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Survey research methodology is widely used in marketing, and it is important for both the field and individual researchers to follow stringent guidelines to ensure that meaningful insights are attained. To assess the extent to which marketing researchers are utilizing best practices in designing, administering, and analyzing surveys, we review the prevalence of published empirical survey work during the 2006–2015 period in three top marketing journals—Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), Journal of Marketing (JM), and Journal of Marketing Research (JMR)—and then conduct an in-depth analysis of 202 survey-based studies published in JAMS. We focus on key issues in two broad areas of survey research (issues related to the choice of the object of measurement and selection of raters, and issues related to the measurement of the constructs of interest), and we describe conceptual considerations related to each specific issue, review how marketing researchers have attended to these issues in their published work, and identify appropriate best practices.

Technology is rapidly changing the nature of service, customers’ service frontline experiences, and customers’ relationships with service providers. Based on the prediction that in the marketplace of 2025, technology (e.g., service-providing humanoid robots) will be melded into numerous service experiences, this article spotlights technology’s ability to engage customers on a social level as a critical advancement of technology infusions. Specifically, it introduces the novel concept of automated social presence (ASP; i.e., the extent to which technology makes customers feel the presence of another social entity) to the services literature. The authors develop a typology that highlights different combinations of automated and human social presence in organizational frontlines and indicates literature gaps, thereby emphasizing avenues for future research. Moreover, the article presents a conceptual framework that focuses on (a) how the relationship between ASP and several key service and customer outcomes is mediated by social cognition and perceptions of psychological ownership as well as (b) three customer-related factors that moderate the relationship between ASP and social cognition and psychological ownership (i.e., a customer’s relationship orientation, tendency to anthropomorphize, and technology readiness). Finally, propositions are presented that can be a catalyst for future work to enhance the understanding of how technology infusion, particularly service robots, influences customers’ frontline experiences in the future.

The Web is a constantly evolving, complex system, with important implications for both marketers and consumers. In this paper, we contend that over the next five to ten years society will see a shift in the nature of the Web, as consumers, firms and regulators become increasingly concerned about privacy. In particular, we predict that, as a result of this privacy-focus, various information sharing and protection practices currently found on the Dark Web will be increasingly adapted in the overall Web, and in the process, firms will lose much of their ability to fuel a modern marketing machinery that relies on abundant, rich, and timely consumer data. In this type of controlled information-sharing environment, we foresee the emersion of two distinct types of consumers: (1) those generally willing to share their information with marketers (Buffs), and (2) those who generally deny access to their personal information (Ghosts). We argue that one way marketers can navigate this new environment is by effectively designing and deploying conversational agents (CAs), often referred to as “chatbots.” In particular, we propose that CAs may be used to understand and engage both types of consumers, while providing personalization, and serving both as a form of differentiation and as an important strategic asset for the firm—one capable of eliciting self-disclosure of otherwise private consumer information.

Many retailers invest in ancillary services to provide shoppers with additional reasons to come to their stores. However, it is unclear whether these services insulate incumbents from new entrants. We address this question by examining how the size and uniqueness of an incumbent's service portfolio protects its sales after a new competitor enters. We study uniqueness by introducing the notion of “competitive service overlap” (CSO) that operationalizes service similarity, and show both that retailers are best served by offering many services and that particularly successful retailers have more unique service portfolios. Furthermore, the impact of uniqueness is most prominent when a grocery incumbent faces a discounter entrant (e.g., Kroger facing a Wal-Mart entry).

The CMO and CIO often struggle for influence on strategic decision making within the top management team, if they are included at all. Technological improvements have increased the ability of firms to gather customer data which elevates the role of the CMO and CIO and requires them to work together more closely. There has been limited research on the relationship between senior executives outside of that with the CEO, and this study fills that gap by exploring CMO/CIO cooperation. To analyze the dynamics of the CMO/CIO relationship, this research introduces a conceptual framework that captures three antecedents of cooperation: interdependence, CMO/CIO structure, and CMO/CIO diversity. Additionally, the study identifies four cooperation mechanisms that can mediate the relationship between these antecedents and CMO/CIO cooperation. A positive relationship between the CMO and CIO can lead to a greater impact on strategic decision making, improved strategy implementation, and a superior competitive position.

