Strategic Management in Emerging Economies: a Research Agenda

The fragility of the global economy has been evidenced extensively over the past few years. The rapidity at which change can impact worldwide economies has invigorated a major concern in emerging economies. That concern is one of how to play the game when the rules of the game are changing and not completely known. The intent of this research agenda is to fuse early ideas in emerging markets with more recent research from a wide variety of scholars so as to develop a 21st century research agenda for emerging economies. This research agenda offers 20 broad research questions within the emerging economies context, with a major focus on challenges, institutional voids, and growth strategies

Energy Security: Shaping the Consumer Decision Making Process in Emerging Economies

Energy security is a universal concern among all countries, with all nations struggling for a sustainable solution. Solar technologies are a particularly beneficial utility for emerging economies due to both geography and affordability. Solar Photovoltaics (PV) is one of the highest potential growth markets in emerging economies due to the ability for small-scale systems to be placed on residential rooftops. Distribution of PV to individual homeowners is a new buying and selling process for what has traditionally been a business-to-business marketplace. Because the consumer market is at an infant stage in emerging economies, the messages that PV companies send to consumers will ultimately shape consumer perception about renewable energy. Through content analysis of websites from 12 companies in two of the BRICS markets, this research explores the similarities and differences with regard to consumer-facing messages among companies of various sizes in the two markets

Exploring Self-Efficacy with an Emphasis on Direct Selling

Self-efficacy, the confidence that one has in his or her capabilities to achieve a goal, is one of the most widely studied constructs in personal selling and sales management research. With few exceptions, self-efficacy has been studied as antecedent to sales performance. The present study differs from prior marketing-related studies of self-efficacy in that it explores whether a direct selling experience can enhance business/professional self-efficacy and personal life self-efficacy. In other words, in the present study self-efficacy is treated as consequent to a direct selling experience. An online survey was conducted in which a nationally representative sample of 495 current direct sellers responded to a self-efficacy scale consisting of 14 items regarding the impact of their direct selling experience on their business/professional skills and a self-efficacy scale consisting of 13 items regarding the impact of their direct selling experience on their personal life skills. More than 60 percent of the direct sellers surveyed either somewhat or strongly believed that their direct selling experience improved their business/professional and their personal life skills. There were differences in impact based on the gender and the age of the direct sellers. Both business/professional self-efficacy and personal life self-efficacy were significantly and positively related to self-perceived sales performance and performance on a non-direct selling job. The theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed

Predicting Turnover of Direct Sellers

As an industry, direct selling is ubiquitous. An estimated 5.3 million people were direct sellers in the United States in 2016. Of those 5.3 million direct sellers, 4.5 million were part-time and 800,000 were full-time. Moreover, in 2016, direct selling generated an estimated US$35.54 billion in retail sales that, in turn, had a US$83.11 billion impact on the United States economy. In a broad sense, direct selling is simultaneously considered to be a distribution channel, an industry, and a business model. Traditional major modes of direct selling include person-to-person and party-plan selling at a home or in the workplace, with online sales now gaining traction in the direct selling marketplace. Individuals become direct sellers for a multitude of reasons, including a desire to earn a living as a full-time direct seller, to earn supplemental income as a part-time direct seller, or to work at a part-time job to earn extra money to make a special purchase. Consequently, there can be relatively high turnover among direct sellers, especially those whose goal was to earn extra money to make a special purchase. Turnover is an issue in direct selling for several reasons, including the time and resources direct selling companies expend to recruit, train, and support direct sellers as well as the potential loss of customers and revenues when a direct seller exits the industry. As such, being able to predict which direct sellers are likely to leave the industry before considerable company and individual resources are expended would be beneficial to all concerned marketplace constituents. This research attempted to predict direct seller turnover by analyzing responses to a set of 12 reasons why a national sample of individuals decided to join a direct selling company. This was done by first comparing the number and nature of reasons that subsamples of current and former direct sellers gave for joining a direct selling company. Significant differences were observed between the two direct seller groups for nine of the 12 reasons studied and for the total number of reasons given for joining a direct selling company. This was followed by a binary logistic regression analysis that successfully predicted the work status of 63 percent of the combined sample of current and former direct sellers. Although data for the present research were derived from a relatively large nationwide survey of current and former direct sellers, the study should be viewed as exploratory given the absence of information on the topic and the lack of theoretically based hypotheses

Balancing Market Share Growth and Customer Profitability: Budget Allocation for Customer Acquisition and Retention

This study adds to the knowledge of budget allocation for customer acquisition and retention spending in an inertia segment.  The results indicate that when retention spending surpassed the optimal budget allocation, increased spending did not grow the expected value of customer equity.  Since the inertia segment is comprised of loyal customers, an examination of brand equity and its role in customer loyalty and its influence on customer equity are discussed

Empowering Women Entrepreneurs in Emerging Economies: a Conceptual Model

Cyberfeminism is a woman-centered perspective that advocates women’s use of new information and communications technologies for empowerment. This paper explores the role of information technologies, in particular the role of social media, in empowering women entrepreneurship in emerging economies via increased social capital and improved self-efficacy. A conceptual model is offered and propositions are explicated

Theoretical development in ethical marketing decision making

Abstract The current state of knowledge about ethical marketing decision making is explored from a historical perspective. While much research focuses on ethical issues, our purpose is to provide a holistic perspective of existing theory, skills, and research. We address both normative and descriptive approaches to ethical decision making theory development. Additional dimensions of ethical decision making such as institutional, resource-advantage, and value chain theory are advanced for future research

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival