Today, the ability to engage customers is a key factor of brand competitiveness in global markets. Not surprising, marketers are scrambling to figure how to utilize social media and other digital platforms to motivate customer engagement (CE), defined as brand-focused behavioral manifestations, other than purchases, resulting from individual and group motivational drivers. In this study we adopt consumer investment in trademarks perspective, suggesting that consumers proactively use global brand’s signs to express themselves, affirm values, communicate, and experience pleasure in digital platforms. The brand owners deploy trademarks to protect the symbols, which can distinguish the goods or services of a brand owner from those of other enterprises. We hypothesize that by registering trademarked signs in the host markets, global brands may facilitate CE and achieve superior performance. We empirically test these proposition using data for 125 global brands and trademark finings these brands in the twenty largest economies. The results of model confirm expectations that both trademarking in the host markets and consistency in using protected signs positively affected brand’s market share. The study provides managerial, theoretical, and policy insights in context of global brand protection.

This study examines Japanese consumers’ innovative behaviors toward adopting electric vehicles (EVs) and the differences between male and female car owners in the adoption process. A theoretical framework is formulated based on six constructs: passive innovation, active innovation resistance, cognitive innovativeness, affinity for newness, social innovativeness, and actualized innovativeness. The premise of the study is to investigate whether these key independent constructs differentially influence Japanese car owners’ actualized innovativeness to adopt electric cars. This research seeks to address the following research questions.

Introduction The concept of brand equity has been receiving considerable interest from academia and practice in the past decades. While mutual understanding exists on the importance of establishing high-equity brands, less agreement among academics and practitioners prevails regarding its conceptualization and operationalization. Many approaches have been proposed to measure brand equity in academic literature and numerous competing companies such as Millward Brown, Interbrand, or Young & Rubicam offer commercial metrics and brand evaluations, which are likely to estimate different values to a specific brand. This study reflects a consumer-based perspective on brand equity, which resides in the heart and mind of the consumer and captures the value a brand endows beyond the attributes and benefits its products imply. Growing calls for the accountability of marketing has resulted in increasing interest in marketing metrics, which includes mind-set metrics to address the “black box” between marketing actions and consumer actions in the market. Theoretical Development One of the most prominent conceptualizations of brand equity is based on the premise that brand equity is “the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand” consisting of brand awareness and brand image as the predominant dimensions that shape brand knowledge. In this model, a crucial role is ascribed to consumer’s associations with a brand as a reflection of its image. Accordingly, brand building and differentiation is based on establishing favorable, strong, and unique associations. Human associative network theory is a widely accepted concept to explain the storage and retrieval of information and has been largely applied in the context of brands. Associative network theory suggests that brand information is stored in long-term memory in a network of nodes that are linked to brand associations such as attributes, claims or evaluations. Consumers use brand names as cues to retrieve associations. Once cues activate corresponding nodes and consumers retrieve information from memory, the activation spreads to related nodes. Consequently, a transfer of associations can also occur through associative chains in a process of attitude formation. Consumer response to a brand can be of attitudinal and behavioral character and research on attitudes supports the general notion that both, affective and cognitive structures, explain attitude formation. The predictive properties of attitudes regarding actual behavior have been acknowledged by prior research and the attitude-behavior relationship has been established. Research Design Operationalization of Brand Equity This study distinguishes between attitudinal and behavioral measures of brand equity. The behavioral measures of brand equity should reflect the attitudinal brand equity components in predicting product-market outcomes. High brand equity should lead to a willingness to pay a price premium, purchase intention and willingness to recommend. Survey Brand equity measures are tested with two waves of data collection2 from online surveys conducted in 2015 and 2016. Respondents were recruited from a professional panel provider to ensure that the same respondents participated in wave two after a year from the first wave. Participants were selected according to a quota regarding age and gender to increase representativeness and were then randomly assigned to one of the three industries beer, insurance, and white goods capturing brand equity from different perspectives and allowing for a more holistic view. Sample The sample for the first wave consists of 2.798 respondents. The sample was matched with the response from wave two and only those respondents were selected who participated in both waves. Given the panel mortality rate, the final sample size for longitudinal analysis is 1.292 observations. The respondents’ age ranges from 18 to 74 with 52 percent being male and 48 percent female. Analysis Panel regression is used to estimate models assessing the relative importance of various brand equity metrics regarding the three outcome variables for the three categories included. The results suggest that no universal brand equity metric dominates that can be applied to predict behavioral outcomes across categories. Yet, category-specific brand equity metrics prevail across outcomes. Consumers seem to evaluate a strong brand as an entity they can personally connect to in the insurance category. In the beer category, consumers’ evaluation of strong brands reflects deep affect and the perception of product quality. High equity brands relate to loyal consumers with strong affective evaluations in the category of durable household products. Moreover, the results indicate that brand equity measurement can be simplified to a small subset of metrics without risking loss of model fit and predictive power. Discussion While a plethora of brand equity metrics exists, the results of this study suggest that brand managers can apply a small subset of available metrics to track their brands’ equity and predict behavior without implementing long surveys that require considerable time and effort from increasingly overloaded consumers. Yet, adjustments to the composition of brand equity metrics might be inevitable in light of category-specific effects. Moreover, the results reveal that a consideration of metrics capturing affective components such as brand self-connection and deep feelings such as brand love is indispensable for brand equity measurement. Including emotional measures and extending established brand equity metrics that are deeply rooted in extant research might provide a considerable advantage when it comes to measuring brand value in different product categories. References are available upon request.