Marketing and sales have distinct thought-world differences that often inhibit their ability to work together. As a result, firms promote integration between the two groups with the ultimate aim of improving relationship effectiveness and customer performance. This study introduces the concepts of realized integration and desired, or future, integration and the difference between the two (the integration gap). Through the lens of self-categorization theory, this study examines how both functional and firm behaviors interact with several internal and external environment factors to impact both types of integration. The study shows how these factors impact both realized and desired integration in several ways, providing a more complete view of the relationship between the two. Finally, the study finds that desired integration can negatively impact relationship outcomes reducing the positive benefits of the realized level of integration. As a result, managers need to not only promote integration but also manage the integration gap by increasing levels of realized integration or decreasing levels of desired integration.

There is a compelling need to improve the relationship between managers in marketing and sales departments. This paper argues that one critical way of enhancing individual managers’ perceptions of relationship effectiveness between these departments is to view the issue as a matter of justice and suggests that perceived marketing–sales relationship effectiveness is positively influenced by managers’ perceptions of organizational justice. Furthermore, it proposes that interfunctional communication has the potential to enhance the proposed positive effects of justice and hence needs to be considered and effectively managed when looking at marketing–sales relationship effectiveness. Data drawn from a survey of 203 marketing and sales managers in 38 consumer packaged goods companies are used to empirically test these predictions. The authors find that perceived sales–marketing relationship effectiveness is influenced by perceptions of distributive, procedural and interactional justice. Greater interfunctional communication is found to further enhance the positive effects of distributive and procedural justice on perceived relationship effectiveness, but it does not contribute to the already strong positive effects of interactional justice. Furthermore, results reveal important differences in the effects of justice on perceived relationship effectiveness across the marketing and sales departments.

The authors examine an important anomaly in investment behavior—namely, the tendency to fall prey to the effects of contextual and presentation biases, which emerge when people make different decisions as a function of how information is presented to them. They also identify an important factor that moderates these effects. The results from four studies show that investors with a stronger tendency to engage in predecision outcome elaboration are less susceptible to various contextual and presentation biases and are more likely to make consistent investment choices. Furthermore, the authors find that encouraging predecision elaboration on both the potential benefits and the potential risks of investing helps investors who tend not to engage in such elaboration become less influenced by peripheral cues, such as information framing and presentation mode. The findings offer implications for decision research and for the design, presentation, and communication of financial products.

Sales researchers have spent decades developing and empirically testing various scales that reflect distinct theoretical perspectives of salesperson behavior and job functioning. Despite extensive research in this area, little comparative work has been done to assess the relative effectiveness of these different scales in explaining salesperson performance or to explicate whether or not they are best considered in isolation or as working together—even potentially interacting—to influence sales success. We examine four established scales related to customer-directed salesperson job functioning, and look at how well they relate to both self-reported and objective job performance measures. Our analyses are based on responses from 524 salespeople drawn from three different firms. The results show that two scales (ADAPTS, Selling Skills) outperform the others. Furthermore, we find an important interaction between ADAPTS and Selling Skills that helps to predict superior objective performance.

A firm that simultaneously engages in a high degree of both innovation and efficiency follows an approach that is often referred to as an ambidextrous strategy. Surprisingly, relatively few firms are able to balance these two emphases. Internal battles for resources often tip the scales in favor of efficiency over innovation, or vice versa. Management gurus frequently warn that simultaneously pursuing both can set the firm up for mediocre performance, yet the turbulent nature of today’s markets and cut-throat competition create a renewed need for firms to reconsider this dual approach for longer-term success. Unfortunately, practical insights from empirical studies regarding performance benefits and implementation issues are still scant. Perhaps this is one reason why few firms are successful in both efficiency and innovation. In this article, we provide evidence—using a cross-industry survey of senior marketing managers in publicly-traded U.S. firms—that firms which successfully employ an ambidextrous strategy outperform those which overemphasize either efficiency or innovation. Furthermore, we highlight marketing’s role as an example of the often overlooked need for successful functional implementation. Finally, we provide useful methods for managers to answer three key questions: (1) Is my firm ambidextrous?; (2) Should my firm be ambidextrous?; and, if so (3) How can my firm become ambidextrous?

