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Marketing scholars have extensively studied marketing's effect on firm value and have developed metrics and dashboards to help establish marketing accountability. However, empirical evidence of marketing accountability's specific outcomes is scarce and mainly derived from surveys. It also lacks consideration of outcomes beyond the marketing function's standing in the firm, thus overlooking possible downsides and outcomes with regard to external stakeholders such as investors. Using a natural experiment—Australia's change from a nonrestrictive to a restrictive accounting regime—this study investigates how accountability for the financial value of marketing assets (marketing asset accountability) affects a firm's marketing management focus on short-term vis-à-vis long-term marketing efficiency, its cost of capital, and the degree to which its stock price reflects actual future performance (i.e., stock price informativeness). The results show that marketing asset accountability improves long-term marketing efficiency, reduces cost of equity, and improves stock price informativeness, but does not consistently affect short-term marketing efficiency and cost of debt. Moreover, although marketing-intensive firms are commonly assumed to benefit most from marketing asset accountability, this is not the case. These results have implications for researchers, managers, and public policy decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate how heuristics and analytics contribute to the advertising budget decision by decomposing it into four components: (1) baseline spending, (2) adaptive experimentation, (3) advertising-to-sales ratio, and (4) competitive parity. They propose a methodology to estimate and infer the weights of these four components. Applying this methodology to sales and advertising data across eight brands from three categories substantiates for the first time, and uniformly across all brands, that managers depart from optimality through adaptive experimentation, which is in line with dual control theory that suggests they do so to learn about advertising effectiveness. The adaptive experimentation finding, combined with evidence on the use of heuristic methods, suggests that budget decision making is characterized by bounded rationality. Furthermore, budgeting decisions are brand-specific, reflecting the considerations of a brand's market position and performance. Finally, simulation studies show that brands from categories with high uncertainty in advertising effectiveness can benefit from double-digit revenue lifts by placing higher emphasis on adaptive experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reported failure of organisations to successfully implement social media (SM) within marketing communications is likely to result in competitive disadvantage. An exploratory methodology was undertaken to understand implementation challenges of SM. The methodology drew on grounded theory with the in-depth interviews with senior marketers in the first phase of data collection guiding the second phase of data collection. The third phase involved 21 senior marketers completing an online questionnaire which obtained more generalised feedback on the model and identified differences in model application for different SM platforms. The contribution of the study is to propose a sequential decision-making framework for marketers that may help them overcome decision-making uncertainty regarding the choice and implementation of SM platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the influence of mental intangibility on the size of the consideration set, for both tangible products and services. The research also examines the moderating effect of purchase involvement and objective knowledge on the set. Two experimental studies were conducted to examine these relations. Overall, the results indicate that mental intangibility positively influences the size of the consideration set, regardless of the offering type (product or service). This effect is stronger in low levels of knowledge. Consumer involvement does not seem to have a moderating effect on this relation. The studies' implications and recommendations for future research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sponsoring joins brands with sports, the arts, and events in mutually beneficial partnerships. In the context of sports, the authors examine how sponsorship deal characteristics affect consumer inferences, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward a sponsor and a sport property in a partnership. The authors develop a conceptual framework that links a holistic set of sponsorship deal characteristics (i.e.,contract length, regional proximity of the sponsor,sponsorship fee, and sponsorship type) to individual consumer perceptions. Study 1 tests the framework in afield study of 2,787 consumers across 44 sponsorships. Study 2 largely confirms the findings of the field study in an experimental study. Overall, the results show that regionally proximate and long-term partnerships benefit as consumers make positive inferences about partnership fit and sponsor motives. In contrast, consumers associate high sponsorship fees,international sponsors, and naming-rights relationships with calculative motives and perceive these factors negatively. For managers,finding that sponsorship deal characteristics matter is important not only for sponsor–property relationships but also for relationships between the sponsoring brands and consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With firms spending $60 billion on sponsorship annually, it has become an integral part of the marketing mix and is necessary for the survival of many sport organizations. Despite the importance of these partnerships, conditions that may jeopardize what can be a long-term relationship for both sides are underresearched. Utilizing survival analysis modeling to examine a longitudinal dataset of 69 global sponsorships, the purpose