Using projective techniques to further understanding of the RAPM-PEU relationship : evidence from the experience of marketing and sales managers

In an increasingly uncertain context, budgeting faces at least two categories of concerns : how should realistic objectives be set in a poorly predictable context? How should a fair year-end evaluation be performed when uncertainty has affected the results and their controllability? Since Hopwood's (1972) paper, performance evaluative styles have provided a rich vein for empirical behavioral studies in control, largely based on contingency approaches, and the Perceived Environmental Uncertainty (PEU) has been examined in many empirical studies. However, two decades of literature on the RAPM-PEU relationship have produced results that are best inconclusive. In our view, there is a need for better understanding of the constructs commonly used in RAPM research. To meet this need, we used a field-based study and projective techniques to interview fourteen senior marketing and sales managers in a variety of industries. The interviews were designed to capture the managers' perceptions relating to RAPM, and to uncertainty. Our results highlight an important practical and theoretical distinction between actionable and non-actionable sources of PEU, which is based on a manager's ability to improve the predictability of change, and/or to be able to react to changes in the environment with an additional effort. When PEU is high and perceived as non-actionable, the paper examines what kind of social and organizational adjustments take place that can avoid the potential negative behavioral consequences of RAPM. The results emphasize that budgeting and performance evaluation are a multiple-year game, where trust and knowledge of social rules build up over the years, and learning takes place - a picture left out of traditional RAPM literature.budgeting; RAPM; uncertainty; projective techniques; behavioral accounting; marketing and sales managers

The Impact of Cultural Dimensions on Sales Force Compensation

Financial compensation has long been held as the primary motivator of salespeople. Motivation however may be achieved differently in various countries, as the large disparities in pay schemes across countries seem to indicate. In this paper, the authors explore the impact of cultural dimensions on sales force compensation structures. Using data collected from financial companies of three European countries, they (1) assess transnational cultural profiles of managers (i.e., market, group-centric and hybrid), (2) confirm discrepancies in terms of managerial preferences for compensation structures and (3) uncover associated rationales such as rejection of incentive compensation due to its perceived immorality. The results indicate that cultural dimensions explain managers choice for (1) the use of incentive pay in the compensation package (i.e., fixed versus variable compensation) as well as (2) the basis for its allocation (i.e., individual versus group). The authors conclude by discussing the implications of their research for designing compensation plans in the global market place.sales force compensation; cross-cultural research

Can multimarket competition theory explain why manufacturers are reluctant to adopt e-commerce ? The case of the French household appliances’ manufacturers

International audienceWith turnover of more than €51 billion in France in 2013, e-commerce continues to grow, both in volume and number of players. While economic theories suggest that manufacturers should integrate intermediation functions as soon as they are able to perform them at a lower cost than external operators, few French manufacturers are engaging in e-commerce. In this research, we explore why manufacturers of household appliance do not launch e-commerce sites. Our results suggest that, in accordance with multimarket competition theory, they do so in order to avoid coercion from the traditional French distribution system

Systèmes de contrôle marketing et stratégies de distribution : la mise en évidence du facteur environnemental par une étude exploratoire

Les différentes études portant sur les déterminants des systèmes de contrôle marketing restent parcellaires. Cet article présente les résultats d'une étude exploratoire visant à mettre à jour les éléments de l'environnement de l'entreprise qui peuvent influencer le système de contrôle adopté. Une vingtaine d'entretiens semi directifs auprès de directions marketing et commerciales ont permis d'identifier quatre catégories d'entreprises selon le système de contrôle mis en place. Ces quatre catégories suggèrent que la relation avec la distribution structure fortement le système de contrôle, qu'il s'agisse du rapport de force entre fabricant et distributeur ou du type de relation commerciale.systèmes de contrôle commercial et marketing; mécanismes de marché; contrôle social; réseaux de distribution; rapports de force; marketing relationnel

Le rôle de l’orientation régulatrice chronique sur les représentations du lien santé-alimentation et les comportements alimentaires: une étude exploratoire

International audienceL’objectif de cette recherche exploratoire est de mettre au jour l’influence de l’orientation régulatrice chronique sur les représentations du lien santé/alimentation et les stratégies de consommation alimentaire. Aujourd’hui, le consommateur fait un lien très fort entre la recherche de santé et son alimentation, est soumis à de nombreux messages nutritionnels, doit faire face périodiquement à des crises alimentaires qui peuvent remettre en cause ses habitudes, bien qu’il attache une grande importance au goût des aliments. Nos résultats montrent que l’orientation régulatrice influence les représentations et comportements alimentaires. Nous décrivons les représentations et les comportements alimentaires au sein des deux groupes identifiés, l’un constitué d’individus orientés prévention et l’autre de consommateurs orientés promotion

Consumers' Controversies about Consumption

This article introduces a preliminary model that conceptualizes the drivers, expressions, and consequences of consumers’ controversies about the limits of legitimate consumption within a social context. Drawing on qualitative data on the North American conflict over the cultural legitimacy of the Hummer brand of vehicles, the study documents that - contrary to the prevailing consumer-producer centric model - market-mediated social conflicts also emerge as immediate, interpersonal social practices through which consumers contest each others’ consumption choices, ideologies, and behaviors. The study reveals that consumer controversies often begin with violations of social expectations, manifest in vigilant justice, insult, discredit, ridicule, and instruction practices, and serve consumers to preserve, promote, and defend the consumption-related meanings, practices, objects, and identities that they consider sacrosanct for themselves and their social peers. The study suggests that consumer controversies affect consumer culture, identity projects, and marketing practices in important ways previously unrecognized by theories of consumer emancipation and resistance