Introduction Brand equity has been receiving utmost attention in academia and practice over the past decades and continues to be of significant interest. Brands have been identified as one of the most valuable assets and firms try to leverage brands in increasingly complex brand portfolios. A large body of literature exists on spillover effects with regard to brand extensions. However, little is known about how corporate branding within product brand communication impacts brand equity. Therefore, this study examines to what extent product brand attitudes spill over to corporate brands. Furthermore, it investigates how corporate branding affects corporate brand attitude. Finally, the role of product brand familiarity, corporate brand familiarity and involvement in brand leverage and dilution is assessed. Method and data Answers to these questions are provided with a sample of 407 subjects that participated in an online experiment and were presented with a print ad either for brands in the FMCG or pharmaceutical category. The experiment included a 2 (corporate brand familiarity: high or low) x 2 (product brand familiarity: high or low) x 2 (category involvement: high or low) x 2 (corporate brand presence: yes or no) factorial design. Measures included brand attitude, attitude towards the ad, brand familiarity and category involvement. Analysis of covariance is employed to test for main effects and interaction effects, pairwise comparisons to test for group differences and multigroup analysis by means of structural equation modelling and path analysis to test for differences in effect sizes for the spillover between product brands and corporate brands. Summary of findings The study provides evidence that corporate brand presence in product brand communication affects corporate brand attitude and that a significant effect is observed for the affective component of corporate brand attitude. No significant effect is found for the cognitive component. Other than expected, the findings demonstrate that corporate brand presence of familiar corporate brands in the high-involvement category (FMCGs) leads to affective corporate brand dilution. Consistently and irrespective of category, the results indicate that corporate brand presence leads to affective corporate brand dilution when corporate brand familiarity and product brand familiarity are low or when product brand familiarity and corporate brand familiarity are high. A tendency for affective brand leverage is indicated for unfamiliar corporate brands when product brands are familiar, which however requires further investigation. Moreover, the findings indicate that the degree of spillover effects differs for the two categories as hypothesized. Stronger positive effects occur in the high-involvement category of FMCGs. Key contributions The findings reveal that corporate brand presence affects corporate brand attitude while differentiating between an affective and cognitive component. Such a differentiation is indispensable as affective effects prevail. Furthermore, this study sheds light on category-specific effects. While corporate brands in the FMCG category evoke stronger positive spillover, the negativity effect of corporate brand presence supersedes and results in brand dilution irrespective of product brand familiarity. Independent of category, when product brands and corporate brands are either low in familiarity or high in familiarity, corporate brands suffer from brand dilution. However, brand dilution is not observed when unfamiliar corporate brands appear with familiar product brands indicating potential for brand leverage. The findings of this study provide new insights into the interplay between product brands and corporate brands and offer valuable guidance for brand communication in both categories. Although corporate branding within product brand communication is increasingly being practiced, these results should encourage brand managers to carefully consider whether corporate brand presence enhances brand equity or presents a liability.

The aim of this research is to improve our understanding of the success factors of the front end of innovation (hereinafter, front end) for highly innovative products. Our approach is uncommon in three ways. First, the front end is not considered as a uniform whole, but as consisting of three heterogeneous phases/outcomes, which could require a different mix of resources. Second, a comprehensive range of explanatory factors is scrutinized, including company-, people- and openness-related factors. Third, openness is represented not only by relational breadth and depth, but also relational quality. We examine information originating from two different sources: (1) an ad-hoc survey which provided information from a representative sample of 190 companies, and (2) a secondary data source compiled by the Statistical Office of a regional government in Spain. By using two information sources, we were able to triangulate data and control for validity and common method bias. We found that success in each of the three phases of the front end of new product development is explained by different factors. Relational quality, strategic flexibility and creative culture contribute to the creativity of ideas. The drivers of product definition proficiency appear to be relational quality, technical expertise and creative culture. Finally, front end and technical expertise, leadership and relational depth contribute to project plan proficiency. Overall, our research suggests that empirical studies that consider the front end as a whole and do not consider openness, and, in particular, relational quality, could be misleading.

