Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science最新文献

Ridesharing platforms compensate drivers using a fixed commission system that does not systematically reward effective drivers, which reduces platform engagement. Unsurprisingly, driver transaction activity is intermittent and service unpredictable. Influenced by agency theory, we propose a variable commission that jointly accounts for drivers’ transactions and service performance. To alleviate disengagement, we propose a customer-oriented engagement framework that challenges the notion of the sole monetary focus of drivers. We compare the effects of variable and fixed commission schemes on consequences such as driver net revenue and referral value, mediated by attitudinal outcomes. In a 3-month cluster-randomized field experiment with 3,367 ridesharing drivers across 16 cities and two population tiers, we show improvements in driver satisfaction and emotional connectedness accentuated by goal-oriented feedback. Variable commission with goal-oriented feedback translates to a 24.5% rise in revenue, a 19.5% increase in referral value, and a 43.21% lower churn. A cost–benefit analysis reinforces these results.

To compete against disruptive startups such as Rent the Runway and Zipcar, many established brands have shifted from traditional ownership business models to access business models by providing short-term rentals of existing goods. Despite their growing popularity, surprisingly little is known about how access offers affect consumer responses. The current research addresses this gap and reveals unintended consequences of introducing branded access offers. Across four experiments, the authors find that consumers whose brand attachment reflects their identity as a member of a group (e.g., those with a high group-brand connection) think that access versus traditional (ownership-based) offers more negatively impact parent brand image. This accessor effect occurs because consumers with high group-brand connections are differentially sensitive to accessors’ perceived lack of brand commitment. Consistent with our perceived commitment account, the effect can be mitigated when access offer rental periods are longer (vs. shorter).

In cobotic service teams, employees and robots collaborate to serve customers. As cobotic teams become more prevalent, a key question arises: How do consumers respond to cobotic teams, as a function of the roles shared by employees and robots (robots in superordinate roles as team leaders and humans in subordinate roles as assistants, or vice versa)? Six studies, conducted in different healthcare settings, show that consumers respond less favorably to robot-led (vs. human-led) teams. In delineating the process underlying these responses, the authors demonstrate that consumers ascribe less power to robot (vs. human) team leaders, which increases consumer anxiety and drives downstream responses through serial mediation. Further examining the power dynamics in cobotic service encounters, the authors identify boundary conditions that help mitigate negative consumer responses (increasing consumers’ power by letting them choose the robot in the service team, leveraging consumers’ power distance beliefs, and reinforcing the robot’s performance capabilities).

Abstract

Managerial responses (MRs) have gained increasing attention as an important intervention strategy for addressing online customer reviews. This study seeks to answer the question of how a firm should prioritize responding to customers’ positive reviews (MR-P) and negative reviews (MR-N). We examine the differential effect of the MR-P ratio and the MR-N ratio on subsequent customer review ratings and a firm’s financial performance. Our findings show that while the MR-P ratio leads to an increase in subsequent customer review ratings and revenue, the MR-N ratio results in a decrease in customer review ratings and revenue in the short run, but contributes to improvements in these metrics in the long run. Furthermore, we find that the influence of MR-P and MR-N on subsequent review ratings diminishes among firms whose MRs contain highly similar content and firms whose competitors actively create MRs. This research not only advances our understanding of the managerial response literature but also provides valuable guidance for firms seeking to maximize the effectiveness of their MR campaigns.

We offer a framework to assess marketing activities for their relationship to human rights, grounded in the recognition that respect for dignity—the inalienable, inherent, and equal value possessed by all humans—is at their core. Drawing from historical and recent thought in philosophy, management and medicine, we focus on three factors of dignity: recognition, agency and equity. We then integrate academic research from our own field as the basis of a marketing-specific conceptualization of dignity, offering a list of assessment questions for firms desiring to integrate dignity into their marketing activities. Given the nascent state of research on dignity in marketing, we also propose a set of questions for future inquiry. We close with three case studies that highlight organizations’ success or failure in affirming dignity in areas relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals, and offer an invitation to esearchers to partner with global dignity-centric organizations to continue this work across cultures and challenges.

