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This research integrates marketing literature, design theory, interviews with world-renowned designers, and established scale development procedures to develop a reliable and valid instrument that measures the effectiveness of design communication (i.e., the information about product designs conveyed through the product, packaging, or advertisements) via consumer evaluations. The theoretical underpinnings and face validity engaged in the development of the Design Communication Assessment Scale (DCAS) progresses the field's understanding as to what constitutes the seven evaluative dimensions of design (form, function, solidity, usefulness, style, eco-consciousness, and uniqueness). Practically, DCAS's versatility provides managers with the ability to gauge consumer evaluations of design communications while enabling better communications with designers. In addition, the authors validate a shortened form of the DCAS for resource-constrained firms. Support for DCAS’s generalizability is provided across laboratory and field studies in which ecological validity is established. Together, these studies demonstrate that using DCAS leads to improved performance across a wide array of metrics, including click-through rates, email signups, and retail sales for a diverse set of products.

PurposeDrawing on the brand alliance, cause marketing and corporate social responsibility literatures, the authors introduce the notion of international cause alliances. The authors conceptualize international cause alliances as strategic partnerships between international causes and for-profit companies with the stated purpose of raising funds for the cause. Beyond signaling that companies are socially responsible, international cause alliances may also help companies increase brand awareness or expand into new markets. Because international cause alliances take many forms and differ in the extent to which the brands are integrated, they have very different strategic implications. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these implications in a framework as well as providing managerial direction for both for-profit companies and causes when forming such alliances.Design/methodology/approachUsing literature on brand alliances, cause marketing, and corporate social responsibility as a foundation, the authors introduce the notion of international cause alliances. The authors review literature to understand the many forms of alliances and investigate the extent to which brands are integrated. The authors then use these implications to develop a framework that can guide managerial decision-making for both for-profit companies and causes when forming such alliances.FindingsThe research suggests that to effectively develop international cause alliances, the organization involved must be aware of the challenges and potential benefits that these partnerships produce. For instance, while highly integrated alliances involve large resource commitments they also facilitate brand image spillover. As such, these alliances are a great way for companies to alter customers’ perceptions of their brands. Alternatively, low integration alliances require fewer resources and facilitate market expansion.Research limitations/implicationsThis research identifies strategies that companies and causes can use to either expand their markets or alter customers’ perceptions of their brands.Originality/valueThis paper presents a framework that companies and causes can use when forming international cause alliances.

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.

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.

Firms raise a significant amount of funds and gain competitive advantage over their rivals through equity financing, namely through initial public offerings and seasoned equity offerings. The authors find that both initial public offering firms and seasoned equity offering firms adopt a more aggressive marketing strategy during the two years following their offering. However, not all equity issuers benefit equally from increased marketing spending, which can help signal companies' growth prospects to investors. A key moderator of the link between marketing investment and firm value is the strategic flexibility of rivals with respect to issuers. In particular, the stock market reacts favorably to an aggressive marketing strategy initiated by issuers competing against rivals with relatively less flexibility, whereas increased marketing expenditures do not translate into higher firm value when rivals have greater flexibility. Furthermore, the authors show that marketing expenditures create value within context: the role of marketing in enhancing shareholder value and the moderating effect of rivals' strategic flexibility are more pronounced in the two-year window immediately following an equity offering than at any other time. The authors conclude with a discussion of implications for theory and practice.

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.

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.

This paper considers the relationship between the stocks and flows of learning across levels in an overall organizational learning system. A survey instrument based on the Strategic Learning Assessment Map (SLAM) was administered to 15 individuals representing senior-, middle- and non-management levels from each of 32 organizations, resulting in a total sample of 480 respondents. This research supports the premise that there is a positive relationship between the stocks of learning at all levels and business performance. Furthermore, the proposition that the misalignment of stocks and flows in an overall organizational learning system is negatively associated with business performance is also supported.

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.