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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the connection between the accrual quality and the growth/value characteristics (and their return premia) at firm level.

The paper employs a battery of univariate and multivariate cross‐sectional tests. Fama‐MacBeth regressions with main effects and interaction effects are used to identify the relation between accrual quality, book‐to‐market and returns. The analysis is conducted on the overall sample, as well as after conditioning on up and down markets.

Value (growth) stocks are more likely to be associated with high (low) accrual quality. Value stocks earn higher returns mainly in down markets, while poor accrual quality firms have significantly higher returns during up markets, but significantly lower returns during down markets. There is a significant interaction effect between accrual quality and the value premium, which only exhibits in the down markets (i.e. stocks with poor accrual quality earn a higher value premium in down markets than stocks with good accrual quality).

Results in this paper help disentangle between various explanations proposed for the accrual quality premium and the value premium. These findings are consistent with the idea that the same underlying risk factor generating the value premium also generates the cross‐sectional variation in accrual quality responsible for the accrual quality premium. From the corporate managers' perspective, the results imply that value firms can mitigate their higher costs of capital by providing high quality of accounting information. From an analyst's perspective, the study suggests that considering both accrual quality and growth characteristics can help make better portfolio allocation decisions than when these are considered separately.

The aim is to understand customers' willingness, or unwillingness, to pay a price premium in the market for consumer packaged food and what kind of images brands can use in order to achieve a price premium.

The study is based on a quantitative survey of brand images found in food and branding literature and their impact on loyalty as well as customers' willingness to pay a price premium for consumer packaged food.

The survey shows that quality is a significant determinant of price premium, but adding other image dimensions doubles the predictability and understanding about price premium. The strongest determinants of price premium are social image, uniqueness and home country origin. Other significant determinants are corporate social responsibility (CSR) and awareness.

The results help brand managers to recognise the importance of incorporating price premium and to develop a better understanding of what drives price premium in addition to more traditional dimensions as quality and loyalty.

In grocery retailing, the competition for customers, margins and price premiums between manufacturer and private labels is fierce. Traditionally, the literature on this competition has focused on quality and product improvements as the main tool for creating distance to low priced competition. This study looks into other more branding related dimensions to distance from price competition.

Buyers assessing bids from suppliers of experience services face both an adverse selection and a potential moral hazard problem. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative importance of various signals of supplier reputation conveying information about unobserved supplier quality, which is important for identifying the best tender; and whether price is contingent on supplier reputation and on buyer's quality sensitiveness in a competitive bidding situation.

This study builds on a conjoint experiment where 19 contractors consider alternative scenarios representing tenders from subcontractors of plumbing services. In the scenarios the subcontractors differ on their reputation and price variables, while the contractors differ in their quality sensitiveness. Multiple regressions analyzes the contingent price effects.

Although low price is generally important for subcontractor selection, quality-sensitive buyers are willing to pay subcontractors a price premium to prevent quality debasement. On the other hand, despite the combined significance of supplier reputation on choice, buyers are not willing to pay price premiums to suppliers with a quality reputation.

Conjoint studies produce multiple cases but the underlying sample is limited. Therefore, this study should be regarded as preliminary and a basis for further validation on larger samples.

In competitive bidding situations, suppliers with strong quality reputations may benefit most by low price offers. Thus, suppliers with a strong reputation should achieve profitability through a volume premium rather than a price premium effect. Suppliers opting for price premiums should target the quality sensitive segment of the market.

In contrast to previous findings in B2B brand equity studies, but in line with findings in information economics, this study suggests that suppliers with a reputation for quality will not receive price premiums. The results indicate that in bidding contexts in B2B markets, the reputation variables may enhance rather than reduce buyers' price sensitivity, because supplier reputation increases low price credibility.

The built environment has high potential to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions and with around 1‐2 per cent of new buildings added to the total stock annually, the scope for reductions lies with adaptation of existing stock. Existing buildings comprise a variety of attributes and present challenges and opportunities with regards to adaptation and sustainability, and integrating retrofit measures that lessen energy, water and resource consumption.

Through a quantitative analysis of a Building Adaptation database, this paper addresses the questions; what is the nature of adaptations in relation to Premium quality office building stock in the Central Business District (CBD) and, what is the extent and scope for sustainable retrofits to Premium grade office buildings.

