Merger profitability in industries with brand portfolios and loyal customers

"We study the equilibrium effects of mergers between firms with brand portfolios and brand loyal customers for pricing and profitability. We find that the 'merger paradox' (Salant, Switzer and Reynolds 1983) is absent in these markets. The acquisition of brand portfolios can be profit enhancing for the merging firms and payoff neutral for the firms not involved in the merger. This may explain the emergence of brand conglomerates such as Richemont, PPR or LVMH." (author's abstract)"Wir untersuchen die Gleichgewichtseffekte von Fusionen, zwischen Firmen mit Marken-Portfolios und markenloyalen Kunden, im Hinblick auf Preisbildung und Rentabilität. Wir können dabei feststellen, dass das 'merger paradox' (Salant, Switzer und Reynolds 1983) in diesen Märkten fehlt. Die Akquisition von Marken-Portfolios kann für die fusionierenden Firmen Gewinn steigernd und auszahlungsneutral für die nicht an der Fusion beteiligten Firmen sein. Dies könnte die Entstehung von Marken-Konglomeraten wie Richemont, PPR oder LVMH erklären." (Autorenreferat

Social media use in B2b sales and its impact on competitive intelligence collection and adaptive selling: Examining the role of learning orientation as an enabler

Highlights Findings of the study suggest that social media is one way to enhance sales performance, but its use alone does not guarantee such enhancement. Social media use will affect performance of salespeople through affecting their competitive intelligence collection and adaptive selling. Perceived usefulness of social media was not significantly related to salesperson social media use. Results support linking collection of competitive intelligence to a salesperson’s adaptive selling behavior. Abstract This paper examines the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) salespeople to assist in their job functions. The authors propose that a salesperson\u27s attitude toward social media usefulness, as well as a salesperson\u27s learning orientation, will influence how much a salesperson uses social media to assist in day-to-day job tasks. Additionally, the impact that the use of social media has on collecting knowledge about competitors, adapting to customers, and sales performance is considered. Accordingly, a broad literature review is provided to introduce extant theory contributing to the proposed model. The practical uses of social media by salespeople will be described, and then the theoretical foundation is built, encompassing social media use, goal orientations, and adaptive selling theory. Results of an empirical model are provided, followed by a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications

A Knowledge-centric Examination of Signaling and Screening Activities in the Negotiation for Information Systems Consulting Services

In many professional exchanges, information asymmetry is bilateral, which means that both parties hold information that the other party lacks and, as a result, both parties have the means to be opportunistic. To counter this asymmetry, both parties signal and screen information as they negotiate a consulting engagement. In this paper, we report on how a professional service provider and recipient typically use signaling and screening. The findings highlight that both parties signal and screen and withhold information and that the extent of project knowledge (tacit or explicit) affects how they do so. Tacit knowledge-centric projects have more signaling and screening events than explicit knowledge-centric projects but many of these signals actually increase the amount of information asymmetry