Search results

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have become prioritized goals of business, such as hiring more women and racial minorities. This study adds to the body of research regarding the value of diversity in organizations by examining the relationship between diversity at the workforce level and the financial performance of the organization. The empirical results of prior research have provided mixed results, finding mainly positive, but also negative, and nonsignificant relationships (Sharma et al., 2020; Vlas et al., 2022). The purpose of this study is to examine the current employment status of women and racial minorities in top US companies, then analyze if a correlation exists between a company’s profit margin and its percentage of women and racial minority employees and managers.

This study examined the top 200 companies in the Fortune 500 companies; these are the largest companies by revenue in the USA. Companies were ranked according to each variable (% of women employees, % of racial minority employees, % of women managers and % of racial minority managers) and then divided into equal quartiles. The mean profit margin for the top quartile was compared with the mean profit margin for the bottom quartile. T-tests were used to determine whether significant differences in profit margin exist between companies. This methodology of comparing top and bottom quartiles was developed in prior studies.

Fortune 200 companies have an average of 40% women and also 40% racial minorities in their workforce. Both women and racial minorities account for a smaller percentage of managers. Women account for 34% of managers, while racial minorities account for 29%. There is a significant positive relationship between profit margin and two of the variables. Companies with 45% or more women managers have a significantly higher profit margin than companies with the lowest percentages of women managers. Companies with 48% or more racial minority employees have a significantly higher profit margin than companies with the lowest percentages of racial minority employees. These findings are in-line with the existing body of research that has found mixed impacts of diversity on firm performance (cf. Hoobler et al., 2018; Leung et al., 2022) and draws attention to the need to consider the impact of gender and racial diversity on firms at various management levels within the firm to better understand the impact that increasing diversity has on firm performance (cf. Curado et al., 2022).

This paper adds to the body of knowledge by assessing the current status of women and racial minorities in top US companies and, then, analyzing if a correlation exists between a company’s profit margin and the number of women and racial minority employees and managers. Findings provide companies with further incentive to maintain DEI as a prioritized goal.

The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of increasing the intensity of sexual or violent content on consumer responses to online video advertisements, with a particular emphasis on sharing intentions.

The paper uses a between-subjects experimental design across two studies using new to the world online video advertisements as stimuli.

Study 1 finds that increasing the intensity of sexual and violent humor improves advertisement effectiveness amongst men but leads to significantly more negative attitudes toward the advertisement and brand amongst women. Study 2 identifies gender and humor type as moderators for sharing intentions in the presence of audience diversity. While men are more likely to publicly share sexual and violent humor advertisements, social anxiety mediates intentions to share sexual humor advertisements in the presence of greater audience diversity.

The paper offers insights to practitioners regarding the use of risqué forms of humor as part of a digital marketing strategy.

Drawing on and extending benign violation theory, the paper introduces and verifies a theoretical model for understanding consumer responses to the use of risqué forms of humor in online advertisements. It identifies how audience diversity affects sharing intentions for sexual and violent humor-based advertisements on social media.

Proponents of micro-credentials envision them as vehicles for upskilling or re-skilling individuals. The study examines how integrating micro-credentials in the higher education ecosystem enhances employability. It aims to offer insights from the perspective of stakeholders who may benefit from these credentials at an institutional or individual level.

Online in-depth interviews are conducted with 65 participants from India, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom to explore how micro-credentials can be a valuable addition to the higher education ecosystem. A multi-stakeholder approach is adopted to collect data.

The analysis highlights two possible methods of integrating micro-credentials into the higher education ecosystem. First, micro-credentials-driven courses can be offered using a blended approach that provides a flexible learning path. Second, there is also the possibility of wide-scale integration of micro-credentials as an outcome of standalone online programs. However, the effectiveness of such programs is driven by enablers like student profiles, standardization and the dynamics of the labor market. Finally, the study stipulates that micro-credentials can enhance employability.

The study's findings suggest that, for successful integration of micro-credentials, an operational understanding of micro-credentials, their enablers and strategic deliberation are critical in higher education. Institutions must identify the determinants, address technological limitations and select a suitable delivery mode to accelerate integration. However, micro-credentials can augment employability, considering the increasing emphasis on lifelong learning. An overview of the findings is presented through a comprehensive framework.

This paper aims to examine the marketing strategies designed by three innovative early 1900s food companies. It traces the coordination of these businesses’ research funding, advertising, direct mail and promotional tactics to show how they intersected and impacted consumers and health professionals in the period when scientists were first able to quantify the relationship between good health and food. The paper analyzes internal company documents, advertisements and marketing materials from Knox Gelatine, Borden and Sunkist.

Research for this paper benefited from the author’s unlimited access to the private documents of the Knox Gelatine Company and its executives. These documents were analyzed chronologically and thematically. They chronicled the company’s attempts to influence the medical world and the ways it cultivated home economists. The paper also used publicly available digitized documents from Sunkist and Borden. The paper would benefit from further detailed analysis of these documents to parse Knox’s targeting by race and ethnicity.

