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1 – 10 of over 7000Hsiu‐Yuan Tsao, Leyland F. Pitt and Albert Caruana
Previous research has focused on identifying factors that influence buyers who uses price as a cue to quality. However, little work has been done to explain the theory of…
Abstract
Previous research has focused on identifying factors that influence buyers who uses price as a cue to quality. However, little work has been done to explain the theory of association and the psychological processes behind the buyer’s price‐quality association. This study examines the process from a psychological perspective and examines some antecedent variables in the formation of a price‐quality inferential belief. Data is collected for two product categories among a sample of young respondents. Results show that (1) the link between perceptual and inferential belief about the price‐quality association is stronger when the perceptual belief is based on direct purchase experience rather than on advertising; (2) buyers that lack direct purchase experience of a product category tends to rely on advertising to form their inferential belief. Implications are discussed, limitations are noted and directions for future research are indicated.
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Todd J. Weber, Golnaz Sadri and William A. Gentry
The global nature of today’s business environment, coupled with technological advances, has resulted in leaders working with an increasingly diverse workforce worldwide. An…
Abstract
Purpose
The global nature of today’s business environment, coupled with technological advances, has resulted in leaders working with an increasingly diverse workforce worldwide. An emerging stream of research examines the beliefs that individuals, groups, and organizations have regarding diversity. The purpose of this paper is to add to this work by looking at subordinate perceptions of a leader’s beliefs about diversity and how that relates to a leader’s performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Using archival data, the authors examine 33,976 leaders (from 36 different countries and more than 4,000 companies). This study includes performance ratings from each leader’s supervisor as well as perceptual measures of diversity beliefs from their direct reports and a measure of national culture as a moderator.
Findings
The research finds that employee perceptions of a leader’s diversity beliefs are related to supervisor ratings of the target leader’s performance. In addition, the relationship between a leader’s diversity beliefs and the target leader’s performance rating is stronger in cultures high in performance orientation (PO) than in cultures low in PO.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations include the use of an archival data set as well as an assigned country score for our measure of culture.
Originality/value
While existing research has examined the impact of self-rated measures of diversity beliefs, there is little empirical research that examines how employee perceptions of a leader’s diversity beliefs will impact performance. The authors address this need by examining whether employee-rated perceptions of the leader’s diversity beliefs are related to a supervisor-rated measure of leader performance. In addition, the authors examine the moderating influence of societal culture on this relationship.
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H.J. Christian van der Krift, Arjan J. van Weele and Josette M.P. Gevers
This study aims to propose a tool for conceptualizing and operationalizing perceptual distance in client-contractor collaborations: the perceptual distance monitor (PDM). This…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to propose a tool for conceptualizing and operationalizing perceptual distance in client-contractor collaborations: the perceptual distance monitor (PDM). This paper explains how this monitor was developed and used to examine the impact of perceptual distance on project outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper developed the PDM by gathering quantitative survey data from client and contractor representatives. Structural equation modeling tested the predictive validity of perceptual distance on project outcomes.
Findings
The PDM enables a valid and reliable assessment of the perceptual distance between client and contractor in projects. Moreover, the PDM shows that project outcomes suffer if parties have different perceptions of project objectives, project managers’ competences and the level of trust in the collaboration. These findings confirm the predictive validity of the PDM.
Research limitations/implications
The study builds on survey data representing dyadic perceptions from 38 measurements in collaborative projects. This paper may not have identified all the effects of perceptual distance on project outcomes, as the analyses were conducted at the project level. This research underlines the importance of gathering dyadic data for studies in interorganizational settings.
Practical implications
Perceptual distance can be expected between clients and contractors, and higher perceptual distance is generally associated with lower project outcomes. Using the PDM, project managers can concretize, discuss and monitor this perceptual distance over time. The PDM provides project managers with a useful tool to prevent the escalation of conflicts and project failure.
Originality/value
Based on agency theory and social identity theory, this study provides a unique and validated conceptualization and operationalization of perceptual distance between client and contractor in interorganizational collaborations and supply chains.
