• Selected
• Entire List

Abstract:
This paper studies the interaction between ownership structure, taken as a proxy for shareholders' commitment, and customer satisfaction - the main driver of consumer loyalty - and their impact on a firm's brand equity. The results show that customer satisfaction has a positive direct effect on brand equity but an indirect negative one because of reductions in ownership concentration. This latter effect emerges when managers are mainly customer-oriented. Such result gives out a warning signal that highlights the perverse effect of implementing policies, focused excessively on satisfying customers at the expense of shareholders, on a firm's brand equity. The empirical analysis uses an incomplete panel data comprising 69 firms from 11 nations, for the period 2002-2005.

Corporate social responsibility, brand equity, shareholders' commitment and customer loyalty

Abstract:
This paper investigates the link between brand performance and cultural primes in high-risk, innovation-based sectors. In theory section, we propose that the level of cultural uncertainty avoidance embedded in a firm determine its marketing creativity by increasing the complexity and the broadness of a brand. It determines also the rate of firm product innovations. Marketing creativity and product innovation influence finally the firm marketing performance. Empirically, we study trademarked promotion in the Software Security Industry (SSI). Our sample consists of 87 firms that are active in SSI from 11 countries in the period 1993-2000. We use the data coming from SSI-related trademarks registered by these firms, ending up with 2,911 SSI-related trademarks and a panel of 18,213 observations. We estimate a two stage model in which first we predict the complexity and the broadness of a trademark as a measure of marketing creativity and the rate of product innovations. Among several control variables, our variable of theoretical interest is the Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance cultural index. Then, we estimate the trademark duration with a hazard model using the predicted complexity and broadness as well as the rate of product innovations, along with the same control variables. Our evidence confirms that the cultural avoidance affects the duration of the trademarks through the firm marketing creativity and product innovation.

Trademark duration, creativity, uncertainty avoidance cultural index

Abstract:
This paper presents findings from a study investigating a firm's ethical practices along the value chain. In so doing we attempt to better understand potential relationships between a firm's ethical stance with its customers and those of its suppliers within a supply chain and identify particular sectoral and cultural influences that might impinge on this. Drawing upon a database comprising of 667 industrial firms from 27 different countries, we found that ethical practices begin with the firm's relationship with its customers, the characteristics of which then influence the ethical stance with the firm's suppliers within the supply chain. Importantly, market structure along with some key cultural characteristics were also found to exert significant influence on the implementation of ethical policies in these firms.

Practical Ethics, Value Chain, Multiple Correspondence Analysis

Abstract:
Dual scaling of a subjects-by-objects table of dominance data (preferences, paired comparisons and successive categories data) has been contrasted with correspondence analysis, as if the two techniques were somehow different. In this note we show that dual scaling of dominance data is equivalent to the correspondence analysis of a table which is doubled with respect to subjects. We also show that the results of both methods can be recovered from a principal components analysis of the undoubled dominance table which is centred with respect to subject means.

Correspondence Analysis, dominance data, dual scaling, paired comparisons, preferences, principal component analysis, ratings.

Abstract:
Although we found a general trend favouring the omnivorousness thesis, as soon as we adjusted it to a set of structural factors and consumers' tastes it was clear that this was caused by elitist inclusive omnivores who had increased the scope of their tastes. In general, younger cohorts were becoming less omnivorous, nevertheless, they were also becoming more educated and had greater to higher levels of inc ome, making the youth more omnivorous. As expected, upscale consumers set limits on their popular taste: musical genres, whose audiences had educational levels below the mean profile were less preferred by upscale respondents. In spite of this, as time passed, some popular brows gained social status.

Symbolic consumer research, musical tastes, omnivorousness, correspondence analysis of matched matrices