Corporate reputation is a central source of strategic competitive advantage. So far, studies regarding this topic have solely focused on the measure’s level, disregarding heterogeneity in the ratings among constituents. This study reveals that dispersion of reputation judgments is another crucial information which has the power to drive firm value.

Although the relationship marketing literature acknowledges the importance of switching costs for increasing customer retention in general, little is known about its relevance in industrial markets. In particular, it is unclear whether switching costs and its dimensions impact relevant behavioral outcomes of buyer-seller relationships in business-to-business (B2B) markets. Against this background, our research intends to make two main contributions: Since we assume differential effects for different types of switching costs, our research first explores the dimensions of switching costs for the B2B domain. Second, it tests the relative impact of the dimensions of switching costs on business customers’ actual purchase behavior. Results suggest that switching costs in B2B settings are a multi-faceted construct, including (i) procedural, (ii) financial, and (iii) relational switching costs. Moreover, we find relational switching costs to be most important for securing B2B buyer-seller relationships since they impact a customer’s (a) share-of-wallet, (b) cross buying behavior, and (c) actual switching behavior. While procedural switching costs only influence share-of-wallet, financial switching costs solely impact customer’s cross-buying behavior across a firm’s product and services categories. These findings contribute to a better understanding about how to secure B2B buyer-seller relationships.

In the first part we aim to present a new tool to better understand implicit consumer associations, perceptions and impact. The second one is to show how this tool uncovers new and often counterintuitive insights regarding emotional percepts of soccer megastars, including Lionel Messi. BIOCODE™ is a reaction time based method, determines the strength of implicit, i.e. instinctive, immediate, automated or emotional conviction people have to things they say, such as perceptions of a brand or a celebrity, reactions to an ad, liking of a product or intent to vote for a political candidate. It captures how consumers are impacted by brands, ads, products, packages and concepts in contrast to what they overtly say in a declarative, more considered, explicit realm. In essence, we ask to answer (on-line or central location) simple questions about a brand, a person or a product. Consumers’ explicit and rational statements are important but assessing those responses in the context of the time their brains need to produce an answer gives a new perspective and competitive edge. The standardized reaction time index reveals consumers’ true and unbiased reactions. Importantly, these implicit emotional reactions tend to predict actual behavior closer than explicit rational declarations. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) - the first method based on assessing reaction times - was developed in 1998 by Anthony Greenwald to finally capture racial prejudice and other sensitive issues. Before IAT traditional paper & pencil questionnaires due to overt or hidden distortions had hard time proving the existence of racism. What is the cognitive mechanism beyond reaction time based methodology? By recording how much time a consumer’s brain needs to produce an indication of an attitude or preference we discover how easily accessible (and thus how instrumental) such emotion is. The quicker the indication is, the more accessible it gets. The foundations of this neuropsychological phenomena were first described by Donald Hebb in his ‘Consolidation of the Memory Trace’ theory (1948) and then refined by Russell Fazio in his ‘Attitude Accessibility’ model (1989), Daniel Schacter’s ‘Implicit Memory’ theory (1992) as well as Mahzarin Banaji & Anthony Greenwald in their concept of ‘Implicit Social Cognition’ (1994). Rafal Ohme and his team began working with the original, academic form of IAT. Their goal was to bridge the use of the tool to market research applications. Now with over 15 years of subsequent R&D in this area, they have created simplified, user friendly research applications that are unequaled in their ability to measure previously unanswerable questions about the degree of emotional valence or “felt intensity” that is associated with what people say. BIOCODE™ is the second generation of latency measures. Comparing with IAT - the first generation of academic reaction time methods it is: easier, simpler, clearer, looks better and there is no need for repetitions which saves a lot of precious on-line time. BIOCODE™ is based upon highly refined technology that calibrate individual response speeds and eliminate biasing variables. The technology includes: noise reduction algorithm; quality control module; context procedures; calibration. It secures the highest validity of measurements. In the test – retest validation conducted on 11 studies held internally and externally in 2009-2013 the correlations obtained ranged from r = 0,840 to r = 0,960 (conducted on various target groups of high incidence that met all the criteria for the test; demographic characteristics were controlled and groups were homogenous. Together with Manabu Mori from Rakuten Research - one of the top on-line research company – Rafal Ohme have designed the first ever cross-cultural reaction time test on soccer celebrities. Nearly 900 on-line respondents from three continents: South America, Europe and Asia were asked to indicate (on a computer screen, using a regular mouse or a key-pad) whether they agree or disagree (5-point Likert’s scale) with the attitudinal statements on specific personality traits of soccer celebrities, eg. hard working, talented, famous, loving their country. This explicit rational response has been accompanied by implicit emotional reaction. The aim of the study was to by-pass the “rationality bias” and reveal true emotional reactions about soccer celebrities including: Leo Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Neymar jr, Shinji Kagawa. The selected findings will be disclosed during the presentation. Concluding, BIOCODE™ is a sensitive detector of consumer ‘lip service’ that is often driven by benefit of the doubt, political correctness and simple deference to leadership brands. If we want to understand consumers, it serves to know the gap between what people say and how they feel. It is a very promising, fast growing method with established advanced applications for copy testing, tracking, brand strategy, political polling, product, package and concept testing worldwide. Moreover it is effective as a module embedded within more traditional surveys for providing a seamless integrated perspective on both explicit and implicit aspects of consumer behavior to enrich our understanding of what consumers truly feel and what drives their behavior.

