bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Does brand equity vary between department stores and clothing stores? Results of an empirical investigation
Authors: Pappu Ravi , Quester Pascale G. 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether retailer brand equity levels vary between department store and specialty clothing store categories.Design/methodology/approachRetailer brand equity is conceptualized in this paper as a four‐dimensional construct comprising retailer awareness, retailer associations, retailer perceived quality and retailer loyalty. Categorization theory is used to explain the differences in retailer equity across the two different store categories. A doubly multivariate design is incorporated in a structured questionnaire used to collect data via mall‐intercepts in an Australian state capital city.FindingsResults suggest that retailer brand equity varies significantly between department store and specialty store categories. Department store brands yielded significantly higher ratings for all the retailer brand equity dimensions than specialty store brands.Originality/valueResearchers have argued that retailers possess brand equity. However, extant research does not provide any specific guidance in relation to the question of whether retailer brand equity levels vary from one store category to another. The present research fills an important gap by demonstrating that retailer brand equity levels vary significantly between department store and specialty clothing store categories.
Strategic megabrand management: does global uncertainty affect brands? A post‐9/11 US/non‐US comparison of the 100 biggest brands
Authors: Suder Gabriele , Chailan Claude , Suder David 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe primary purpose of this study is to identify if and how international terrorism has altered the rank and value of brands, and whether the increasing uncertainty of globalizing risks need an adaptation of international brand management.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology for this study was exploratory and quantitative at the same time, and utilized longitudinal brand ranking and a cross‐sector and cross‐industry data in a comparative research design. Both descriptive and relational statistics are used to analyze the data.FindingsThe key findings reveal that, in the five consecutive years after 9/11/2001, brands have experienced significant moderation in rank and value. A significant gap in the evolution of US and non‐US brands was found in this period of time. The evidence calls for brand management that reflects the risks that globalized at the same pace as brand reach.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations to the study are that the findings cannot explore all possible causes of uncertainty, but it nevertheless provides strong indications.Originality/valueManagers should not assume that terrorism and other globalizing risks only cause direct physical destruction; they need to be adequately prepared to handle indirect impact that can alter the rank and value of their brands. The paper identifies specific areas for future megabrand strategy and calls for its internationalization.
Derivative beliefs and evaluations
Authors: Sheinin Daniel A. , Dubé Laurette , Schmitt Bernd H. 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine how consumers form beliefs and evaluate derivatives (e.g. handheld computers) and branded derivatives (e.g. Palm handheld computers). The aim is to study how consumers combine two categories (e.g. “handheld products” and “computers”) to form beliefs, how the similarity between the categories influences beliefs, how the addition of a brand changes beliefs, and how the presence of brand associations impacts on evaluations.Design/methodology/approachThree laboratory experiments to test hypotheses were conducted.FindingsResults of the studies show the modifier (e.g. “handheld” in handheld computer) dominates derivative beliefs, but the nature of its dominance changes with category similarity. Brand effects are surprisingly limited in belief formation due to modifier dominance. Brand beliefs only transfer to branded derivatives when the brand fits with the modifier category. The presence of brand associations induces more positive evaluations of branded derivatives when the brand fits with the modifier category and, under certain circumstances, when it fits with the header‐category.Research implications/limitationsThe presence of multiple concepts (e.g. Palm handheld computer) is common in line and brand extensions, yet little research has examined such complex products. Their comprehension can be better predicted by utilizing conceptual combination theory.Practical implicationsManagers can better determine what kinds of line and brand extensions are best suited for their brands.Originality/valueThe originality and value lay in utilizing the conceptual combination approach to more deeply understand which extensions are best suited for which brands. This helps fill a gap in the literature on consumer perception of multiple‐concept extensions.
