By merging Bourdieu's cultural capital with self-determination theory, this study aims to better understand smoking cessation behaviour in Egypt. The results demonstrate that the accumulation of cultural capital satisfies three fundamental needs, contributes to the self-determination theory's motivating forms, and serves as an independent cause for smoking cessation in Egypt.
The purpose of this study is to investigated occupational accidents of child care worker. We surveyed 392 childcare worker to investigate their experience of occupational accidents. Fifteen percent of the respondents from occupational accdients survey for child care workers reported that they had experienced more than one occupational accident, but mostly did not claim Occupational Safety and Health Insurance. We suggested policy tasks to improve system for protecting child care workers.
Every year consumers spend billions of dollars on impulse purchases across the globe. Noticeably, occasions for impulse buying have been expanding due to new technologies and the growth of e-commerce that enhanced both the consumer’s accessibility to products and the ease of purchase transactions (e.g., one-click purchase) (Strack and Deutsch 2006). For instance, the retail store have become ubiquitous—being present on our desktop, in our mailbox, on our phone, in subway platform, in gas station kiosks—and reaching every street corner in our neighborhood. Such ubiquitous nature of mobile commerce combined with the introduction of IT devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets) makes consumers even more vulnerable to the sudden, powerful, and persistent urge to buy something instantly (i.e. impulse buying) (Rook 1987; Watson et al. 2002; Danaher et al. 2015). From the perspective of firms, this indicates that marketing opportunities to influence shopper attitudes and behavior can emerge at any point in the shopping cycle from the couch in a person’s living room to the shopping cart in mobile devices and media (Shankar et al. 2010; 2011). While impulse buying has been a well-known approach to explaining empirical deviations from the rational choice model in the literature (Strack et al. 2006), previous researchers have mainly focused on antecedents of impulsive behaviors, such as mood (Rook and Gardner 1993), self-construal (Zhang and Shrum 2009), chronic goals (Ramanathan and Menon 2006) and consumers’ self-loneliness (Sinha and Wang 2013). However, relatively little has been studied on what factors drive consumers to purchase products impulsively and how firms can utilize marketing activities (e.g., 4Ps) to engage consumers in such behavior. There exist a few studies paying attention to the interaction of individual characteristics and marketing variables for impulse buying (e.g., Bell et al. 2010; Inman et al. 2009; Narasimhan et al. 1996) but several issues still can arise from measurement problems, self-selection, lack of marketing variables, and limited breadth of product categories. In particular, researchers have used the term ―unplanned‖ purchases exchangeably with impulse purchases despite a conceptual distinction between the two terms: impulse buying is defined with three key components; unplanned, difficult to control, and resulting in emotional response (Rook 1987). In other words, mostly all impulse purchases are unplanned, but not all unplanned purchases are impulse buys and we cannot rule out other alternative explanations (e.g., it is a ―reminder‖ purchase based on true needs). In this study, therefore, we aim to differentiate two terms and investigate the consumers’ impulsive purchase behaviors using the actual behavioral data with respect to product characteristics, customer demographics, timing and controllable marketing activities such as advertising. We obtained the data from one of the leading TV shopping channels in Korea on 2,657 products and 17,848 air time slots covering a broader range of both hedonic and utilitarian products including electronics, food, fashion, home appliances, and so on (7.8 million orders and 2 million order cancels). Unlike typical supermarket shopping where consumers can actively search products, programming on TV shopping channels are shown randomly to viewers which helps us rule out self-selection problems. Most importantly, distinct from previous studies, we use an objective measure for impulse buying by exploiting the actual order placement and subsequent order cancellation (i.e., regret with retrospective judgment about purchase decisions). We find that product characteristics are the primary factors explaining the half (60.5%) of impulse purchase ratio variations followed by marketing variables (20.4%), and timing fixed effects (10.9%). Interestingly, we find little evidence of consumer demographics (1%) as a driver for impulsive buying behavior. Consequently, we focus on the interplay between product categories and marketing activities. Specifically, we classified the product categories into utilitarian and hedonic on the basis of the gross product categories and investigated the roles of two main marketing activities: advertising and price promotion. We find that the informative and persuasive roles of advertising (Akerberg 2003; Mehta et al. 2004) lead to a U-shaped effect on impulse purchases over time as the informative role attenuates over time but the persuasive role increases over time. While utilitarian products are more likely to be influenced by informative role of advertising and hedonic goods are more likely to be influenced by persuasive role of advertising, we detect that the U shape would be moved to the left (right) with a price discount (increase). In other words, price information does not change over time but the persuasive role increases over time with a price discount. Hence, our results can provide managerial insights for retailers and manufacturers to utilize point-of-sale marketing tactics and to improve their shopper engagement strategies to trigger impulse purchases.