The nature and extent of adaptations to Premium office buildings are identified and quantified in respect of attributes such as adaptation level, building age, location, construction form, envelope, shape and height and operating costs.

The findings provide an insight for policy makers and others in respect of the nature and type of adaptations typically undertaken in Premium office buildings. The research identifies the typical attributes found in buildings undergoing adaptation and specifies the type of sustainable retrofit measures particularly suited to buildings with those attributes.

The research is based on an analysis of “all” office building adaptations from 1998 to 2008, which facilitates a unique study of what has occurred with regards to adaptation practices. From this starting point it is possible to determine where opportunities lie to capitalise on work being undertaken.

This paper aims to investigate the key characteristics of parent brands and the relationships among customer perceived value (a second-order construct containing financial, functional, individual and social attributes), parent brand loyalty and the willingness to pay for a premium extended brand. Moreover, the moderating effect of self–brand integration on the influences in the model is examined.

Data were collected in two countries, the USA (n = 535) and China (n = 511), through an online survey. Structural equation modeling and a multi-group analysis were used to analyze the data.

The results show that perceived quality and premium brand authenticity are two important predictors of perceived value. The relationships among perceived value, parent brand loyalty and willingness to pay for an extended premium brand were significantly supported. In addition, self–brand integration was found to moderate the relationship between perceived value and loyalty to the parent brand.

Wine marketers and managers can use recommendations to establish effective brand extension strategies to help the industry know what essential characteristics of a parent brand to focus on and maintain sustainable development through the customer–extended brand relationship.

Previous researchers have discussed wine consumption behaviors or branding strategies. By limiting combining two theories (flow theory and the theory of planned behavior), this paper proposes a chain of behaviors to optimize customer experience to develop a brand extension strategy based on key characteristics of the parent brand.

This paper aims to investigate price and objective-quality in durable product categories containing national and private-label (PL) brands.

Using data from consumer reports objective-test results of 14,476 durable products available in the US the authors identified product categories containing both national and PL brands; constructed relative price- and quality-indices for each category; calculated price and quality differentials for each category then modeled the relationship between them; estimated the price premium associated with national brands (NBs); and computed price–quality (PQ) correlations for each category. The authors also analyzed the same relationships using subjective brand-perception data collected from 240 consumers.

Overall the price of NBs in durable products was substantially higher than the price of PL brands despite there being little to no difference in quality levels overall, with the proportion of categories having higher PL quality nearly equaling that of categories having superior NB quality. Correlation between price and quality was moderate. Accuracy of consumer perceptions varied depending on the importance of brand in the purchase decisions for particular product categories.

This paper uses a large objective dataset spanning a period of more than eight years to assess price and quality for durable goods in categories offering PL brands. It addresses an under-studied area, that of PL brands for higher-priced, longer-lasting products. The findings contribute to an existing understanding of PLs, especially in the domain of durable-goods, as well as to the body of research in the area of PQ relationships. It also adds to our understanding of consumers’ perceptions of brand as a factor in durable product decisions and how the market aligns with those perceptions.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model which investigates antecedents, consequences, and contingency factors of retailer own‐brand product advantage. The paper develops propositions and managerial implications.

It summarizes an empirical work related to the key constructs of the theoretical model and identifies gaps in the literature. The paper provides definitions of each antecedent and outcome of retailer own product advantage and discusses managerial implications of the proposed framework.

Retailers who have higher degree of customer participation, innovation, and brand orientations are likely to have a stronger own‐brand product advantage. In turn, those retailers are more likely to have loyal customers and superior own‐brand financial performance. These relationships will be influenced by retailer image, market power, number of national brands and category size, technology complexity, and competitive intensity.

Understanding the key outcomes of own‐brand product advantage will facilitate management's evaluation of current retail product development strategies. If outcomes of the current own‐brand strategy are not satisfactory, an assessment of customer participation, innovation, and brand orientation effectiveness may be warranted.

The authors are the first to define a retailer premium own‐brand. Based on the theory of resource‐based view, it is proposed a new theoretical framework that pinpoints three business orientations as antecedents of and customer loyalty and brand performance as consequences of retailer own‐brand product advantage. The framework also suggests some contingency factors at retailer, category, and market levels.

