Yi-Su Chen, Tsai-Shan S. Shen and Manus J. Rungtusanatham
The purpose of this study is to assess the validity and predictability of insights from the investment model (IM) in the context of strategic manufacturer–industrial supplier…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to assess the validity and predictability of insights from the investment model (IM) in the context of strategic manufacturer–industrial supplier relationships. IM is a theoretical model in social psychology pertaining to interpersonal relationship discontinuity. This formal empirical test of IM in a different context supports vertical theory borrowing and minimizes the risk of committing atomistic fallacy.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collected from 256 sourcing professionals participating in a scenario-based role-playing experiment were analyzed via structural equation modeling. The authors also performed bootstrapping to assess indirect effects.
Findings
The IM is generally applicable to the context of interfirm relationship dissolution. Relative to the original context of interpersonal relationship dissolution, three nuances are detected: investment size as an antecedent has lowered prominence in influencing commitment; satisfaction level, quality of alternatives and investment size have non-orthogonal effects on commitment; and satisfaction level influences relationship continuity through and beyond commitment.
Research limitations/implications
The empirical findings broaden boundary conditions for IM insights. Beyond interpersonal relationship dissolution, the IM appears to also describe, explain and predict interfirm relationship dissolution.
Practical implications
Keeping the manufacturer satisfied is critical. Moreover, suppliers should be cautious when entering joint product development agreements.
Originality/value
This study appears to be among the first to formally validate the applicability of IM insights as they pertain to the dissolution of strategic manufacturer–industrial supplier relationships.
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Ta-Wei (Daniel) Kao, Hung-Chung Su and Yi-Su Chen
Prior studies on major customer relationships (i.e. embedded ties) focus mostly on the ties between a focal firm and its immediate customers, hindering the understanding of the…
Abstract
Purpose
Prior studies on major customer relationships (i.e. embedded ties) focus mostly on the ties between a focal firm and its immediate customers, hindering the understanding of the influence of indirect ties (both upstream and downstream) on a focal firm's operational performance. In this study, the authors analyze how a focal firm's upstream and downstream connectedness and network location affect its productive efficiency.
Design/methodology/approach
Utilizing Compustat segment files, the authors constructed large-scale major customer networks covering the period 2007–2013. The authors applied a fixed-effect panel stochastic frontier model to conduct estimation. Moreover, the authors applied an endogenous panel stochastic frontier model to ensure the robustness of the main analysis.
Findings
The authors found that a focal firm's upstream and downstream connectedness both have a positive influence on a firm's productive efficiency, whereas a focal firm's centeredness in the major customer network has a negative influence on productive efficiency. Moreover, it was found that centeredness lessens the positive influences of upstream and downstream connectedness on productive efficiency. The post hoc analysis further confirmed that a focal firm's indirect ties, both upstream and downstream, positively influence a focal firm's productive efficiency.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by evaluating the relative effectiveness of a focal firm's direct and indirect major customer ties, both upstream and downstream. More importantly, this study suggests potential exploitation–exploration trade-offs (i.e. productive efficiency vs. innovation) triggered by a firm's network location.
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Yi-Su Chen, Young Ro and Hung-Chung Su
The present research aims to revisit the relationships between buyer dependence on suppliers, relational norms between two parties in a buyer-supplier dyad, and a buyer's tendency…
Abstract
Purpose
The present research aims to revisit the relationships between buyer dependence on suppliers, relational norms between two parties in a buyer-supplier dyad, and a buyer's tendency to either engage in opportunistic behaviors or comply with a supplier's request as an exception condition. The authors adopt a supplier's perspective to examine the supplier's anticipation of the buyer's behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the original studies conducted by Joshi and Arnold, the authors extend both works using a similar methodology but with a different data sample. The previously validated buyer-supplier relationship supply disruption scenario presented in the original studies is rewritten from a supplier's perspective to examine the supplier's anticipation of the buyer's behaviors. Subjects are asked to assume the role of an account manager within the key supplier firm for an electronic equipment manufacturer and to respond to how they deal with the supplier's expectation of how the buying firm may behave in terms of compliance and opportunism.
