Jared M. Hansen

Toward a General Theory of CSRs The Roles of Beneficence, Profitability, Insurance, and Industry Heterogeneity

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a tortured concept. A number of alternative definitions of the construct exist at the theoretical level, and much debate surrounds the meaning (and its related implications for practice) of the term. Empirically, CSR research reaches few remarkable conclusions. In this article, the authors reconceptualize CSR into a number of discrete corporate social responsibilities (CSRs), each of which can have a positive or negative social impact, and each of which has an endogenous managerially driven component and an exogenous stakeholder-driven component. Using an industry-level sample drawn from the KLD database, the authors test the impact of hypothesized drivers of CSR on various CSRs.

The evolution of buyer‐supplier relationships: an historical industry approach

Purpose – This paper aims to evaluate the evolution of buyer‐supplier relationships from adversarial toward relational, or service‐centered, emphasis for large‐scale organizations.Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses the historical method to review historical changes through synthesized qualitative (i.e. field notes and industry interviews) and quantitative (i.e. company reports, Compustat queries, trade reports, and survey) research.Findings – Technology and information sharing in B2B relationships engender integrated value chains. Within these value chains, service‐centered view of B2C relationships have been adopted in B2B relationships, resulting in changes in supplier roles and how they are measured.Research limitations/implications – By focusing on large scale buyer‐supplier relationships within supply chains (e.g. Wal‐Mart, Royal Phillips, ElecSound, China Minmetals, The Peoples Republic of China), which may affect the generalizability to small‐business applications, this paper provides s...

Toward Understanding New Sales Employees’ Participation in Marketing-Related Technology: Motivation, Voluntariness, and Past Performance

Firms want sales representatives to use social media technologies to connect with relational partners, including customers, suppliers, and other employees. As a result, firms attempt to recruit business students who are experienced with different forms of social media. The focus of this research is on high self-disclosure, low media-richness social media, such as blogging, that works well for central route persuasion. To better understand sales employee participation in blogging, we consider motivation to use sales- and marketing-related technology. This study extends the research on motivation by (1) distinguishing between three forms of motivation—intrinsic, extrinsic, and apathetic—and (2) exploring the potential moderating effects of (a) voluntariness on intention-to-use to actual use and (b) past performance on use to objective outcome. We collected data at two time periods for voluntary and involuntary respondents, and analyzed the data using PLS regression. We find that apathetic motivation appears independent of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Including apathetic motivation improves the explanatory power of motivation and extends the understanding of the moderating influence of voluntariness and individuals’ past performance in the model.

Marketing Benchmarking, Triangulated Isomorphism, and Firm Strategy

The research outlines forces that threaten a firm’s ability to retain competences that lead to comparative advantage. We argue that resource specialization within competence creation can create resource lock-in which can make the firm vulnerable to interfirm casual ambiguity, intra-firm casual ambiguity, and reward system misalignment. Together, the three elements can result in a triangulated isomorphism which can decrease competence retention. Also, we posit that retention of competences in the presence of triangulated isomorphism results in a new product development focus on incremental (rather than radical) innovations. Discussion and conclusion ensue.

Structured Abstract: The Magic of Making More from Less—Price Discounting, Logistics, and Improved Cash Conversion Cycle

Consistent with the Academy of Marketing Science call for papers theme on the magic of marketing, this research looks at the magic of price discounts and supply chain logistics on cash conversion cycle and working capital. Cash flow is vital for firms. The important of cash flow has been discussed in many studies. Research has shown that the cash conversion cycle (a.k.a. cycle days)—i.e., the time period between purchasing and selling, measured using estimated conversion periods for inventory and receivables, less payables—is correlated with firm profitability and stock returns (e.g., Jose et al. 1996; Shin and Soenen 1998). Thus, it is no surprise that some C-suite executives are emphasizing that their buying and selling teams need to improve cash flow through more focus on credit terms of payments and discounts in negotiations and “open-to-buy” or “merchandise planning” that includes retail pricing and discount management strategy (e.g., Hansen 2012; Hoffman et al. 2011; Johnson 2011).

Forecasting the consequences of negative atypical events: the case of tourism and terrorist attacks

In this chapter, we describe how time series analysis can often provide better insight than prior year data for predicting the total impact of an atypical event – including (1) taking into account other atypical events, (2) determining if the impact lasted greater than one season, and (3) adjusting for any performance/metric “rebounding” in subsequent seasons. We demonstrate using time series analysis to estimate the impact of the 9–11 terror attacks on the Hawaiian tourism industry. Terror attacks, in addition to the potential loss of life and property, can induce a post event fear factor that results in decreased revenue and profitability for businesses and their respective industries, insurers, and tax-receiving governments.

Improving Survey Completion Rates and Sample Representativeness Using Highly-Interesting Questions: A National Panel Experiment Comparing One and Two Stage Questions

In this article, the insertion of a two-staged highly interesting question in an online, survey-based field experiment is shown to produce better survey completion rate (i.e., decreases completion refusal by 8%) and sample representativeness (increases the number of moderate answer patterns by 12%) than a typical (same) highly interesting question at the beginning of a survey only. Using nonparametric tests and subgroup probability analysis, measured effects include survey completion rates, response bias and reported demographic differences. In regards to sample representativeness, the results also raise questions about the sensitivity of the conventional practice of comparing early to late respondent means scores as a method of investigating nonresponse bias in marketing research. Alternative approaches to measuring potential non-response bias are compared with the tradition of comparing early-wave verses late-wave mean respondent differences. The results indicate that the conventional mean test fails to identify differences in nonresponse bias; the scores of highly interested or opposed respondents in the first waves produce equivalent means to the scores of the less interested or opposed respondents in the latter wave between the surveys (e.g., 1s and 5s vs. 2s and 4s, both averaging to 3s) that are identifiable through kurtosis and probability analysis.