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Bruno Busacca, Michele Costabile and Fabio Ancarani
This paper focuses on customer value analysis and measurement, framing customer value management as one of the main antecedents of the company value-creation process. The paper…
Abstract
This paper focuses on customer value analysis and measurement, framing customer value management as one of the main antecedents of the company value-creation process. The paper builds on three main pillars. First, the paper highlights the critical role of customer value in business-to-business markets, focusing on the links between the company's ability to manage customer value-creation processes and the positive financial and economic outcomes generated by loyalty effects. Secondly, the paper develops key analytical stages for an understanding of customer value. The focus is on the customer value-chain concept, including consideration of the customer information and acquisition process and its decision rules. Third, the paper illustrates the measurement process, offering an organizational framework for selecting the most suitable method for measuring perceived customer value. The methodological alternatives range from desk measures (e.g., technical computation of the total cost of ownership (TCO)) to field analysis, like those considered under both compositional and the decomposition approaches (e.g., conjoint analysis). The paper concludes with remarks on the managerial implications of these measures, as well as offering suggestions for further research on value for the customer.
Seung Hwan Lee and Sean Luster
This paper aims to investigate the paradox of whether prestigious goods help or inhibit a consumer’s social affinity. The goal of this research is to explore whether pursuit of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the paradox of whether prestigious goods help or inhibit a consumer’s social affinity. The goal of this research is to explore whether pursuit of prestigious goods increases consumers’ social affinity or decreases their social affinity, and, more importantly, to understand the mechanisms that drive this process.
Design/methodology/approach
Three laboratory experimental studies and a social network study are conducted to show that consumers hold inconsistent beliefs about the social implication of prestigious goods.
Findings
In Study 1, the authors showed that prestigious goods evoked stronger social affinity for the self than for the other. In Study 2, the authors showed that people evaluated themselves high in social affinity when they brought a prestigious wine to a party compared to when they brought a cheaper, generic wine, but evaluated others low in social affinity when they brought the same prestigious wine. In Study 3, the authors showed the mediating effects of social image and boastfulness on social affinity. Study 4 utilizes social network study to further validate previous findings in a field setting.
Practical implications
For high-end retailers, the authors suggest framing their promotional messages to explicitly highlight how owning prestigious goods will benefit them (i.e. social image). It is important that these retail managers (and salespeople alike) make it more salient on how their prestigious goods socially benefit the consumer (the self). Thus, it is important to get consumers to think about how a prestigious item looks on them and not on others. However, marketers must be prudent when constructing these messages, as the link between prestigious consumption and network development is merely perceptual.
Originality/value
The findings demonstrate that consuming prestigious goods increases social affinity via positive social image for the self. When evaluating others, the authors demonstrate that consuming prestigious goods decreases social affinity via boastfulness. In sum, owning prestigious items may seem beneficial socially to the self, but people have negative perceptions (boastfulness) of those who own the same prestigious goods. Hence, there seems to be a discrepancy in how the authors evaluate themselves versus how they evaluate others with the same prestigious goods.
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Marion has just taken on the directorship of a joint university/public library. You, as her protégé, are interested in observing how she approaches the new venture. You are…
Abstract
Marion has just taken on the directorship of a joint university/public library. You, as her protégé, are interested in observing how she approaches the new venture. You are curious about what information she will gather, whose advice she will seek, how she will figure out the expectations others have of her and the library, how she will prioritize the many challenges before her, and how she will negotiate her leadership role with the staff. In other words, you want to study Marion's organizational sensemaking.
This study aims to understand the learner behaviour of millennials for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the post-adoption stage by extending the theory of Unified Theory of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand the learner behaviour of millennials for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the post-adoption stage by extending the theory of Unified Theory of Acceptance and User Technology 2 (UTAUT2) with expectancy confirmation model (ECM) along with personal innovativeness as the exogenous, satisfaction as a mediating and continued intention as an endogenous construct.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applied a cross-sectional research design by using a survey method to collect primary data with a structured questionnaire. Convenience sampling was used to collect data from millennial MOOC users, and partial least square structural equation modelling method was applied for data analysis.