In the business market, prices are typically subject to negotiation between exchange partners and buyers’ perceptions of the relationships with suppliers have a central role for supplier success and for establishing profitable prices (Hinterhuber & Liozu, 2015). Suppliers that seek to achieve price levels above the average market prices of offerings need to convince buyers of a favorable price/quality ratio (Töytäri, Rajala, & Alejandro, 2015). To date, however, research on absolute prices paid by buyers to suppliers, relative prices paid as compared to the average price level in a product category, or exchange partners’ perceptions of prices charged in business relationships remains limited. Extant work on buyer-supplier relationships has most commonly focused on costs rather than prices as economic outcomes of interest (e.g., Cannon & Homburg, 2001; Kalwani & Narayandas, 1995). The purpose of this research is to deepen the understanding of buyers’ price assessments in business relationships. Specifically, this research seeks to further illuminate how relationship inputs provided by suppliers influence buyers’ assessments of the price level charged and their satisfaction with the price/quality ratio provided by the suppliers. The relationship inputs examined include buyers’ perceptions of supplier relationship-specific investments, long-term orientation, and relationship planning. In addition, this research considers two relationship parameters, that is, buyers’ commitment to the supplier and dependence from the supplier. Based on a sample of executives of different buyer firms, this research examines net effects and combinatory effects of the relationship factors on buyers’ evaluations of economic outlay. While the study of net effects offers insights into the effects of single antecedents on the outcomes across a sample of cases, the analysis of combinatory effects delineates (configurations of) antecedents sufficient for bringing about the outcomes of interest (e.g., Leischnig, Henneberg, & Thornton, 2016). Knowledge of these effects helps assess what relationship inputs and what combinations thereof may act as potential remedies for buyers’ price-related resentment in business The findings of this research show alternative configurations of relationship inputs and relationship characteristics sufficient for the two outcomes of interest. In addition, this research shows that individual relationship inputs and characteristics can have opposite effects on the outcomes, depending on how they combine with other antecedent conditions. Moreover, the results of this research reveal that specific antecedent factors differ in terms of causal coreness for the two outcomes of interest. In summary, these findings add to the net effect analysis and provide a more detailed and nuanced understanding of how relationship attributes impact buyers’ price assessments in business relationships.

