribution channels. The final model suggests that consumers face a tradeoff when deciding where to buy goods and services. From this tradeoff an indifference curve is developed where the consumer chooses between alternative distribution channels on the basis of the relative opportunity costs of time, costs of goods, pleasure derived from shopping, perceived value of goods, and relative risk of each channel. Strategies for direct and multi‐channel marketers are developed using this model.

The globalization of retailing is occurring at an accelerating pace. For cost, quality, and style and fashion reasons retailers look worldwide for manufacturers and vendors that can meet their customers’ needs. Uses game theory to examine the conflict issues that can arise in retailer‐ international vendor relations. The game is a traditional prisoner’s dilemma in which equilibrium is non‐ co‐ operation even though co‐ operation would lead to gains by both retailer and vendor. Discusses the problems in achieving co‐ operation and the consequences of the prisoner’s dilemma. Presents four basic strategies for improving co‐ operation and vendor relations.

Purpose – To develop measures of segregation that are appropriate when either the groups or the organizational units are defined by ordered categories. These methods allow the measurement of segregation among groups defined by ordered educational attainment categories or among ordered occupational categories, for example.

Approach – I define a set of desirable properties of such measures, develop a general approach to constructing such measures, derive three such measures, and show that these measures satisfy the required properties.

Originality – Traditional methods of measuring segregation focus on the measurement of segregation among groups defined by nominal categorical variables (e.g., race and gender) among organizational units also defined by nominal categorical units (e.g., schools and neighborhoods). Such methods are not appropriate to the measurement of occupational segregation, for example. The methods developed here are widely applicable and appropriate for such cases.