Search results

Argues that the general area of commercial sponsorship activity, while attracting increasing interest from marketing practitioners as an important strategic option in marketing communications, has not been the subject of sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive investigation by theoreticians. States the purpose is to establish and consolidate the available body of knowledge combining an overview of the standard conceptual approaches to marketing communication with an examination of the recent academic research in sponsorship, while maintaining a focus on current marketplace practice. Argues for a coherent and structured approach to the management of sponsorship expenditure through the application of a ‘management by objectives’ approach. Parameters are established in terms of a working definition of sponsorship, a review of its commercial development and an overview of current activity. Develops a commercially ration framework within which sponsorship activity may be undertaken. Views objective‐setting as the cornerstone of sponsorship management and outlines a classification of sponsorship objectives that subsumes current practice clarifies the range of potential benefits. Examines the criteria that govern rational sponsorship selection and proposes an evaluation strategy based on stated criteria. Methods of evaluating effects of marketing communications (sponsorship particularly) are examined and new evaluation techniques are advanced to facilitate the implementation of this rigorous scientific approach.

The purpose of this paper is to present exploratory research into the holding and usage of credit cards by a distinct segment of the Chinese population, who are “early adopters” of this product.

Primary data collection using survey methodology. A sample of the urban‐affluent population in China was utilized to gauge preferences and attitudes towards the use of credit cards.

The respondents were comfortable with the holding and use of credit cards and particularly recognised their value for spending on travel and entertainment. The research also identified purchase trigger points, which indicated that the use of credit cards for purchases above certain value was already prevalent with this sample of urban‐affluent Chinese consumers.

The sample was drawn from a narrower base than the actual target population of urban‐affluent market, but an available and valid respondent set, which offers insights into the “early‐adopters” of the credit card product in China.

Hitherto there has been a very limited amount of research into payment cards in China and yet with the market for financial services opening up in China from 2007, this research is timely both for domestic Chinese banks wishing to issue credit cards and for foreign entrants, seeking to enter the Chinese market via their expertise in credit cards.

The paper presents focused research on the attitudes towards credit cards, with the urban‐affluent consumers, who are the most likely early‐adopters of this product.

This paper aims to investigate the relative influence of advertising and word of mouth (WOM) for new season TV programmes, both new and returning.

The study’s longitudinal research design tracks individuals before and after possible exposure to advertising and/or positive WOM (PWOM) to model the effects of both paid versus earned media on behaviour.

This study provides contrary evidence to previous research that suggests that WOM has more influence on consumers than advertising. By controlling for viewers’ benchmark probabilities of viewing the TV programme, the effect of receiving PWOM becomes insignificant, whereas the effect of TV advertising remains unchanged. Because WOM is commonly exchanged between people with shared interests, it reaches an audience that is already highly disposed to view the TV programme.

The findings implicate that we need to reinvestigate the power of WOM to avoid misattribution of effects. This study is only study in one category, which means replication and extension to more categories are needed. The limitations of the study include the inability to control for creative differences in the execution of programme promotions or examine possible cross-media synergies for multimedia campaigns.

Findings have implications for how much to invest in WOM-generating activities. Findings also have wider implications for cross-media research and media-mix models, as different media may reach audiences with differing predispositions to act.

This is one of the rare individual-level, longitudinal studies that investigate the influence of WOM in comparison to advertising.

This paper aims to present new evidence from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) showing the extent to which obstetric (e.g. abnormal birth weight, confinement at birth, severe abnormality of pregnancy, etc.) and early childhood and family factors (illegitimate child, unwanted conception, family overcrowding, etc.) have predictive effects on psychopathic traits measured later in life at age 48 years.

Data collected in the CSDD are analysed. This is a prospective longitudinal study of 411 London men from age 8 to age 61 years.

The results suggest that none of the obstetric problems were predictive of adult psychopathy. However, some other early childhood factors were significant. Unwanted conception (by the mother) was significantly associated with high psychopathy. The likelihood of being an unwanted child was higher when the mother was younger (19 years or less), and when the child was illegitimate. The poor health of the mother and living in an overcrowded family were also significant in predicting psychopathy in adulthood, as well as both psychopathic personality (F1) and psychopathic behaviour (F2).

These findings suggest the influence of very early emotional tensions and problematic social background in predicting psychopathic traits in adulthood (at age 48 years). They also emphasise the importance of investigating further the very early roots of psychopathic traits.