We examine a new construct dealing with individuals' tendency to elaborate on potential outcomes, that is, to generate and evaluate potential positive and negative consequences of their behaviors. We develop the elaboration on potential outcomes (EPO) scale and then investigate its relationships with conceptually related traits and its association with consumer behaviors such as exercise of self-control, procrastination, compulsive buying, credit card debt, retirement investing, and healthy lifestyle. Finally, we show that consumers with high EPO levels exhibit more effective self-regulation when faced with a choice and that EPO can be primed, temporarily improving self-regulation for consumers with low EPO levels.

The purpose of this article is to investigate how strategic emphases of merging firms (marketing or research and development) create value in a merger context. The authors suggest that strategic emphasis alignment—the extent to which the resource configurations of acquirer and target firms are similar to or distinct from one another—is a key construct that facilitates value creation. Using data on abnormal stock returns, the authors also suggest that when merging firms have low strategic emphasis alignment, value is enhanced when the merger motive is diversification. In contrast, when merging firms have high strategic emphasis alignment, value is enhanced when the merger motive is consolidation.

Attracted by the promise of greater market exposure and increased revenues, firms across a wide variety of industries have undertaken significant investments in online channels. However, while some firms' entire business models revolve around this initiative, others have made only limited commitments to online channel ventures. What accounts for these marked differences in commitment to online initiatives, and do firms reap the performance benefits of increased levels of commitment? Furthermore, how do firms' internal and external capabilities affect their propensity to establish and succeed with online channel ventures? Drawing on marketing, innovation, and information systems perspectives, along with insights from the resource-based view of the firm, we propose an integrative conceptual framework that helps answer these questions. We ground our hypotheses in the context of retailers' online channel development efforts, and test our conceptual framework with data collected via a Web-based survey of 550 retailers. We find evidence of significant positive returns to investments in online channels. Furthermore, we observe the divergent effects of different sets of capabilities on commitment and performance. Importantly, although we find that the direct effect of firms' information systems capabilities on online performance appears to be negative, the indirect effect (mediated by commitment) is positive. Our study also examines the impact of firms' established distribution channels on levels of commitment to, and performance of, the online channel. We find that firms' established distribution channels act as double-edged swords, with divergent effects on commitment and performance. We also find evidence of diminishing returns to commitment as a function of established distribution presence, thereby suggesting that the rewards of commitment do not accrue equally to all firms.

Using the resource-based view of the firm, we examine how four key resource attributes affect performance. The relationship between resource attributes and performance is studied in the context of international joint ventures (IJVs), using data from 96 IJVs in Malaysia. Executives were asked to assess the extent to which four resources (product reputation, technical expertise, local business network and marketing skills) exhibited the following attributes: (1) value; (2) rarity; (3) imperfect imitability; (4) non-substitutability. For each resource, the relationships between these attribute ratings and performance were analyzed. We found that each of the four attributes had an influence on performance. Value, rarity, and non-substitutability were found to be significant drivers of performance for IJV assets. In contrast, value, rarity, and non-imitability were critical attributes for organizational capabilities.

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has received considerable research attention in the IS field over the past decade, placing an emphasis on the roles played by perceived ease-of-use and perceived usefulness in influencing technology adoption decisions. Meanwhile, alternative sets of antecedents to adoption have received less attention. In this paper, sets of antecedent constructs drawn from both TAM and the Perceived Characteristics of Innovating (PCI) inventory are tested and subsequently compared with one another. The comparison is done in the context of a large-scale market trial of a smart card-based electronic payment system being evaluated by a group of retailers and merchants. The PCI set of antecedents explains substantially more variance than does TAM, while also providing managers with more detailed information regarding the antecedents driving technology innovation adoption.