of this research is to isolate factors that predict the dissolution of such partnerships and test a dynamic, integrated model of sponsorship decision-making. From the perspective of the sponsoring firm, congruence and high levels of brand equity were found to reduce the hazard of dissolution. Results indicate that economic conditions, such as an inflationary economy, are a statistically significant predictor of sponsorship dissolution. Increased clutter was also detrimental, with every one sponsor added increasing the hazard of dissolution, demonstrating the importance of exclusivity in global sponsorships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group marketing uses the psychological mechanisms underlying group influence to drive customer behaviors that are beneficial to the firm. It is predicated on the firm’s ability to guide two necessary and sufficient conditions: (1) a customer’s awareness of an affiliation with the focal group and (2) exposure to group norms. By examining what it means to be affiliated with a group; determining how group norms are inferred, applied, and maintained; and testing a wide variety of ways in which these conditions become manifest, this research demonstrates the theoretical foundations of group marketing. Groups influence purchase behaviors by altering information and identity appraisals during decision making. Time in a purchase domain emerges as a critical determinant of the strength of group influence. Although previous research has suggested that social influence diminishes over time, a longitudinal field study and an experiment reveal that this prediction holds only when information appraisal dominates; an opposite effect arises when identity appraisal dominates. Group efficacy strengthens, but product price weakens, the effects of groups on purchase behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a systematic review of recent literature on the use of mathematical models in the marketing field to identify the main aims of model adoption in various functional areas of marketing. As study material, we have chosen 143 articles that used marketing models and were published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Quantitative Marketing and Economics and Quality and Quantity, from 2010-2014. Based on content analysis, these articles were assigned to consumer behaviour, product management, pricing management, distribution management, promotion management and marketing dynamics research themes in accordance with their research objectives. Some of these clusters were determined based on previous studies, while others emerged from our review. It is found that the highest (lowest) proportion of articles reviewed in this study involve research that uses marketing models in the marketing dynamics (distribution management) research theme. The next most common research theme was consumer behaviour. Articles utilising marketing models in product, pricing and promotion management themes were moderately common. We also summarise specific purposes for the use of marketing models in each research theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing departments are under increased pressure to demonstrate their economic value to the firm. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that marketing uses attitudinal (e.g., brand awareness), behavioral (e.g., brand loyalty), and financial (e.g., sales revenue) performance metrics, which do not correlate highly with each other. Thus, one metric could view marketing initiatives as successful, whereas another could interpret them as a waste of resources. The resulting ambiguity has several consequences for marketing practice. Among these are that the scope and objectives of marketing differ widely across organizations. There is confusion about the difference between marketing effectiveness and efficiency. Hard and soft metrics and of fine and online metrics are typically not integrated. The two dominant tools for marketing impact assessment, response models and experiments, are rarely combined. Risk in marketing planning and execution receives little consideration, and analytic insights are not communicated effectively to drive decisions. The authors first examine how these factors affect both research and practice. They then discuss how the use of marketing analytics can improve marketing decision making at different levels of the organization. The authors identify gaps in marketing's knowledge base that set the stage for further research and enhanced practice in demonstrating marketing's value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become increasingly important for small to medium sized enterprise (SME) retailers to stand out in the current marketplace. Branding in SMEs is a growing area of academic interest, although the majority of studies have been based in the manufacturing sector. This study seeks to develop a framework of the characteristics, processes and dynamics of SME retailers. A qualitative research study was carried out with SME owner managers (OMs) over a period of 15 months. The findings extend the understanding of branding in SMEs in a number of ways. Firstly, it is found that SME retailers take a cautious approach to brand management, seeking to build loyalty, networks and relationships. Secondly, the holistic nature of SME retail branding presents a challenge to OMs who are resource-constrained. Thirdly, the soft, colloquial and intuitive approaches to brand equity appraisal are evident. Brand marketing is focused on word of mouth, which has implications for how OMs operationalise the brand around store experiences. Finally, the influence of the OM on branding decisions is clear. The key findings are discussed in relation to the retail context of the study, the centricity of the OMs in SME branding and entrepreneurial brand management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A successful marketing strategy should be managed to integrate the decisions, such as pricing, post-sale service and production