The country-of-origin (COO) concept has obtained considerable attention by marketing researchers and managers since its introduction by Schooler in 1965. The relevance of this construct has been underlined by various studies indicating that a product’s COO serves as a signal for product quality, thus driving consumers’ product evaluations (Han & Terpstra, 1988), and consequently coloring their decision-making processes (Herz & Diamantopoulos, 2013). However, “despite a large body of research, country-of-origin effects are still poorly understood” (Verlegh & Steenkamp 1999, p. 521). This view is reiterated by Jaffe and Nebenzahl (2006) and Knight and Calantone (2001) who argue that academicians have so far not been able to provide an integrative theoretical framework capable of explaining the country-of-origin concept and the effects it has on behavioral intentions. The lacking consensus on a formalized and theory-based framework has resulted in various and often inconsistent views on the conceptualization of the COO concept (Laroche, Papadopoulos, Heslop & Mourali, 2005; Roth & Diamantopoulos, 2009). More specifically, several researchers view COO as a cognitive mental construct, consisting of associations, attributes and beliefs which consumers link to a particular manufacturing country (e.g. Gürhan-Canli & Maheswaran, 2000). However, other researchers propose to include not only cognitive but also affective components in the COO concept (e.g. Häubl, 1996). Further, studies also differ on the question whether COO should be viewed as a host of various beliefs (e.g. Martin & Eroglu, 1993) or rather as an overall evaluative attitudinal construct (e.g. Kotler, Haider & Rein, 1993). To complicate things further, existing studies also only loosely define whether COO should be conceptualized as a mental construct or rather as an effect that stems from a mental construct (Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999). As a consequence, this conceptual ambiguity within the COO literature has yielded different operationalization for the measurement of the COO construct. As a consequence, and perhaps not surprisingly, the empirical work on COO has often resulted in conflicting findings (e.g. Pappu, Queste & Cooksey, 2006), limiting the advancement of the whole research area and making it harder for managers to apply it. Existing research (Josiassen, Lukas, Whitwell & Assaf, 2013) has addressed the conceptual ambiguity of COO by providing a framework for the macro-structure, explaining how different units of analysis relate to each other. However, researchers’ 1) fk.marktg@cbs.dkIntroduction The country-of-origin (COO) concept has obtained considerable attention by marketing researchers and managers since its introduction by Schooler in 1965. The relevance of this construct has been underlined by various studies indicating that a product’s COO serves as a signal for product quality, thus driving consumers’ product evaluations (Han & Terpstra, 1988), and consequently coloring their decision-making processes (Herz & Diamantopoulos, 2013). However, “despite a large body of research, country-of-origin effects are still poorly understood” (Verlegh & Steenkamp 1999, p. 521). This view is reiterated by Jaffe and Nebenzahl (2006) and Knight and Calantone (2001) who argue that academicians have so far not been able to provide an integrative theoretical framework capable of explaining the country-of-origin concept and the effects it has on behavioral intentions. The lacking consensus on a formalized and theory-based framework has resulted in various and often inconsistent views on the conceptualization of the COO concept (Laroche, Papadopoulos, Heslop & Mourali, 2005; Roth & Diamantopoulos, 2009). More specifically, several researchers view COO as a cognitive mental construct, consisting of associations, attributes and beliefs which consumers link to a particular manufacturing country (e.g. Gürhan-Canli & Maheswaran, 2000). However, other researchers propose to include not only cognitive but also affective components in the COO concept (e.g. Häubl, 1996). Further, studies also differ on the question whether COO should be viewed as a host of various beliefs (e.g. Martin & Eroglu, 1993) or rather as an overall evaluative attitudinal construct (e.g. Kotler, Haider & Rein, 1993). To complicate things further, existing studies also only loosely define whether COO should be conceptualized as a mental construct or rather as an effect that stems from a mental construct (Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999). As a consequence, this conceptual ambiguity within the COO literature has yielded different operationalization for the measurement of the COO construct. As a consequence, and perhaps not surprisingly, the empirical work on COO has often resulted in conflicting findings (e.g. Pappu, Queste & Cooksey, 2006), limiting the advancement of the whole research area and making it harder for managers to apply it. Existing research (Josiassen, Lukas, Whitwell & Assaf, 2013) has addressed the conceptual ambiguity of COO by providing a framework for the macro-structure, explaining how different units of analysis relate to each other. However, researchers’Information about a COO is not only hold at the aggregated level, as reflected by CI, but may also be manifested through various, potentially unrelated beliefs, that individuals link with a particular country-of-origin. Attitude researchers widely agree on the notionInformation about a COO is not only hold at the aggregated level, as reflected by CI, but may also be manifested through various, potentially unrelated beliefs, that individuals link with a particular country-of-origin. Attitude researchers widely agree on the notionIn conclusion, we propose that the myriad of conceptual views on the COO concept can be theoretically integrated in a formalized model (Figure 1). Thus, instead of viewing the different conceptualizations on COO as conflicting, we show that they are indeed complementary, and can be understood by applying seminal psychology literature. The model also provides conceptual structure to the interactions between the three35 components, as well as enhancing our understanding how mental representations form behavioural intentions (Ajzen, 2001; Eagly et al., 1994).

Consumer ethnocentrism (CET) has been widely research in various marketing contexts since the construct was identified by Shimp and Sharma (1987) in their seminal paper. The central tenet of consumer ethnocentrism theory is that consumer ethnocentrism will have a negative effect on foreign product purchase intention and a positive effect on willingness to purchase home country products. So far, the role of satisfaction has not been integrated into the CET model. The satisfaction-repurchase relationship has also received considerable attention in the marketing literature whereby satisfaction is found to have a direct positive effect on repeat purchase. Anecdotal evidence suggests that both satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism will have a joint effect on willingness to repurchase a home country product, especially when foreign competitor products are seen as a threat in the domestic markets. However, it remains unclear how satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism jointly affect purchase intentions. In this research we examine the dynamics of the two constructs. This study considers South Korean consumers’ willingness to repurchase the Samsung Galaxy smartphone and examine the interrelationship among the above variables. The findings of the study suggest that consumer ethnocentrism moderates the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship or vice versa and satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism are mutual cooperative suppressors for repurchase intention. This study highlights that the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on repurchase intention will be stronger when consumers are satisfied with the product.

The concept of customer orientation (CO) has been studied for quite a long time at first as a major part of market orientation and then as a separate construct. For emerging market the role of CO became paramount with the shift from the planned to the market economy. However, after more than two decades of transition Russian companies are still demonstrating rather a claim of being customer orientation, instead of implementing a long-term orientation towards customer. This paper focuses on reconsidering applying the Narver and Slater (1990) approach to conceptualizing and measuring customer orientation, and its empirical test and validation in the context of Russian economy. This study is based on data from two empirical studies on Russian companies, conducted during the pre-crisis (2008) and post-crisis (2010) period. Our results reveal that existing theory on customer orientation is not fully confirmed by the evidence from Russian companies.

