Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science最新文献

Visualization can assist the process of narrating theory. Although most researchers realize the benefit of figures to efficiently and effectively convey the essence of a theory, many lack the visual grammar and tools to create those figures. This editorial presents a five-step iterative process, NETSA, to assist the process of theory visualization.

The present research employs the Assess Symptoms, Diagnose Causes, Identify and Test Interventions paradigm to measure, understand, and address a grand challenge facing prominent brands: weakness with minority consumers in increasingly diverse societies. First, an analysis of six-hundred thousand consumer-brand ratings reveals that the purchase intention advantage enjoyed by more prominent brands weakens among racial minorities. We posit that these symptoms of weakness are due to the erosion of ingroup identification that would advantage mainstream brands. A diagnostic survey of American consumers confirms the role of societal identification and points to symbolic marginalization from segregation in advertising as one contributor under brands’ influence. Minorities are less likely to report that advertising depicts diverse people together, which predicts lower societal identification and mainstream brand purchase intentions. Experiments confirm that advertising with minority representation and featuring (but lacking) diversification through multi-racial ensembles lessens (perpetuates) a sense of segregation, strengthens (undermines) societal identification, and strengthens (weakens) prominent brands’ value. Advertisements with representation and diversification can contribute to greater societal unification while protecting advantages afforded by social influence, an opportunity for brands to do good while doing well.

Marketers often use messages such as “Stock up and save” to encourage consumers to buy more units of a product. Governments use messages such as “Store at least a two-week supply of water and food” to encourage consumers to stock up on essentials for emergencies. This research finds that these messages may not work as effectively as hoped and introduces a method that can increase consumers' purchase quantity in these situations. Dubbed as SALE (“Short-Asking with Long-Encouraging”), this method couples a “long-encouraging” statement (e.g., “Stock up for two weeks”) with a “short-asking” statement (e.g., “Think about how many you will consume in one day”) in an advertisement. Two field studies, four lab experiments and a survey with salespeople demonstrated the effectiveness and novelty of SALE and identified the mechanism, moderators and boundary conditions of the effect.

Business-to-business (B2B) sellers grant customer-specific discounts to select buyers. According to resource-based and competitive response theories, customer-specific discounts can give buyers a cost advantage over other buyers that compete for the same end-customer demand. If other buyers become aware of this advantage, discount spillover ensues as those buyers seek counterbalancing discounts, compressing the seller’s profitability. In accordance with today’s multichannel B2B environment, the authors theorize differential effects on the seller’s profitability via spillover to offline-competing and online-competing buyers. The authors test their framework across large-scale field studies with two different collaborating sellers and find broad support for their hypotheses. If managers fail to consider competitive implications of customer-specific discounts, their effects can spill over to competing buyers, resulting in approximately three times the lost profitability. However, spillover-conscious deployment, such as by targeting buyers that limit e-commerce price transparency, allows sellers to virtually eliminate adverse effects of discount spillover.

When does product scarcity create lasting value for consumers and firms? We propose a framework overlaying the dimensions of demand-driven versus supply-driven scarcity and strategic versus non-strategic drivers of product scarcity. This framework generates three insights for the strategic use of product scarcity in marketing. First, because value from product scarcity is co-created by firms and consumers, it varies significantly across consumer segments, even for the same brand and product category. Second, the value generated by product scarcity tests to be longer lasting when product scarcity is both demand-driven and supply-driven. Third, the allocation mechanisms used to match demand and supply in response to product scarcity play a critical role in shaping consumer responses.

The creation and delivery of healthcare services are being transformed through patient-engaging digital services. However, their effects on hospital performance are unclear. We build on the theoretical foundations of resource dependency and environmental munificence to identify two characteristics of the hospital’s regional environment, the population’s access to digital computing resources (computing access) and health insurance coverage (service access), that condition the effects of hospitals’ patient-engaging digital services on patient satisfaction and readmissions. We argue that these omitted environmental contingencies may help explain the inconclusive findings reported in prior empirical studies on digital services. Analysis of data collated from a national sample of 941 hospitals nested within 157 regions shows that computing access in the environment strengthens the effect of a hospital’s digital services on readmissions and patient satisfaction. By contrast, service access dampens the moderated effect of digital services and computing access on readmissions, but the effect is not the same for patient satisfaction. Our study offers theoretical and practical implications underscoring the role of environmental heterogeneity in the value hospitals realize from patient-engaging digital services.

Most traditional marketers avoid using mindful consumption (MC) despite fast-rising consumer mindfulness, MC-advocation by trade magazines, and the success of tech-savvy, MC-oriented start-ups. We identify two gaps for this divergence—varying conceptions of MC and lack of a valid MC scale. Conception clarity and a valid MC scale are important for advancing managerial practice. We first integrate current, varying conceptions to identify three MC dimensions: Awareness, Caring, and Temperance. These signify awareness of self, society, and the environment (SSE), caring for the effects of consumption on SSE, and temperance in consumption. We then develop, refine, and validate the MC scale using 10 studies. We also assess the MC nomological network and scale robustness across genders, ages, occupations, and incomes. Marketers can use MC scale for product innovation, differentiation, and diversification. Policymakers can use this to nudge people towards MC-oriented sustainable behavior. This research opens multiple avenues for future research.