Retailers' marketing objectives can be classified into three broad categories: attraction effects that focus on consumers' store-entry decisions, conversion effects that relate to consumers' decisions about whether or not to make a purchase at a store they are visiting, and spending effects that represent both dollar value and composition of their transactions. This paper proposes a framework that incorporates all three of these effect categories and examines their influence on store performance. Specifically, store sales are broken down into four components: front traffic, store-entry ratio, closing ratio, and average spending. Using inexpensive and readily available infrared and video imaging technology, it is possible to measure these four components in a wide variety of retail environments, allowing retailers to obtain a richer understanding of the effectiveness of promotional activities on store sales. A set of twelve hypotheses based on the economics of information and promotion literatures is proposed. These hypotheses relate the presence of various promotions (price, clearance, and new product), promotion scope, and the type of out-of-store communication vehicle used by retailers to each of the four store sales components. The proposed approach is then applied in two different empirical settings, both to test formally the hypotheses and to demonstrate more generally the richness of the information the approach can provide. The first application involves a Canadian apparel store that sells ladies' casual wear. The second application is based on a U.S. sporting-goods retail chain that sells a variety of sporting goods, including sportswear, sports shoes, and sports equipment. A joint model of four simultaneous equations using front traffic, store traffic, number of store transactions, and store sales as the endogenous variables is then formulated for the applications. Promotional factors are used as explanatory variables, along with a number of additional control variables (including length of operation, day of week, holidays, seasonality, and weather). Seemingly unrelated regression is used to estimate the model efficiently. A comparison model that includes only store sales as the endogenous variable is estimated for comparison with the joint model. Results from these applications indicate that the proposed framework provides more detailed information about promotional effectiveness than more traditional models of store performance. The effects of specific promotional decisions on store performance are described. Specifically, price promotions have little impact on front traffic, but positively affect store entry and likelihood that a consumer will make a purchase. The effect of price promotion on consumers' spending in a store is also significant, but varies in sign with the type of promotion employed. Second, while greater promotional scope enhances store entry, promotions with narrow scope seem to have negative impact on store traffic. The effects of promotion scope on store performance also seem to be moderated by the scope of merchandise carried by the retailer. Increased promotional scope appears to have a greater effect on store traffic and consumers' spending for a multicategory retailer than for a more focused seller. Third, clearance promotions have a weaker effect on store entry when compared to other multiple-category promotions, while new-product promotions have a positive impact on conversion. Finally, newspaper advertisements, when compared to targeted coupons, have a stronger effect on store attraction but a weaker effect on spending. In addition to understanding the key drivers of store sales, retailers are also interested in determining whether or not their promotions affect store profitability. An assessment of the profit impact cannot be based on the change in overall store sales because promotions may affect various items or product categories inside a store differentially, and gross margins may not be the same for all items or categories. Although gross margin and item- or category-specific sales were not available for the two applications studied, the paper describes how such information can be integrated with the output of the proposed joint model to arrive at a richer understanding of how promotions affect overall store profitability. Finally, managerial and academic implications of this work are described, and potential extensions of the joint model are suggested.

Drawing on resource-based theory, the authors examine the extent to which firms redeploy three key marketing resources (brands, sales forces, and general marketing expertise) following horizontal acquisitions. Results from a survey of 253 acquisitions show that highly immobile resources are more likely than less immobile resources to be redeployed. Furthermore, resources tend to be redeployed from the acquirer to the target more often than in the reverse direction. Finally, the effects of redeployment on subsequent product costs, product quality, product line breadth, geographic market coverage, market share, and profitability are examined. Cost-based synergies were minimally affected, but revenue-based synergies and overall firm performance were significantly influenced.

