Joëlle Vanhamme

Inducing word-of-mouth by eliciting surprise - a pilot investigation

This research - using the critical incident technique - brings to the fore the emotion of surprise and its (direct and indirect) influence on word-of-mouth (WOM). The results show - as expected - that the frequency and amount of WOM are larger for negatively and positively surprising consumption/purchase experiences than for non surprising experiences of the same kind and that the intensity of surprise is significantly correlated with positive and negative WOM.

Developing supply chains in disaster relief operations through cross‐sector socially oriented collaborations: a theoretical model

This study seeks to provide insights into corporate achievements in supply chain management (SCM) and logistics management and to detail how they might help disaster agencies. The authors aim to highlight and identify current practices, particularities, and challenges in disaster relief supply chains. Both SCM and logistics management literature and examples drawn from real-life cases inform the development of the theoretical model. The theoretical, dual-cycle model that focuses on the key missions of disaster relief agencies: first, prevention and planning and, second, response and recovery. Three major contributions are offered: a concise representation of current practices and particularities of disaster relief supply chains compared with commercial SCM; challenges and barriers to the development of more efficient SCM practices, classified into learning, strategising, and coordinating and measurement issues; and a simple, functional model for understanding how collaborations between corporations and disaster relief agencies might help relief agencies meet SCM challenges. The study does not address culture-clash related considerations. Rather than representing the entire scope of real-life situations and practices, the analysis relies on key assumptions to help conceptualise collaborative paths. The study provides specific insights into how corporations might help improve the SCM practices by disaster relief agencies that continue to function without SCM professional expertise, tools, or staff. The paper shows that sharing supply chain and logistics expertise, technology, and infrastructure with relief agencies could be a way for corporations to demonstrate their good corporate citizenship. Collaborations between corporations and disaster agencies offer significant potential benefits.

Relationship marketing: schools of thought and future research directions

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to challenge the applicability of the traditional micro‐economic framework for analysing marketing situations and actions in the contemporary marketing environment. To assess the validity and value of relationship marketing as an alternative paradigm. To identify fruitful directions for further research.Design/methodology/approach – The literature of relationships and relationship marketing was systematically reviewed and thoroughly analysed, and a conceptual framework built from the findings.Findings – Three key schools of thought are identified, examined and discussed, and their main components explained and examined. Various perspectives on exchange relationships are discussed. Two specific tools for implementation of relationship marketing are evaluated. With a clear conceptual frame of reference thus established, the second part proposes a number of fruitful directions for further research. These include a bibliometric study to assess whether or not a consiste...

Contemporary marketing practice: Theoretical propositions and practical implications

Marketing has changed significantly since it first emerged as a distinct business and management phenomenon. We identify some of the major factors causing the observed change in marketing practice. We then describe a classification scheme that is based on transaction marketing and relationship marketing, each of which is characterised using five marketing exchange dimensions and four managerial dimensions. The two general marketing perspectives encompass five distinct types of marketing: transaction marketing, database marketing, e‐marketing, interaction marketing, and network marketing. We consider real‐life (mainly European) companies that have implemented these different marketing approaches. Finally, we deal with the pedagogical contributions including an examination of how it is possible for business schools to teach the subject of marketing from a relationship marketing perspective in such a way that the relevance and quality of teaching and research in relationship marketing is useful to students, faculty, and the business community.

Two Birds and One Stone

Current social trends leading to greater consumer diversity require that advertisers pay increasing attention to minority groups within society. This paper answers recent calls for research into the effects of purposeful polysemy, or strategic ambiguity, in minority targeting. The results of a quasi-experiment with gay and heterosexual male respondents in the context of gay window advertising demonstrate not only significant positive target market effects of covert minority targeting (i.e., ambiguous ad cues), but also the existence of negative non-target market effects. Emotional responses fully mediate these effects. Our results further demonstrate the importance of individual differences and product category by suggesting, for example, that gay men who are open about their sexual orientation can be targeted using gay window ads when the product category is congruent with male stereotypes and with mainstream ads when the product category is incongruent with male stereotypes.

The Surprise-Delight Relationship Revisited in the Management of Experience

Practitioners firmly believe that customer delight, through surprise, offers a source of competitive advantage. Yet, competing conceptualizations, methodologies, and stimuli in existing studies of delight leave the relationship between surprise and delight ambiguous. This research note assesses the different conceptualizations of delight and offers an overview of existing empirical evidence regarding the surprise-delight relationship. According to the assessment, the conceptualization of delight as extreme satisfaction is both valid and parsimonious, which suggests its superiority. Moreover, empirical data reveal that during highly hedonic experiences, surprise indirectly influences satisfaction (through joy) and can increase satisfaction overall. This research note concludes with several suggestions for further research.