Societal concerns associated with aviation industry’s carbon-intensive nature and impending peak oil has become more pronounced over the last decade. With a potential to address both of these issues, the use of biofuels in aviation stands as the most promising pathway towards achieving sustainable air transport system. Significant progress continues to be made in overcoming technological and economic challenges of using 2nd generation biofuels in air transport industry. However, a truly sustainable and effective market deployment of aviation biofuels requires an extensive collaboration between feedstock providers, biofuel producers, governments, airlines, and the public. Thus, we deploy a multi-level perspective (MLP) framework to analyze these interactions on a micro- (niches), meso- (regime), and macro- (landscape) level. In particular, the framework captures the significance of international nature of air transport industry and the inter-industry dependencies of biofuel supply-chain. The results of this study highlight the barriers, drivers, and strategies for advancing social acceptance and establishment of sustainable aviation biofuel market.

Product naming is one of the most important communication decisions for any firm to deliver product information to consumers. Product names are highly likely to have critical impacts on the market performances of products, in particular, consisting of unobservable attributes such as motion pictures, music, books, and games. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of product naming strategies on their market performances and provide managerial implications on how to name products, especially for experience goods such as movies. We, firstly, suggest a conceptual framework to describe naming decisions as two-stage strategic decisions. The first stage decision is about what type of product information should be provided to consumers via a product name, which we call information choice strategy, and the second stage decision is about how to express the product information in the name, which we call expression strategy. We develop a two-level hierarchical Bayesian log-linear model to consider the main effects of product information strategy with the 1st level of the model, and the mediate effects of expression strategies with the 2nd level of the model. We applied the model to a data set consisting of viewership, names, and release dates of 634 movies released in eight countries where English is an official language. We have decided the types of naming strategies with the help of three industry practitioners, who have been working in the film industry for over 10 years as a producer, marketer, and investor, respectively. The country characteristics, obtained from Hofsted's Homepage (National culture scores of each country) and the World Bank (GDP and population of each country at the released t year), were considered for country heterogeneity. The empirical results show that information choice for movie titles have significant impacts on the movie viewership. Especially, movie titles including story or negative words have more positive impact on their market performances. One of the important findings is that the effects of “what to choose” depends on “how to express”. For example, not frequently used words, nonwords, proper nouns, foreign words in movie titles have positive impacts on the viewership. Popular words used for movie titles have a positive influence directly on the viewership. Interestingly, while sentences for movie titles have negative impacts on the viewership, storyline and theme expressed in sentences show positive impacts on the viewership. Another important finding is the mediating effects of country and product heterogeneities. The effects of naming strategy differs across movie genres and country characteristics. This study makes at least three contributions to the literature. Firstly, this study suggest a conceptual framework an empirical model for naming strategies in the literature. Secondly, this study provides information on what type of naming strategies are more effective on market performance, which has never been addressed in the literature. Lastly, the study provides some managerial implications which are useful for researchers and industry practitioners who are interested in product naming.

