Colleen Collins-Dodd

Store brands and retail differentiation: the influence of store image and store brand attitude on store own brand perceptions

Abstract Stores own brands can provide important opportunities for retail differentiation if they are considered by consumers to be uniquely associated with store image. A survey of shoppers measured attitudes toward individual stores’ images and store brand perceptions, as well as general attitudes toward store brands. A regression analysis demonstrates a positive relationship between consumers’ perceptions of individual store own brands and their associated stores image dimensions and attitudes toward store brands in general.

The Impact of Firms' Export Orientation on the Export Performance of High-Tech Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

The authors provide empirical support for the importance of a proactive export orientation in driving export success in the uncertain high-tech environment. Regression analysis demonstrates that proactive and conservative export strategies and motivations produce opposite effects on multiple measures of export performance for these small and medium-sized Canadian high-tech firms in the information technology and telecommunications sector.

Further Evidence on the Role of Gender in Financial Performance

Using a sample of 160 sole proprietors and controlling for other determinants of performance, we hypothesize and find support for the view that gender is not a significant direct explanation of financial performance differences among small accounting practices. The control variables we employ are practice characteristics, motivations, and individual owner characteristics. Our results indicate that although financial performance appears to be significantly different for females’ and males’ sole proprietorships, these performance differences are explained by several variables other than gender directly. At the same time we find that gender moderates the effects of other practice and personal characteristics on financial performance. One of the more interesting results is that women with a stronger motivation to establish a public practice to balance work and family experienced more positive financial outcomes, while for men the same motivation reduced financial performance.

Brand equity and retailer acceptance of brand extensions

Abstract Two important benefits of brand equity have largely been assumed in most previous research: reduced marketing expenditures required to launch brand extensions; and channel participants as an important source of brand equity. Results of a discrete choice experiment with independent retail grocers indicate that brand names influence independent retailers’ probability of listing brand extensions, but their sensitivity to mix elements such as consumer advertising, promotional allowances, and wholesale price, as well as competitors’ listing actions are not influenced by brand names. This means that retailers treat each dollar of consumer advertising or promotional allowance the same, regardless of who is spending it. Manufacturers should not assume that retailers will be less sensitive to other elements of the marketing mix for stronger brands.

National brand responses to brand imitation: retailers versus other manufacturers

Data from national brand manufacturers suggest they are more willing to take legal action against other independent manufacturers than against retailers when they think their trademark brands have been infringed. Imitation by other independent manufacturers prompts national brands to be more likely to improve their products than imitation by retailers. Those manufacturers who have taken legal action against imitating retailers are less fearful of possible retaliation tactics, such as delisting, or losing shelf space in the retail environment.

The Impact of Export Orientation on the Export Performance of High-Tech SMEs

This study provides empirical support for the importance of a Proactive marketing orientation in driving export success in the uncertain high-tech environment. A survey of small and medium size Canadian high-tech firms demonstrated that Proactive and Conservative export strategies and motivations produced opposite effects on export intensity. Proactiveness involves foreign demand motivations for exporting; foreign market focused marketing research and sales generating approaches. Conservativeness involves secondary research approaches, more passive sales generating strategies and export motivation based on non-foreign market factors such as government incentives.

Success Without Upward Mobility: Evidence from Small Accounting Practices

Abstract Small businesses face unique challenges, including how success is defined. Understanding how different small business owners define success provides an alternative lens to help explain entrepreneurship and how to evaluate the efficacy of a small enterprise. Because some traditional measures of success (for example, promotions, salary increases) are unavailable to these business owners, we describe and explore the definitions of and relationship between business and personal success. We examine survey responses from a sample of sole proprietors of accounting practices. Controlling for business and personal characteristics, we find that two factors, Client Satisfaction and Personal Success, are most important in defining business success while personal success is more closely related to the business success factor of Personal Success than to Client Satisfaction.