Faire de la recherche et publier en éthique du marketing

L’éthique du marketing est « l’étude systématique de la façon dont les normes morales sont appliquées aux décisions, aux comportements et aux institutions relevant du domaine du marketing » (Laczniak, 2012 : 308). En d’autres termes, l’éthique du marketing fait référence aux défis moraux auxquels les professionnels du marketing sont confrontés lorsqu’ils se livrent à leurs activités quotidiennes et doivent déterminer quelles décisions ou actions sont justes/appropriées ou injustes/inappropriées d’un point de vue moral. Cette discipline constitue donc un sous-domaine de l’éthique des affaires appliquée (Smith et Murphy, 2012). Les dilemmes éthiques auxquels les professionnels font face peuvent être très divers et les défis à relever parfois fortement exacerbés dans certaines industries. Cependant, ces professionnels du marketing doivent trouver le moyen d’adopter un comportement éthique, même lorsqu’ils sont soumis à la pression constante exercée sur eux afin qu’ils génèrent plus de ventes et des marges de profit supérieures dans le court terme. Est-il éthique de fixer un prix plus bas pour les boissons alcoolisées que pour l’eau en bouteille ? Les entreprises peuvent-elles vendre des produits dangereux pour la santé comme les cigarettes ? Les professionnels du marketing peuvent-ils collecter des informations sur les habitudes des consommateurs naviguant sur Internet afin d’améliorer le ciblage de leurs offres ? Les esprits cyniques prétendront peut-être que l’éthique du marketing est une contradiction en soi. Souvent, le marketing évoque des associations négatives en termes d’éthique, sans doute parce que la fonction marketing est la face la plus publique de l’activité. Et, en tant que partie visible de l’iceberg pour l’ensemble des parties prenantes, elle fait l’objet d’une surveillance constante par la société. Cependant, plutôt que de rejeter le marketing à cause de sa face visible, il faudrait reconnaître le domaine de l’éthique du marketing pour les connaissances et éclairages précieux qu’il a générés. Les premiers manuels sur l’éthique du marketing sont parus en 1993 (à savoir ceux rédigés par Laczniak et Murphy, et Smith et Quelch). Cependant, les contributions majeures au domaine de l’éthique du marketing ont véritablement commencé à faire leur apparition dans les années 1950 et 1960. A partir de là, le nombre de publications sur l’éthique du marketing a considérablement augmenté (Laczniak, 2012). Plus spécifiquement, la théorie de l’éthique du marketing de Hunt-Vitell (H-V) (publiée pour la première fois en 1986 sous la forme d’une « théorie générale », puis revue et réévaluée vingt ans plus tard ; Hunt et Vitell, 2006) a jeté les bases dans ce domaine. C’était une démarche ambitieuse, car elle cherchait à fournir un modèle général de prise de décisions éthiques, d’une manière analogue à Howard et Sheth (1969), ainsi qu’Engel et al. (1968) lorsqu’ils ont proposé une théorie générale et un modèle du comportement des consommateurs. La théorie de H-V a apporté une réponse à la préoccupation affichée par Murphy et Laczniak (1981) face à la constatation que l’éthique du marketing manquait de recherche systématique et d’une théorie globale de l’éthique. A l’époque, la quasi-totalité des travaux théoriques existants était normative, axée sur le développement de recommandations, ou de règles, afin d’aider les professionnels du marketing à prendre des décisions éthiques et à adopter un comportement éthique. En revanche, la théorie de H-V se voulait positive : elle avait pour objet d’expliquer les processus de prise de décisions dans des situations impliquant des questions d’ordre éthique. L’éthique du marketing positive implique l’étude (empirique) systématique Faire de la recherche et publier en éthique du marketing