Advances in causal modeling techniques have made it possible for researchers to simultaneously examine theory and measures. However, researchers must use these new techniques appropriately. In addition to dealing with the methodological concerns associated with more traditional methods of analysis, researchers using causal modeling approaches must understand their underlying assumptions and limitations. Most researchers are well equipped with a basic understanding of LISREL-type models. In contrast, current familiarity with PLS in the strategic management area is low. The current paper reviews four recent studies in the strategic management area which use PLS. The review notes that the technique has been applied inconsistently, and at times inappropriately, and suggests standards for evaluating future PLS applications. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research suggests that choice models conditioned on correctly identified consideration sets outperform choice models conditioned on the awareness set (Hauser, 1978; Roberts and Lattin, 1991). However, in data-sparse environments, where purchase history information is not available or not relevant, choice models conditioned on the consideration set often yield nonunique or nonsignificant solutions. In these environments, we propose the use of similarity information to improve the performance of choice models. Support for this position is found in an empirical application involving automobiles.

Data collected from highly competitive markets in the Philippines were used to investigate how country-of-origin (CO) information influenced the prices set for a wide range of products. The data permitted direct comparisons between prices for the same product produced by the same company, but in different countries, and sold in adjacent markets. Imported products produced in more industrialized countries were found to command price premiums over the same product, produced by the same company in less industrialized countries. However, imports from all countries commanded significant price premiums over domestically produced products. Consistent with previous research, branding was found to moderate the effect of CO information on price. Finally, CO information had a stronger impact on price when product risk was high than when it was low.

Both structural determinants and competitive factors can work to define the relevant environment for strategy formulation within an industry. This study examines the effects of each of these two sets of factors on global integration strategies, and finds that their impacts vary considerably from one industry to another. The study also investigates the relationship between a business's global integration strategy and its performance, using an industry-specific perspective. In the aggregate, the businesses studied appear to be under-globalized. However, this relationship varied significantly by industry ; four of the industries studied appeared to be under-globalized, while the remaining three industries were at or near an optimal level of globalization.

The authors extend previous models for premarket forecasting of new durable consumer goods by including parameters that reflect consumers’ categorization and consideration processes. They propose a model and measurement methodology, which they apply to the premarket forecasting of a new automobile. They describe empirical data collection, parameter estimation, managerial implications, validation issues, and future research needs. The extended model generates new managerial insights into positioning and marketing planning effectiveness, can be used to simulate the effects of changes in positioning strategy on consideration and choice, and provides more detailed information about why consumers consider or reject a new brand. The relevance of the categorization extension for other new product models that condition choice on a consideration set is also explored.

The current study is a first step in investigating how virtual organizations can manage remote employees effectively. The research used self-efficacy theory to build a model that predicts relationships between antecedents to employees' remote work self-efficacy assessments and their behavioral and attitudinal consequences. The model was tested using responses from 376 remote managed employees in 18 diverse organizations. Overall, the results indicated that remote employees' self-efficacy assessments play a critical role in influencing their remote work effectiveness, perceived productivity, job satisfaction, and ability to cope. Furthermore, strong relationships were observed between employees' remote work self-efficacy judgments and several antecedents, including remote work experience and training, best practices modeling by management, computer anxiety, and IT capabilities. Because many of these antecedents can be controlled managerially, these findings suggest important ways in which a remote employee's work performance can be enhanced, through the intermediary effect of improved remote work self-efficacy. The current study also provides a basis for future research in the remote work area through its development and testing of a remote management framework.

Information systems researchers have a long tradition of drawing on theories from disciplines such as economics, computer science, psychology, and general management and using them in their own research. Because of this, the information systems field has become a rich tapestry of theoretical and conceptual foundations. As new theories are brought into the field, particularly theories that have become dominant in other areas, there may be a benefit in pausing to assess their use and contribution in an IS context. The purpose of this paper is to explore and critically evaluate use of the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) by IS researchers. The paper provides a brief review of resource-based theory and then suggests extensions to make the RBV more useful for empirical IS research. First, a typology of key IS resources is presented, and these are then described using six traditional resource attributes. Second, we emphasize the particular importance of looking at both resource complementarity and moderating factors when studying IS resource effects on firm performance. Finally, we discuss three considerations that IS researchers need to address when using the RBV empirically. Eight sets of propositions are advanced to help guide future research.