in order to maximise profits but most manufacturers did not fully consider how to integrate them into an effective one in the past. Therefore, in this study, we proposed a mathematical model and a corresponding solution algorithm to assist the decision-makers systematically to decide the synthetic decision. The decision-makers can make warranty and marketing decision according to their production capacity. Besides, the impacts on the profit, the sale, the price and the warranty when the related costs were varying are also discussed in the study, so that the decision-maker can more easily handle the possible situations. The failure times of the product in our study were drawn from a non-homogeneous Poisson process with a specific intensity function (linear, exponential or power law). A preventive maintenance programme was also considered in the warranty policy. Finally, a numerical example was given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generation and use of customer insight in marketing decisions is poorly understood, partly due to difficulties in obtaining research access and partly because market-based learning theory views knowledge as a fixed asset. However, customer insight takes many forms, arrives at the organisation from increasingly diverse sources and requires more than mere dissemination if it is to be useful. A multiple case study approach is used to explore managerial practices for insight generation and use. Multiple informants from each of four organisations in diverse sectors were interviewed. Findings reveal the importance of value alignment and value monitoring across the insight demand chain, to complement the information processing emphasis of extant research. Within the firm, the study suggests the importance of customer insight conduct practices including insight format, the role of automation and insight shepherding, to complement the much-researched process perspective. The study provides a basis for assessing the effectiveness of insight processes by both practitioners and scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Common wisdom suggests that managerial empathy (i.e., the mental process of taking a consumer perspective) helps executives separate their personal consumption preferences from those of consumers, thereby preventing egocentric preference predictions. The results of the present investigation, however, show exactly the opposite. First, the authors find that managerial empathy ironically accelerates self-reference in predictions of consumer preferences. Second, managers' self-referential tendencies increase with empathy because taking a consumer perspective activates managers' private consumer identity and, thus, their personal consumption preferences. Third, empathic managers' self-referential preference predictions make them less likely to use market research results. Fourth, the findings imply that when explicitly instructed to do so, managers are capable of suppressing their private consumer identity in the process of perspective taking, which helps them reduce self-referential preference predictions. To support their conclusions, the authors present four empirical studies with 480 experienced marketing managers and show that incautiously taking the perspective of consumers causes self-referential decisions in four contexts: product development, communication management, pricing, and celebrity endorsement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors introduce and examine a new marketing concept that a small set of leading firms has begun to adopt: marketing doctrine. Marketing doctrine refers to a firm’s unique principles, distilled from its experiences, which provide firm-wide guidance on market-facing choices. As such, marketing doctrine provides a firm-wide common approach to decision making. Importantly, marketing doctrine helps a firm address the classic consistency–flexibility conundrum by providing high-level guidance to all decision makers in the firm (thus ensuring consistency) but not specifying execution details (thus allowing for local flexibility). Across three samples, the authors explore the concept using a discovery-oriented, theories-in-use approach with 35 executives from several industries. This article makes four contributions. First, it offers a parsimonious definition of the marketing doctrine construct and contrasts it with related constructs. Second, it offers insight into how firms can develop marketing doctrine. Third, it develops a conceptual model that identifies the antecedents and consequences of marketing doctrine use. Finally, the authors explore the moderating effects of three unpredictable environments (competitive intensity, market turbulence, and structural flux) on the marketing doctrine use–performance relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on exchange and utility theories to propose and test a model of sponsorship decision making using discrete choice analysis. Grounded in prior sponsorship research and current management practice, the model describes sponsorship selection as a sequence of choices about sponsorship packages of differing value. The core thesis is that managers attempt to maximise their utility when selecting sponsorships by evaluating the various pay-offs from the alternatives available. This research applies a simulated choice-based experiment with 196 sponsorship managers to assess their preferences for a set of criteria likely to shape their future decisions about sponsorship selection. While perceptions of brand-image congruence and relationship quality significantly affect sponsor preferences, contrary to some evidence, short-term business arrangements appear more desirable than longer-term sponsorships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important contribution to the literature on perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) is Milliken’s distinction between state uncertainty, effect uncertainty and response uncertainty. Although much is known about their conceptual