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1 – 10 of 49Anurag Sharma, Debra L. Shapiro and Idalene F. Kesner
In this paper, findings from the negotiation literature are tested in the context of mergers. Firms' relative threat capacity, surveillance by constituents, accountability to…
Abstract
In this paper, findings from the negotiation literature are tested in the context of mergers. Firms' relative threat capacity, surveillance by constituents, accountability to constituents, and the attractiveness of initial offers are shown to predict management's resistance to mergers in a manner consistent with theories in the negotiation literature. The pattern of predicted two‐way and three‐way interactions support speculations and findings previously reported in the negotiation literature as well. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Nachiketas Nandakumar, Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran, Arti Kalro and Piyush Sharma
The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the interactive effects of message framing, perceived threat and efficacy appeals on attitudes/intentions toward consumer…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the interactive effects of message framing, perceived threat and efficacy appeals on attitudes/intentions toward consumer healthcare communications, particularly, cataract surgery.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper develops two conceptual models dealing with threat, efficacy and framing and tests them with data collected from two field experiments.
Findings
The results reveal that high efficacy messages in combination with high threat or loss-framed messages have a significant positive influence on consumer attitudes and intentions in the consumer healthcare arena.
Practical implications
The findings have managerial value and public policy implications for healthcare officials in developing effective communications material. Specifically, this paper recommends that high threat, high efficacy and loss-framed efficacy messages be used.
Originality/value
This research extends previous work by demonstrating the effectiveness of threat appeals and framing on consumer attitudes and intentions to undergo cataract surgery. It also demonstrates the use of communication models in the healthcare domain.
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Kalpak K. Kulkarni, Arti D. Kalro and Dinesh Sharma
This study aims to investigate the influence of Big Five Personality traits (i.e. openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) on young…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the influence of Big Five Personality traits (i.e. openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) on young consumers’ intentions to share branded viral video advertisements. Further, this study also demonstrates that the advertising appeal (informational versus emotional) used in the viral advertisement moderates the effects of specific personality traits on the sharing of viral ads.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework is proposed based on the Five-Factor Model of Personality (McCrae and John, 1992) and advertising effectiveness literature. Using experiments, responses from young consumers were collected and hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression and ANOVA.
Findings
Results reveal that the two personality traits, extraversion and openness to experiences, are positively associated with consumers’ viral ad sharing intentions, whereas conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism are not. Moreover, individuals scoring high on openness and extraversion prefer sharing branded viral ads containing informational appeal vis-ã-vis those containing emotional appeals.
Originality/value
Studies decoding the factors behind the success of viral advertisements have more often focussed on the ad content rather than on personality dimensions of the ad sharers. This study bridges this gap by investigating the influence of Big Five Personality traits on young consumers’ intention to forward viral ads, in interaction with ad appeal. Young consumers represent key audience segments consuming and sharing viral content online, and hence, it is important to have a deeper understanding of this market segment.
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Preeti Virdi, Arti D. Kalro and Dinesh Sharma
Collaborative filtering based recommender systems (CF–RS) are widely used to recommend products based on consumers' preference similarity. Recommendations by CF–RS merely provide…
Abstract
Purpose
Collaborative filtering based recommender systems (CF–RS) are widely used to recommend products based on consumers' preference similarity. Recommendations by CF–RS merely provide suggestions as “people who bought this also bought this” while, consumers are unaware about the source of these recommendations. By amalgamating CF–RS with consumers' social network information, e-commerce sites can offer recommendation from social networks of consumers. These social network embedded systems are known as social recommender systems (SRS). The extant literature has researched on the algorithms and implementation of these systems; however, SRS have not been understood from consumers' psychological perspective. This study aims to qualitatively explore consumers' motives to accept SRS in e-commerce websites.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study is based on in-depth interviews of frequent online shoppers. SRS are currently not very widespread in the Indian e-commerce space; hence, a vignette was shown to respondents before they responded to the questions. Inductive qualitative content analysis method was used to analyse these interviews.
