Recipients determine the final success, or failure, of a gift. However, despite their importance in the gift exchange, their role has been underinvestigated. Through two experimental designs, we examined relational consequences (i.e. perceived strength of the relationship, and reciprocity) of online personalized gifts, and the moderating role of closeness with the giver and relationship-specific anxiety. Findings revealed that the relationship is perceived as stronger when the personalized gift comes from a non-intimate friend and recipients reported more willingness to reciprocate to an acquaintance. Moreover, the personalized gift reinforces relationship with low anxiety, while increases embarrassment in the high anxiety relations.

The organizational learning concept is used to develop the skill base of employees and create knowledge that can be used to improve the capability of an organization. The objective of this paper is to explain how the process of organizational learning, which is underpinned and reinforced by a specific organizational value system, produces interactive communication that incorporates information sharing, teamwork, individual learning and fosters the development of knowledge which ultimately results in the implementation of a marketing strategy. The research question we pose is: How can marketing managers use the organizational learning concept to improve the organization’s marketing performance? A qualitative research strategy, incorporating an open ended, structured questionnaire was used to obtain insights into how organizational learning supports the development of knowledge and the implementation of marketing strategy in three Korean companies in three separate industries. The research findings indicate that managers in the participating Korean companies embrace the strategic marketing concept, implement knowledge based marketing decisions, are committed to sharing information and are keen to adopt innovatory processes that result in change. In addition, they utilize the organizational learning concept to enhance the capability of the organization, ensure that individual learning is placed in the context of institutional learning, develop and implement innovative marketing strategies, and reinforce the strategic marketing planning process through interactive communication in order to achieve value creation.

The study tests a theoretical framework for examining the consumer decision-making process with regards to ethically questionable behavior. The results indicate that subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and self-efficacy are significant predictors of consumer intentions to engage in ethically questionable behavior. Attitude was not found to be a significant predictor.

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.

Companies incur costs in the care of indirect equipment used in production, that is, in maintenance, repair, and operation (MRO) of equipment. However, MRO can waste manpower and time, so that many companies engage MRO companies as substitutes. In the past, MRO substitution companies have conferred advantages that allowed companies to cut prices. As a result of those savings, companies were more likely to purchase high value items. But as prices drop and companies have more varied requests, MRO substitution companies must find new strategies to stay competitive. This research is an effort to escape the exhaustive adherence to price-cutting methods, and instead find ways to maintain continuous relations with customers through price benefits and services. First, product groups must adhere to purchase deadlines. Although logistics centers originally operated and managed deliveries, some items were too large to be delivered. To solve the problem, groups should contract with delivery companies to assure smooth delivery despite problems. Also, delivery companies could supplement computing processes by delivering original documents such as quality certificates between company and customer. Second, companies should communicate with customers regarding the maintenance of current prices, provision of additional service if current prices change, and to find problems and improvements regarding current operations that need to be addressed. The research shows that MRO purchasing companies should focus on customer needs rather than only on price if they are to satisfy customers and accomplish continuous growth.

This study investigated the perception of the coupon benefit and behavioral response to the coupon. Consumer activism was tested as a moderator. All of the hypothesized relationships were supported. The multi-group differential test revealed that the perceptions of coupon benefit were significantly different between highly and less active consumers.

This study empirically investigates how four individual-level characteristics impact the effect of the four self-congruity types on brand attitude. A widely used practice among marketers focuses on communicating that using their brands will bring consumers closer to how they would like to see themselves, their ideal self-concept (e.g. being a slim person like the models in the ads), instead of how they actually see themselves, their actual self-concept. However, recent research shows that there is no “universality” of a superior self-congruity effect. Specifically, individual-level characteristics (e.g. self-esteem levels, product involvement levels) determine if actual or ideal self-congruity impact brand perceptions more strongly (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer & Nyffenegger, 2011). This study extends that research by (a) considering all four self-congruity types (actual, ideal, social, and ideal social) and (b) four additional individual-level characteristics, which are valuable for segmenting consumer markets within and across countries. The four individual-level characteristics are a dominant independent self-construal, interdependent self-construal, cosmopolitan orientation and local orientation. Considering these individual-level characteristics offers marketers insights on which of the four self-concept types they should try to match with their brand communications when targeting these specific consumer groups. Survey data from a non-student sample was collected in the US. After performing data cleaning procedures, 800+ usable responses were analysed with the use of PLS-SEM (Lohmöller, 1989). The measurement models demonstrate satisfactory reliability, convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, the results suggest that the data is not compromised by non-response bias and common method variance. The structural models display satisfactory predictive capabilities of the four self-congruity types on brand attitude. The findings show that as expected an individual’s dominant independent self-construal, interdependent self-construal, cosmopolitan and local orientation impact which of the four self-congruity types has the strongest effect on brand attitude. For individuals with a dominant local orientation or interdependent self-construal, actual self-congruity has the strongest effect on brand attitude. For individuals with a dominant cosmopolitan orientation or independent self-construal, ideal self-congruity has the strongest effect on brand attitude. The findings of this study extend self-congruity theory by considering the effect of these four individual-level characteristics. Managerial implications are also presented.

Research on new product development has emphasized the importance of integrating customers, employees, and suppliers in an organization’s innovation processes. While several studies evaluate respective participatory processes, there is, surprisingly, no consensus on which dimension participation quality consists of, and how to measure them consistently. The present study contributes to the literature by identifying the dimensions of participation quality and by constructing a participation quality scale that includes six dimensions, namely (1) project-related resources, (2) early involvement, (3) degree of influence, (4) transparency of processes, (5) incentive mechanisms, and (6) voluntariness of participation. Furthermore, a 24-item measure of participation quality is developed using a mixed-method design. Results of our study show that the developed measure impacts important innovation-related outcomes such as innovation performance, acceptance of the innovation, and intention to participate in future innovation projects. Given that the six identified dimensions of participation quality differentially affect these outcomes, the scale provides the opportunity to better design participatory innovation projects, and thus helps managers to integrate stakeholders more successfully in these projects.

Using an experimental design, it is investigated how a cultural institution’s image dimensions are influenced by a sponsorship and its perceived level of sponsor-sponsee fit. Controlling for an individual’s cultural interest, results show that sponsors, depending on their level of congruency, can influence certain sponsee’s image associations.

Prior research has investigated the consumer effects of cash and card payments in service settings, but the growing trend of innovative payment with a mobile device hasn’t been considered in the literature so fare. This article represents one of the first studies that considers the adoption of mobile as a new payment method and investigate how the ‘checkout’ phase affect the shoppers’ overall price image of retail stores (OSPI). Results from our studies show that the ‘checkout’ phase is the ‘moment of truth’ for shoppers judging OSPI. We investigate the effects of cash, card, and mobile payments and show that the less transparent a payment method, the lower OSPI judgments of shoppers. In particular, favorable comparisons of basket prices to shoppers’ mental budgets trigger lower store price perceptions. Subsequently, these results have major implications for retailers aiming to lower their OSPI in customers’ minds.

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.

Consumers from an emerging country generally associate brands from developed countries with high quality. An interesting question is how do they perceive different brands with different positioning strategies? While many more brands position themselves as global brands rather than foreign brands, I argue that for emerging country consumers, there should not be a perceived quality difference between a global brand using the English language versus a foreign brand using other languages written in the Latin alphabet. This could be because consumers stereotype the country image at the regional level and appearance level, not at the country level. This should be most salient when consumers are less familiar and/or more distant from the country being evaluated.

The objective of this paper is to explain how the organizational learning concept is used to promote group work, information sharing and an open and transparent communication style in order to produce a high level of customer service. The work incorporates an extensive literature review and a number of propositions. Previously collected data from a set of in-depth personal interviews undertaken with senior managers in a Korean electronics company were reanalyzed and reinterpreted using the grounded theory approach. This allowed insights to be provided into how, in a collectivist culture, information sharing is reinforced by the organizational learning concept. The research findings show that managers in a chaebol use organizational learning to identify skilled and knowledgeable staff, and to improve the organization’s capability by placing emphasis on developing harmonious, mutually oriented relationships that permeate throughout the organization. In addition, top management demand that staff identify with government economic objectives and align the organization’s strategy accordingly so that the products produced are marketable. By ensuring that management procedures, processes and systems evolve naturally, change is managed in an incremental and pro-active manner.

This study explores the moderating role of perceived sponsor motive and event-self congruence on the relationship between event-sponsor congruence and attitude toward sponsor in CSR advertisingcampaigns. A scenario based 2 (event-sponsor congruence: high/low) ⅹ 2 (perceived sponsor motive: selfish/altruistic) ⅹ 2 (event-self congruence: high/low) between-subjects design experiments are conducted for the test of hypotheses. According to the results of ANCOVA, consumers' perceived sponsor motive and event-self congruence are shown to moderate the effect of event-sponsor congruence on consumers' attitude toward sponsor. And, when the consumer perceives sponsor motive as ‘altruistic’ and event-self congruence as ‘high’, the difference of attitude toward sponsor between the high group and low group of event-sponsor congruence perception is the lowest.