underpinnings and measurement, there has been no empirical investigation of their antecedents. This is the focus of this study, which examines relationships between two environmental characteristics and perceptions of state, effect and response uncertainty, and the moderating role of marketing decision-maker locus of control. Both instability of change and environmental complexity are associated with marketing decision-maker uncertainty, with the former having the larger effect. Locus of control moderates the relationships between environmental characteristics and effect and response uncertainty. The findings have implications for theory, managerial practice and research methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One way to analyze the competitive environment is to use the five forces model developed by M. Porter (1979). The strength and importance of each varies from market to market, but all are relevant when analyzing the conditions under which a business operates. These forces (factors) are: bargaining power of buyers; bargaining power of suppliers; products or services that can substitute for the business offer; new competitors entering the market (new business); existing competitors in the market. In this paper I will present the methodology of applying the Michael Porter competitive analysis model, with an example at a business. being used for the purpose of setting strategic objectives in business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen a renaissance of conjoint survey designs within social science. To date, however, researchers have lacked guidance on how many attributes they can include within conjoint profiles before survey satisficing leads to unacceptable declines in response quality. This paper addresses that question using pre-registered, two-stage experiments examining choices among hypothetical candidates for US Senate or hotel rooms. In each experiment, we use the first stage to identify attributes which are perceived to be uncorrelated with the attribute of interest, so that their effects are not masked by those of the core attributes. In the second stage, we randomly assign respondents to conjoint designs with varying numbers of those filler attributes. We report the results of these experiments implemented via Amazon's Mechanical Turk and Survey Sampling International. They demonstrate that our core quantities of interest are generally stable, with relatively modest increases in survey satisficing when respondents face large numbers of attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is dedicated to strategic decision-making regarding order penetration point (OPP), which is the boundary between make-to-order (MTO) and make-to-stock (MTS) policies. This paper considers a supply chain in which a manufacturer produces semi-finished items on an MTS basis for a retailer that will customise the items based on MTO policy. This two-echelon supply chain offers different products to a market comprised of homogenous customers who have different preferences and willingness to pay. The retailer wishes to determine the optimal OPP, the optimal semi-finished goods buffer size, and the price of the products with assumption of price sensitive demand function. Moreover, we consider both shared and unshared capacity models in this paper. A matrix geometric method is utilised to evaluate various performance measures for this system, and then, optimal solutions are obtained by enumeration techniques. The suggested queuing approach is based on a new perspective between the operations and marketing functions which captures the interactions between several factors including inventory level, product pricing, OPP, and delivery lead time. Finally, parameter sensitivity analyses are carried out and the effect of demand on the profit function, the effect of prices ratio on completion rates ratio and buffer sizes ratio and the variations of profit function for different prices, completion percents, and buffer sizes are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential for profitably distributing products to previously underserved "base-of-the- pyramid" (BOP) markets as a means of poverty alleviation has received growing interest within the management field. However, such business models often struggle with the agency costs that arise between the firm and local sales agents as the institutions and infrastructure in BOP markets make traditional contractual and monitoring mechanisms difficult and expensive to employ. We present the results of two complementary studies which were both conducted with salespeople in rural Guatemala. The first study employed a quasi-experimental field-study combined with in-depth interviews, while the second study was a laboratory experiment. The results of the studies suggest that identity-based mechanisms can potentially mitigate agency costs through a positive identity spillover effect in multiproduct settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four studies investigate (1) whether a variety-seeking versus inertial environment activates a certain mind-set about risk propensity and (2) whether this mind-set influences preferences for immediate versus delayed promotions. Study 1 demonstrates that a variety-seeking environment activates a risk-taking mind-set, whereas an inertial environment activates a risk-averse mind-set and that such a difference in risk propensity makes a delayed (immediate) promotion relatively more appealing for consumers with a variety-seeking (inertial) tendency. Study 2 reveals that preferences for a brand offering a delayed promotion are stronger when consumers have a variety-seeking tendency and that preferences of consumers low (vs. high) in need for cognitive closure are more influenced by the difference in variety-seeking versus inertial tendency. Study 3 provides further insights by allowing participants to be variety seeking or inertial and by controlling for redemption effort and the hedonic/utilitarian aspects of categories. Finally, Study 4 highlights the impact of variety-seeking versus inertial tendency on real-world choices. