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Women in many countries are breaking through the gender barrier and are working in positions where they have a major impact on the buying and selling activities in business-to-business relationships. A number of studies have investigated the role gender plays in driving perceptions of sales representatives in the USA, however, little research has been undertaken on this important topic in China, one of the largest and most influential countries. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to examine whether the gender of both the buyer and seller, affects perceptions of expertise, trust and loyalty in business relationships.

A survey instrument was developed, tested and used on individuals with purchasing responsibility in China. Confirmatory factor analysis was used in the pre-test and the final study data to develop and refine measurement instruments, assessing construct validity, identifying method effects and evaluating factor variance across groups. Independent t-tests were used to compare male and female buyers on their evaluation of sales reps.

The results indicate that the gender of the sales person does not seem to be a consideration for male buyers in evaluating reps in any of the variables tested. However, female buyers consistently give less favorable evaluations to female sales people than male sales representatives. The possible implications of these findings are discussed.

First, this research uses a quantitative methodology in both the collection and analysis of the data. Thus, future studies may want to use a qualitative data set to gain a more in-depth understanding of the business-to-business relationships between men and women in the workplace. Also, as the study was concentrated on a relatively small number of business professionals from only one area in China, subsequently researchers should consider increasing the geographic domain where respondents are sampled, to help improve the generalizability of the results.

The gender bias by female buyers found in this study has several important implications for businesses in China. Specifically, the suggests that female buyers may carry with them a “collective negative bias” against other women, in this case, female sales reps. The solution to this problem is not to avoid assigning female sales reps to female buyers, rather, it is to change the negative collective social-esteem identity preconceptions. Organizations can do this through training by making women aware of their own predisposition to unfairly evaluate women that they interact with in the workplace.

It has been argued that gender plays a small role in perceptions of sales representatives in buyer-seller relationships. While this seems to be true in the USA, it has not (until now) been empirically tested in China. Somewhat surprisingly, the gender differences we did uncover are not from male buyers in their assessments, but from female buyers in their evaluation of women sales representatives. This result provides some interesting insight into Chinese business relationships and how some women in positions of power are more critical of other women within their sphere of influence.

This study aims to examine the relative impact of three drivers affecting consumers’ usage consideration for a brand extension into a service category using data from actual consumers of a national oil change retailer contemplating various service brand extensions.

Data for the study were collected in two separate surveys using structured self-administered questionnaires. Three drivers were measured for their effect on consumers’ usage consideration for service brand extensions (dependent variable), namely, parent brand evaluation, extension fit and degree of service intensity of the extension.

The results indicate that parent brand evaluations are the strongest drivers of brand extension usage consideration, regardless of the extension fit or the degree of service intensity of the extension. In addition, the findings suggest that the closer the fit to the parent brand, the more likely the extension will be considered. In contrast, consumers are less likely to consider using an extension as the level of service intensity increases.

This study’s use of actual customers of the brand, for real service brand extensions provides a higher degree of external validity than previous work in this area, and it yields a deeper understanding of the criteria used by consumers when evaluating service brand extensions. The study also provides managerial implications that are of practical value to academics and practitioners alike.

The Hispanic population in the United States is rapidly increasing and is expected to be the largest minority group within the next decade. Consequently, a better understanding of this group of consumers is of great importance to marketers. This study investigates the role that acculturation plays on a number of consumer‐related attitudes and behaviors. The results indicate that as acculturation increases, Hispanic consumers are more frequently exposed to English language media, use coupons with greater frequency, and display less loyalty to specific brands.

Liabilities associated with environmental matters have become a major concern worldwide. Clearly, environmental impact must be a major element of a corporation’s decision process and should be timely reported in its financial statements. The SEC intensely reviews the adequacy of the environmental disclosures of its registrants. This review covers both required environmental disclosures and the adequacy of financial disclosures ingeneral. Despite this scrutiny, SEC Commissioner Roberts believes that accruals of environmental liabilities do not appear in financial statements quickly enough.This study reviewed the annual report environmental disclosures of 645 Forbes 500 firms. The study results revealed that the majority of firms provide no disclosure of environmental issues. The environmental disclosures that are included tend to be limited in terms of their informational content. It is also apparent that certain industries are more likely to include environmental disclosures than are other industries. Given the enormous impact of environmental cleanup costs to companies, the authors suggest that certain environmental issues be disclosed by all firms regardless of industry affiliation.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following questions: are sophisticated consumers more likely to be satisfied with their purchases? Are consumers who are more knowledgeable more apt to feel in control of their purchase decisions? Are they more likely to believe the transaction was fair? Are they less likely to have cognitive dissonance post‐purchase?

An empirical study examining the role of consumer sophistication on consumers' purchase satisfaction was conducted with a national sample of approximately 700 home purchasers.

The results revealed that shopping sophistication is a key determinant of whether consumers are satisfied with their purchase experience. Sophistication not only seems to affect satisfaction but also customer perceptions of control, fairness and dissonance.

Implications for marketing strategy and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This paper suggests that perception of sophistication plays a much more important role in affecting consumer purchase satisfaction than previously understood. Consequently, businesses need to be much more active in educating consumers so that they are better able to make more informed purchase decisions. Ultimately, by helping to facilitate this information flow, consumers will be more satisfied with the products and services they purchase, develop a greater loyalty to the company providing the data and be more likely to purchase similar products and services in the future.

