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To examine the impact of Baltimore, Maryland USA festival market called Harbor Place on area residents' shopping, dining, and entertainment behavior over a 23‐year period.

A longitudinal study utilizing a telephone survey of a random sample of Baltimore area residents in 1982, 1992, and 2005.

A significant decline in shopping for non‐food items at Harbor Place and the Inner Harbor after the initial excitement following the opening of Harbor Place in 1980. A substantial and stable percentage of area residents visited the Inner Harbor and Harbor Place in each wave of the study for dining and entertainment purposes.

The festival market attracts the recreational shopper/shopper tourist but is likely to attract the convenience shopper as more residential development occurs in areas adjacent to the Inner Harbor. The area is likely to continue attracting area residents for dining and entertainment.

The paper compares and discusses data about Baltimore's festival market areas for the past 23 years and shows that Baltimore area residents, like those in most cities, are more likely to patronize their suburban shopping malls and power centers, rather than downtown market places.

Marketing executives face numerous hurdles in introducing new products into foreign markets. This article examines the difficulties multinational firms face in patenting new products in the EEC, the difficulties they face in protecting those patents, and the steps the EEC has taken to facilitate or hinder that protection through treaties and litigation. Finally, the article discusses marketing strategy implications of the patent treaties and litigated cases.

A sample of 400 consumers in a mall intercept copy test were shown one of four print advertisements for two consumer products (one complex, one simple). Two of the advertisements included “made in USA” claims, while the other two advertisements were identical but did not include any country of origin claim. The findings show that, on an unaided basis, made in USA claims are rarely noted, and that the symbol is more closely associated with nationalistic or “country‐related” issues (patriotism, economy/jobs) rather than product‐related issues such as quality. Furthermore, when consumers see the phrase “made in USA” they associate it with both parts and labour, rather than parts or labour alone. Finally, when respondents see the phrase, over half believe that it implies having 100 per cent American parts and labour.

The purpose of this article is to present an inside look at the history of a little‐known but interesting initiative in the marketing field, one that involved the infusion of marketing thought into public policy decision‐making in the USA. It aims to trace the interesting tale of how marketing academics came to be included in the activities of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) through the FTC's “Marketing Academic Consultancy Program” (MACP) during the 1970s. This story also aims to include descriptions of the contributions made by those marketing academics and how those scholars were later phased out of the FTC.

An autobiographical approach is used since each of the authors was personally involved in the MACP. As participants in the program and as scholars whose careers were thereafter tremendously affected by that participation, these personal accounts provide considerable insight into the impact on both FTC operations and on marketing academic thought itself.

Over the decade of the 1970s some 30 marketing academics participated in this program, with considerable impact on both FTC operations and on marketing academic thought itself. Reflecting positive impact within public policy, for example, was a massive increase in the FTC budget for marketing and consumer research activities – from essentially zero at the start of the program to some $ 1 million in 1978. Benefits also flowed back into academia, as this program formed a prime basis for the development of today's “Marketing and Society” research area.

Although there are histories of the FTC, this is an original, first‐hand account of a little‐known era during which marketing academics and public policy decision‐makers were given a unique opportunity to work together and learn from each other. It offers personal insights into the workings of this innovative program and the benefits that accrued for both the FTC and for the marketing discipline.

A blurring of distinctions among stores and consumers in a changing market‐place has broad ramifications for retailers, manufacturers, and wholesalers. In this paper we will first examine how stores are becoming alike, using a strategic tool to identify problems and anticipate competitive response. Second, we will see how several retail leaders have not fallen into a mold but have been able to differentiate, diversify, and grow. Next, we will consider the implications of the wholesale/warehouse club as a new stage in the evolution of retailing and wholesaling. Finally, we will examine manufacturers' concerns in coping with rapid retail evolution.

Research in marketing has extensively examined the signaling effects of product warranties on consumer perceptions. Although this stream of research has focused on initial product warranties offered by the manufacturer, studies of extended warranties, which protect consumers against product breakdowns beyond the warranty constraints of the manufacturer, are relatively scarce. This paper aims to empirically establish the effects of variables which influence the pricing of extended warranties for consumer durables.

Using data on over 8,000 product offers in six durable goods categories, drivers of the annual premiums for extended warranties are empirically identified. Bivariate and multi-level hierarchical linear regression methods are used to establish the effects of factors which may drive the prices of extended warranties.

The results reveal that the standardized annual premiums for extended warranties systematically vary across product categories and brands and are further affected by the retailer’s decision to use odd price endings for the sold product and the extended warranty. The influences of warranty length and price level of the protected product on extended warranty premiums are also empirically established.