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although customer satisfaction (CS) has been evaluated through using statistical and decision-making techniques so far, no research, to the best of the authors' knowledge, has been conducted for implementing both groups simultaneously and clarifying the different or similar aspects of the results given by these techniques. The purpose of this paper is to compare the techniques and clarify these unknown aspects. Design/methodology/approach: First, the effect of the elements related to service marketing mix on CS was examined by using structural equation model (SEM). Then, the statistical methods such as Friedman test (FT) and SEM, and decision-making technique such as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) were systematically compared for prioritizing the elements of service marketing mix. The sample included 159 special customers of an anonymous bank in Bojnurd, Iran. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by using Cronbach's α (r=0.934). In addition, SPSS, Expert Choice and Smart PLS software were used. Findings: Based on the results, FT and AHP method had exactly the same ranking for the elements of the marketing mix, as well as almost identical relative weights. The ranking included people, process, product, physical evidence, place, price and promotion, respectively, while the SEM technique had very different outcomes. Finally, none of the methods could assure the marketer to come to a reliable decision separately. Originality/value: In this study, the authors' contribution is the understanding of the role of an effective marketing mix evaluation technique selection on marketing strategy. Different techniques had different and in some cases even contradicting outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore some dimensions of the relationship between marketing research and theory, including the relationship between researchers and practitioners, using the lens on the debate around evidence-based management, with a view to stimulating debate within the marketing community. The article commences by introducing the concepts of evidence-based practice and management, and reviewing some of the challenges associated with integrating management and marketing research and practice. The following section visits the notion of 'evidence', including its link to mode 1 and mode 2 knowledge production. Finally, ten proposals for advancing evidence-based marketing and blurring the 'practice-theory divide' are proposed. These include peoplebased strategies, knowledge and inquiry-based strategies, and dissemination, communication and publication-based strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brand acquisitions and disposals are key strategic marketing decisions and often the largest single marketing investments that firms make. Yet little is known about the performance effects of such decisions. This study examines stock market reactions to brand acquisition and disposal announcements in 31 consumer industries. The results reveal that returns to such announcements depend crucially on three complementary firm assets-marketing capabilities, channel relationships, and brand portfolios-but that these effects may not be symmetric across brand acquisitions and disposals. Acquirer abnormal returns are greater for firms with strong marketing capabilities and those that buy brands with higher price/quality positioning than their existing portfolio. Investors also reward buyers that identify cost synergies in integrating new brand(s) into their portfolios but punish those that identify revenue synergies. Conversely, greater abnormal returns arise for sellers with inferior channel relationships and for those selling multiple brands, brands with relatively lower price/quality positioning than the seller's remaining portfolio, and brands unrelated to the rest of the seller's portfolio. The results from a paired subsample provide new knowledge about the positive net shareholder wealth created from brand acquisition-disposal transactions and indicate a strong role of marketing capabilities in creating this wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When new products and brands are introduced into other cultures, the speed and extent of the product's acceptance are important concerns for marketers. The spread of positive word of mouth (WOM) and the lack of negative WOM about the product or brand by early adopter groups are critical to the product's successful diffusion in a population. This is the first study to investigate the effects of consumers' cultural values on their WOM behavior. Data analysis from two samples indicates that the pattern, type, and target receivers of consumers' WOM activity depend on their cultural values. The authors use Hofstede's four cultural dimensions to test the effects of cultural values on WOM behavior to social in- and out-groups. They find that all four dimensions have significant effects on WOM engagement to those groups. Although the authors could not determine the causal nature of the relationships because of the sample design used, they argue that marketers should monitor the cultural values of their market to anticipate in- and out-group discussions and the choice of appropriate brand communication strategies in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines competition among Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target using two distinct but related approaches. The authors first develop and estimate a discrete game in which each chain's store presence and format decisions in local markets depend on the decisions of its competitors and market characteristics. This analysis is extended to evaluate the determinants of store revenues for each chain in local markets as a function of market characteristics, including the presence of competing firms. These regressions use the results of the initial model to