Amit Poddar

Does Sample Size Matter in Qualitative Research?: A Review of Qualitative Interviews in is Research

This study examines 83 IS qualitative studies in leading IS journals for the following purposes: (a) identifying the extent to which IS qualitative studies employ best practices of justifying sample size; (b) identifying optimal ranges of interviews for various types of qualitative research; and (c) identifying the extent to which cultural factors (such as journal of publication, number of authors, world region) impact sample size of interviews. Little or no rigor for justifying sample size was shown for virtually all of the IS studies in this dataset. Furthermore, the number of interviews conducted for qualitative studies is correlated with cultural factors, implying the subjective nature of sample size in qualitative IS studies. Recommendations are provided for minimally acceptable practices of justifying sample size of interviews in qualitative IS studies.

Problematic customers and customer service employee retaliation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of problematic customer behaviors on customer service employee (CSE) attitudes and subsequent retaliation toward customers. Design/methodology/approach – Data from five semi-structured in-depth interviews and a structured survey with 434 responses are used to develop and test the theoretical model. CSEs working in different call center companies serving American and European customers were approached using an established survey panel. Findings – Results using partial least squares methodology showed that problematic customer behaviors have significant effects on emotional dissonance and drain CSEs emotionally. Negative emotional reactions are positively impacted by higher emotional dissonance and exhaustion levels and, subsequently, lead to higher employees’ retaliation. Research limitations/implications – For implications, this study provides an understanding of the relationship between problematic customer behaviors and CSEs’ retaliation. Fut...

Using Typologies to Interpret Study Abroad Preferences of American Business Students: Applying a Tourism Framework to International Education.

The authors describe research that applies a tourist framework to study abroad attitudes and preferences. A total of 371 university business students in the Southern region of the United States completed a survey that included the International Tourist Role scale and study abroad attitudes and preferences. These students were grouped into one of 4 international tourist typologies: familiarity seekers, controlled exposure seekers, spontaneous dissimilarity seekers, and cultural dissimilarity seekers. Identifying the combination of travel preferences held by members of these 4 typologies can help business educators and study abroad professionals design, develop, and market study abroad programs for business students.

Measuring Intangible Effects of M-Coupon Campaigns on Non Redeemers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to design better awareness and memory of product information using mobile coupon campaigns among those who do not redeem the coupons.Design/methodology/approach – The research involves two field experiments with a Mid Western mobile marketing firm where differently designed coupons were sent out to men and women customers of a fast food chain, and non-redeemers filled out a survey revealing how much they remembered. The research also connected their subsequent purchases a week later. The data were analyzed using ANOVAs.Findings – Factual ad claims create better recognition than descriptive ad claims in general, but among older working people when ad is viewed in leisure situations men better remember descriptive appeals, and women factual appeals. Also the memory has no effect on purchase intentions or future purchases. In contrast, among younger students, men remember factual ad claims better than descriptive, like women, and their memory has significant effects on subsequent purchase behavior.Research limitations/implications – Selectivity hypotheses may be applied to design advertising congruity/incongruity based on tasks people are doing in different physical situations. Other limitations include some sampling error (or selectivity) and its difficulties in generalizability across industries.Practical implications – Managers can build awareness using different types of ad claims depending on gender and situation among older working groups, and use factual appeals for younger groups. Among younger groups the memory of coupons can also drive subsequent purchase behavior.Originality/value – The paper uncovers the value of non redeeming customers in m-coupon campaigns, and identifies how to target and design campaigns to best extract that value

Drivers of Trade Promotion Receptiveness: The Role of Relationship and Trade Promotion Satisfaction

Trade promotions are widely practiced but sparingly researched. Retailers prefer trade promotions that provide short-term economic benefits; vendors prefer those that provide long-term, franchise-building benefits. This research develops and tests a model of trade promotion receptiveness by retailers, using data collected from senior executives from a broad swath of the retail industry. Both promotion satisfaction and relationship satisfaction with the vendor play important roles in trade deal receptiveness. Vendors could increase relationship satisfaction by emphasizing benevolence and enhance promotional satisfaction by improving their trade promotion management systems and processes.

