Scott D. Swain

Assessing Three Sources of Misresponse to Reversed Likert Items

Data collected through multi-item Likert scales that contain reversed items often exhibit problems, such as unexpected factor structures and diminished scale reliabilities. These problems arise when respondents select responses on the same side of the scale neutral point for both reversed and nonreversed items, a phenomenon the authors call “misresponse.” Across four experiments and an exploratory study using published data, the authors find that misresponse to reversed Likert items averaged approximately 20%, twice the level identified as problematic in previous simulation studies. Counter to prevailing thought, the patterns of misresponse and response latency across manipulated items could not be attributed to respondent inattention or acquiescence. Instead, the pattern supports an item verification difficulty explanation, which holds that task complexity, and thus misresponse and response latency, increases with the number of cognitive operations required for a respondent to compare a scale item with his or her belief. The observed results are well explained by the constituent comparison model.

The Influence of Pioneer Status and Experience Order on Consumer Brand Preference: A Mediated-Effects Model

Within the behavioral literature, two basic explanations of the pioneering advantage have been offered. Early work focused on order-based explanations. More recently, schema-based explanations have also been suggested. The authors propose a mediated-effects model of the pioneering advantage and test the model in two separate longitudinal studies. Both experiments support the proposed model. The authors find that experience order and pioneer-status have additive effects on brand preference such that perceptions of first-in-market and first-experienced brands are more favorable, suggesting that both explanations are operative. The authors also provide evidence that the effects of pioneer status on brand preference are mediated by attitude toward the brand and company credibility, while the effects of experience order on brand preference are mediated by attitude toward the brand and attribute recall. These data support the notion that the effect of pioneer status on brand preference is the result of both brand-level and company-level associations.

A Social Learning Perspective on Sales Technology Usage: Preliminary Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Drawing on social learning theory, we examine how the perceived technological savvy of a salesperson’s manager, coworkers, and competitors affects sales technology usage behavior. Data were drawn from a major retail bank in Nigeria, Africa. Analyses of data from relationship managers confirm predictions that while perceived coworker savvy directly influences technology usage, the influence of managers’ and competitors’ perceived savvy is mediated. Perceived manager savvy influences usage by increasing feelings of monitoring and the level of perceived coworker savvy. Similarly, perceived competitor savvy influences usage by increasing perceived manager and coworker savvy. We also confirm that usage of sales technology has a positive influence on salesperson performance.

I'm Proud of It: Consumer Technology Appropriation and Psychological Ownership

In this conceptual paper, using the lens of self-design, we examine the relationship between consumer technology appropriation and psychological ownership, suggesting that pride plays a key and multifaceted role. Resolving discrepancies in the literature, we propose that authentic pride operates as an antecedent of psychological ownership, whereas hubristic pride strengthens the effect of psychological ownership on outcomes such as economic valuation and word-of-mouth. We further enrich the conceptualization by considering the moderating effects of the technology consumption context (public vs. private) as well as consumers’ perceptions of situation strength (strong vs. weak behavioral constraints).

Consumer Responses to Bonus Pack and Product Enlargement Claims

In conveying product size increases, manufacturers use labeling tactics that can be classified as “bonus packs” (more for the same price) or “product enlargements” (more, but no mention of price). One study shows that when consumers do not know a product’s original size and price, attitudes are more favorable toward a bonus pack than an economically equivalent product enlargement. This difference disappears when consumers know the original product size and price. A second study shows that, less intuitively, a product enlargement associated with a small (but not a large) price increase is evaluated as positively as a comparable bonus pack. The result for a small price increase and corroborating evidence support an account in which the product enlargement’s economic inferiority is offset by consumer’s use of the quantity discount heuristic. Implications for product manufacturers and consumer researchers are discussed.