In order to identify effective approaches for creating more viral Facebook posts, this research conducted an empirical content analysis of leading Korean brands' Facebook fan-pages (Samsung Mobile, SK Telecom, Kia Motors, and POSCO). Their distinctive visual storytelling and communication patterns were investigated as effective user engagement triggers. Through analysis of the research results, it was statistically proved that the different industrial attributes of the four brands, which are primarily characterized by their product (or service) types, affect their Facebook posting patterns by showing different engaging rates (measured by like, comment, and share metrics). In addition, the user engagement rates of the posts were influenced by their visual storytelling factors (i.e. ad objective, value scale, and visual media types). In line with these statistical findings, the distinctive visual storytelling strategies of the four brands were identified. Moreover, competitive and uncompetitive visual storytelling tactics were suggested according to the ad objectives and visual media types on Facebook.
State of the Art: Sustainability Integration in the Luxury Fashion Industry Introduction to Luxury Fashion ‘Luxury’, which comes from the Latin word ‘luxus’, refers to exaggerated life, glamour, comfort and wealth (Dubois, Czellar & Laurent, 2005). In the ancient world, luxury was associated with wealth, exclusivity, and power. After the 17th century, European countries’ economic democratization contributed to the reduction of existing sumptuary laws. Trade increased and larger segments of the population began to afford luxury products. Consequently, luxury moved from being limited to serve the common good to being a satisfaction of private needs. At the end of the 19th century, following the second industrial revolution, luxury earned its modern meaning of being enjoyable beyond the necessities of life (Fionda and Moore, 2009). The democratization of luxury resulted in mass luxury in which luxury brands have extended themselves to affordable offerings (Cristini et al., 2017). Luxury was long associated with the premium quality (Brun and Castelli, 2013), whereas today the technical reproduction of luxury is indulged by mass-produced brands (Cristini et al, 2017). Thus, one could argue that commercial drivers have taken over the industry whereby executives are increasingly seeking ways to transform creativity into profitability. Accordingly, the luxury market has experienced noticeable growth. The global luxury goods market reached a value of € 1.081B, with a growth rate of 4%, in 2016 (Bain & Company, 2016). Nevertheless, despite growth and high profit margins, the global fashion market is affected by macroeconomic, socio-political and natural events. For example, the short-term doubling in cotton prices brought many problems in 2011. Furthermore, scarce natural resources and rising commodity prices greatly challenge the ability of luxury fashion companies to remain profitable. The new luxury paradigm of being more accessible challenges not only sustainability but also operational aspects. The reputation of the luxury industry suffers from consumer concerns over poor labour standards in production, blood diamonds, irresponsible gold-mining practices and animal cruelty in global production networks (Hennigs et al, 2013; Moore, 2011). We therefore question how and to what extent luxury could play a positive role in our mass-consuming generation to slow down the pace for materialism and to better implement sustainability in globally dispersed production networks. Whilst sociologists, marketing and branding experts, have shown interest in luxury management, researchers in the field of operations and supply chain management have paid little attention to the topic: the first paper in the field appeared less than a decade ago (Brun et al., 2008), and furthermore, as of January 2017, there appear to be only 87 papers published in Scopus-indexed journals with ‘‘supply chain OR oper*’’ AND ‘’luxury’’ in the keywords. Henceforth, the current financial, environmental, economic and cultural crises could be considered significant drivers for how luxury operations could be advanced in the move toward sustainability. The focus of this paper is luxury personal goods such as fashion and accessories. The Relevance of Sustainability for Luxury Fashion Following the supply chain revolution of the 1990’s (Mohanty and Prakash, 2013) and the removal of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement in 2005, the fashion industry has become a global force in production and distribution. Globalisation has led to increasing outsourcing of production by fashion companies to a network of suppliers and subcontractors. The industry is characterized by shorter product life cycles and highly volatile market demand (Choi, 2013) alongside downward price pressure, international sourcing, high product variety and low predictability (Perry and Towers, 2013). To this end, fashion companies