1,720,974 research outputs found
Three Essays on the Brand-Channel Interface: How Brand Equity Influences Distribution Channel Governance and Management
Full text linkIn this dissertation, I explore some facets of the strategic interaction between brand equity and distribution channels. Specifically, I examine how brand equity influences the firm’s channel governance and channel management strategies. In this regard, I address the following two general research questions: (a) does a firm’s brand equity influence the way it governs its distribution channel? How? (b) Does a firm’s brand equity influence the way it manages its distribution channel? How?
Using a wide assortment of archival data sources (e.g., Bond's Franchise Guide, Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500, Factiva, LexisNexis, University of Chicago’s Center for Research in Security Prices, Compustat, Statista, firms’ annual reports, Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal databases, and companies’ official websites), two large multi-year data sets, a variety of econometric techniques (e.g., Event Study, Multiple Regression, Probit, Multi-level Mixed-Effects Linear Models, Multinomial Logistic Regression, Generalized Linear Models, Multinomial Probit, Maximum Likelihood, Bayesian Panel Vector Autoregression), and drawing on several theories from marketing, economics, business law, and strategic management, I uncover some interesting strategic interactions taking place at the brand-channel interface. This dissertation comprises five chapters: three empirical studies (chapters 2, 3, and 4), an introduction, and a conclusion chapter.
In the introduction chapter, I provide a snapshot of the current state of knowledge in the brand-channel interface research domain and illustrate how I situate this dissertation within that body of research. Besides, I provide a more nuanced view about the specific research questions each study addresses and a glimpse into the findings and implications of each study, as an entry to the dissertation.
In chapter 2, using a large panel data set of North American, franchise-level annual observations for the period from 2001 to 2009, I assess the causal link between brand equity and channel governance structure, and discuss the managerial implications of this relationship in the areas of channel governance and capital allocation decision-making.
In chapters 3 and 4, I stay within the same overarching theme of this dissertation and delve into a business phenomenon taking place at the brand-channel interface – gray markets. Despite the interdisciplinary research interest in gray markets, it remains one of the least empirically researched topics in business management due to the well-known data accessibility issues. To circumvent those data barriers that impede empirical research on gray markets, I adopt a novel approach for data collection and analysis. To that end, I study the gray market combating behavior of more than 3,000 public companies, company-by-company, for a period of twenty years. Then, using a collection of archival data sources I assemble a unique data set to use in my analyses. In chapter 3, I undertake the first empirical inquiry into the effect of gray market combating on firm performance and the contingencies that govern this effect. In chapter 4, I conduct a comprehensive review of the gray market combating mechanisms present in the literature, review available theoretic arguments about them, posit theoretical relationships, and conduct the first assessment of the financial efficacy of those different combating mechanisms. Then, I identify a number of firm-level factors that may drive the firm’s choice of gray market combating mechanism. The findings of these two studies address some long-standing, focal research questions in the gray market literature, provide managers with many valuable, actionable insights and recommendations, and put before policymakers some novel, revealing scientific evidence that may help them in dealing with the gray market controversy (e.g., whether the net impact of gray markets on firm performance and social welfare is benign or harmful, the necessity and/or merit of an active legislative role).
The conclusion chapter closes this dissertation by reflecting on the new knowledge created by this research and highlighting its significance to theory, practice, and policymaking.ThesisDoctor of Business Administration (DBA)The relationship between brand equity and distribution channel strategy is recognized in practice and is of particular interest to senior managers. However, research in marketing on the topic is scant and our understanding of this relationship remains limited. This dissertation endeavors to advance our knowledge in that area by investigating how a firm’s brand equity affects its channel management and channel governance behavior.
Using a variety of research methods and statistical techniques, along with two large multi-year, multi-sector data samples, I document some interesting strategic interactions taking place at the brand-channel interface. Notably, I detect a causal influence for brand equity on the way a firm governs its distribution network. Additionally, I observe that brand equity is not only a major driver of certain strategic channel management initiatives (e.g., gray market combating), but also a key determinant of the financial efficacy of those initiatives.
The findings of this research pose significant implications for theory, practice, and policymaking and address some questions that puzzled practitioners and scholars for more than three decades
Three Essays on Voluntary Disclosure of Performance Metrics in Marketing Channels
Full text linkResearch on Voluntary Information Disclosure (VID) has been of interest in several disciplines including, but not limited to, entrepreneurship, accounting, finance, law, and marketing. Although there has been extensive research on VID aimed at financial market investors, scant research in marketing exists on VID targeted at prospective business partners that can influence firm future performance significantly. Financial and marketing disclosures have been advocated for by investors and public policymakers as they mitigate the adverse selection problems between the firm and its stakeholders (e.g., investors, customers, and prospective channel partners). Managers are, however somewhat skeptical about its outcomes because of the cost of disclosures (i.e., ex-ante costs of collecting, processing and disseminating the information, ex-post costs of conflicts and litigations, competitive position and proprietary costs). My dissertation consists of three essays on voluntary disclosure of performance metrics in marketing channels and aims to enhance our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of such VIDs.