This paper aims to analyze the evolution of digital and smart technologies and their relationship with different themes within marketing journals. In addition, this study has included the evolution of digital and smart technologies in relevant International Marketing (IM)/International Business (IB) journals to describe the impact of technology on this specific area to draw some interesting conclusions.

A bibliometric approach is applied in this research using science mapping analysis to visualize and reveal the evolution of smart and digital technologies in this specific academic area.

By combining science maps with performance indicators, the results of this study suggest that new technologies are related to eight main topics within marketing journals: implementation-completion, perceptions, behavior, market competition, adoption-diffusion model, social media, competitive advantage and disruptive technology. Additionally, this work provides new avenues for future research. When analyzing IM and IB journals, the findings highlight six thematic areas: perceptions-eWOM relationship, innovative foreign markets, performance determinants, Japan, industrial research and China.

This study contributes theoretically to developing and describing a framework for research in smart and digital technologies in the general marketing and international marketing/business fields. It adds a coherent perspective on the points of contact in marketing evolution, where smart technology has a meaningful role. This study outlines the changing questions surrounding the touchpoints as well as emerging research topics.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is intended to integrate all facets of a company’s business operations encompassing production planning, material purchasing, inventory control, logistics, accounting, finance, marketing, and human resource management by creating a single depository of the database that can be shared by the entire organization and its trading partners. Through an empirical study, the purpose of this paper is to identify a multitude of drivers that facilitate or hinder the implementation of ERP in business environments. Also, this paper determines its role in supply chain operations and assesses its impact on supply chain performances.

To examine which factors drive the ERP adoption and gauge the level of the ERP success, the authors develop a research framework based on two well-known theories in the strategy literature: a contingency theory; and a resource-based view of the firm. This research framework allowed us to develop a series of hypotheses regarding the use of ERP for strategic sourcing. To test hypotheses, the authors carried out the study in three phases: a pre-pilot; a pilot; and a large-scale questionnaire survey. In the pre-pilot phase, the authors generated potential survey items through theory development and a literature review. In the pilot phase, the authors develop a structural equation model along with the identification of valid constructs based on structural interviews and the Q-sort method. At the last stage, the authors conducted a large-scale survey via mail questionnaires primarily targeting the Korean industry comprised of manufacturers and their suppliers and customers.

The firm’s ERP adoption and implementation decision is mainly affected by its internal environment. Defying the conventional wisdom, the firm’s external environment has little influence on its decision to adopt and implement ERP. However, through the mediating role of an internal environment, an external environment still indirectly influences the ERP adoption and ERP implementation decision. Also, the authors found that ERP could enhance the ERP adopter’s organizational capability and supplier capability.

This study is one of a few attempts to investigate the role of ERP in the supply chain and identify important determinants influencing the ERP adoption and implementation decisions. Especially, in contrast with the previous literature which often gauged the benefits of ERP from an ERP adopter’s standpoint, this paper is one of the few to assess the benefits of ERP from the ERP adopter’s supply chain partners standpoints. Also, it is one of the first to assess the impact of ERP on supplier capability, organizational capability, and customer value.

In this section the different types of information source which constitute the management literature are allocated to categories according to their broad function. Within the four categories — tertiary, secondary and primary sources and research in progress, each type of information source will be looked at in terms of the information it supplies and the role it can play in literature searching.

Use of cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) services equips an SME to forego the requirements of high financial budget, IT infrastructure, and trained IT personnel as it is required for on-premise ERP solution. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the organizational and technological factors as well as the factors that concern the performance of cloud service provider. These concerns are known as extrinsic factors and they are compliance, network, and information security. This study links the organizational and technological factors of SMEs and the extrinsic factors of cloud vendor for the successful implementation of cloud ERP.

Resource dependence theory (RDT) was used to understand the relationship of SMEs and cloud service provider. Structural equation modeling was employed in analyzing the data of 208 SMEs that were collected through a survey.

The empirical analysis supports the RDT as the critical success factors of the SMEs have a positive relationship with the extrinsic factors (compliance, network, and information security) during the cloud ERP implementation.

The data collected in this study is from India and this acts as a limitation as the result might not hold true for other countries and regions. Also, the data collected are cross-sectional and only represent the perspective of the respondents at the time of filling the questionnaire.

This paper attempts to bring out a relationship between SMEs and cloud service provider for the successful implementation of cloud ERP.