Consumer Psychological Ownership of Digital Technology

In this chapter, we present evidence that despite the intangible nature of digital technologies, consumers often come to feel psychological ownership of these technologies. Further, we find that digital technologies often facilitate the emergence of psychological ownership of non-digital targets. Digital affordances appear to play a key role in these processes. Digital affordances are characteristics of a digital technology object that facilitate users’ abilities to appropriate or engage with the technology (e.g., interactive design elements and interfaces) and can constrain or expand users’ opportunities for developing feelings of ownership for a digital target. Additionally, consumers’ motivational orientations and individual differences impact the extent to which they choose to leverage digital affordances and thus the extent to which affordances translate into feelings of ownership. We review research conducted in diverse digital contexts (e.g., websites, remixed content, virtual worlds, gaming, social media, virtual communities) and identify current implications for managers as well as future opportunities for researchers.

Interactivity and Psychological Ownership in Consumer Value Co-Creation

Product customization can be viewed as a way for consumers to create value for themselves (Vargo and Lusch 2004), and has been shown to impact consumers’ appraisal of value beyond simply increased preference fit (Franke, Schreier, and Kaiser 2010; Fuchs, Prandelli, and Schreier 2010). Extending this perspective to new media such as digital books and social media websites, product interactivity can be thought of as a means of customization as it allows consumers to modify their view and experience with a facility that is not possible in more static digital environments (Liu and Shrum 2002). Despite its intuitive appeal, little research has examined the question of whether or when interactivity-as-customization translates into greater value-in-use and thus greater willingness to pay (WTP).

Consumer Responses to Promotional Games in Social Media

Increasingly, companies are using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to distribute promotions. A particularly popular tactic involves merging promotional distributions, such as coupon giveaways, with social games. This use of game play mechanics in non-game applications has been used in a variety of situations including promotions, training programs, goal achievement programs, and others. While consumer responses to these games are generally positive, little is known about how the characteristics of games influence redemption, entertainment value, attitudes toward the firm, and future repurchase. In this research, we examine consumer responses to two types of games: games of chance (e.g., scratch tickets) and games of skill (e.g., treasure hunts). We first present results from data collected from a website that runs promotional games tied to social media. We then explore alternative explanations for these findings using a laboratory setting.

Comparing Consumer Reactions to Percentage and Absolute Values: An Analogue Magnitude Encoding Perspective

When marketers wish to communicate a change in a quantifiable product attribute, such as price, weight, or volume, they often do so by providing the original quantity along with the amount of the change. The original quantity can be referred to as a primary, or base, value, and the change amount can be referred to as a secondary value. Secondary values are typically indicated in one of two formats: (1) as a percentage of the primary value (e.g., 20 oz. plus 10% extra) or (2) as an absolute value (e.g., 20 oz. plus 2 oz. extra). Interestingly, even when the two formats convey equivalent quantities, research suggests that consumers may not perceive them as such (e.g., Chen, Monroe, and Lou 1998; DelVecchio, Krishnan, and Smith 2007; Heath, Chatterjee, and France 1995; Kim and Kramer 2006a).

Excellence in Marketing Education and Innovative Teaching Track - Special Session Creating Value in Marketing Courses

This session features three different approaches to teaching marketing research and one approach to teaching sports marketing. All four approaches illustrate how we can bring more realism and business practice into the classroom and merge these experiences with process and theory. Marketing research is a large and growing component of the marketing enterprise. Yet, extracting consumer insights from data can be difficult. Indeed, in a recent survey of over 1,500 American Marketing Association members, 45.7% of respondents singled out data analysis as either their biggest or second biggest challenge (Arnold 2005). More generally, “analytics” is increasingly perceived as a source of competitive advantage (Davenport 2006). Despite the growing importance of marketing research in the real world, most business students do not look forward to taking a course marketing research (Bridges 1999). Research has shown that students don’t look forward to marketing research because they typically do not understand what marketing research is or who does marketing research, they fear either “research” or the use of statistics, they presume the course is difficult, or do not know how it applies in the real world. These same issues can be mitigated by the use of activities that bring the real world into the classroom such as hands-on-experience, guest speakers, connections to real data and problems in an environment that allows the students to express themselves and learn not only from the instructor, but from their peers in a team based environment. As such, the three papers in this session represent three different strategies to achieve these goals.