Doing and publishing research in marketing ethics

Marketing ethics ‘is the systematic study of how moral standards are applied to marketing decisions, behaviors, and institutions’ (Laczniak, 2012: 308). In other words, marketing ethics refers to the moral challenges that marketing practitioners face when they engage in their daily jobs and must determine which decisions or actions are morally right/good or wrong/bad. It thus is a subfield of applied business ethics (Smith and Murphy, 2012). Although the ethical dilemmas that marketers face tend to be diverse, with far more extreme challenges in some industries than in others, in general marketers must find ways to behave ethically even when exposed to the constant pressure to generate more sales and profits in the short run. Should the marketer price alcohol beverages cheaper than bottled water? Should the firm sell health-threatening products such as cigarettes? Should marketers gather information about consumers’ habits as they surf the web to improve the targeting of their offers? Cynics might assert that marketing ethics is an oxymoron. Marketing evokes negative ethical perceptions in many cases because the marketing function is the most public face of the business. As the visible part of the iceberg for all stakeholders, it comes under constant societal scrutiny. Rather than dismissing marketing for its visibility though, the field of marketing ethics has led to substantial contributions and insights. The first marketing ethics textbooks appeared in 1993 (i.e. those authored by Laczniak and Murphy and Smith and Quelch, 1993). Yet, significant contributions to the marketing ethics field really started to emerge in the 1950s and 1960s. From this start, the literature on marketing ethics has grown substantially (Laczniak, 2012). In particular, the Hunt–Vitell (H-V) theory of marketing ethics (first published in 1986, as ‘a general theory’, then revised and reassessed 20 years later; Hunt and Vitell, 2006) laid foundations for the field. This work was ambitious, seeking to provide a general model of ethical decision making, similar to the way in which Howard and Sheth (1969) and Engel et al. (1968) proposed a general theory or model of consumer behaviour. The H-V theory offered a response to Murphy and Laczniak’s (1981) expressed concern that marketing ethics lacked systematic research or a global theory of ethics. At the time, nearly all previous theoretical work had been normative, focussed on developing guidelines or rules to help marketers make ethical decisions and behave in an ethical fashion. In contrast, the H-V theory was positive; its purpose was to explain decision-making processes in situations involving ethical issues. Positive marketing ethics entails the systematic (empirical) consideration of morally based evaluations of marketing decisions and practices. The H-V model has attracted various criticisms (such as of the authors’ use of normative ethical theory as a starting point for positing a positive theory of marketing ethics), yet it remains highly influential, widely cited and extensively tested in multiple empirical studies. Two of the articles in this Special Issue directly cite and link their work to the H-V model. Furthermore, the increased emphasis on empirical studies in recent decades has led to an expansion of the research stream focussed on positive marketing ethics, with a concomitant decrease in normative marketing ethics studies. Considering this state of affairs, a natural question turns to where and how to publish insights to advance the field of marketing ethics. Doing and publishing research in marketing ethics

Communicating corporate social responsibility in the digital era

Although literature on corporate social responsibility is vast, research into the use and effectiveness of various communications through digital platforms about such corporate responsibility is scarce. This gap is surprising; communicating about corporate social responsibility initiatives is vital to organizations that increasingly highlight their corporate social responsibility initiatives to position their corporate brands for both consumers and other stakeholders. Yet these organizations still sometimes rely on traditional methods to communicate, or even decide against communicating at all, because they fear triggering stakeholders’ skepticism or cynicism. A systematic, interdisciplinary examination of corporate social responsibility communication through digital platforms, therefore, is necessary, to establish an essential defi nition and up-to-date picture of the field. This research anthology addresses the above objectives. Drawing on marketing, management, and communication disciplines, among others, this anthology examines how organizations construct, implement, and use digital platforms to communicate about their corporate social responsibility and thereby achieve their organizational goals. The 21 chapters in this anthology reflect six main topic sections: • Challenges and opportunities for communicating corporate social responsibility through digital platforms. • Moving toward symmetry and interactivity in digital corporate social responsibility communication. • Fostering stakeholder engagement in and through digital corporate social responsibility communication. • Leveraging effective digital corporate social responsibility communication. • Digital activism and corporate social responsibility. • Digital methodologies and corporate social responsibility.

The "boomerang effect" of CSR promotion campaigns during corporate crises

Companies often emphasize their corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their communication campaigns to consumers. However, they cannot be fully assured that promoting themselves as socially responsible will generate long-term benefits. The reason is that companies that are doing the most in the area of CSR are also the ones that are criticized the most (e.g., Knight and Greenberg 2002). On the other hand, Klem and Dawar (2004) showed that when a company is known for positive actions in the CSR field, consumers seem to be less likely to blame the company for a product-harm crisis (i.e., a defective product) than when the company has a poor record regarding CSR. In addition, they hold more favorable evaluations of the company and have higher intentions to buy the company’s products. From these results, CSR seems to be a viable strategy to protect the company from damage resulting from a crisis. Other authors in crisis communication have also suggested this (e.g., Coombs 1995; Benoit 1997).