Technological advances and rapid industrial growth raise concerns about industrial waste as one of the greatest hazards to human and environmental health. International attention has turned to sea dumping because it poses danger to ocean environments and interferes with seagoing vessels. Thus environmentalists are calling for cross-border cooperation in prohibiting companies from dumping their industrial wastes into the sea. Beginning 2016, Korea will be required to ban sea dumping of industrial waste in accordance with the London Dumping Convention (LDC: Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter; also called the London Convention or LC '72). The Asian Citizen’s Center for Environment and Health reports that in 2013 Korea dumped 116 million tons of industrial waste into the sea: 77.6% (90 million tons) was industry wastewater sludge; 21.8% (25.3 million tons) was industrial wastewater. In this year, 2014, 427 companies will dump 53 million tons. The Korean government first planned to ban sea dumping starting this year, but then gave companies a two-year grace period for preparing to dump industrial wastes onto the land rather than into the sea. In response to the changing market environment, our company will use marketing 4P strategy to focus on disposing industrial waste in landfills. First, we will assure that our processes for dealing with industrial wastes will be timely and legal. Second, we will offer competitive prices and provide better value to our customers by analyzing switching costs of sea-to-land dumping and examining market conditions so that we have competitive advantages in the initial market. Third, by analyzing distribution channels regarding sea dumping, we can rearrange the process for better benefits and profits. Furthermore, we can reinforce relationships with logistic companies and customers. Last, we can improve and reinforce our brand image by using various media outlets to tell institutions and consumers about our experiences and advantages. Our strategy should extend our market, establish new customers, grow our company, and help preserve the marine ecosystem.

In their efforts to compete and grow, companies try to reduce prime costs incurred by their purchasing groups, costs that may be more than 60% of sales. The recent financial crisis and the global economic depression have made it difficult to increase sales, so competitive purchasing is essential. Purchasing-efficiency benefits can be compared with sales-increase benefits: a 5% reduction of purchasing costs has the same effect as a 25% increase in sales. Some companies are using B2B purchasing substitution companies to reduce prime costs of raw materials, subsidiary materials, MRO (maintenance, repair, operation), and consumable materials. In this research, I examine whether purchasing substitution increases purchasing satisfaction and recommend ways to enhance the competitiveness of purchasing substitution. Corporate purchasing substitution strengthens integral purchases, simplifies systems, strengthens the supply network, and enhances customer service regarding quality, deadlines, logistics, and focus. This research is an effort to show how purchasing substitution systems can work best and to discover factors that contribute to corporate satisfaction. Most important is to use highly experienced purchasing experts who can reduce unnecessary costs through integral purchases. First, knowledgable and experienced purchasers can improve bid ordering rates. They can improve corporate satisfaction by recommending products suitable for price negotiation and sharing professional knowledge about items. Second, knowledgeable agents can improve sales rates by securing strong supply networks and minimizing distribution margins. Price competitiveness is most important in purchasing well-organized substitution services to allow expansion of new sales and better long-lasting account relations.