In the 1920s, Knox, Borden and Sunkist developed a marketing strategy which leveraged a new class of experts – the hundreds of thousands of medical professionals, home economists, teachers and government agents who advised American women. By distributing specific laboratory research on the nutritional benefits of their products to this emerging class of health professionals and the consumers who trusted them, these companies developed relationships with opinion leaders designed specifically to influence product sales.

This research benefited from access to the private documents of Knox Gelatine Company which divulge the company’s attempts to influence the medical world and cultivate home economists. The paper would benefit from further analysis of these documents to parse the company’s targeting by race and ethnicity as well as a deeper comparison to companies that tried to work with health professionals unsuccessfully and companies that adopted this tactic in the household products or tobacco area. Opportunities also exist to do a fuller analysis of variations in food marketing by rural versus urban as well as race.

By reconstructing the sequencing and content of these three companies’ 1920s marketing strategies, this research uncovers a form of early 20th century food marketing directed at health and science professionals which has been neglected in advertising histories.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the source of the content in social media communication and the content distribution intensity on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) dimensions and how the study will eventually impact purchase intention.

A total of 521 samples were collected using an online survey questionnaire. The respondents' validity was verified using purposive sampling techniques, and the responses were analysed using SmartPLS 3.0.

The authors outlined the fundamental mechanisms of what makes social media communication effective and discovered that emotional-based brand equity dimensions (brand association and brand loyalty) remained significant in influencing purchase intention. However, attribution-based brand equity dimensions (perceived quality, brand trust and brand awareness) are found to have no impact.

This study decomposed social media communication into three different dimensions, and the authors' result showed that the dimensions do not impact CBBE to the same extent. The authors concluded that some CBBE dimensions, which appear to be a rigour determinant of purchase intention over time, have a feeble effect during the pandemic. The existing relationship between the CBBE dimensions with purchase intention might not hold in the pandemic context. The authors suggested that anxiety or pandemic fear could alter the normal consumer buying process and make some well-established relationships not hold. As research indicates that pandemics are reoccurring events, the authors' study contributes to the global effort to dampen some of the pandemic-related effects on business and marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to continue and extend the ongoing conversation about greatness in American business.

This survey, conducted in 2021, replicates and extends McCormick and Folsom’s 2001 and 2011 rankings of the greatest entrepreneurs and businesspeople in American history. The authors’ pool surveyed 51 experts to develop an updated ranking and explore factors of greatness.

Henry Ford topped the ranking followed by John D. Rockefeller and Steve Jobs. Business scholars ranked Oprah Winfrey the greatest female and minority businessperson.

The authors extend previous research by surveying the authors’ expert pool about factors of greatness in American business history. “Ability to imagine or envision the future” ranked highest with “created wealth for shareholders” in last place.

This study aims to examine the effect of the different forms of attitudes on the behavioural intentions to adopt solar energy technologies (SETs) in Uganda. Although commonly examined, the effect of attitudes on people’s behavioural intentions to adopt SETs ought to be more distinctively examined to have a clear picture of how each of the identified sets of attitudes influences the adoption of SETs.

Based on a sample of 360 households from three urban districts in Uganda sampled using a multi-stage sampling technique, data were collected using a self-administrated structured questionnaire. The data were then analysed using partial least square–structural equation model with SmartPLS 3.0 software.

The study establishes that more specific attitudes affect behavioural intentions to adopt SETs than general pro-technology attitudes. Results reveal that both pro-environment and application-specific attitudes matter for behaviour intentions to adopt SETs amongst households. However, the general pro-technology attitudes are not significantly associated with behavioural intentions to adopt SETs.

The results are important for producers and promoters of solar technology to craft appropriate promotion campaigns intended to increase the acceptance and usage of SETs. This means focussing on creating positive attitudes specific to particular applications and popularising specific uses of solar technologies.

The study provides an alternative approach to the general representation of the attitudes–intentions relationships by examining the differences in the attitudes developed towards the different aspects of these technologies as a substantial source of variations in adoption behaviour, which is rarely addressed.

The effectiveness of a message and its attributes have become important for digital media. This study aims to investigate how different elements of a website including both argument-oriented and emotional stimuli based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) can affect the issue involvement and change the attitude of the website visitors of a healthcare service provider.

The Ministry of Health and Education (MOHME) website was selected to explore how its content and design can persuade visitors. An online survey was conducted on 355 adults engaging in health protection behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that one design element, i.e. website navigation and one social cue, i.e. social connectedness, have positive impact on issue involvement, while social presence and website satisfaction have a negative effect on issue involvement because of the random fluctuation suppressor effect. In addition, prior knowledge significantly influenced the issue's involvement. Further, website satisfaction has impacted attitudes directly. There was no significant relationship between argument quality and issue involvement.

Previous works have studied health-related behaviors in offline contexts; however, the scholars have not focused on the individuals' persuasion using ELM regarding the healthcare services provided in online communities. The results of the current study have theoretical and practical implications for scholars, website designers and policymakers.