rely on sophisticated information and logistics systems to remain competitive in the market. Nonetheless, the fashion industry is somewhat inflexible toward major external changes outside the organizations’ direct control (Kozlowski et al., 2015). There is also a potential conflict between corporate responsibility and overarching commercial pressures in the fashion industry (Perry et al., 2015). According to the definition of sustainable development by The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987), current needs should be met without endangering future generations’ rights to satisfy theirs. Luxury fashion companies must therefore acknowledging resource scarcity and other sustainability issues, and take collective actions for an authentic shift to create unique and sustainable businesses. To be profitable and sustainable, “luxury companies must adjust their definition of excellence that is no longer associated with shallow glamour but with positive engagement and deeper values” (Hennigs et al, 2013, p.33). An Overview of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) Sustainability in SCM has captured academics’ interest since the early 1990s. Despite the growing interest, some fundamental issues still need to be addressed to provide novel models. The majority of the practices that make up green supply chain management (GSCM) models are modifications of existing practices (Pagell and Wu, 2009). However, earlier studies also stress that these programs might not be sufficient to become sustainable. Hence, it would be insightful to examine which components and which practices are required to make ‘sustainable’ chains. Social sustainability also requires deeper consideration. Wu and Pagell (2011) investigated how organizations deal with short-term pressures to remain economically viable during sustainability implementation, but did not consider social aspects of sustainability. Lee and Klassen (2008) identified the important drivers and enablers which promote environmental management capabilities in SME suppliers, but did not address social sustainability or specific measures for suppliers’ environmental management capabilities. Zhu and Cote (2004) and Vachon and Klassen (2006) demonstrated how to extend green practices, but again social aspects were not encompassed. Similarly, Caniato et al (2012) identified drivers that push companies to adopt green practices, various practices that could be used to advance environmental sustainability and environmental performance indicators measured by fashion companies. However, the social component was excluded. The recognition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a business activity is highlighted by the launch of ISO 26000; nonetheless, as illustrated earlier, extant SCM literature has mostly neglected the social aspects of sustainability. Despite a number of studies on aspects including social responsibility and consumer trust (Castaldo et al., 2008), sustainability reporting (Lozano and Huisingh, 2011), sustainable supply management (Ageron, Gunasekaran, & Spalanzani, 2012), and supplier selection problems (Jia et al., 2015), social issues demand more investigation (Perry and Towers, 2013). Sustaining an efficient global supply chain without compromising social responsibility (Perry et al., 2015). Embedding social and environmental management into SCM is needed yet challenging. Significant progress has been made in studies of the buyer-supplier relationship over the past decades, however despite some notable exceptions on green SCM (Zhu and Cote 2004; Zhu et al. 2008; Yu et al. 2014), the development of SSCM literature appears to focus on a single entity rather than the entire chain or network. Social and environmental performance of suppliers is an area of mounting concern, and collectively, sufficient coordination between supply chain partners is greatly needed. Many small and medium-sized suppliers encounter challenges in responding to environmental pressures due to limited capabilities and available resources (Lee and Klassen, 2008), and the most critical environmental and social issues in supply chains are generated by suppliers located in the second tier or further upstream (Tachizawa and Wong, 2014). Therefore, a holistic examination of the entire chain is required. In this vein, Pagell and Wu (2009) examined the chain as an entirety by explicitly addressing both environmental and social outcomes and by asking what unique behavioural patterns are needed for SSCM. However, the adoption of some of the practices is quite limited, which suggests the existence of additional contingencies. Their study called for future studies to explore the role of specific industries e.g. textiles. To this end, Ho and Choi (2012) investigated why fashion companies go green and evaluated sustainable supply chains. Nevertheless, the study was a single case study and did not consider potential differences in terms of antecedents affecting small and large companies. Curwen et al. (2013), interestingly, sought