Explicit environmental attitude measures tend to produce strong socially desirable responses (Bruni & Schultz, 2010; Milfont & Duckitt, 2010; Stern & Dietz, 1994) and fail to capture more than what participants consciously recall (e.g., explicit belief, past behavior, Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, Jones, 2000; Schultz, Shriver, Tabanico, & Khazian, 2004). A number of studies have highlighted the popularity of environmental issues in common discourse in various countries, which leads individuals to eagerly express pro-environmental explicit attitudes (Dunlap, 1998; Leiserowitz, 2005; Meijers & Stapel, 2011). Therefore, an explicit measure of environmental attitudes would hardly be an unbiased indicator of prior knowledge and experience when testing the effect of subtle feeling on judgments: although a participant explicitly reports favorable attitudes toward environment or related issues, it does not necessarily mean that she or he has knowledge and experience to hinder the regulatory fit effects. Using the Implicit Association Test, we examined whether the extent to which individuals are implicitly biased toward (or against) sustainability moderates the regulatory focus by construal level interaction. Scores from the indirect measure of attitudes served as the indicator of the strength of associations between the concept of sustainability and evaluations that may result form its frequent pairing with desirable consumption patterns or repeated exposure to persuasive messages promoting sustainability. Specifically, we showed that the regulatory focus – construal level fit effect will be greater among individuals who have not formed significant associations about sustainability since these individuals are more likely to rely on feeling right from regulatory fit rather than using prior experience or knowledge.

In this paper, we explore the popularity of contents at social curation sites. More specifically, we evaluate an article’s popularity at a given point in time and enduring popularity. The results of analyses demonstrate that the amount of content in an article and the initial page views positively affect the page’s popularity. However, an excess amount of content has a negative effect on outbound traffic. Finally, we find that a within-site bookmark prolongs the life of an article.

Based on individuals’ risk perceptions regarding a purchase via smartphone, this empirical work aims at developing a typology of smartphone users. Employing cluster and discriminant analysis, a dataset of 202 young German smartphone users was assessed. To address each of the three emerged clusters in a need-sensitive way, implications for retailers are presented conclusively.

In an online environment, hedonic value such as flow is manifested when consumers continuously engage in playing online games even if it incurs extra cost: financial, physical, and psychological. Consumers also have a loyalty to their games, and they enjoy playing them. They often purchase repeatedly games they are involved in. The framework of existing online game models does not fully explain flow and telepresence to loyalty and the purchase intention of game decision-making behavior. For this reason, we examined the relationships among telepresence to flow, flow to loyalty, and loyalty to purchase intentions. Study 1, which is a behavioral analysis by SEM (Structural Equation Modeling), examines how “flow and telepresence” influence loyalty and purchase intention in an online game behavior. The introduction of hedonic perspectives as flow and telepresence produced an important extension of the online game model. The conceivable factors which may explain this type of consumer behavior are the hedonic or experiential aspect of consumer behavior. We have three hypotheses. All hypotheses are supported at 0.1% significance level. Study 1 focused on the relationships of the constructs of the online game. We also measured the state of flow while game users are playing online games by EEG (Electroencephalogram). In a neural analysis, we found that the state of flow and neural correlates exist. By this, the flow variable reflects the real mental “state of flow.” Study2, which is a neural analysis, examines flow construct in the FPS game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 by using Electroencephalogram (EEG). How much flow do the subjects experience while playing this online game? The purpose of this research is to select the epochs of EEG data when the subjects reported flow, correlate those with flow variables, and compare the EEG activity. The final goal is to select the flow variables which showed the highest correlation to AEP (Auditory Evoked Potential) Suppression value. We analyzed 8 AEPs to correlate flow. We found out that Alpha_RF is casually decided with the mean of flow which has six variables. Mean of Flow correlated to Alpha_RF -.419 significantly (5%). As subjects feel Flow, Alpha_RF is suppressed. This study focuses on the subjective flow experience and AEP suppression. We found out that the state of flow and neural correlates exist. By our analysis, the flow variable reflects the real mental “state of flow.” Therefore, when game companies develop their games, they should take into account how much flow people feel while they are playing the games. In addition, the state of flow should be used not only in developing and designing games but also in sports, entertainment, etc.