Price bundling and framing strategies for complementary products
Authors: Arora Raj 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of price bundling and message framing on attitudes, intentions, and beliefs about attributes of teeth whitening products. Although each of these variables, message framing and price bundling, has been explored individually, few attempts have been made to investigate them jointly. This study is based on a full factorial design that allows for testing of interaction effects. Second, the market for whitening products is maturing, resulting in a target market that is gaining knowledge about these products. Thus, we use knowledge as a covariate in the above investigation to determine if the communication strategy should be changed as the product moves from introduction to maturity.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a 2 × 2 factorial design with price bundling (bundle price – individual price) and framing (positive – negative). The setting for the study is a hypothetical brand name of teeth whitening products.FindingsThe results reveal a mixed picture with respect to effectiveness of pricing and framing on attitudes and intentions. The effect of price bundling is not significant on attitudes; it is significant on intentions. Framing has a greater impact on intentions than on attitudes. Nevertheless, the interaction effects are significant on both attitudes as well as intentions. Finally, the impact of knowledge as a covariate is significant.Research limitations/implicationsCaution is advised in extrapolating the results beyond the issues investigated in the study.Practical implicationsThe findings help marketers in formulating effective marketing strategy using both price bundling and message framing strategies.Originality/valueAlthough price bundling and message framing have been explored in marketing studies, the research is lacking on the combined effects of these two important variables. The findings show a significant interaction effect of pricing and framing on changing attitudes and intentions. Prior research recommends using negative framing. The present research shows that for bundle products, a positive framing approach is desirable.
Price knowledge structures relating to grocery products
Authors: Pechtl Hans 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to conceptualize several dimensions of product‐price knowledge and to develop measurement variables that qualify a person's product‐price knowledge. Assuming product‐price knowledge is a multidimensional construct, the relationship between its dimensions is to be investigated and consumer characteristics are to be analyzed according to whether they influence these dimensions.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on existing research, the paper theoretically develops a framework that proposes a taxonomy of product‐price knowledge and leads to a road map to identify determinants that probably affect a person's product‐price knowledge. Applying data on 319 shoppers, a path model simultaneously estimates the internal structure of the specified dimensions of product‐price knowledge, and determines the influence of the selected consumer characteristics on product‐price knowledge.FindingsThe proposed taxonomy sees product‐price knowledge as encompassing not just isomorphic prices, i.e. actually or formerly perceived and recalled prices. Rather, inferential prices, such as the normal price, or the upper reservation price for a product, as well as knowledge about price‐setting conditions and confidence in memorized prices, comprise important elements of a person's product‐price knowledge. As a result, there are several measurement variables to qualify a person's product‐price knowledge. The empirical results identify price mavenism, price consciousness, the use of a shopping list, and shopping frequency, as determinants of the accuracy and size of, and confidence in, one's product‐price knowledge, even though the impact structure is not uniform. There are some indications that formerly encountered price stimuli represent a relatively obsolete part of a consumer's product‐price knowledge.Research limitations/implicationsResearch on product‐price knowledge should not be restricted to measuring the accuracy of recalled paid prices. Size of product‐price knowledge, and confidence in one's price knowledge, are identified as measures that are at least equally important to qualify a person's product‐price knowledge as accuracy. Furthermore, size and confidence are also additional dependent variables in analyzing determinants of consumers' product‐price knowledge. This is important for researchers and practitioners.Originality/valueThe proposed taxonomy and the empirical results lead to finer grained understanding of product‐price knowledge as a multi‐dimensional construct and its determinants.
Fair price: research outside marketing
Authors: Maxwell Sarah 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to summarize the current research in disciplines outside marketing that applies to price fairness: research by behavioral economists, primate behavior researchers and social neuroscientists.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is descriptive, summarizing the extensive research into fairness being done in disciplines other than marketing.FindingsResearch outside marketing indicates that a fair price is a preference. It has social utility that is independent of the economic utility of a low price. Consumers can actually harm themselves to punish what they perceive to be an unfair price. Conversely, a fair price triggers the reward center of the mind, stimulating happiness. The research also indicates that the response to a fair or unfair price is emotional: fast and automatic. The strength of that emotional response to unfairness varies across people. However, despite the variation in reactions, to ignore the concern for fairness is to miss a major motivation in economic decision making.Originality/valueThe fairness research in other disciplines both supports and informs the marketing research into what constitutes a fair price and how people respond to price (un)fairness.