to document current challenges the fashion and apparel industry faces while developing sustainable apparel. Yet again, an imperative need arises to further explore the connections among product design, production processes and supply chain stages through a multidisciplinary approach. On the whole, the phenomena of sustainability has been interpreted in a variety of ways, ranging from a philosophical perspective to business management approaches (Ahi and Searcy, 2013), but more research is needed to show more than how to be ‘less unsustainable’. Traditional business research must go beyond studies focusing on profit with a rather short-term orientation and instead embrace components of how to create truly sustainable businesses. Considering the aforementioned gaps observed in the extant literature, the following research questions were formulated to investigate the phenomena of social and environmental sustainability at supply chain level within the luxury context, where ethical aspects are becoming increasingly critical for success (Brun and Castelli, 2013). RQ1: How do luxury fashion companies integrate sustainability into their supply networks? RQ2: How do contingent factors impact sustainability integration in luxury fashion supply networks? RQ3: Which behavioural patterns could be used to develop a sustainable supply chain configuration for the luxury fashion industry? Research Methodology Data was drawn from case studies of two Italian supply chains producing luxury silk and leather goods, encompassing 10 companies, with a focus on the individual supply chain as the level of analysis. These two supply chain were theoretically sampled to provide diversity in organizational characteristics and supply network relationships that could explain different approaches to the integration of sustainability into the entire chain. The research design followed Yin (1994) and previous studies in operations and SCM. Face to face interviews were conducted with senior managers of different functions in each supply chain during 2015-16. In most of the companies, responsibility for sustainability was divided and integrated into the jobs of multiple managers, meaning that there was no single individual assigned to sustainability. Additionally, the managers interviewed were often in charge of one or more functions, which helped reduce the number of interviews but increased interview content. The interview topic guide was developed from the literature review, and the theoretical constructs underpinning the interview protocol were then used to create an initial coding scheme for data. Data analysis was done inductively, by developing a framework from the cases while exploiting the theoretical concepts in the categorization of codes. The coding process was followed for all cases as an iterative process to assure consistency. Coding was not considered complete until a consensus was reached on each construct. Data analysis involved within and cross-case analysis. Results: Toward a Framework for Sustainable Luxury Supply Chains This study explored the luxury fashion industry from supply chain and operations management standpoint. Findings revealed seven key categories by which luxury fashion companies integrated environmental and social sustainability into their operations: Category 1: Sustainable product design, Category 2: Operations management, Category 3: Performance measurement, Category 4: Sourcing management, Category 5: Decent work and labour management, Category 6: Commitment to sustainability and organisational perceptions and Category 7: Longevity of suppliers. Firstly, natural resource scarcity was acknowledged by all 10 companies. To this end, some practices, including use of eco-friendly materials, hazardous chemical elimination, textile waste reuse, were applied to the fashion design stage with an attempt to mitigate the environmental impact of subsequent operations. Life cycle assessment (LCA was observed to be a significant tool among sample companies. Nonetheless, higher investment costs to employ more innovative solutions and to advance laboratory tests, higher prices for more ecological materials, and lack of knowledge in terms of fibre and textile components due to supply chain complexity prevented companies from advancing product stewardship. Regarding operations management, water emerged as a significant area where sample companies implemented incremental techniques, including natural tanning, on-site wastewater treatment, water purification and water reuse. Nevertheless, vertical integration, which was getting weaker in the luxury fashion industry, resulted in fashion companies having difficulties in the execution of their suppliers’ environmental performance. Practices implemented in this category were individual company attempts rather than collective action plans. It was not quite feasible to mitigate the environmental impact of independent networks where the buying firm outsourced its business functions to third party suppliers. In order