This paper investigates how promotions of knowledge and social embeddness shape consumers’ participation in sustainable consumption. An extended model of goal-directed behaviour is tested under airline consumers who have participated in voluntary carbon offset (VCO) program. Results show consumer’s knowledge positively influences their subjective norm but not their attitude towards participation of VCO. Increasing consumers’ sense of social embeddedness is also found to be crucial in forming subjective norm and their attitude. Finally, positive anticipated emotion influences consumers’ desire to participate in VCO, while negative anticipated emotion did not. The findings of this research reveal how interactive promotions influence individual’s internal processes for sustainable consumption, as well as highlight the need for different emotional elicitation strategies for different sustainability programs.

This study examines the determinants of the member customer’s decision of redeeming versus accumulating loyalty program (LP) points by focusing on the effects of the different channels of transaction (online versus offline) and the demographic information of member customers. Our study is based on customer-level demographic and transaction data on a major partnership LP in Korea, the OK Cashbag (OCB) program. This study differs from the existing literature in three aspects. First, the dataset employed for this study enables us to compare member customers’ point redemption behavior between online and offline channels, whereas previous studies demonstrate coupon redemption behavior either in an online (Chiou-Wei and Inman 2008) or an offline setting (e.g., Cronovich 1997; Kwon and Kwon 2007; Mittal 1994; Reibstein and Traver 1982; Ward and Davis 1978). Second, the current study investigates not only the main effects of demographic variables, but also a series of interaction effects between the online channel and each demographic variable. Clear empirical evidence of an interaction effect would provide an LP provider with significant managerial implications. Third, rich data on customers’ transaction behavior with matching demographic information for each member customer enable us to conduct both transaction-level and individual customer-level analyses. Therefore, an individual customer’s transaction behavior can be analyzed in more detail for robust results and richer implications. We find that transactions that occur through online channels and those made by younger customers demonstrate a greater tendency of redeeming LP points as opposed to accumulating them. We also find that online channels exhibit a moderating role by mitigating the demographic effects on member customers’ point redemption behavior. These findings allow the LP provider to predict the future LP point balance by analyzing its main channel of transaction and the demographic profiles of its member customers.

This research examines the relationship between advertising expenditures and perceptions of popular brands by children and mothers in the United States. Findings how that magazine advertising has a positive and significant relationship with brand affinity scores to children and mothers while other advertising, such as electronic advertising and other print advertising, have negative or insignificant relationships with brand affinity scores. In addition, the correlation between exposure times through product/brand placement and brand affinity scores reveals a similar pattern. Product placement does not cause positive and significant relationships with brand affinity scores for either children or mothers.

Economic fluctuation has a remarkable influence on firms and their performance (e.g., Deleersnyder, Dekimpe, Sarvavy, & Parker, 2004; Srinivasan, Rangaswamy, & Lilien, 2005). Given the extreme conditions and frequency of recessions (since World War II, recessions have occurred every six years; Srinivasan et al., 2005), understanding what kind of marketing is effective across the different phases of the economic cycle is a crucial question for marketers (e.g., Steenkamp & Fang, 2011; Srinivasan, Lilien, & Sridhar, 2011). In business-to-business markets, characterized by a strong emphasis on long-term customer relationships (e.g., Grönroos, 1997), the ability to gain a deep understanding of customers and their changing needs is a central determinant of firm performance. Therefore, in such markets, market orientation (MO) provides a particularly important source of competitive advantage. During an economic crisis, MO may also serve as an effective shelter against declining firm performance, particularly in industrial markets (Alajoutsijärvi, Klint, & Tikkanen, 2001). The key rationale is that highly market-oriented firms are able to rapidly and accurately identify changes in the marketplace and respond to shifting customer needs and competitors’ actions (Narver & Slater, 1990). While a vast body of literature evidences MO in general to yield performance gains for firms (Kirca, Jayachandran, & Bearden, 2005), some recent studies (e.g., Kumar, Jones, Venkatesan, & Leone, 2011) have questioned this relationship. Recent empirical studies (e.g., De Luca, Verona, & Vicari, 2010; Noble, Sinha, & Kumar, 2002) also propose that the different components of MO (i.e., customer orientation, competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination) may result in different performance outcomes. Furthermore, recent studies have shown the economic environment to play an important role in determining the performance outcomes and, thus, effective forms of MO (cf. Smirnova, Naudé, Henneberg, Mouzas, & Kouchtch, 2011). In this study, using panel data of 140 firms from before and after the great financial crisis, we examine the performance implications of distinct forms of MO 1) over the changing economic cycle 2) among different types of business-to-business focused firms. Employing ordinary least squares regression analysis, our findings suggest that MO and its distinct components yield varying performance impacts from economic upturn to downturn. Specifically, the impact of MO increases during downturn, with interfunctional coordination boosting performance and competitor orientation becoming detrimental. Subsequently, employing configurational analysis (fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis), our findings further indicate that the role and the most effective forms of MO vary across industry sectors, with MO having a particularly strong impact among firms operating in business-to-business services. We also conclude that, in a growing economy the role of MO has become more of a cost of competing (Kumar et al., 2011), whereas in an economic downturn MO still provides a valuable shelter against performance declines. Finally, our empirical findings are in line with contingency arguments, and suggest that the successful ways for a firm to relate with its markets depend on the dynamic firm- and industry-specific settings.