Explaining Intent of Adoption of Wireless Internet Services by Business Executives: The Case of Paris Airports’ Hotspots

According to most industry experts and researchers, wireless Internet access is seen as a promising market for mobile users in locations such as airports and other public venues [1]. According to the Gartner Group, 6,000 wireless Internet hotspots were installed in the world in 2002, 57% in Northern America and 14% in Europe. 15,000 hotspots should have been implemented in Europe by 2000, used by 11 million regular users and 12 million occasional users. Airports, because of the high density of travellers and the relatively long waiting times involved, are considered as key hotspot locations. Yet, consumption of such services is still lagging behind suppliers’ expectations. Why, and whether, consumers will use wireless Internet still remains unclear. This paper aims to contribute to answer both questions by defining a framework explaining the intent of use by consumers. To this end, we carried out market research, focused on executives attending public venues where wireless Internet services can be proposed. In this paper we first define the specific features of the wireless Internet access for airports. We then propose a framework explaining the intent to use wireless Internet services

Design Affordance Does Matter: A Spotlight on Categorization and Evaluation of Hybrid Innovations by Consumers

In the high tech field, we are witnessing the proliferation of innovations combining different categories of products into a single one called New Hybrid Products (NHP). Given the inherent particularities to their hybrid nature, ensuring that the boundaries between their categories of belonging become blurred and making their allocation to a well-defined category difficult. In this study, qualitative methods are used to gain a boarder understanding of how consumers categorize new hybrid products (NHP) by mobilizing and articulating theories of categorization and affordance. Our results show that product affordance drives the NHP’s attribution to a category. This study addresses the relevance of the holistic perception of the NHP’s design in identifying its potential uses and the decomposed view of the design in favoring its attribution to a host category. It helps us understand how consumers mobilize the design to make sense, categorize ambiguous NHPs and infer their uses, on both holistic and components levels. This chapter will give hints to companies about how the integration of affordance in the design will help de-risking innovation development as affordance is involved not only in their categorization but also in their evaluation and adoption by consumers

A Glider-Compatible Optical Sensor for the Detection of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in the Marine Environment

This study presents the MiniFluo-UV, an ocean glider-compatible fluorescence sensor that targets the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the marine environment. Two MiniFluos can be installed on a glider, each equipped with two optical channels (one PAH is measured per channel). This setup allows the measurement of up to 4 different fluorescent PAHs: Naphthalene, Phenanthrene, Fluorene and Pyrene. Laboratory tests on oil products (Maya crude oil and Diesel fuel) as well as on marine samples near industrial areas (urban harbor and offshore installations) revealed that the concentration of the four PAHs targeted accounted for 62–97% of the total PAH concentration found in samples (∑16 PAHs determined by standard international protocols). Laboratory tests also revealed that for marine applications, the calibration on Water Accommodated Fraction (WAF) of crude oil is more appropriate than the one on pure standards (STD). This is because PAH fluorescence is constituted in large part of alkylated compounds that are not considered with STD calibration. Results from three glider deployments with increasing levels of complexity (a laboratory trial, a field mission in non-autonomous mode and a fully autonomous mission) are also presented. During field deployments, the MiniFluo-glider package was able to detect concentration gradients from offshore marine waters toward the head of a Mediterranean harbor (< 80 ng L−1) as well as hydrocarbon patches at the surface waters of an oil and gas exploitation field in the North Sea (< 200 ng L−1, mainly Naphthalene). It is suggested that using only the WAF calibration, the concentration derived with the MiniFluo agrees within one order of magnitude with the concentration determined by Gas Chromatography coupled with Mass Spectrometry (overestimation by a factor 7 on average). These performances can be improved if the calibration is made with a WAF with PAH proportions similar to the one find in the environment. Finally, it is shown that the use of in situ calibration on water samples collected during the glider deployment, when possible, gives the best results

Radiative and isospin-violating decays of Ds mesons in the hadrogenesis conjecture

The masses and decays of the scalar D_{s0}^*(2317) and axial-vector D_{s1}^*(2460) charmed strange mesons are calculated consistently in the hadrogenesis conjecture. These mesons decay either strongly into the isospin-violating pi^0 D_s and pi^0 D_s^* channels or electromagnetically. They are generated by coupled-channel dynamics based on the leading order chiral Lagrangian. The effect of chiral corrections to chiral order Q_\chi^2 is investigated. We show that taking into account large-N_c relations to determine the strength of these correction terms implies a measurable signal for an exotic axial-vector state in the eta D* invariant mass distribution. The one-loop contribution to the electromagnetic decay amplitudes of scalar and axial-vector states is calculated. The Lagrangian describing electromagnetic interactions is obtained by gauging the chiral Lagrangian for hadronic interactions and adding gauge-invariant correction terms to chiral order Q_chi^2. In addition the role of light vector meson degrees of freedom is explored. We confront our results with measured branching ratios. Once the light vector mesons are included, a natural explanation of all radiative decay parameters is achieved.Comment: 102 pages, 7 figures, further improved presentatio