Abstract

Consumers perceive brands on their intended goals that can benefit or harm consumers. These warmth perceptions become consequential when a consumer experiences a product-harm incident. Conventional wisdom suggests that brand warmth may inhibit consumers from reporting such incidents to the brand and/or regulators. However, the authors’ analyses of field data show that brand warmth increases the number of reports of harm incidents. Yet consumers’ underlying motive is to provide feedback rather than complain. Indeed, using machine learning and regressions, and laboratory experiments, the authors demonstrate that brand warmth boosts the proportion of feedback (vs. complaint) reports. Next, they theorize and show that brand warmth induces consumer benevolence, which drives the consumer toward feedback (vs. complaint). Lastly, the authors demonstrate that if managers of a warm brand acknowledge the consumer’s feedback motive in their recovery messages, such acknowledgement enhances consumer satisfaction. The research extends the discipline’s knowledge on how a brand’s warmth perceptions impact consumers’ responses in the aftermath of a product-harm incident and what intervention managers can use in such a context.

Despite the importance of education in terms of spending and its impact, dissatisfaction with traditional public schools is growing due to students’ underperformance. One reason, among many, is the lack of strategic focus among educational institutions. The authors theoretically and empirically demonstrate the benefits of a customer-focused approach to strategy planning and execution for improving student performance. A customer-focused strategy enables educational institutions to identify customer needs providing the most value to customers, align strategy execution to those needs, and ultimately improve customer loyalty and academic outcomes. We demonstrate the approach using data from qualitative interviews with school leaders and surveys from 10,644 K12 parents. We conclude that a customer-focused approach helps educational institutions satisfy their customers and achieve higher academic outcomes.

We develop a marketing-centric framework for delivering affordable, clean energy to consumers by leveraging the marketing 4 Ps to encourage a bi-directional flow of information between firms and consumers. Using a multimethod approach that covers a consumer survey, field experiment, and a decarbonization simulation to test the various aspects of the framework, our findings point to the need for a “system-wide” solution. Specifically, we examine consumer responsiveness to multiple levers within the 4 Ps, showcase the real effects of a combination of an automated solution and dynamic electricity pricing on behavior, and examine the role of dynamic prices and automation in transitioning to 100% clean electricity. We argue that there are ways to achieve affordable, 100% clean energy that many consumers will adopt. We conclude with a set of research questions examining additional aspects of the 4 Ps that can be leveraged to facilitate the wide-spread adoption of clean energy solutions.

Although textual and facial emotion expressions in prosocial appeals have been studied separately in past research, there has been little work on the misalignment (compared to alignment) between them. Using a multi-method approach comprising experiments and panel data of 6,098 crowdfunding projects from Gofundme, we investigate how emotions expressed in the cover image and the project description interact to increase potential donors’ engagement as measured by metrics relevant to the platform, i.e., donation amount per donor. More specifically, we focus on the misalignment (vs. alignment) between happy and sad facial expressions in images and the positive and negative emotions in the project description. Our empirical analysis shows that misalignment scenarios have a bigger positive impact on the donor’s contributed amount, compared to alignment scenarios. We also show that such a relative impact is heterogeneous and differs based on expressed urgency, beneficiary age, and progress towards donation goal. We make a theoretical contribution via assessing the extent of cognitive processing in misalignment vs alignment cases. We propose situations with a tradeoff such that the extent of cognitive processing of multimodal information content can be reduced due to simultaneous activation of affective processing. Our research provides strategic recommendations for platforms to increase donors’ engagement and platform revenue management.

Analyzing unstructured text, e.g., online reviews and social media, has already made a major impact, yet a vast array of publicly available, unstructured non-text data houses latent insight into consumers and markets. This article focuses on three specific types of such data: image, video, and audio. Many researchers see the potential in analyzing these data sources, going beyond text, but remain unsure about how to gain insights. We review prior research, give practical methodological advice, highlight relevant marketing questions, and suggest avenues for future exploration. Critically, we spotlight the machine learning capabilities of major platforms like AWS, GCP, and Azure, and how they are equipped to handle such data. By evaluating the performance of these platforms in tasks relevant to marketing managers, we aim to guide researchers in optimizing their methodological choices. Our study has significant managerial implications by identifying actionable procedures where abundant data beyond text could be utilized.