We studied customer recognition and understanding of menu labeling as well as the correlations between customer support for menu labeling and multiple factors, such as demographic characteristics, dinning-out behavior, and menu selection criteria. This study designed a survey and received responses from 351 individuals. The analysis results reveal that most respondents did not acknowledge menu labeling or lacked knowledge of it. Many of the respondents showed experience in ordering from menus with ingredient labels, but many showed no interest in menu labeling. Exactly 114 (32.5%) respondents showed support of menu labeling, and most were interested in levels of trans-fat, fat, and cholesterol. The respondents reported that menu labeling should be implemented more in fast-food restaurants and causal dinning restaurants. This study also analyzed how customer menu selection criteria are related to support level of menu labeling. Respondents were classified into three groups based on their support level for menu labeling (low · medium · high), after which correlations between customer menu selection criteria and support level were examined. Respondents in the high support group considered all menu selection criteria (i.e., ingredients, health, and consideration of calories). GLM analysis showed that monthly dining-out expenses were highly related to support level with a significance level of 0.05, and the interaction between monthly dining-out expenses and respondents' jobs also affected support level with a significance level of 0.01.

There are calls for biofuel imports from developing countries to be restricted. The imports which are either in the form of end-product (bioethanol or biodiesel) or feedstock (oil palm, sugar cane molasses, etc) are allegedly produced in ways which can threaten the environment and violate human rights. This article finds that there is no specific regime for trade in biofuels within the WTO system. Hence any restriction on such trade is governed by the existing trade regimes including tariffs and nontariff measures. However, the existing WTO tariff and non-tariff (TBT, anti-dumping and anti-subsidy) regimes are still inadequate in ensuring that measures are taken against biofuel feedstock and products that were produced in unsustainable ways. The use of these measures without being subject to clear defining rules will create a danger that they serve a protectionist rather than social or environmental objectives.

본 연구는 2004년부터 2008년까지 8년간 국내 제약 기업들을 대상으로 소유 집중도가 기업의 연구개발투자에 미치는 영향을 실증적으로 분석한다. 특히 소유 경영 체제 또는 전문 경영 체제가 소유 집중도와 연구개발투자 간의 관계에 미치는 영향을 분석한다. 분석 결과 최대주주 지분율과 연구개발투자는 역 U자 형태의 상관관계가 있으며, 소유 또는 전문 경영 체제 여부는 역 U자 관계의 강도에 영향을 주는 것으로 나타났다. 즉, 전문 경영 체제하에서는 소유 집중도가 낮을 경우 소유 집중도의 추가적인 증가는 대리인 비용을 줄여 연구개발투자를 소유 경영 체제하에서 보다 더 크게 증가시키지만, 소유 집중도가 높을 경우 소유 집중도의 추가적인 증가는 지나친 위험 노출 증가에 대한 고려로 연구개발투자를 소유 경영 체제하에서 보다 더 빠르게 감소시킨다.

Nutritional conditions experienced during early growth have important implications for the lifetime fitness of herbivores. We investigated how the early life effects of imbalanced nutrient intake can be overcome in a generalist caterpillar, Spodoptera litura (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Over the fifth larval instar, caterpillars were pretreated on one of three diets that varied in protein: carbohydrate balance (p35:c7, p21:c21 or p7:c35). After molting to the sixth instar, they were transferred to one of three no-choice diets (p35:c7 ,p21:c21 or p7:c35) or a food choice where they received two nutritionally complementary diets (p35:c7 versus p7:c35). Approximately 80% of caterpillars that had been protein-deprived (p7:c35) during the fifth instar molted to the seventh instar. The threshold body mass for pupal metamorphosis was 144 mg at the start of the sixth instar. When given a choice, caterpillars pretreated on the low-protein diet (p7:c35) selected significantly more protein than those from other diets (p35:c7,p21:c21). Our results suggest that caterpillars are not only capable of switching their developmental program to reduce the deleterious effects of a nearly deficiency of protein, but also flexible at adjusting nutrient preference store dress specific nutritional imbalances experienced early in life.