Findings
The results indicate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation influence satisfaction. Similarly, performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, personal innovativeness and satisfaction influence the continued intention for MOOCs.
Research limitations/implications
In terms of limitations, the study applied a cross-sectional research design that could lead to data collection bias. Similarly, the study used convenience sampling as the authors did not have access to the participant list of users from MOOC platforms.
Practical implications
The research highlights various insights to all the stakeholders on improving MOOC satisfaction and enhance the continued intention for millennial learners.
Originality/value
The findings of this research bridge this gap by examining the post-adoption usage behaviour of MOOCs by extending the baseline model of UTAUT2 with personal innovativeness and integrating it with ECM.
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Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and…
Abstract
Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).
The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.
This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.
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Takao Inamori, Farhad Analoui and Nada Kakabadse
There is a wealth of studies which suggest that managers' positive perceptions/expectations can considerably influence the organisational performance; unfortunately, little…
Abstract
Purpose
There is a wealth of studies which suggest that managers' positive perceptions/expectations can considerably influence the organisational performance; unfortunately, little empirical evidence has been obtained from development studies. This research aims to focus on the perceptual and behavioural trait differences of successful and unsuccessful aid workers, and their relationship with organisational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Through web‐based survey, 244 valid responses were obtained from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)‐aid managers worldwide. Five perception related factors were extracted and used for cluster analysis to group the respondents. Each cluster's perception/behaviour‐related factors and organisational performance variables were compared by ANOVA.
Findings
It was discovered that Japanese's positive perception/expectation about work and their local colleagues was related to higher organisational performance, and conversely, the negative perception on their part was generally associated with negative behaviour and lower organisational performance. Moreover, in a development context, lower work‐related stress and feelings of resignation toward work were strongly associated with the acceptability of cross‐cultural work environment.
Practical implications
The differences in perceptual tendencies suggest that cautious consideration is advised since these findings may mainly apply to Japanese aid managers. However, as human nature is universal, positive perception and behaviour would bring out positive output in most organisations.
Originality/value
This study extended the contextualised “Pygmalion effect” and has clarified the influence of perception/expectation on counter‐part behaviour and organisational performance in development aid context, where people‐related issues have often been ignored. This first‐time research provides imperial data on the significant role of positive perception on the incumbent role holder.
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Suku Bhaskaran and Nishal Sukumaran
To investigate, analyse and identify the reasons for contradictory conclusions in past studies of country of origin (COO) influences on buyers' beliefs and purchase intentions.
Abstract
Purpose
To investigate, analyse and identify the reasons for contradictory conclusions in past studies of country of origin (COO) influences on buyers' beliefs and purchase intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of 96 published studies, discussions and commentaries, with separate sections relating to methodological an contextual issues, the latter in separate sections relating to national cultures and stereotypes, cross‐cultural differences, product‐brand‐market‐segment variations, hybridisation, and price and communications strategies.
Findings
Study contexts and methodologies varied significantly, often without an explicit rationale, and were judged inappropriate in some cases. Conflicting findings seem to be largely the result of this variation.
Research limitations/implications
The observed variations and contradictions hinder generalisation and theory building. COO studies should be pursued from a target customer perspective and should adopt a comprehensive approach that incorporates the influences, interactions and potential interconnectedness of factors such as brand names, hybridization of offerings, communication and promotional activities, customer characteristics and market dynamics.
Practical implications
Marketing practitioners cannot treat COO as a self‐contained marketing and marketing communications strategy, but need to consider the effects, interactions and interconnectedness of other influences on customer beliefs and buying intentions. A more integrated approach is urgently required. The Norwegian Seafood Export Council's success in exporting to Taiwan offers a case example of effective implementation of COO strategy.
Originality/value
A wide‐ranging evaluation of the frequently flawed research studies available as the basis for developing theory and practice with respect to the role and effect of COO in marketing.
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