Findings
The results show that buyer dependence is positively related to buyer compliance behaviors and that this relationship holds irrespective of the buyer's or supplier's perspective on the supply disruption scenario and irrespective of professional or student subjects. Other findings include the contingency of the moderating effect of relational norms on the link between dependence and buyer compliance on various factors, and the existence of a boundary condition for the moderation effect of relational norms on the link between dependence and buyer opportunism.
Originality/value
The study should prove valuable to academics and professionals alike. It reinforces the notion that buyers that are more dependent and reliant on suppliers are more willing to comply with supplier's needs. Also, it considers the possibility that supply chain agents from both the buyer and supplier sides may value the effect of relational norms differently, with suppliers perceiving that relational norms have more of a direct influence on a buyer's behavior. Lastly, the replication study extends the understanding of the generalizability of the original studies.
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Product color names related to a consumption setting are commonly used in advertising to persuade. This study aims to use consumption imagery fluency as an underlying mechanism…
Abstract
Purpose
Product color names related to a consumption setting are commonly used in advertising to persuade. This study aims to use consumption imagery fluency as an underlying mechanism for assessing how such a naming tactic impacts product evaluation.
Design/methodology/approach
Three between-subjects experiments examine how product evaluation, in response to the use of color names containing consumption situation information, varies as a function of their accessibility (Study 1), and also test the role of a naming explanation (Study 2). How readily a consumer takes in consumption imagery is evaluated as a mediator. The studies further check if color attribute serves as a moderator of such color naming effect and that the naming factor contributes to consumption imagery fluency directly or indirectly alters such through their impact on comprehension fluency (Study 3).
Findings
Marketing products with color names related to the consumption setting is more effective than using generic names. Consumption imagery fluency mediates the results. This positive outcome is reduced when color names are less accessible. Fortunately, including an explanation to facilitate reasoning for product color names is helpful to reverse this disadvantage. The same patterns are not evident for highly accessible names. In addition, the effectiveness of consumption situation-related color names is restricted to the circumstance of color attribute as secondary, as opposed to primary. Furthermore, naming factors influence the ease of consumption of imagery whether or not facilitated by comprehension fluency.
Research limitations/implications
This research provides evidence of consumers’ responses to product color naming that involves consumption situations and identifies consumption imagery fluency as a potential means for mediating the studied effect.
Practical implications
Naming a product color in consumption situation-related terms triggers consumption imagery, driving evaluation when color is the secondary attribute of a product.
Originality/value
This research contributes to understanding the influence of naming a product’s color in promotional communication and correlates to productive tactics for advertising messages.
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Fahad Khalid, Chih-Yi Su, Kong Weiwei, Cosmina L. Voinea and Mohit Srivastava
This study empirically evaluates the effect of China’s 2016 Green Financial System (GFS) framework on corporate green development, focusing on the role of green investment in…
Abstract
Purpose
This study empirically evaluates the effect of China’s 2016 Green Financial System (GFS) framework on corporate green development, focusing on the role of green investment in achieving sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a quasinatural experiment design to combine difference-in-difference and propensity score matching methods for analysis. It examines 799 polluting and 1,130 nonpolluting firms from 2013 to 2020, enabling a comprehensive assessment of the GFS framework’s influence.
Findings
This study affirms a statistically significant positive influence of the GFS framework on escalating green investment levels in polluting firms. Robust sensitivity analyses, encompassing parallel trend assessment, entropy balancing test, and alternative proxies, corroborate these findings. A mediation analysis identifies the implementation of an environmental management system as the potential underlying mechanism. A cross-sectional analysis identifies high financial slack, high profitability, mandatory CSR regulations, and marketization level as the influencing factors.
Research limitations/implications
The study’s findings have critical implications for policymakers, regulators, and companies. Demonstrating the effectiveness of the GFS framework in driving green investment underscores the importance of aligning financial systems with sustainability goals.
Originality/value
This study contributes novel empirical evidence on the positive effect of China’s GFS framework on corporate green development. The quasinatural experiment design, coupled with comprehensive sensitivity analyses, strengthens the robustness of the findings.