correct for the endogeneity of observed market structures. The results from both exercises illustrate several important asymmetries across the firms. Kmart and Wal-Mart prefer similar markets, but Wal-Mart's competitive position is dominant enough to prevent Kmart's operation in otherwise attractive markets. In contrast, Target prefers substantially different market characteristics. In total, the results support a view of the industry as one in which Wal-Mart is dominant, Target serves more of a niche role, and Kmart struggles to find its footing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors demonstrate that partitioning an aggregate quantity of a resource (e.g., food, money) into smaller units reduces the consumed quantity or the rate of consumption of that resource. Partitions draw attention to the consumption decision by introducing a small transaction cost; that is, they provide more decision-making opportunities so that prudent consumers can control consumption. Thus, people are better able to constrain consumption when resources associated with a desirable activity (which they are trying to control) are partitioned rather than when they are aggregated. This effect of partitioning is demonstrated for the consumption of chocolates (Study 1) and gambles (Study 2). In Study 3, process measures reveal that partitioning increases recall accuracy and decision times. Importantly, the effect of partitioning diminishes when consumers are not trying to regulate consumption (Studies 1 and 3). Finally, Study 4 explores how habituation may decrease the amount of attention that partitions draw to consumption. In this context, partitions control consumption to a greater extent when the nature of partitions changes frequently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many markets, there is likely to be correlation both across periods in terms of the choices of one consumer and across consumers in terms of their choices in each period. The former is caused by consumer heterogeneity, and the latter may be the result of demand common shocks across consumers. Furthermore, if firms partially observe these common shocks, their market decisions may end up being endogenous and correlated with the common shocks. Because researchers cannot typically fully observe consumer heterogeneity and the common shocks, the estimation method must account for the endogeneity of firms' decisions. In this article, the authors present a test for endogeneity under unobserved consumer heterogeneity and common shocks, which is based on a quasi-likelihood estimation method, to estimate the model parameters consistently when endogenous firm behavior, unobserved heterogeneity, and common shocks are present. The test examines the differences in general method of moments coefficient estimates of a model with and without instrumenting for the explanatory variables. The authors show theoretically that in their estimation method, unobserved heterogeneity does not affect the consistency of the parameter estimates, but if it is not accounted for, endogeneity may bias the results. They present estimation results from simulated and scanner panel data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A firm planning market entry can attempt to develop a product that is either similar to the incumbent's existing offering (imitation) or entirely novel (innovation). The authors establish that when the incumbent is more aggressive in research and development (R&D), this negatively affects the entrant's marginal return on R&D. Thus, if greater profits produce a strong (weak) desire for the incumbent to increase its R&D level, the entrant will respond by sharply decreasing (increasing) its R&D level. As a result, the incumbent's likelihood of retaining the lead position will exhibit an inverse U-shaped pattern as a function of monopoly and duopoly profits. The authors then examine the impact of uncertainty about the rewards from new products and allow firms to conduct market research to resolve the uncertainty. They characterize the conditions for the entrant's innovation versus imitation decision to reveal information about future rewards to the incumbent. When duopoly profits are uncertain and can be either high (upside potential) or low (downside potential), the entry strategy will be revealing if the upside potential is attractive enough relative to monopoly profits. In contrast, when innovation has uncertain commercial potential (i.e., either valued or not valued by consumers), the entry strategy will be revealing if duopoly profits are unattractive relative to monopoly profits. In these cases, the entrant's innovation–imitation decision is driven by market research; this allows the incumbent to forgo market research and infer the true state of demand from the type of entry strategy it observes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the relationship between strategic type and development of distinctive marketing, market-linking, technology, and information technology (IT) capabilities to implement innovation strategy. They hypothesize that prospectors must build technical and IT capabilities, whereas defenders develop market-linking and marketing capabilities. The authors collect data from 709 firms across the United States, Japan, and China. They find support for their capability hypotheses, as well as for some of their cross-national hypotheses that are based on cultural and business environment differences among the three countries. In particular, they find support for the hypotheses that Japanese firms have greater technology and IT capabilities than U.S. firms of the same strategic type. They conclude with implications for management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multinational corporations' (MNCs') control over their foreign operations plays an important role in implementing their global marketing strategy. In the past, transaction cost analysis and bargaining power theory have been widely cited to explain the degree of control MNCs exert over their foreign operations. However, research explicitly combining these two perspectives has been limited. To address the gap in the literature, the authors present a joint model that combines the two alternative theories to explain MNCs' control, and they compare their relative explanatory power. Using primary survey data, they perform an empirical test of the relative explanatory power of these two theories. The results suggest that three factors, two drawn from bargaining power theory and one from transaction cost analysis, are key factors in explaining MNCs' degree of control over their foreign operations. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay tries to show how the inflation of marketing panaceas over the past 20 years has failed to calm the conflict between our discipline and consumers. Quite the contrary, it has had more of an incendiary effect because of its tendency to try to renew and regenerate itself by shamelessly appropriating referentials that go well beyond what is traditionally associated with the market sphere. The end result is that consumers have developed a new type of resistance to marketing approaches, one that will require second order types of changes in our discipline. Some of the seeds for this change can be found in the most recent marketing panaceas, which have been presented (and maybe conceptualised) using two ideas: 'market with' and 'societing'. The present essay does not aim to produce a new great theory of marketing, nor does it offer a new paradigm. It merely tries to stimulate reflection about which modes of thinking might help today's world to avoid marketing fundamentalism and colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper investigates the way in which some Swiss watch firms respond to innovativeness, their capacity to innovate, and their engagement in the innovation process. A purposeful (judgmental) stratified sampling method was employed, where in-depth interviews with thirteen marketing managers and owners, was carried out over a three-month period. Meaning units (MUs) were abstracted, to compare and discuss with the interviewees until a basic agreement of terms could be made. By providing tangible evidence of qualitative statements, this research suggests that if decision makers wish to influence business performance, they need to be aware of this comprehensive insight into the potential for innovativeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sample (n = 295) of five- to eight-year-old children participated in an experiment, which included a control group, where the treatment group played a Froot Loops cereal advergame that made a superiority claim for the cereal compared to fresh fruit. Measures of their responses to the brand featured, as well as their level of persuasion knowledge, were collected. Although the treatment group failed to believe Froot Loops were healthier than fruit, the older children in the group reported significantly higher preference for the brand over other cereals and other food types. No differences in intentions to request the cereal were found. Children's preferences for the Froot Loops brand were not associated with their persuasion knowledge about the advergame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social network theory and descriptive statistical analysis are used to identify and analyse the characteristics of the pivotal themes emerging from within the key marketing literature. Data are collected over a ten-year period from three leading academic marketing journals i.e. Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Research. Our findings highlight the most important pivotal theories based upon a combination of citation frequency, and theory-to-theory network linkage power. Whilst none of the leading theories identified appear to stem from marketing, most come from closely related disciplines such as economics and psychology, and relate to several common themes including the management of relationships and human behaviour, organisational issues and behaviour, and decision making. We identify some limitations associated with our research, several areas worthy of future investigation, and based upon the theory, extract some insights that practitioners may also find beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies show that information used to screen alternatives becomes less important than information acquired later in the search process simply because it was used to screen. Experiment 1 shows that the tendency to deemphasize prescreening information leads to systematically different choices for decision makers who screen alternatives compared with decision makers who do not screen alternatives. Additional studies show that screening encourages decision makers to shift their emphasis from prescreening information to postscreening information (Experiment 2). Prescreening information is deemphasized because of the categorization that occurs when people create a consideration set of retained alternatives (Experiments 3 and 4). Together, the results show that a brand's strength of consideration (i.e., how highly an option ranks on screening criteria) may have little influence on the likelihood of it being chosen in a postscreening choice process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research documents a phenomenon we call the endowed progress effect, whereby people provided with artificial advancement toward a goal exhibit greater persistence toward reaching the goal. By converting a task requiring eight steps into a task requiring 10 steps but with two steps already complete, the task is reframed as one that has been undertaken and incomplete rather than not yet begun. This increases the likelihood of task completion and decreases completion time. The effect appears to depend on perceptions of task completion rather than a desire to avoid wasting the endowed progress. Moderators include the reason, if any, offered for the endowment and the currency in which progress is