to deal with lack of control and monitoring, sustainability must be understood as a concept to be integrated into the core business strategy with measurable indicators. Furthermore, traceability emerged as a pivotal topic. However, the complexity of global luxury fashion supply chains brought complications. Both supply chains showed that there was lack of knowledge about products’ production history. Due to globalization, countries with low operational costs appeared to leverage their competitive advantage. Changing market conditions resulted in the loss of, for example, silk production in Italy. Silkworm cultivation did not take place in Italy any longer, resulting in confusion regarding outsourced materials’ environmental and social records. High product variety and fragmentation of the production network made it difficult for companies to ensure full traceability. To this end, trust and knowledge transfer were weak, which could be improved to link non-economic goals with financial objectives. Another interesting result was that supplier audits were mostly made within first tier direct suppliers’ facilities. In some cases suppliers were provided with online self-assessment tools that were monitored by buying firms. Yet, buying firms and manufacturers required more efficient inspection methods and more realistic mitigation strategies. Ensuring social sustainability is hindered by complications such as lack of visibility and financial burdens. Consequently, technical and motivational dynamic capability development needed to be proactively initiated by focal companies. As stressed by earlier studies, sustainability must be a shared effort within all functions of a company and across its supply network. Sustainability could be disseminated across the chain only when all supply chain actors, including retailers, suppliers and sub-contractors, connect, understand and collaborate with each other. Correspondingly, it became clear that sustainability management required strong organizational commitment for which an alignment between financial and non-financial goals was greatly required. Hence, education and training activities received growing attention. In conclusion, the sample companies asked their supply chain partners to become sustainable for two main reasons, (i) to make the chain stronger, and (ii) to jointly learn and improve performance. Long-term relationships and supplier stability, as evidenced in the leather supply chains, could cultivate trust, which would result in advanced organizational and operational performance improvements. Supplier engagement and collaboration associated with knowledge dissemination could further enable companies to improve sustainability, and lastly innovation capabilities were imperative.
Purpose: While many consumers claim to include ethical considerations in their consumption behavior, only a small fraction adheres to these self-made standards. For example, although two thirds of consumers polled by Nielsen in 2015 in thirteen countries stated to be willing to pay more for sustainable brands only ten percent actually purchased this type of product. Even if responsibly produced products still only account for a small share of the market they represent a pervasive marketing phenomenon that merits further scientific research. The so-called attitude-behavior-gap has received a considerable amount of attention not only in the business context, but also in scientific marketing research. Nevertheless, previous studies commonly discussed responsible consumption from an information-processing perspective concentrating on the rational and goal-directed side of responsible consumption. What is still largely missing, though, is the consideration of emotions as drivers or influencing factors for consumer responsibility, even though the few existing studies suggest a positive influence. This holds especially true for the self-conscious emotions of guilt and pride. Furthermore, the few studies at hand generally focus on non-durable goods like tea, coffee or juice and leave a research gap with regard to durable products like fashion items. Thus, the aim of this study is to further investigate the influence of self-conscious emotions on responsible consumption in the context of the fashion industry. Specifically, the influence of the two emotions guilt and pride as well as the influence of social visibility on the consumer’s decision-making and purchasing process shall be investigated.
Design/methodology/approach: A mixed method approach containing qualitative and quantitative methods is applied. While in-depth interviews and focus groups with fashion consumers shed light on potential influencing factors and outcomes of self-conscious emotions, a scenario-based experiment further validates these results on influence of guilt and pride in the context of responsible consumption. The experiment follows a 2 (negative vs. positive responsibility outcome) x 2 (social vs. no social visibility) design and is conducted via online questionnaires.