Continuing economic growth in emerging markets offers large market opportunities to producers and marketers worldwide; however, market failures due to asymmetric information are often seen when high-quality products enter these “new markets” where recognition rates among consumers are low. The use of “geographical origin” labels as quality signals to overcome asymmetric information problem plays an important role. The purpose of this paper is to compare consumers’ perception and willingness to pay (WTP) for different levels of geographic origin labels to provide insights to the strategic use of origin labels in emerging markets.

A consumer survey on geographic labeling for imported dairy products was carried out in Beijing, China in May 2015. Under the “products of European Union (EU)” range, the authors used “product of Ireland” as a case study for the country-specific origin label. Information on consumer demographic, dairy consumption, safety perceptions, knowledge on Ireland and Irish products, as well as WTP for different geographic labeling and product attributes were collected from 307 face-to-face interviews. WTP was elicited using double-bounded contingent valuation method, and estimated with maximum log-likelihood function.

The authors found that consumers are willing to pay premium prices for both of these geographical origin indicators, but the EU label had slightly higher WTP results. However, the controversial situation is that although the EU label has a better chance than the country-specific label in signaling premium quality to Chinese consumers, EU labeling at its best signals an average quality across the EU counties. For premium products with above average quality, using generic EU labeling has a potential drawback to the establishment of product differentiation.

This study is the first to evaluate Chinese consumers’ WTP for EU generic origin label for dairy products in comparison to country-specific origin label. Findings of the study have immediate policy and marketing implications in emerging markets.

The purpose of this paper is to identify consumer segments based on the importance of food quality and prestige benefits when buying food for a special occasion; dinner party with friends.

Using cluster analysis, the importance of food quality benefits (quality, taste and health) and prestige benefits (prestige quality, hedonic, uniqueness, price and social) were investigated. The consumer segments were profiled using individual consumer characteristics (involvement in luxury, willingness to pay and socio-demographics).

Food quality benefits are the most important benefits when buying food for a party with friends and the authors identified four distinct consumer segments based on 20 different food quality and prestige benefits: perfectionists, premium, luxury seeking and value focussed. Three of the four consumer segments (perfectionists, premium and luxury seeking) find conventional food quality benefits important but differ in the importance they attribute to the different prestige benefits. The value focussed segment is not driven by prestige consumption but wants high quality at an affordable price.

This study demonstrates that consumers are driven by different food and prestige benefits when buying food for a special occasion.

This study suggest some important differences between premium consumers, looking for food quality and hedonic benefits, and luxury seeking, with a relatively higher focus on prestige quality, uniqueness and social benefits. This study also identifies a significant distinction between perfectionists and value focussed consumers. Both segments are focussed on food quality benefits but differ in their focus on value and prestige benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of health information and sensory attributes on consumer’s propensity to upgrade and their willingness to pay (WTP) for pasteurized milk in Ethiopia.

The authors used a framed market experiment with 160 participants in 14 central locations in urban Ethiopia. The authors used a double hurdle model to analyze consumer willingness to shift to pasteurized milk and their WTP for quality attributes in pasteurized milk.

Consumers are willing to pay a 4 percent premium for quality attributes in pasteurized milk. Male and employed participants are willing to shift and pay a premium for pasteurized milk. Conversely, consumers with more children, higher income, and higher raw milk consumption are less likely to shift to pasteurized milk. These results also show that taste is negatively related to consumer propensity to upgrade to pasteurized milk. Further, about half of the consumers who were provided with health information are willing to pay a premium of 11 percent for pasteurized milk, whereas others would pay only 6 percent. After providing the treatment group with health information, those consumers with higher income, old people and consumers with children are less likely to shift to pasteurized milk. Overall, consumer preference for raw milk is the result of taste, perceived nutrition and perceived health benefits. The study points at a segmented milk market and the consequent need for the provision of a targeted milk market promotion.

The application of experimental auctions in developing countries requires an extensive learning exercise for participants.

The authors used a non-hypothetical valuation mechanism to unravel the effect of subjective and intrinsic milk attributes in fluid milk choice decisions and its variation across socio-economic groups in a developing country context.