The findings indicate systematic variations in extended warranty prices as a result of the factors studied. Future research can extend this line of inquiry by utilizing alternative means of data gathering.

Given that marketers often cross-sell many consumer durable goods with extended warranty policies, and considering the growth in consumer spending in this category, as well as the high retail margins associated with extended warranties, this paper contributes to the understanding of the mechanism by which extended warranty prices are determined in the marketplace.

This is the first study to examine the determinants of extended warranty prices, as past studies have been normative and non-empirical in nature.

Three basic approaches to retail institutional change can be discerned in the last 30 years. The first contends that institutional evolution is a function of developments in the socio‐economic environment. The second argues that change occurs in a cyclical fashion. The third considers inter‐institutional conflict to be the mainspring of retail change. None of those approaches is found to be entirely satisfactory, and a series of combination theories has been posited. It is argued that regional institutional change is the result of environmental forces and a cycle‐like sequence of inter‐institutional conflict.

The study investigates the cross-format shopping behaviour in the apparel sector. The purpose of this paper is to relate the number of store formats patronized to a set of consumer characteristics under a unifying theoretical framework emphasising cost-benefit analysis.

The research involved questionnaire telephone surveys from a sample of 1,722 apparel shoppers in a European region.

Among shoppers’ socio-demographic characteristics, age, gender, employment status and citizenship were found to have an impact on multi-store format patronage patterns for apparel purchases. Moreover, the store format preference and the sale proneness proved to be additional determinants of cross-format mobility.

The findings provide retail managers with valuable insights for effective marketing strategies aimed to exploit customer loyalty potential.

Despite consumers’ regular use of various alternative store formats for apparel purchases, literature on the determinants of cross-format mobility is scarce. Addressing the inter-type cross-shopping behaviour of consumers from a cost-benefit viewpoint, this study makes a new contribution in the area of customer loyalty and the complementarity and substitutability of store formats.

The purpose of this study is to assess the levels of information security governance (ISG) implementation among major Ghanaian industry sectors. The intent is to benchmark inter-industry sector ISG implementation and to identify areas that may require improvement.

Random sampling strategy was used, and data were collected via Web survey. The data analysis utilized a one-way analysis of variance to determine the differences in means of the levels of implementation of ISG focus areas among five main industry sectors.

The results showed that, as a whole, all the industry sectors have only partially implemented ISG. In particular, there existed statistical significant differences in ISG implementation among the industry sectors. Ranking ISG implementation, Financial Institutions were close to completion, Utility Companies, Others (Information Technology, Oil and Gas, Manufacturing) and Public Services had PI ISG and health care and educational institutions were at the planning stages. The result also revealed that all the industry sectors made marginal effort trying to align information security to business strategy, and performance measurement remained the least implemented focus area.

Organizational leaders could use these findings to benchmark industry sectors’ ISG implementation, which could lead to competitiveness. Again, international enterprises that do businesses with these industry sectors would better understand the level of involvement of the top executives in governing information security toward the protection of valuable information assets.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a taxonomy to describe and synthesize the retail strategies and store formats in the fast-changing modernization context of emerging markets. It identifies how these different formats are related to the existing literature about retail evolution. The paper proposes analogies between the empirical findings and the Big Middle Theory model developed by Levy et al. (2005).

Structured observations and personal interviews were conducted with managers/owners of 108 apparel stores located in three unplanned shopping districts in São Paulo, Brazil. Cluster analysis was used to derive the store formats.

The results identify four store formats – old fashioned, price focused, specialized, and consolidated – reflecting diverse marketing strategies and different stages in the retailing modernization cycle. There is a striking resemblance between these empirically derived formats and the four types of retail segments (Big Middle, Low price, Innovative, and in Trouble) proposed by the Big Middle model.

There are limitations due to the exploratory nature of the research: the specific context (São Paulo, apparel retail sector) where the empirical data was collected restricts the generalization of the results to other situations; lack of precision in the appraisal of the variables might limit the research replicability. Nevertheless, this research contributes to expanding the scarce knowledge about the retailing phenomenon in emerging markets. An extension of the Big Middle model is suggested to depict the existing retail formats in emerging markets, offering therefore a theoretical contribution to the retail literature.

The study provides retailers with a framework against which to map their format, competitive strategy, and stages of the modernization cycle, enabling them to better adjust the configuration of their marketing mix variables. It also offers a classification scheme of stores formats which will help to describe the apparel retailing industry in emerging markets.

Public policies are suggested to technically assist the modernization process and survival of more vulnerable retail formats.

Considering the fast-growing economic importance of the new “low-middle class” of emerging markets, and also the relevance of apparel retailing, this research is relevant and unique because it helps to bridge a gap in the limited literature and knowledge in this area.