Findings: Experiences of self-conscious emotions provide feedback on past behavior that ultimately leads to a revised behavior linked to consumer responsibility in the future. Specifically, pride (guilt) can potentially lead to increased (diminished) word-of-mouth and purchase intentions.
Research limitations/implications: Limitations lie in the type of research design as a scenario-based experiment was chosen for the quantitative study. Future research should investigate the topic at hand with a field study, ideally with a suitable partner from the industry. Another limitation lies in the examination of only one industry that strongly differs from other industries. Further investigations should compare the self-conscious emotions’ impacts on different types of industries.
Practical implications: The current research provides suggestions on the adequate use of communications to promote sustainable fashion brands and to develop according campaigns that elicit emotional reactions from consumers. Furthermore, although guilt and pride refer to past behavior, they can nevertheless be used by management to influence future consumer actions, e.g. choice of responsibly produced garments as opposed to conventional ones. Incentives for successful word-of-mouth of sustainable fashion brands could strengthen this effect. Additionally, the final results deliver insights on whether social visibility should be increased (e.g. through offerings in offline channels) or rather reduced (e.g. through promotions in online channels).
Originality/value: This study closes a research gap by investigating consumer responsibility not from an information-processing, but an emotion-based perspective. It furthermore complements research on emotions in the context of responsible consumption by investigating durable products, namely fashion items, that differ strongly from previously examined product groups like tea or coffee.
This paper investigates how pricing actions of base and multiple add-on products sequentially offered in the marketplace affect their sales with a consideration of the interactive price relationships between base and add-on products and among multiple add-on products, as well as a moderating role of product characteristics.
Most religious teachings support the idea that money and materialism are at the root of all evil. However, reality is not so rigorous and many times materialism seems even a blessing. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare religious and non-religious consumer on their perspective toward materialism, and through it, luxury brand and purchase intention. The total sample consisted of 491 university Asian students. Results show that religious consumers are not necessarily against neither materialism nor luxury brand possession. Consumers’ religiosity did not influence their perspective toward materialism or luxury goods. This creates an opportunity for managers to promote luxury brand toward religious consumers especially in Asia, where religion is more prevalent.
This study investigates (1) how promotion activities in intra-firm and inter-firm levels influence customers’ total spending amount (revenue) and (2) how customer- and firm-generated online information influences revenue directly and indirectly in luxury hotel industry.
본 연구에서는 브라질에 진출할 때 한국기업들이 선택하는 운영모드의 결정요인을 알아보고자 하였다. 비즈니 스 네트워크 관점에 근거하여, 기존의 해외 자회사를 통해 얻을 수 있는 혜택을 잘 활용할 수 있는 운영모드를 선택할 것이라는 가설을 설정하였다. 이를 위해, 구축되어 있는 비즈니스 네트워크를 지역 및 국가수준으로 구분 하였으며, 운영모드는 국제화과정에서 자원의 투입 및 위험의 정도가 가장 큰 두 개의 모드, 즉 판매법인 모드와 생산법인 모드에 초점을 맞추었다. 1개 이상의 해외 자회사를 가진 241개의 한국기업을 대상으로 실증 분석한 결과, 기존의 해외자회사들을 통해 구축한 비즈니스 네트워크가 브라질 운영모드 선택에 미치는 영향은, 그 비즈 니스 네트워크를 구축한 지역과 국가에 따라 다른 것으로 나타났다. 추가분석의 결과, 지식이전에 대해서 문화적 거리가 지닐 수 있는 부정적 영향은 해외 비즈니스 네트워크의 심화 정도에 따라 감소 될 수도 있다는 것을 알 수 있었다. 이러한 실증결과는 국제화와 관련된 위험과 불확실성에 대처하기 위한 수단으로 해외 비즈니스 네트 워크가 중요하며, 해외 비즈니스 네트워크와 지식이전의 관계를 연구함에 있어서 네트워크의 존재여부와 그 심화 정도를 함께 고려하는 것이 필요하다는 시사점을 제공해 주고 있다.