Findings
Three main themes (social-gratification, self-gratification and information-gratification) emerged from the analysis. Out of these, social-gratification acts as an enabler, while self-gratification along with some elements of information-gratification act as inhibitors towards acceptance of social recommendations. Based on these gratifications, we present a conceptual model on consumer's acceptance of social recommendations.
Originality/value
This study is an initial attempt to qualitatively understand consumers' attitudes and acceptance of social recommendations on e-commerce websites, which in itself is a fairly new phenomenon.
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Sunny Vijay Arora, Arti D. Kalro and Dinesh Sharma
Managers prefer semantic imbeds in brand names, but extant literature has primarily studied fictitious names for their sound-symbolic perceptions. This paper aims to explore…
Abstract
Purpose
Managers prefer semantic imbeds in brand names, but extant literature has primarily studied fictitious names for their sound-symbolic perceptions. This paper aims to explore sound-symbolic perceptions of products with blended brand names (BBNs), formed with at least one semantic and one nonsemantic component. Unlike most extant literature, this study not only estimates the effect of vowels and consonants individually on product perceptions but also of their combinations. The boundary condition for this effect is examined by classifying products by their categorization and attributes by their abstractness.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a within-subject experiment, this paper tested perceptions of products with BBNs having high-/low-frequency sounds. A mixed-design experiment followed with sound frequency, product-level categorization and attributes’ abstractness as predictor variables.
Findings
For BBNs, vowel sounds convey brand meaning better than the combinations of vowel and consonant sounds – and these convey brand meaning better than consonant sounds. Differences in consumers’ perceptions of products with BBNs occur when the degree of attributes’ abstractness matches product-level categorization, such as when concrete attributes match subordinate-level categorization.
Practical implications
Brand managers/strategists can communicate product positioning (attribute-based) through BBNs created specifically for product categories and product types.
Originality/value
This research presents a comparative analysis across vowels, consonants and their combinations on consumers’ perceptions of products with BBNs. Manipulation of names’ length and position of the sound-symbolic imbed in the BBN proffered additional contributions. Another novelty is the interaction effect of product categorization levels and attributes’ abstractness on sound-symbolic perception.
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Preeti Virdi, Arti D. Kalro and Dinesh Sharma
Decision aids (DAs) in online retail stores ease consumers' information processing. However, online consumers do not use all decision aids in purchase decision-making. While the…
Abstract
Purpose
Decision aids (DAs) in online retail stores ease consumers' information processing. However, online consumers do not use all decision aids in purchase decision-making. While the literature has documented the effects of individual decision aids or two decision aids at a time, no study has compared the efficacy of multiple decision aids simultaneously. Also, very few studies have looked at the use of decision aids for consumers with maximizing and satisficing tendencies. Hence, this study aims to understand the preferences of maximizers and satisficers towards online decision aids during the choice-making process.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an observational study with 60 individuals who were asked to purchase either a search-based or an experience-based product online. Participants' browsing actions and verbalizations during online shopping, were recorded and analysed using NVivo, and later the use of decision aids was mapped along their choice process.
Findings
Consumer's preference of decision aids varies across the two stages of the choice process (that is, consideration set formation and evaluation & choice). In their choice formation, maximizers use different decision aids in both stages, that is, filter tool and in-website search tool for search products, and collaborative filtering-based recommender systems and eWOM for experience products. Satisficers used more decision aids as compared to maximizers across the two stages for both product types.
Originality/value
This study is an exploratory attempt to understand how consumers use multiple decision aids present on e-commerce websites.
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Mohit Pathak and Arti Chandani
The aim of this study is to empirically examine firm-specific factors that influence the financing decisions of companies listed on BSE-500 index. Firm-specific variables such as…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to empirically examine firm-specific factors that influence the financing decisions of companies listed on BSE-500 index. Firm-specific variables such as profitability, company size, growth potential, liquidity, non-debt tax shields, age and tangibility were evaluated in this study.
