Developing Strategic Marketing Plan

This publication is first in a series targeted for Coordinators and Managers within Benefits Planning, Assistance and Outreach Programs concerned with developing continuous quality improvement approaches. This early publication focuses on understanding strategies for market position, strategic planning and provides a tool for conducting an organizational self-assessment along with a stakeholder analysi

Money, Money, Money – How do Attitudes Toward Money Impact Vanity and Materialism? – the Case of Young Chinese Consumers

Purpose – China is undergoing a radical change as the forces of industrialization and modernization transform its society. Money is taking on an increasingly important role, particularly among young Chinese, as the Western ideals of individualism and hedonism thrive. The goal of this research is to understand attitudes towards money in China and how these attitudes affect elements of consumer behavior such as materialism and vanity. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a well-accepted scale (with several dimensions) to explore attitudes towards money. Research questions examine how the dimensions of attitudes towards money affect materialism and achievement vanity. The sample comprises 127 young Chinese consumers. Statistical results based on confirmatory factor analysis as well as path analysis are reported. Findings – The findings clearly show that attitudes towards money in China are not monolithic; instead there are variations among young Chinese. Materialism is affected by the power-prestige and anxiety dimensions, but unaffected by the distrust dimension of money attitudes. Achievement vanity is affected by the power-prestige dimension of money attitudes. Research limitations/implications – Future research could examine other developing countries and other generational consumer segments. Another future research topic is to develop a comprehensive model of money attitudes, materialism, vanity, compulsive buying, and their possible antecedents or moderators. Practical implications – These findings offer insight into the mindset of young Chinese. Beliefs that money permits one to attain not only status and possessions, but also power and control over others are contributing to increased materialism and expressions of vanity among young Chinese. For marketers, the results imply that positioning products based on the possession of money and the use of this money to indulge hedonism may resonate well with young Chinese consumers. However, some of the relationships we found may cause concern to ethicists and consumer watchdogs because of the associated problems of compulsive buying and other problems which are prevalent in consumer societies. Originality/value – So far, no study has examined whether money attitudes drive materialism and achievement vanity, especially among younger consumers in developing countries such as China

Leveraging Internal Competency and Managing Environmental Uncertainty: Propensity to Collaborate in International Markets

Purpose – The choice of an international market entry mode involves two critical considerations, leveraging internal competencies and managing environmental uncertainties in host countries. The purpose of the paper is to explicate how these two considerations affect the propensity to collaborate in international markets. Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds on existing theories and develops hypotheses showing relations between competencies and uncertainty and collaboration in international markets. Findings – Conceptual relations show that the goals of leveraging competencies and managing environmental uncertainty in host countries have varying effects on the level of international collaboration. Originality/value – The effects are shown through the integration of different theories and empirical findings. Furthermore, the significance of collaboration in international market entry decisions is established. Directions for future research are also provided

The Flexible Executive Mindset: How Top Management Should Look at Tomorrow’s Markets

The need for management to better anticipate the future is the urgent message currently being advocated by consultants in strategic market planning. Uses a survey of high-level managers from Fortune 1,000 corporations to illustrate the advantages of cultivating a flexible mindset concerning environmental trends and their strategic marketing implications. Reviews projected developments in the economy, technology, ecology and the social/political environments that are expected to occur by 2005. Discusses appropriate marketing responses to these trends

‘Short Interest Pressure’ and Competitive Behaviour

This study introduces and examines a new-to-strategy form of Wall Street pressure – ‘short interest pressure’ – the tension felt by management caused by short sales of the firm\u27s stock. Drawing from a sample of over 5000 competitive actions carried out by competing firms over a 6-year time period, we test whether the level of short interest pressure experienced by the firm in one time period is predictive of properties of the firm\u27s competitive action repertoire in the ensuing time period. Our findings suggest that when faced with short interest pressure firms tend to carry out a higher number of competitive actions in the following time period, as well as a set of actions that deviate from the industry norm. In addition, post hoc analysis reveals that this effect is amplified for poorly performing firms. Thus, our study contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between capital market signals and competitive strategy

Just Markets from the Perspective of Catholic Social Teaching

The justice of markets is intricately connected to the treatment of the poor and the disadvantaged in market economies. The increased interest of multinational corporations in low-income market segments affords, on one hand, the opportunity for a more inclusive capitalism, and on the other, the threat of greater exploitation of poor and disadvantaged consumers. This article traces the contributions of Catholic Social Teaching and its basic principles toward providing insight into what constitutes justice in such marketing to the impoverished situations

Normative Perspectives for Ethical and Socially Responsible Marketing

This article presents a normative set of recommendations for elevating the practice of marketing ethics. The approach is grounded in seven essential perspectives involving multiple aspirational dimensions implicit in ethical marketing. More important, each basic perspective (BP), while singularly useful, is also integrated with the other observations as well as grounded in the extant ethics literature. This combination of BPs, adhering to the tenets of normative theory postulation, generates a connective, holistic approach that addresses some of the major factors marketing managers should consider if they desire to conduct their marketing campaigns with the highest levels of ethics and social responsibility

Making Sense of Entrepreneurship Journals: Journal Rankings and Strategy Choices

Dozens of peer-reviewed, English language journals are currently published in our field. How ought we to evaluate them? This paper seeks to answer this question. To do so, we utilize both relevant literature and data on Entrepreneurship journals. The literature derives from both information science and other research areas that reflect on their journals. The data derives from six citation measures from Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science. We find 59 currently published English language, peer reviewed journals in Entrepreneurship. Contestable judgments based on their impact measures suggest that one of these 59 could be considered as “A+, four as “A”, five as “AB”, eight as “B”, four as “BC”, 23 as “C”, thirteen as “barely detectable”, and one as “insufficient data but promising”. Journal rankings affect the resources and prestige accorded to business schools, disciplines and subdisciplines, and individual scholars. However, the need to fit evaluations to school strategy implies that no rating system, ours included, is definitive. Multiple measures are needed, letter grades are misleading, and journal rankings should match the institution’s strategy and priorities in stakeholder service. A wider purpose of this study is to alert readers to the range of current methodologies and the limits of conventional rankings. Our conclusions appear innocuous, but standard practice is to use restrictive measures, to employ letter grades, and to prioritize only one stakeholder: scholars. These practices are poorly suited to the Entrepreneurship field

Youth identity formation and contemporary alcohol marketing

This paper considers linkages between contemporary marketing theory and practice, and emerging conceptualizations of identity, to discuss implications for public health concerns over alcohol use among young people. Particular attention is paid to the theorizing of consumption as a component of youth identities and the ways in which developments of marketing praxis orients to such schemata. The authors’ analyses of exemplars of marketing materials in use in Aotearoa New Zealand, drawn from their research archive, emphasize the sophistication and power of such forms of marketing.They argue that public health policy and practice must respond to the interweaving of marketing and the self-making practices of young people to counter this complex threat to the health and well-being of young people