Improving trade promotions through virtual forward buying

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a virtual forward‐buying model that allows for forward buying but reduces the channel cost with no major behavioral change on the part of manufacturers and retailers.Design/methodology/approach – Using simulations, the authors compare the proposed virtual forward‐buying model with the traditional forward‐buying and everyday‐low‐price approaches.Findings – The authors find that the proposed model leads to lower overall channel costs that are shared equitably between both the manufacturer and the retailer.Research limitations/implications – No primary or secondary is used, a situation that is usually very difficult to find in this area.Practical implications – The paper presents a new method to improve trade promotion efficiencies that does not require a drastic change of habits for either the manufacturer or the retailer; allows the practice of forward buying to continue; and leads to channel cost reductions for both parties.Originality/value – The paper pr...

What Do We Know about Trade Promotions? Contributions, Limitations, and Further Research

The trade promotion area remains seriously under-researched compared with its share of the overall marketing mix budget. This review attempts to provide an up-to-date account of what we know about trade promotions. For eight major topics we elaborate on what that topic means in the context of trade promotions, why it has been deemed important, what empirical findings have emerged in that area, and proposeareas for future research.

GEMS OR FAKES? USING LOCATION AWARE TWEETS TO ASSESS ONLINE REVIEW-RELIABILITY

Online review sites have become both popular and indispensable for many industries that have recognized the importance of word-of-mouth as advertising tools. Hotels and restaurants that are rated highly by travel site “Trip advisor” proudly put a sticker outside their business locations demonstrating their popularity. The review site logos, and the business scores on stickers and badges regularly serve as seals of approval and symbols of reliability. This has given rise to a cottage industry that misuse the trust. While some businesses post flattering reviews as advertising, competitors sometimes falsely slander reputation of competitors. There has been some research which explores the issue of reliability of online reviews, for example, Luca and Zervas, (2015)* identify different restaurant characteristics that cause them to use fake reviews. Ney (2013)* identifies factors consumers use to assess credibility of online reviews. The problem of unreliable reviews creates an interesting set of issues that we attempt to address in this paper. First, if there is a way to confirm whether the reviews are reliable without engaging in primary data collection. Second, what explains the underreporting or over reporting of the quality of a place? To answer the above questions, in this paper the authors extract emotions embedded in location-based tweets emerging from restaurant locations to verify the reliabilities of their online review scores on Yelp. Due to the real-time nature of the feedback, location based tweet content is free of certain survey response biases like social desirability bias. In order to collect location based tweets, we mined data from consumers checking-in via Foursquare (a location based social network application) at restaurants, across six regions in USA. These regions were chosen because of the high volume of check-ins emanating from them on foursquare. Using this data set we were able to extract specifics such as the name of the restaurant, the content of the tweet and related temporal variables impacting the consumer’s experience in a particular business location. Over twenty five thousand tweets were analyzed which were posted by approximately 14000 users. Further, we developed a scale measuring emotions embedded in the tweets with the help of University of Florida’s Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) scale. Each of the tweets were divided into its constituent’s words and the words were checked against the Anew scale items. When a word was identified, we allotted a numerical pleasure value to that word. At the end of the processing we had an average numerical pleasure score for each tweet. Using the tweet pleasure score and the Yelp score, an index was computed that could reveal whether Yelp overrated or underrated the restaurant. Further analysis led to preliminary findings that demonstrated how underrated or overrated a restaurant was varied with the type of cuisine served in the restaurant. Among all restaurants, over 75% of the restaurants were classified as overvalued. In other words, based on tweet emotion content, most Yelp ratings appear positively biased. Asian restaurants were the most overvalued (100%) followed by Latin restaurants, which were 88% overvalued. One interesting initial finding was that American category restaurants were the most undervalued. 43% of the restaurants were undervalued on yelp as compared to their pleasure ratings.