recorded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A host of strategic management and marketing issues, including competitive analysis and strategic decision making, hinges on accurately identifying and representing competitive market structures. It is readily acknowledged that competitive market structures are typically asymmetric; namely, one firm may actively compete with another in a given market but not vice versa. However, empirical efforts to assess these competitive asymmetries have been lacking in the strategy literature. We propose a new spatial methodology to identify and represent asymmetric competitive market structures. Specifically, we devise a new stochastic multidimensional scaling procedure that is calibrated from actual consumer consideration/choice sets to estimate and uncover competitive asymmetries. The proposed methodology can be effectively employed in the analysis of appropriate data from either demand- or supply-side approaches to assess competitive market structure. We illustrate our proposed methodology with survey data collected from two different commercial applications: one from the U.S. luxury automobile market and the other from the U.S. portable telephone market. We contrast the findings of the proposed methodology against traditional symmetric approaches for identifying and representing competitive market structures, and discuss the respective strategic insights. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines several advantages of using structural modeling for policy evaluations and some of the challenges presented by marketing problems. The authors note that a primary goal of research in marketing is to evaluate and recommend optimal policies for marketing actions. A structural model begins with a view that observed behavior is the outcome of a decision process in which a consumer or firm makes optimal decisions based on a maximization of an objective function subject to resource constraints. All too frequently, researchers in marketing are viewed as net consumers of work from other fields. They also discuss how marketing data are dramatically richer than those in economics in a variety of important ways.

This article addresses the Lucas critique with the idea that economic agents are forward rather than backward looking and adapt their expectations and behavior to new policy. The authors suggest that there are three key requirements for the critique to be relevant, such as economic agents are aware of the policy change, economic agents are motivated to change their behavior as a direct consequence of the policy exchange and economic agents are able to change their behavior. These requirements imply that behavioral changes may be more applicable for models that focus on long-term rather than short-term decisions. There seem to be many research opportunities in substantive marketing areas in which agents can be assumed to be forward looking.

This paper presents the authors' opinion on an article by Bradlow, Hu and Ho (BHH) concerning conjoint research. They assert that BHH properly characterized their proposal as a model of learning. The authors find the model and their work to be appealing in a broad sense because they question the validity of the partial-profile solution. They note that for respondents, inference making is not an option when faced with partial information. In contrast, an enduring issue in inference research pertains to the likelihood that inferences will be generated spontaneously. It would be imprudent to argue that all conjoint responses are devoid of inference. In some models, learning is operationalized in terms of the respondent's ability to predict a criterion value from associated variables.

Auction sellers usually must set a reserve, which is the lowest auction price that they will accept. I propose that anticipated regret and rejoicing affect reserves. Regret occurs when the highest bid exceeds the seller's value for the property but is still below the reserve. Rejoicing occurs when the reserve forces the winning bidder to pay a higher price. The impact of regret and rejoicing can be observed by examining sellers' learning over sequential auctions, particularly when they use a frequency heuristic. Results from an auction experiment with simulated bidders support the impact of anticipated regret and rejoicing on reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Termination of new product development projects was examined as an advocacy process influenced by performance judgments and unobserved performance thresholds, and contextual factors related to the radicalness of such projects were studied as influences on those judgments. We applied survival analysis to four panels of data on 80 newly initiated new product development projects. Advocacy, performance judgments, and threshold effects were related to termination decisions. Contextual factors were also related to these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving marketing decision making requires a better understanding of the factors that influence how managers interpret and respond to a market situation. Building on extant literature, the authors develop a model that delineates antecedents of and responses to the interpretation of a market situation. Using case-scenario methodology, the authors test the model in the context of a marketing decision (annual advertising and promotion budget recommendation) with data collected from a nationwide sample of hospital marketing executives. The results of the partial least squares analysis show that (1) cognitive style, organizational culture, and information use affect the extent to which managers perceive a given market situation as one in which they can control the outcomes of their decision; (2) the more managers perceive a situation as controllable, the more they appraise that situation as an opportunity; and (3) the more managers appraise a situation as an opportunity, the greater is the magnitude of their response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]