Design/methodology/approach
This empirical research is performed using longitudinal data of 366 companies listed on the BSE 500 index during 2006–2020. Pooled ordinary least square method is employed to classify primary determinants of capital structure.
Findings
The results show that profitability, liquidity and non-debt tax shield are negatively associated whereas, company size, growth potential, age and tangibility are positively associated with the capital structure. The authors’ observations are aligned with either the trade-off hypothesis or the principle of the pecking order.
Research limitations/implications
This study helps to better understand how firm-specific factors play a vital part in deciding the capital structure of businesses and makes a significant contribution to the literature. Thus, the present study examines the drivers of the capital structure among sample Indian companies, which allow firm managers and regulators to recognise relevant variables that optimise performance. This study is limited to Indian companies and only firm-specific variables were considered.
Originality/value
The current research focuses on the impact of firm-specific variables upon the financing decisions of Indian companies. In the background of developed countries, numerous studies in this field have been carried out. In the Indian context, however, there are not many researches in this area. However, the existing studies use one or two ordinary least square (OLS) models, resulting in a lack of thorough research and robust results. To address this gap in the analysis, the current study used four models and used a 15-year time frame, as well as a bigger sample size, which was not used in earlier investigations.
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Siddhartha Sarkar, Dinesh Sharma and Arti D. Kalro
The purpose of this paper is to present different naming, packaging, and pricing strategies adopted by private label (PL) retailers in India. This study also aims to identify…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present different naming, packaging, and pricing strategies adopted by private label (PL) retailers in India. This study also aims to identify preferred private label brand (PLB) categories, factors influencing their selection, and the importance of cues in evaluation of PLBs. The overall purpose is to identify important areas for future research of PLBs in the wake of organized retail growth in an emerging economy (India is the context here).
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on in-store observations of major Indian retail chains, longitudinal analyses of customers’ shopping bills, qualitative analyses of consumer interviews, and focus group discussions.
Findings
The results indicate that retailers primarily adopt “Sub-branding” (using the store name along with a separate brand name) and “House of Brands” (using a separate brand name only) strategies to sell PLBs in the Indian market. Groceries, food and beverages, and apparel are the preferred categories in PLB. Price, quality, and convenience are the major factors influencing PLB. Taste, ingredients, packaging, price, brand name, and store name are the main factors that are used to evaluate PLBs.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the qualitative analyses and interpretation, there are limitations to this study which need to be empirically validated.
Practical implications
This research has implications for organized retailers in understanding the various strategies used for PLBs in India.
Originality/value
This study is a novel study for documenting the PLB strategies adopted by organized retailers in India. It also uses a longitudinal exploratory approach to further understanding the consumption of PLBs in India.
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This study aims to investigate the relationship between financial inclusion and the business cycle.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationship between financial inclusion and the business cycle.
Design/methodology/approach
Regression methodology is used to analyze the association between financial inclusion and the business cycle.
Findings
Using regression estimation, the findings reveal that the level of savings and the number of active formal account ownership are pro-cyclical with fluctuations in the business cycle. Also, savings by adults particularly for women and poor people declines during recessionary periods while the number of active formal account ownership declines for the adult population especially for women during recessionary periods. The findings also reveal that not all indicators of financial inclusion are pro-cyclical with fluctuating business cycles.
Practical implications
The implication of this observed pro-cyclical effect is that individuals and households will exit the formal financial sector during a recession, as banks become unwilling to lend money to individuals and households during bad times and this will lead to financial exclusion and vice versa. Policymakers seeking to increase the level of financial inclusion in their countries should focus on the timing of financial inclusion policies along the business cycle as the findings suggest that it might be more difficult to achieve financial inclusion objectives during recessions or periods of economic downturns.
Originality/value
The current debate on financial inclusion pays little attention to whether financial inclusion is pro-cyclical with the fluctuating business cycle. This study explores the association between financial inclusion and the business cycle.
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The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains…
Abstract
The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.
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