The main objective of this study is to identify the determinants of TV ads avoiding behavior between light and heavy avoiders in greater Cairo. To achieve the study objective, five hypotheses have been developed and tested by such statistical techniques as discriminant analysis, t‐tests, MannWhitney tests, and Chi Square tests. A questionnaire has been designed to collect data from a systematic random sample of adults in social clubs and shopping centers in greater Cairo. The number of usable questionnaires in data analysis was 364. The study findings show that all respondents except 3 were doing one or more of TV ads avoiding behavior. Cognitive avoiding represents the most frequently used avoiding behavior by light and heavy TV ads avoiders. The results also demonstrate that perceptions, attitudes toward advertising, and some motives were determinants of TV ads avoiding behavior. On the other hand, it was found that all demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, except types of channels, were not determinants of TV ads avoiding behavior between light and heavy TV ads avoiders. The study concludes with a number of academic and practical recommendations.

Presents a simple and concise survey method for measuring price sensitivity and illustrates its use by examining the relationship between innovativeness and price sensitivity within a specific product category. The results of a survey of 457 students revealed a negative relationship between fashion innovativeness and fashion price sensitivity, thereby confirming previous studies. Additional analyses showed that the individual scale items and the short summed scales operationalizing the constructs possessed discriminant validity, enhancing the credibility of the findings. Discusses applications of this self‐report method for measuring price sensitivity to other pricing issues.

We have reprinted the powerful letter addressed to the Daily Mail by MR. H. W. WILSON, the author of “Ironclads in Action,” advocating the immediate adoption of a policy of reprisals for the Zeppelin murder raids. In our view it is the duty of every journal, whatever may be its raison d'être, to assist in keeping the attention of the public fixed upon this matter, to aid in preventing the general feeling of disgust and indignation from cooling down, and to support those who have the brains to understand the nature of the Hun in their efforts to compel the Government to adopt the most effective means at present available to put an end to the murderous excursions of the German vermin into this country. As MR. WILSON points out, the deliberate Hun policy of slaying women, children and non‐combatants is either permitted by the laws of war recognised by civilised nations or it is not permitted by those laws. If it is permitted, “then clearly the Power which refrains from making similar attacks on the enemy's towns, villages, and residential districts, loses greatly from the military standpoint.” If it is not permitted then the only course— “the force behind the laws of War”—is a policy of drastic reprisals. Moreover, it is the only course that the Hun can understand. The methods of “frightfulness” are definitely laid down in the German military system as methods to be ruthlessly followed whenever this can be done with impunity and the fear of reprisals is also definitely laid down as the only consideration which is to be allowed to operate as a check upn “frightfulness.” “The Power which fails to take reprisals when a great offence is committed is as the negligent judge or the faithless jury that acquits a murderer. It sins against humanity … it encourages the criminal in his crime.”

This work reports on a study to measure tractor owners' (mostly farmers') repurchase behavior (RPB). While earlier studies have focused on the technical aspects of the tractors, none as yet have considered farmer intention and behavior for predicting purchase decision. A conceptual model was built considering all possible antecedents of farmers' RPB based on in-depth interviews and discussions with marketing managers. Interviews with customers were used to understand these antecedents or interactions with salespersons, either directly or indirectly during conversations or visits to stores. The authors have attempted to develop a scale on farmers' consumption experience from the perspective of farmers.

The model was validated using Smart-PLS, and the best tractor brand was identified using data envelopment analysis (DEA). At the village level, snowball sampling was adopted to identify potential tractor owners who had repurchased the same brand or a higher model as respondents.

Findings reveal that all the paths were found to be significant. Farmers' consumption experience (FE) seems to be the biggest predictor of RPB, followed by image, satisfaction and trust. The newly introduced construct FE has a significant effect on farmers' RPB. DEA results further indicate that most tractor companies function with 100% efficiency.

The study was carried out in India; it can be extended to other countries. Also, the sample was collected from one state in India and is cross-sectional in nature, so it cannot be generalized.

First, the authors developed a conceptual model considering all possible antecedents of RPB. No studies had yet developed a scale on FE. Second, the authors created a benchmark for the various preferred tractor brands from the farmers' perspective using DEA.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a model investigating the relationship among inter-departmental communication, buyer innovativeness, and retail competitiveness. The authors also explore whether a retail strategy of supply base diversification for managing suppliers moderates the association between innovativeness and competitiveness.

Hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model and survey data drawn from general merchandise managers of 149 supermarket retailers in Japan.

The results indicate that inter-departmental communication between merchandising and store divisions drives innovativeness among retail buyers and ultimately strengthens firm competitiveness. Moreover, when buyer innovativeness is evident and less actively the retail buyers utilize supply base diversification, the stronger is the retailer’s competitiveness. The study failed to find any direct impact of inter-departmental communication on retail competitiveness.

This study offers managerial insights into the roles that buyer innovativeness, inter-departmental communications, and supply base diversification play in developing effective competitive strategies.

This study makes two key contributions. First, it is novel in using inter-departmental communication to explain the antecedents of buyer innovativeness. Second, drawing on the power-dependence theory, the authors extend the well-established innovativeness-performance linkage by exploring the moderation effect of supply base diversification.