The current situation of the nanopowders production technology based on the process of electrical explosion of wires is described. The advantages and disadvantages of the electroexplosive technology are indicated. The results of studies characterizing the effect of the electrical explosion conditions on the nanopowders properties are presented, including latest results: conditions of nanopowders passivation, conditions of nanopowders production having narrow size distribution, the methods of nanopowders diagnostic and standartization. In addition, the application and area of future research on this technology are proposed.

Magnetars are neutron stars possessing a magnetic field of about 1014-1015 G at the surface. Thermodynamic properties of neutron star matter, approximated by pure neutron matter, are considered at finite temperature in strong magnetic fields up to 1018 G which could be relevant for the inner regions of magnetars. In the model with the Skyrme effective interaction, it is shown that a thermodynamically stable branch of solutions for the spin polarization parameter corresponds to the case when the majority of neutron spins are oriented opposite to the direction of the magnetic field (i.e. negative spin polarization). Moreover, starting from some threshold density, the self-consistent equations have also two other branches of solutions, corresponding to positive spin polarization. The influence of finite temperatures on spin polarization remains moderate in the Skyrme model up to temperatures relevant for protoneutron stars. In particular, the scenario with the metastable state characterized by positive spin polarization, considered at zero temperature in Phys. Rev. C 80, 065801 (2009), is preserved at finite temperatures as well. It is shown that, above certain density, the entropy for various branches of spin polarization in neutron matter with the Skyrme interaction in a strong magnetic field shows the unusual behavior, being larger than that of the nonpolarized state. By providing the corresponding low-temperature analysis, we prove that this unexpected behavior should be related to the dependence of the entropy of a spin polarized state on the effective masses of neutrons with spin up and spin down, and to a certain constraint on them which is violated in the respective density range.

본 연구는 신흥 글로벌 대학교로써 필리핀 대학의 가상 캠퍼스이자 5번째 구성 단위인 필리핀 개방대학(UPOU)을 중심으로 지식기반 시대의 평생교육에 관한 새로운 경향에 대해 조사한 연구이다.필리핀 개방대학(UPOU)의 경험을 기반으로 본다면, 평생 학습은 본래 온라인 학습의 영향을받을 것임이 분명하다. 새로운 시대의 온라인 학습은 확장적이며 학습자 중심이 될 것이다. 그것은 교수자와 튜터의 개념을 멘토와 코치의 개념으로 대체할 것이다. 게다가 신 시대에서의평생 학습은 지리학적, 규율적, 그리고 유형적 경계간의 흔들림을 보여 줄 것이다. 국제어로서의 영어에 대한 통용 등으로 초국가적 교육이 더욱 지배적일 것이다. 또한 지식 분야간 경계들은 허물어질 것이다. 특정 노동시장의 요구를 반영한 특별한 프로그램의 형태를 지닌 초지식적융합교육이 부상하게 될 것이다. 직업교육의 기초, 고등, 기술 교육과 같이 형식적 교육, 비형식적 교육 그리고 무형식 교육 간의 엄격한 경계들은 이러한 교육의 형태들 사이의 밀접한 소통에 따라 이제는 허물어질 것이다. 더욱이 프로그램들은 다양한 시작점과 종료점을 보일 것이다.자유입학제도, 자유 교육기간, 그리고 학습자원에 대한 공개 등과 같은 교육관리적 접근에서 뚜렷하게 나타날 개방교육은 또 하나의 새로운 경향이다. 게다가 유비쿼터스 환경은 평생 학습에서 주요 경향이 될 것이다. 학습은 넷북과 이동전화와 같은 단말기와 클라우드 컴퓨팅, 그리고WiFi와 WiMAX 서비스 등을 통해서 언제 어디서든 일어날 수 있는 것이다.마지막으로, 본 연구지를 통해 평생 학습 수요자들의 변화에 관한 이야기를 나누고자 한다. 이전에는 평생 학습의 기회들이 교육에의 접근이 근본 이슈였던 외곽 지역의 극빈자들을 위한 것이었다. 평생학습은 교육의 기회가 동등히 부여되지 않았던 소외층, 과년(過年)층, 그리고 여성들을 대상으로 하여왔다. 이제는 새로운 전달 체제의 결과로써 부유층, 전문가, 그리고 고등 교육자들이 소외층보다 더 많이 평생 학습의 기회를 활용하고 있다.