The issue of common method variance (CMV) has become almost legendary among today's business researchers. In this manuscript, a literature review shows many business researchers take steps to assess ...potential problems with CMV, or common method bias (CMB), but almost no one reports problematic findings. One widely-criticized procedure assessing CMV levels involves a one-factor test that examines how much common variance might exist in a single dimension. This paper presents a data simulation demonstrating that a relatively high level of CMV must be present to bias true relationships among substantive variables at typically reported reliability levels. The simulation data overall suggests that at levels of CMV typical of multiple item measures with typical reliabilities reporting typical effect sizes, CMV does not represent a grave threat to the validity of research findings.
In this article, we review applications of covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) in the Journal of Advertising (JA) starting with the first issue in 1972. We identify 111 articles from ...the earliest application of SEM in 1983 through 2015, and discuss important methodological issues related to the following aspects: confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), causal modeling, multiple group analysis, reporting, and guidelines for interpretation of results. Moreover, we summarize some issues related to varying terminology associated with different SEM methods. Findings indicate that the use of SEM in the JA contributes greatly to conceptual, empirical, and methodological advances in advertising research. The assessment contributes to the literature by offering advertising researchers a summary guide to best practices and a reminder of the basics that distinguish the powerful and unique approach involving structural analysis of covariances.
This study proposes and tests an integrative model to examine the relations among service quality, value, image, satisfaction, and loyalty in China. Analysis of survey data from 118 customers of a ...Chinese mobile communications company reveals that service quality directly influences both perceived value and image perceptions, that value and image influence satisfaction, that corporate image influences value, and that both customer satisfaction and value are significant determinants of loyalty. Thus, value has both a direct and indirect (through satisfaction) impact on customer loyalty. Other variables mediate the impact of both service quality and corporate image on customer loyalty.
Merriam-Webster defines heresies as “dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice.” This Journal of Business Research special issue and the editorial examine heresies and sacred ...cows in marketing research. Seven papers investigate different aspects of typical academic business journal presentations. Each manuscript critically analyzes generally accepted practices for the pursuit of publication in academic journals and reveals ways these practices may do more harm than good, hindering the goal of presenting true growth of knowledge through publication. The editorial provides an integrative schema for the manuscripts in the special issue. Providing a series of broader topics to tie the papers together, this special issue illustrates how the findings of each study can help improve our pursuit of knowledge. In addition, the editorial discusses heresies and sacred cows not covered by manuscripts in the current issue. The editorial concludes with recommendations for both authors and reviewers that may enhance the approach to research, methodologies employed, and reporting of scholarly research.
The nature and value of terroir products Charters, Stephen; Spielmann, Nathalie; Babin, Barry J
European journal of marketing,
01/2017, Volume:
51, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to consider place as a value proposition, in the context of Resource-Advantage Theory, by analysing the concept of terroir, including its antecedents and ...consequences.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conceptually analyse the role of place in marketing by contrasting terroir to three other approaches: “in the style of …”; “made in …” and Protected Designations of Origin. They explore the impact of terroir on a range of products, offering a series of terroir value propositions.
Findings
Versus other place links, terroir offers a more specific Resource-Advantage, operating at environmental, philosophical and commercial levels. It offers a unique form of value to both consumers (e.g. identity, authenticity, cultural rootedness) and producers (e.g. irreproducibility, potential legal protection).
Research limitations/implications
Propositions address the antecedents and consequences of the terroir designation, the impact of consumer engagement, perceived authenticity and the added value offered to other regional goods. Additionally, how terroir may form a barrier to market entry, the relationship it has with the territorial brand, whether it offers greater product longevity and how it can be used as leverage for other related place-based brands and tourism are examined.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to address terroir as a marketing concept and to situate it within other forms of place marketing. It provides a definition, outlines the ways in which terroir creates value and provides a research agenda for future engagement with the concept.
This research examines customer engagement in social media (CESM) using a meta-analytic model of 814 effect sizes across 97 studies involving 161,059 respondents. Findings reveal that customer ...engagement is driven by satisfaction, positive emotions, and trust, but not by commitment. Satisfaction is a stronger predictor of customer engagement in high (vs. low) convenience, B2B (vs. B2C), and Twitter (vs. Facebook and Blogs). Twitter appears twice as likely as other social media platforms to improve customer engagement via satisfaction and positive emotions. Customer engagement is also found to have substantial value for companies, directly impacting firm performance, behavioral intention, and word-of-mouth. Moreover, hedonic consumption yields nearly three times stronger customer engagement to firm performance effects vis-à-vis utilitarian consumption. However, contrary to conventional managerial wisdom, word-of-mouth does not improve firm performance nor does it mediate customer engagement effects on firm performance. Contributions to customer engagement theory, including an embellishment of the customer engagement mechanics definition, and practical implications for managers are discussed.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how customers’ perceptions of brands’ social media interactivity impact customer engagement behaviors (CEBs) (e.g. customer purchases, referrals, ...influence and knowledge) while accounting for the moderating role of brand type and social media platform.