Cross‐cultural comparison of interactivity and advertising appeals on antismoking web sites in the United States and South Korea
Authors: Yu Hyunjae (Jay) , Paek Hye‐Jin , Bae Bumjun 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThis study aims to examine the content of health promotional web sites in two culturally distinct countries, the USA and South Korea, by investigating the level of interactivity and types of advertising appeals presented on antismoking web sites.Design/methodology/approachAntismoking web sites in the two countries were collected through the three major search engines (msn, Yahoo and Google) using relevant keywords. The final sample contained a total of 89 web sites (USA=67, South Korea=22) that met the condition of promoting antismoking behavior rather than just selling antismoking products. Three bilingual coders were hired for the analysis.FindingsThe South Korean antismoking web sites presented significantly higher levels of interactivity than their USA counterparts. By contrast, there is hardly any differentiation between the two countries in the amount of advertising appeals used on the health web sites.Research limitations/implicationsEven though antismoking is certainly an important global issue, the findings related to antismoking web sites may not be generalizable to various other health‐related topics. Future research should replicate our findings on interactivity and advertising appeals in the context of various health issues.Practical implicationsTo cross‐cultural researchers, the results provide more theoretical and practical rationales for cross‐cultural differences beyond such well‐known typologies as Hofstede's Individualism/Collectivism and Hall's high‐low context.Originality/valueThis study provided at least two useful findings for practitioners and researchers: better definition of the roles of cultural differences in the level of interactivity and the types of advertising appeals in promoting health information online and a broadening of the scope of cross‐cultural advertising research to health promotional contexts online.
“Usability + usefulness = trust”: an exploratory study of Australian health web sites
Authors: Fisher Julie , Burstein Frada , Lynch Kathy , Lazarenko Kate 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe aim is to explore users' reactions to health information web sites from the perspective of trust, retrieval of relevant information and ease‐of‐use, and to establish the link between perceived quality, trust, and usability.Design/methodology/approachAn analysis of three Australian health web sites was undertaken. A usability test was conducted on those three web sites resulting in 207 completed user evaluations. The evaluations included both quantitative and qualitative data.FindingsThe three investigated health information web sites do not meet the needs of health consumers. More details such as how information is selected to engender greater trust need to be provided. The retrieval of relevant information could be improved through the implementation of functionality such as spell checking and information differentiation. Finally, ensuring web sites are easy to use contributes to the level of trust users have in a web site.Research limitations/implicationsThis was a relatively small study investigating only three generic Australian health web sites, the results however suggest that a larger study looking at other health web sites is needed.Practical implicationsFor government agencies developing health information web sites more attention needs to be paid to the design of these web sites if users are to be encouraged to use the web site and return. The research suggests that effective health information web sites must be perceived to be of reliable quality, be trustworthy, have some level of intelligence to assist in the retrieval of relevant information, and be easy to use.Originality/valueAlthough there is much research relating to the relationship between web site design and trust for e‐commerce transactional web sites this work has not been undertaken for web sites designed for information retrieval, in particular little work has been done of health information web sites. This paper fills in some of the gaps.
The role of Internet addiction in online game loyalty: an exploratory study
Authors: Lu Hsi‐Peng , Wang Shu‐ming 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe paper's aim is to explore the factors that affect the online game addiction and the role that online game addiction plays in the relationship between online satisfaction and loyalty.Design/methodology/approachA web survey of online game players was conducted, with 1,186 valid responses collected. Structure equation modeling – specifically partial least squares – was used to assess the relationships in the proposed research framework.FindingsThe results indicate that perceived playfulness and descriptive norms influence online game addiction. Furthermore, descriptive norms indirectly affect online game addiction through perceived playfulness. Addiction also directly contributes to loyalty and attenuates the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty. This finding partially explains why people remain loyal to an online game despite being dissatisfied.Practical implicationsOnline gaming vendors should strive to create amusing game content and to maintain their online game communities in order to enhance players' perceptions of playfulness and the effects of social influences. Also, because satisfaction is the most significant indicator of loyalty, vendors can enhance loyalty by providing better services, such as fraud prevention and the detection of cheating behaviors.Originality/valueThe value of this study is that it reveals the moderating influences of addiction on the satisfaction‐loyalty relationship and factors that contribute to the online game addiction. Moreover, while many past studies focused on addiction's negative effects and on groups considered particularly vulnerable to Internet addiction, this paper extends previous work by investigating the relationship of addiction to other marketing variables and by using a more general population, mostly young adults, as research subjects.
Evolving debates in online communication: a graph analytical approach
Authors: Prabowo Rudy , Thelwall Mike , Hellsten Iina , Scharnhorst Andrea 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to analyse the structure of evolving debates in online discussion forums to see how science‐related debates evolve over time.Design/methodology/approachA graph‐based approach is applied to analyse the structure of graphs of connected terms in online debates. A number of different graph properties, such as the Densification Power Law (DPL), diameter (γ) and effective diameter (δ), are used to observe the properties of the graphs over time.FindingsThe graphs of connected terms obey the DPL and the effective diameters (δ) of the graphs tend to shrink as the debates progress. Slight fluctuations can occur, however, when new terms are integrated into the graphs. These two properties suggest that a graph of connected terms can be modelled through a number of blocks of terms, each of which becomes densely connected over time as indicated byδand DPL plots.Originality/valueThis paper proposes observing the dynamic changes of evolving debates by using graphs of connected terms. The structures and properties of these graphs may be useful for understanding the evolution of public debates about controversial science‐related topics, such as embryonic stem cell research, and to track debates that can potentially explode into major issues.
Exploring individual communication power in the blogosphere
Authors: Ko Hsiu‐Chia , Yin Chun‐Po , Kuo Feng‐Yang 
Published: November 2008

PurposeViewing the blog technology as an integral part of the current social‐technical environment, this research aims to investigate whether the main influences on message diffusion within a blog community originate from external mass media channels or internal interpersonal communication channels.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employed the innovation‐diffusion model and the OLS estimating method to study message diffusion of two documentary films on the Wretch, the largest blog community in Taiwan.FindingsThe results indicate that the mass media is the main source of message diffusion and that the internal communication power may increase as the opinion leader promotes these messages.Research limitations/implicationsOther factors that may influence message diffusion such as topic, design characteristics, and the existing social network have not been included.Practical implicationsFor practice, the result indicates that the mass media and the blog might complement each other.Originality/valueThis research is one of the first that attempts to apply the innovation‐diffusion model to analyze message diffusion within the blog community.
E‐commerce and socio‐economic development: conceptualizing the link
Authors: Boateng Richard , Heeks Richard , Molla Alemayehu , Hinson Robert 
Published: November 2008

PurposeE‐commerce is diffusing into developing countries (DCs), and is assumed to help deliver the international development agenda. But how can the connection between e‐commerce and socio‐economic development be conceptualised? The aim of this paper is to analyse that connection by drawing from the development studies discipline to take a broader perspective on e‐commerce than that so far provided by firm‐level research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopt a literature survey approach, drawing their conceptual foundations from development studies, and supplementing this from the e‐commerce literature.FindingsThe paper develops a new, integrated model that explains the way in which e‐commerce can contribute to socio‐economic development.Research limitations/implicationsThis new model can help provide a foundation for future research on e‐commerce in DCs; research on e‐commerce policy as well as impact assessment research.Practical implicationsThe discussion and model provide development agencies, governments, consultants and business people working in DCs with a clearer sense of the contribution e‐commerce can make; assisting them in prioritization, planning, and evaluation of e‐commerce projects.Originality/valueThe paper provides the first integrated perspective on the broader contribution of e‐commerce to the growth and development of DCs.
It is not only mentoring
Authors: Hetty van Emmerik I.J. 
Published: November 2008

PurposeThe paper aims to follow social exchange theory and group social capital theory, to predict positive relationships between (informal) mentoring and various support resources for two types of performance (i.e. perceptions of individual and team performance).Design/methodology/approachThe associations of individual‐level mentoring and team‐level support with job performance were examined in a cross‐level field study using data from 480 teachers working in 64 interdisciplinary teams.FindingsMultilevel analyses showed that after controlling for having a mentor, those teachers with more team‐level support resources scored higher on self‐reported job performance and perception of team performance. In line with expectations, the association between mentoring and individual job performance was stronger for teachers scoring high on team‐level support (i.e. support from informal networks and support from team orientation). One basic assumption of the present study was a positive relationship between individual‐level mentoring and job performance. Surprisingly, such a direct relationship between mentoring and job performance was not found: only the moderating relationships mentoring appeared to be associated with job performance.Research limitations/implicationsIn the present study, only a global measure of mentoring was used (only yes or no) and this measure did not differentiate between mentoring functions and/or outcomes. However, future research could benefit from including more differentiated measures of mentoring to be able to predict more precisely how various support measures are linked with job performance.Originality/valueTypical dependent measures in mentoring research include career success, career satisfaction, income, promotions, etc. However, with increasing emphasis on working in teams, there is a need to expand the criterion domain and to include a team level measure. Therefore, a distinction was made between the perception of individual job performance of the respondents and the perception of team performance of the team where the respondent is working in.