In this digital era, marketing theory and practice are being transformed by increasing complexity due to information availability, higher reach and interactions, and faster speeds of transactions. ...These have led to the adoption of intelligent agent technologies (IATs) by many companies. As IATs are relatively new and technologically complex, several definitions are evolving, and the theory in this area is not yet fully developed. There is a need to provide structure and guidance to marketers to further this emerging stream of research. As a first step, this paper proposes a marketing-centric definition and a systematic taxonomy and framework. The authors, using a grounded theory approach, conduct an extensive literature review and a qualitative study in which interviews with managers from 50 companies in 22 industries reveal the importance of understanding IAT applications and adopting them. Further, the authors propose an integrated conceptual framework with several propositions regarding IAT adoption. This research identifies the gaps in the literature and the need for adoption of IATs in the future of marketing given changing consumer behavior and product and industry characteristics.
Maize is an important source of food consumed in Botswana and it helps the country to achieve food security status. Food security refers to everyone always having access to healthy, dependable, and ...adequate food to meet their dietary requirements and live a healthy life. Botswana imports maize primarily from South Africa and is a net importer. The study evaluated how maize prices in Botswana are linked with maize prices in South Africa. To explain hedging opportunities in minimising price risk in Botswana, cointegration and vector error correction models were used in this study. Secondary data on monthly white and yellow maize prices from 2008 to 2019 were used in this study. The empirical data show that maize prices in South Africa and Botswana have a long-run equilibrium relationship. In the short run, results indicate that the previous years’ maize prices in the Botswana market positively impact all Botswana maize prices at a 1% significance level on average ceteris paribus. South Africa’s maize market does not respond to any market changes in Botswana for white maize prices lagged for one and two periods. The Botswana maize market, on the other hand, reacts to price fluctuations in the South African market for both white and yellow maize. The adjustment speed in the Botswana maize market ranged from 17% to 29% while the adjustment speed in the South African market ranged from 13% to 17%. Overall, the empirical data show that the two markets have a positive long-run equilibrium relationship and a shortrun asymmetric relationship. The empirical findings prompted the Botswana maize value chain assessment to understand how it operates as well as the existence of relationships among the actors. The study ascertained that Botswana’s maize value chain faces an array of challenges that limit the country’s food sufficient. The assessment of the Botswana maize value chain was vital to promote policy formations that will promote the development of the Botswana maize sector. The study focused on the interaction between smallholder farmers and the intermediaries focusing on the challenges and opportunities therein. The Agency and Social Network theories were used to assess the economic behaviour of the two farmers and middlemen. The investigative methods used included a thorough assessment of the literature and key informant interview. The challenges identified from the investigation included poor coordination, lack of trust, information asymmetry, lack of cooperatives, and inadequate access to finance. The study thus recommended contract farming, prioritisation of training programmes for farmers and extension workers, third-party enforcement of regulations, and revival of cooperatives to III improve the quality of the relationship between the middlemen and the smallholder farmers, and thus improve the overall performance of the chain.