Design/methodology/approach
Two separate online surveys (Study 1 (N1) = 341, Study 2 (N2) = 183) were conducted to measure the constructs of interest. Regression analyzes tests research hypotheses; PROCESS Model 1 was used to test the moderating roles of brand type and platform. Further, the pick-a-point approach (i.e. spotlight analysis) was used to probe the interaction terms.
Findings
The results indicate that when customers perceive a brand to be highly interactive on social media (vs inactive), they are more willing to buy brand offerings, refer the brand in exchange for monetary incentives, inform their family and friends about the brand on social media and provide feedback and suggestions for improving the brand. Furthermore, the positive impact of perceived social media interactivity on customer purchases, referrals, influence and knowledge varies across brand and social media platform types.
Research limitations/implications
Online surveys using convenience samples were conducted to assess the constructs of interest. Archival data may provide an avenue for further insight. Future research may be able to track actual online customer behavior using such data. Further, researchers are encouraged to corroborate the results found here over time as the winds of social media shift to new platforms.
Practical implications
The results suggest that interacting on social media encourages customers to contribute to brand value directly (through purchasing) and/or indirectly (through referring, influencing and suggesting). While all brands may leverage social media activity for success, the positive impact of perceived social media interactivity on CEBs is particularly impactful for non-global 500 brands. The results also indicate that customers are more willing to add value to the brand through purchases and suggestions when they perceive the brand to be highly interactive on both social media networking sites and the brand’s website. However, they are more willing to promote this brand and influence their social networks about it only when they perceive the brand to be highly (vs less) interactive on its own website.
Originality/value
This study examines the novel issue of the impact of perceived social media interactivity on different CEBs while accounting for the moderating role of the brand and platform used by customers. The results provide value in better understanding the levers through which social media affects performance.
•Comprehensive meta-analytical synthesis of brand placement effectiveness.•Placements have strong positive effects on brand placement memory.•Placements have small-modest effects on salience, ...attitude, and conation.•Plot connection can strengthen affective and conative effects.•Prominent placements enhance memory of placement but not persuasion.•Disclosure enhances memory of placement itself with no other effects.
Although brand placements are commonplace in promotion strategies, the extant literature lacks a quantitative empirical synthesis of the effect of placements on cognitive, attitudinal, and conative outcomes. The authors report a meta-analysis addressing the extent to which brand placements affect consumers’ brand placement memory, brand salience, consumer attitude toward the placed brand, and purchase intentions or choice. Four hierarchical meta-regression models explore contexts and executional characteristics that contribute to relatively stronger or weaker brand placement effects. Overall, findings suggest strong, positive placement effects on brand placement memory and small or modest, positive placement effects on brand salience, attitude, and conation. Among the factors potentially moderating these effects, brand-plot connection emerges as a key executional characteristic associated with stronger (more positive) cognitive, attitudinal, and conative effects for plot-connected relative to unconnected placements. Moreover, prominent placements enhance brand placement memory effects while not evidencing any significant backlash on persuasive effects. The same pattern emerges for placement disclosure. The findings have significant implications for marketing managers and public policy makers and provide important directions for further research.
Many universities leverage symbolic qualities with the potential of creating a brand personality useful in competitive differentiation. Drawing on a series of qualitative and quantitative studies ...consistent with psychometric scale development procedures, this study develops and validates a six-dimension University Brand Personality Scale (UBPS). The UBPS comprises prestige, sincerity, appeal, lively, conscientiousness, and cosmopolitan dimensions. Results suggest that the scale strongly relates to brand love, positive word-of-mouth, and students' intention to support their university as alumni. Theoretical implications and recommendations for university managers follow from study results.
Places as authentic consumption contexts Spielmann, Nathalie; Babin, Barry J.; Manthiou, Aikaterini
Psychology & marketing,
September 2018, Volume:
35, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Consumers build social capital through purposeful consumer–place interactions. Airbnb claims that consumers want to “experience a place like they live there.” Previous research concentrates primarily ...on authenticity of objects, brands, and people, with limited development of place authenticity as a concept. But place authenticity represents an increasingly important marketing concept as consumers today, particularly millennials (Schulz, P. (2015, August 8). Not just millennials: Consumers want experiences, not things. Adage. Retrieved from https://adage.com/article/digitalnext/consumers-experiences-things/299994/), value experience over “stuff.” Authenticity provides an important place characteristic that if perceived, potentially unlocks a truly valuable consumer experience. Consequently, the research presented here develops an auxiliary theory of place authenticity (PA). The theory proposes a second‐order factor indicated by three coordinate subdimensions. Phase I of the research consists of five studies that develop PA, explore its dimensionality, and confirm the PA scale's construct validity. Phase II of the research involves a sixth study, which examines a set of hypotheses that begin to establish PA's nomological net. The results shed light on the psychology by which consumers extract value from experience and into ways marketing efforts can build effective place–value propositions.
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