Does Improvisation Help or Hinder Planning in Determining Export Success? Decision Theory Applied to Exporting

Exporting enables organizations to diversify risk and generate multiple income streams. In turn, the ability to make good export decisions is purported to be a main determinant of performance. Although substantive export decisions are well researched, little is known about how export decisions should be made in practice and whether different decision-making approaches should be combined. This study addresses this gap using decision theory; the authors assess the interaction of planning and improvisation and examine the impact of these approaches on export responsiveness and export performance. They develop a conceptual model through exploratory research and test it through structural equation modeling. The authors seek insights into the results through post hoc in-depth interviews and conclude that improvisation has multiple dimensions (spontaneity, creativity, and action orientation) and that there is no one “best way” for export managers to make decisions. Furthermore, export planning can enhance economic performance but detract from customer performance. In addition, improvisation improves responsiveness, whereas action orientation leads to greater customer performance and results in greater responsiveness with regard to planning. However, export managers should be wary of spontaneity and creativity, because they detract from planning outcomes

An evaluation of nonprofit brand image: towards a better conceptualization and measurement

Nonprofit brand image plays an important role in shaping consumers’ charitable donations and therefore nonprofit organizations must be aware of how consumers perceive them. This research examines nonprofit brand image and reports findings from three empirical studies, which aim to offer a better conceptualization and measurement of the concept. Study 1 investigates the psychometric properties of the Michel and Rieunier’s (2012) nonprofit brand image scales with a sample from the UK, and reports key methodological limitations. Specifically, discriminant and convergent validity tests highlight the need for further research into the dimensionality of the nonprofit brand image measures. Subsequently, studies 2 and 3 offer an improved conceptualization and measurement of nonprofit brand image and validate the scales via the use of 2 separate data sets. The new measures consists of 6 dimensions namely, usefulness, efficiency, affect, dynamism, reliability and ethicality which are significantly related to intentions to donate money and time

Controversial advert perceptions in SNS advertising: the role of ethical judgement and religious commitment

This study attempts to advance knowledge in the area of controversial advertising by examining the antecedents and consequences of controversial advert perceptions in the context of social media, and particularly social networking sites (SNS). Specifically, we explore how ethical judgement and religious commitment shape controversial advert perceptions leading to attitudes towards the advert, brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Our results indicate that when a SNS advert is judged to be ethically acceptable, the level of perceived advert controversy is lower. However, the impact of ethical judgement on controversial advert perceptions becomes significant and positive when intra-personal commitment and inter-personal religious commitment are introduced as moderators. This result implies that the level of religious commitment changes the ethical judgement - controversial advert perceptions relationship. The results also highlight that controversial advert perceptions negatively influence attitude toward the advert. The study contributes to the limited knowledge on controversial advertising on SNS, yielding significant and relevant implications for academics and advertisers alike, in their effort to improve advertising effectiveness without offending or alienating target audiences

Is it better to be both nice and nasty? Investigating the co-occurrence of sales manager aggressiveness and caring

Empirical research has largely neglected to investigate the issue of sales manager's problem resolution styles in handling conflicts. Building on the qualitative work of Lee and Cadogan (2009), we investigate how sales manager's problem resolution styles, as reflected in both caring and aggressive interpersonal interactions with their salespeople, impact important sales force outcomes. The results show that depending on the level of caring that manager exhibits during the problem resolution process, the curvilinear effects of aggressiveness on salespeople emotional exhaustion and sportsmanship are dramatically altered. Our findings are interesting, and suggest that the almost wholly negative picture painted in current academic literature regarding aggressive managerial style is at least somewhat simplistic, and perhaps rather overstated. Therefore aggressiveness and caring further should be considered together, rather than separatel

Attributions of service quality: immigrant customers' perspective

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether and how strongly cultural (mis)matches influence immigrant customers’ satisfaction, as well as if this relationship is mediated by cultural or service employee performance attributions. In addition, the authors test whether attributions differ depending on the service delivery outcome (success vs failure). Design/methodology/approach The 2 (origin of service employee: Austria or Turkey) × 2 (service delivery outcome: success or failure) scenario-based experiment includes 120 Turkish immigrant customers in Austria. Findings Contrary to previous research, the results indicate that in an immigrant customer context, cultural (mis)match does not influence customer satisfaction. The service delivery outcome is a boundary condition. With a positive service delivery outcome, immigrant customers attribute the results to the cultural background of the employee if it is the same as their own, but they attribute success to employees’ performance if they belong to the immigration destination culture. For negative service delivery outcomes, neither cultural nor performance attributions arise. Originality/value This study is the first to focus specifically on immigrant customer behavior in a high-involvement service context. The results challenge the predictions of social identity theory and the similarity-attraction paradigm and highlight that the immigrant context is unique. In this context, attributions play a key role in determining customer satisfaction

Household characteristics that influence household water use in the Hunter Region

Up to 3 years of monthly per capita water use data (both indoor and outdoor) for 225 houses from the Hunter Region in NSW was analysed in this preliminary study. The consumption figures were found to be broadly consistent with recent Australian and New Zealand studies. The distributions of indoor and outdoor water use were highly skewed, with the highest 20% of water users consuming 30% of mains water and over 50% of outdoor water. The water use data was then stratified by various available household characteristics. Weather-related factors (eg. increasing temperature and decreasing rainfall) increased outdoor water use. The biggest intervention factor was plumbing of a rainwater tank into the toilet or laundry with indoor savings of 50-75 L/capita/day, while rainwater tanks did not significantly affect outdoor water use. Front- versus top-loading washing machines save 40 L/capita/day. Presence of an irrigation system or a swimming pool led to a non-significant increase in outdoor water. Observed water savings achieved with rainwater tanks were found to be broadly consistent with recent Australian prediction studies, although the comparison was limited by lack of household characteristics. This highlights the need for detailed household information collection to enable both proper analysis and comparison to model predictions.D. Orr, T. Micevski, M. Thye

Evaluation of a behavioural approach and a regression approach for the modelling of household-scale outdoor water use

Invalid ISBN as printed on item: 97808258259461http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/3665096

A behavioural approach to stochastic end use modelling

Mark Thyer, T. Micevski, George Kuczera, P. Coombe