This paper provides a synthesis and critical assessment of the sustainability marketing literature, from the period 1998-2013, building on a previous assessment from 1971 to 1998. It details research ...within major marketing journals and critically assesses this research in relation to the on-going conversation which focuses on marketing's relationship with the natural environment. Differences in the content and depth of sustainability coverage in marketing journals are considered. Potential avenues for future sustainability marketing research are proposed, with a particular call for theoretical and managerial reflections which tackle broader systemic and institutional issues within the discipline.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In two laboratory and one pilot field study, we demonstrate that cause marketing, whereby firms link products with a cause and share proceeds with it, reduces charitable giving by consumers, even ...when it is costless to the consumer to buy on CM (versus not); further, instead of increasing total contribution to the cause, it can decrease it. Consumers appear to realize that participating in cause marketing is inherently more selfish than direct charitable donation, and are less happy if they substitute cause marketing for charitable giving. Our results suggest that egoistic and empathetic altruism may have different effects on happiness.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This research is the first to examine service sweethearting, an illicit behavior that costs firms billions of dollars annually in lost revenues. Sweethearting occurs when frontline workers give ...unauthorized free or discounted goods and services to customer conspirators. The authors gather dyadic data from 171 service employees and 610 of their customers. The results from the employee data reveal that a variety of job, social, and remuneration factors motivate sweethearting behavior and several measurable employee traits suppress its frequency. The results from the customer data indicate that although sweethearting inflates a firm's satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-ofmouth scores by as much as 9%, satisfaction with the confederate employee fully mediates these effects. Thus, any benefits for customer satisfaction or loyalty initiatives are tied to a frontline worker that the firm would rather not employ. Marketing managers can use this study to recognize job applicants or company settings that are particularly prone to sweethearting and as the basis for mitigating a positive bias in key customer metrics.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
In this article, the authors introduce attitude toward global products (AGP) and attitude toward local products (ALP) as generalized attitudinal constructs and address the four issues these ...constructs raise: (1) How are AGP and ALP related to each other? (2) What is the motivational structure underlying AGP and ALP? (3) Is the proposed theory culturally circumscribed, or does it generalize across countries? and (4) What are the managerially relevant implications of these consumer attitudes? To answer these questions, the authors propose and empirically test an integrated structure for AGP and ALP and their antecedents, organized around the powerful motivational concept of values. They test their theory using a unique data set involving 13,000 respondents from 28 countries in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, thus allowing for a global investigation of a global issue. The study findings provide managers with strategic direction on how to market their products in a globalized world.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
477.
Marketing and business performance Morgan, Neil A.
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
2012/1, Volume:
40, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Academics and managers have struggled for many years to understand and delineate the role of marketing in explaining business performance differences between firms. Most of the theory base for any ...such attempts has to be informed by strategic management theory, since the primary question that strategic management seeks to answer is why some firms outperform others over time. This paper synthesizes three major streams of thought in strategic management with the empirical and theoretical literature on strategic marketing to develop an integrative theory-based conceptual framework linking marketing with firms’ business performance.
Research has shown that consumer online product ratings reflect both the customers' experience with the product and the influence of others' ratings. In this article, the authors measure the impact ...of social dynamics in the ratings environment on both subsequent rating behavior and product sales. First, they model the arrival of product ratings and separate the effects of social influences from the underlying (or baseline) ratings behavior. Second, the authors model product sales as a function of posted product ratings while decomposing ratings into a baseline rating, the contribution of social influence, and idiosyncratic error. This enables them to quantify the sales impact of observed social dynamics. The authors consider both the direct effects on sales and the indirect effects that result from the influence of dynamics on future ratings (and thus future sales). The results show that although ratings behavior is significantly influenced by previously posted ratings and can directly improve sales, the effects are relatively short lived once indirect effects are considered.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, INZLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
En este vídeo, el profesor Antonio González explica qué es el Embudo de Venta y la importancia que tiene en el proceso de comprar. Menciona cada una de sus etapas y las reconoce dentro de las ...estrategias comerciales. El vídeo también habla sobre el Embudo Clásico Comercial, diferenciando su enfoque con el actual.
Building on the meta-analytic model suggested by Palmatier et al.
Journal of Marketing, 70,
136–153, (
2006
), this study extends the relationship marketing framework to the domain of online ...retailing to identify what strategies help build relationships with online customers. Specifically, this meta-analytic study identifies key antecedents and consequences of relationship marketing in online retailing. The study also examines the relationship between the four mediators—trust, commitment, relationship quality, and relationship satisfaction— and the antecedents and consequences of relationship marketing. Similarity and seller expertise were found to have the strongest impact on relational mediators, and word of mouth was the most critical outcome of relationship marketing efforts. The model proffered in this study will motivate hypotheses to be examined by future researchers. The model also helps managers to identify the key drivers of relationship marketing in online retailing.