전반적인 경영환경의 글로벌화가 진전되고 기업의 국제 활동이 더욱 증가함에 따라 서비스기업들의 국제 활동 도 증가하고 있다. 다국적 기업의 해외시장 진입방식 선택 문제는 국제화 전략과 관련된 가장 중요한 의사결정 영역 중의 하나이다. 서비스기업에 있어서도 이러한 연구주제에 대한 학자들의 관심이 비교적 많은 편이지만, 서 비스기업 중 외식서비스기업에 대한 연구는 그 해외진출 활동 현황에 비해 아직 부족한 실정이다. 본 연구는 제조업과 구별되는 서비스 특성을 지닌 한국 외식서비스기업을 대상으로 해외시장 진입방식 및 경영 통제수준 결정요인이라는 연구주제를 고찰하고 실증적으로 분석하였다. 84개 기업, 103개 브랜드, 246개 해외 진출 건수를 표본으로 설문조사하여 얻은 107개(응답률 43.5%) 자료에 대한 로짓과 회귀분석 결과 진입방식과 경영 통제수준의 결정요인은 상당히 다르게 나타났다. 한국 외식서비스기업의 해외시장 진입방식 결정에는 서비스의 종류, 경쟁우위, 기업의 규모 등이 통계적으로 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났으며, 경영 통제수준에는 경쟁우위, 국제 경험, 문화적 거리, 시장기회, 최고 경영자의 마인드 등이 영향을 미치는 것으로 분석되었다. 이는 진입방식과 경영 통제수준 사이의 관련성에도 불구하고 이 둘에 대한 연구 접근 방식이 달라야 함을 의미하기도 한다.
This paper describes how customer asset management can influence the profit and loss and the balance-sheet drivers of shareholder value. The authors argue that economic profit should be used as a measure of shareholder value creation because the former acknowledges both operating and financial expenses and allows analysis of individual customer relationships. The developed framework suggests that the drivers of shareholder value can be divided into four main categories: revenue, cost, asset utilization, and risk. The paper identifies 13 distinct roles for customer asset management that influence the four shareholder value drivers. The empirical research consists of three longitudinal B2B case studies describing customer asset management aimed at improving shareholder value creation. The findings of the empirical research suggest that B2B firms are able to acknowledge all suggested four shareholder value drivers. Findings also suggest that firms should differentiate their customer management concepts in order to move customer asset management beyond traditional acquisition–retention optimization.
This study investigates the role of knowledge sharing in the development of relationship capabilities, focusing on the interaction between exporting organizations and their foreign partners. Knowledge sharing can be defined as the activities of how to assist communities of people work together, facilitating the exchange of their knowledge, enhancing organizational learning capacity, and increasing their ability to attain individual and organizational goals. Knowledge sharing facilitates the development of innovative ideas, creates new business opportunities through the learning process of knowledge workers, and increases the ability of employees to achieve individual and organizational objectives. The exchange of information and knowledge is crucially important in an export marketing context, as a result of the increasing complexity and volatility of the international business environment and the information asymmetry between exporters and their foreign distributors. Knowledge sharing between the two parties enables exporters to gain a better understanding of local market conditions and develop appropriate products that fit the needs and preferences of end-user customers. In an effort to fill an important gap in the export marketing literature, the present study develops and empirically tests a conceptual model of the organizational factors that stimulate the adoption of an export knowledge sharing behavior, the relationship between export knowledge sharing behavior and export relationship capabilities, and the resulting positive outcomes for exporting organizations. The study develops seven research hypotheses, which are then tested using data collected from a sample of Greek direct exporters by means of an online survey. The key informant in this study is the head of exporting activities (hereafter referred to as export executive). The study employs available guidelines in the literature regarding the collection of high quality data from key informants, questionnaire design, and measure development and validation. The data analysis procedure involves the assessment of the psychometric properties of the measurement scales and the estimation of a structural equation model. Study findings provide support for all seven research hypotheses. More specifically, results indicate that the prevalence of an organizational culture that supports knowledge sharing is an important factor that enhances the adoption of export knowledge sharing behavior by export executives. Similarly, export executives’ attitudes towards knowledge sharing have a positive effect on their knowledge sharing behavior. Organizational culture and export knowledge sharing behavior have a positive influence on an exporting organization’s relationship capabilities. In turn, export relationship capabilities have a significant positive effect on export product advantage and export market performance. Finally, a strong positive relationship is evident between export product advantage and export market performance.