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Lijing Zhao, Shashan Bao, Phillip M. Jolly and Yi Su
The purpose of this study was to investigate how and when exploitative leadership hinders hospitality employees’ service innovative behavior. Based on the conservation of resource…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate how and when exploitative leadership hinders hospitality employees’ service innovative behavior. Based on the conservation of resource theory, the authors examined the mediating role of relational energy and the moderating impact of sensitivity to interpersonal mistreatment on this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Two-wave data collection from 54 hotel leaders and 266 subordinates in China resulted in 266 supervisor–subordinate matched data sets. Structural equation modeling analyses were used for data analysis.
Findings
Exploitative leadership is negatively related to hospitality employees’ service innovative behavior via diminished employee relational energy. Furthermore, employees with high sensitivity to interpersonal mistreatment experience intensified negative impact of exploitative leadership on relational energy and subsequent service innovation behavior.
Research limitations/implications
Hotel management must recognize and mitigate the effects of exploitative leadership to foster an environment conducive to service innovation. In addition, hotel managers should be attuned to the employees’ relational energy, recognizing its essential role in driving innovative behavior.
Originality/value
This research contributes insights into how exploitative leadership style impedes employee service innovation behavior. It further illuminates the role of relational energy as a critical mediator in this relationship.
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Ahsan Siraj, Yongming Zhu, Shilpa Taneja, Ehtisham Ali, Jiaxin Guo and Xihui Chen
With rapidly changing marketing landscape, nowadays, the formulation of various marketing strategies is increasingly focused on how consumers tend to make decisions. To meet the…
Abstract
Purpose
With rapidly changing marketing landscape, nowadays, the formulation of various marketing strategies is increasingly focused on how consumers tend to make decisions. To meet the highly demanding consumer expectations, market segmentation can be used as an important marketing strategy. Due to gender marketing concept familiarity in the contemporary world, gender difference is one of the reference features in the process of market segmentation for marketers. This research is aimed to examine various determining factors that foster consumer purchase decision-making and the differences between consumers of different genders while making shopping and purchase decisions with special reference to an emerging economy, i.e. Pakistan.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a cross-sectional sample of 367 consumers, the study adapted Sproles and Kendall's (1986) Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) to scrutinize the decision-making of both genders in Pakistan. For data analysis, the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in addition to the structural equation modeling has been used.
Findings
The study emphasized that, with the exception of quality awareness, brand consciousness, fashion consciousness, option overload and price consciousness greatly affect buying decisions. In addition, when it comes to consumer purchase decision-making, significant gender variations were discovered for both fashion consciousness and price consciousness.
Originality/value
Drawing upon the distinctive cultural characteristics of Pakistan and its people, in-depth research was conducted on purchasing behaviors of Pakistani consumers and the decision-making characteristics of customers of different genders were summarized. The outcomes are expected to make a significant contribution to the field of gender marketing by organizations.
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Jyh-Shen Chiou, Cheng-Chieh Hsiao and Fang-Yi Su
To improve the effectiveness of online reviews in the cultural industries, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of online cultural reviews of professional and…
Abstract
Purpose
To improve the effectiveness of online reviews in the cultural industries, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of online cultural reviews of professional and consumer commentators on consumer responses toward elite and mass cultural offerings by drawing upon associative learning theory and social influence theory.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a 2 (cultural offerings: elite vs mass)×2 (commentators: professional vs consumer) between-participants factorial design to examine the proposed hypotheses. A total of 195 participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental cells.
Findings
The ANOVA results indicate that the credibility of online cultural reviews is significantly higher for professional commentators than for consumer commentators across both elite and mass cultural offerings. Furthermore, the results confirm that there is a significant cultural offering type by commentator interaction on a consumer's offering evaluation, overall attitude, and behavioral intention.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides strong support for the congruence between cultural commentators and cultural offerings in online cultural reviews. The findings can also effectively explain the weak correlation between professional judgments and popular appeal.
Practical implications
For better effectiveness of online cultural reviews, the findings recommend cultural marketers that the use of professional commentators is effective for elite cultural offerings, whereas the use of consumer commentators is effective for mass cultural offerings.
Originality/value
This study proposes a useful dichotomy to classify cultural offerings as elite and mass. Meanwhile, this study is one of the first to examine the congruence between cultural offerings and cultural commentators in online reviews.