The first essay examines the antecedents of ex-ante VID for standardized contracts in marketing channels. Prior literature in accounting, entrepreneurship, and marketing has investigated drivers of information disclosures to analysts, investors, and customers. Nonetheless, this study bridges the gap in examining why some firms disclose information to prospective channel partners when it cost them to do so and makes the firms vulnerable to competitors. If the disclosure is a signal of quality, we are also interested in knowing whether it is a substitute for other signals of quality or a complement. I draw on signaling and institutional theories to develop a theoretical framework and empirically test it through econometric analyses of multi-sector panel data for the U.S. franchising industry. The results suggest that firms (e.g., franchisors) make such disclosures to prospective business partners (e.g., franchisees) in order to signal profitability of partnering, to attract financial and managerial resources, and develop their entrepreneurial networks. This study contributes to signaling theory literature by investigating organizational quality signaling, providing empirical evidence for drivers of multiple signaling and shedding light on the conflicting views on substitutability or complementarity of multiple quality signals. The study has implications for managers who wish to attract potential business partners through signaling profitability of their business. Furthermore, there are some insights for regulators on the debate on making voluntary disclosures mandatory.
The second essay examines the performance consequences of i) signaling through ex-ante voluntary disclosure of performance metrics and ii) screening through selection standards, in the formation stage of new partnerships in marketing channels. It is essential for many entrepreneurial business networks to expand their channel by attracting business partners while still preventing low-quality partners from joining the network. However, information asymmetry between the two parties introduces a double-sided adverse selection problem to the relationship. In other words, the heterogeneous quality - the ability to perform the job - of each party (i.e., the focal firm or the prospective partner) is unknown to the other party. To date, most of the empirical studies have addressed the issue from only one side, either from the perspective of the buyer or the supplier, and have assumed that the other side is open to the relationship. However, in a selective inter-firm relationship that both parties have the option to select the other party, adverse selection problems should be resolved for both of them to enhance the performance of the partnership. To bridge this gap in the literature (i.e., to mitigate double-sided adverse selection problems), I propose a novel framework based on signaling and transaction cost theories. This study suggests and empirically examines a complementary effect of the simultaneous use of signaling and screening on the firm performance. I integrate secondary data from various sources to shape a unique multi-sector panel data set that allows for assessment of the effects of these predictors on firm performance over time through a rigorous econometric model. Contrary to some claims in the extant literature, the results demonstrate that rigorous screening process hurts the firm performance unless it is combined with a proper quality signaling mechanism. This study contributes to the B2B marketing literature and provides implications for practitioners by shedding light on the performance implications of channel governance mechanisms such as signaling and screening. Further, it provides empirical support for the effects of B2B marketing strategies on firm sales revenue growth.
The third essay looks closely into the voluntary disclosure of performance metrics. In the previous studies, the decision to disclose is operationalized as a binary variable of whether a firm discloses or not. In the absence of comprehensive regulation, disclosure strategies are subject to significant variation amongst firms, but can also vary over time within an individual firm. Through a content analysis of disclosure documents and scrutiny of the different components that comprise them, I explore the impact of disclosure content on firm performance. This study attempts to reconcile conflicting views of managers, investors, analysts, and regulators. On the one hand, VID should positively impact firm performance through mitigating information asymmetry. On the other hand, skeptical managers make the argument that VID negatively impacts a firm’s performance through costs of preparation, dissemination, potential litigation, and competition. Using a sample of publicly traded restaurant chains in the U.S., I empirically assess firm performance as a function of the disclosure strategy and its interactions with the firm’s characteristics and governance mechanisms. I collect independent variables from the firms’ disclosures through content analysis of public documents and obtain performance metrics of the firms in the stock market from Compustat. This study provides a novel context within which to investigate whether and how financial markets look at the firm’s disclosure behavior in dealing with its prospective channel partners, and it contributes to marketing-finance interface literature.
My dissertation is positioned in the marketing strategy-entrepreneurship interface domain and is a multi-faceted study that looks at the phenomenon of VID from different angles and provides implications for several stakeholders.ThesisDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)Distribution channel strategy has a long-term effect on firm performance, is associated with considerable irreversible costs, and can constitute a sustainable asset and competitive advantage for firms. Information asymmetry among the distribution channel members has been known as the basis of opportunistic actions in such exchange relationships. My dissertation research investigates drivers and consequences of information disclosure strategies and is focused on the firms’ voluntary disclosure of performance metrics at the inter-firm relationship formation stage of developing marketing channels.
This dissertation consists of three inter-related essays. In the first one, I study drivers of voluntary information disclosures to prospective channel partners. Then, I investigate the performance consequences of such disclosures and their interactions with channel governance mechanisms such as screening, in the second study. Since firms are heterogeneous in the content of their disclosures, in the third study, I conduct a content analysis of the firm’s disclosures to understand its influence on firm performance.
Based on Organizational Economics theories and Institutional Theory, I develop my theoretical frameworks and test them empirically using archival data. The empirical context for my work is the franchising industry because it is the most common type of partner-based retail system and is a significant component of the US economy as well as other developed countries and emerging economies.
The research findings offer both theoretical and practical implications for researchers and practitioners and contribute to the literatures on signaling and transaction cost theories as well as information disclosure and franchising
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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