An extensive body of research on the effects of the country-of-origin (COO) on the purchase of foreign brands has emerged in the international marketing stream. Although previous studies have enhanced the understanding of the effects of the COO on the purchase of foreign brands, they provide limited insight into organizational buyers’ behavior on foreign brands. The objective of this research is to provide an understanding of the effects of the COO on overseas distributors’ behavior in international marketing channels. Integrating the theory of planned behavior and the concepts of country-induced biases, the current study develops an empirically testable model that explains and predicts overseas distributors’ behavior in international marketing channels. The model identifies attitude toward foreign brands, social valuation of the origin of brands, and perceived behavioral control as the factors affecting overseas distributors’ intention to place foreign brands. The model also incorporates the factors of country-induced biases—buyer animosity and perceived risk to the origin of manufacture as the antecedents of attitude toward foreign brands. The model is tested using the primary data drawn from a survey. Findings from an examination of 103 distributors in America reveal that these country-induced biases affect the intention to place foreign brands, in the manner of the hypotheses, through the attitude toward foreign brands. Finally, the present study discusses implications for theory and practice, indicates limitations, and concludes with some suggestions for future research.

The reproductive disorders are the major causes of reproductive infertility in cows that affect the total annual calf crop, resulting in great economic loss in Bangladesh. The aim of the study was to find out the reproductive disorders (RD) in dairy cows that markedly influences the reproductive performances in aspect of Bangladesh. A total number of 1658 dairy cows were selected according to their body condition score (BCS) in different farms at the southern part of Bangladesh during the period of 2011 to 2012. The preliminary data (basic information) were collected directly from the dairy farmer’s record books and asking questions according to a prescribed questionnaires as well as the diagnosis of RD was presumptively confirmed on the basis of history, clinical signs and examination of animals by ultrasonography and others necessary tools. There are thirteen major reproductive disorders were identified. Overall prevalence of reproductive disorders at that area were 23%, among of these anoestrus 5.1%, repeat breeder 3.7%, metritis 4.4%, poor heat detection 1.6%, ovarian cyst 0.36%, retain placenta 4.6%, dystocia 0.97% and pyometra 0.24%. It is indicated that anoestrus and retention of placenta after calving was most hazardous cause of infertility whereas the metritis and repeat breeder were the second line of consequence. RD had shown significantly higher incidence in low BCS (≤2) than that of fair (2.5) and very good (≥3∼3.5). In conclusion, the highest RD especially anoestrus and retention of placenta is very alarming for reproductive loss which might be needed further research to identify the specific cause of these disorders for establishment a profitable dairying and dairy population.