공장의 생산력을 향상하기 위하여, 현재 많은 공장에서는 동시에 TPM & TQM을 진행하고 있다. 이러한 활동을 통하여 제품의 품질을 향상하고, 원가를 절감하고, 납기를 단축하며, 생산의 유연성을 확보한다. 본 논문은 한국의 제조업에 대한 설문조사를 통하여 TPM 및 TQM과 생산 실행 요인 사이의 관계를 분석함으로써, 적극적으로 제조업에서 생산력을 향상하고 촉진할 수 있는 요인을 얻는 것이다.
Global strategic marketing planning has become increasingly important with the advent of worldwide competition and the growing rapidity of change in the international marketplace. In this article, research and commentaries from the strategic management and international marketing planning literatures are synthesized into a model examining what factors influence global strategic marketing planning formality, and what direct and indirect benfits accrue from the process. Responses from 90 multinational corporations were subjected to a LISREL analysis and correlation analyses. Organizational climate, supply chain element, foreign regulations and competition were identified as key determinants of global strategic marketing planning formality. Considerable direct: and indirect benefits also accrue as planning formality increases.
The role of customers has changed from that of passive users to value co-creators. Therefore, it is important to understand how customer learning takes place and how it affects customer experiences with services and products. However, while past studies insist on the importance of the issues in designing customer experiences, they do not empirically address these issues. This study investigates the support processes for customer learning, and their impact on customer learning, which in turn influences customer experience. To test the hypotheses, we employed the survey method. Target informants were the actual users of Apple iPods. A total of 200 survey questionnaires were distributed and 146 were collected. Among these, seven erroneous responses were excluded, leaving 139 usable ones. The proposed model was empirically analyzed using the Covariance-based SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) technique. The findings of this study suggest that, among the three support processes in customer learning, learning-by-doing support and learning-by-investment support positively affect customer learning, which influences customer experience. This study contributes to the literature by identifying different types of support for different kinds of customer learning processes and by empirically testing the impact of the support for the process on customer learning, and in turn, its impact on customer experience.
The domain of entrepreneurship has been dotted across various paradigms. Identifying and examining entrepreneurial intention and propensity to it spontaneously require the insight from the lens of psychological approach. The aim of this study is to examine the influence and impact of psychological factors on entrepreneurial intention; as it is found that in Bangladeshi context several entrepreneurship studies are undertaken, still the exploratory research on interplay between the psychological factors (i.e., self-confidence, locus of control, need for achievement, and tolerance for ambiguity) and entrepreneurial intention has been merely found. The study has chosen Bangladeshi university students as the unit of analysis and the ultimate sample size in this research is n=265. The current paper is a quantitative study where sampling method is followed by convenience sampling technique, and study data is collected through survey questionnaire. Data has been compiled into SPSS whereas, for hypotheses assessment, Smart PLS software is applied. The results reflect that self-confidence, locus of control, and need for achievement are revealed as contributory determinants of entrepreneurial intention while tolerance for ambiguity is found as an insignificant predictor. The current research is expected to offer an in-depth understanding about the significance of psychological factors in examining entrepreneurial intention.