William L. James

Just Say No to Traditional Student Samples

ABSTRACT As an increasing number of older adults return to college, the debate over using students as research subjects must be reconsidered. This study explicitly compares the results of an advertising study conducted with three separate samples: a national, randomly drawn sample of adults, a sample of traditional undergraduate college students, and a sample of working adults who attend undergraduate college classes in the evenings. The results suggest that, while traditional undergraduate students are not appropriate surrogates for ‘real consumers,’ older, non-traditional students may produce results that are quite similar to the results obtained from the general population. Given the results of this research, it is clear that the use of traditional student subjects in advertising research should be avoided. However, non-traditional working adult undergraduate students seem to be a reasonable surrogate for consumers.

Product and Promotion Transfers in Consumer Goods Multinationals

This article sheds light on MNC product transfers to subsidiaries – whether from the US or from third‐party markets – and on promotion transfers. Findings indicate that consumer goods subsidiaries have product mixes with heavy US orientations, but that this orientation diminishes over time. Promotion synergies are also shown to decrease with time. Overall, this research confirms the Levitt thesis that US products can in many cases be globalised, and that MNCs perceive inter‐market similarities to be more important than differences in their formulating of international product strategies.

Supplier strategies to increase customer purchases over the duration of customer‐supplier relationships

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to understand factors related to increased customer purchases from suppliers during different stages of the customer‐supplier relationship.Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 372 professionals in the paper industry was conducted to investigate how customer performance outcomes, supplier quality and delivery performance, the presence of relational norms and customer perspectives of environmental uncertainty vary in their influence on increasing customer purchases over time.Findings – The results indicate the variables influencing increased customer purchases vary over the duration of the customer‐supplier relationship. It is also shown how the variables influencing increased customer purchases from suppliers are different from the variables leading to increased customer commitment to suppliers over time.Research limitations/implications – Data were collected from the customer perspective only and involved the exchange of one type of product. Similar studies n...

Customer perceptions of dependencies in customer–supplier relationships

This paper studies how customer and their suppliers dependency and the relative dependency of both firms correlates with customer perceptions of environmental uncertainties, relational exchange and both customer and supplier exchange benefits. The study draws on resource dependency and transaction cost economics theories and is based on a survey of 372 paper mills. The results indicate that customers perceive dependency is related to exchange benefits and not environmental uncertainties or relational exchange and the exchange benefits differ depending on which exchange partner is dependent and the relative dependence between the exchange partners.

The longevity of the performance effects of the Miles and Snow strategic archetypes: a ten-year perspective in US banking

This paper presents an investigation of the longevity of Miles and Snows viability hypothesis in the banking industry, identifying, for the first time, five- and ten- year effects of strategic archetype on performance. The research suggests, however, that performance is more intensely associated with strategy implementation and control than archetype. Collectively, these results have important implications for Strategic Management because they reinforce the tradition of the field that management matters, and that what you see when you evaluate performance depends on when you look and what you measure.

The effects of performance, environmental uncertainty and relational norms on customer commitments to suppliers over the duration of customer-supplier relationships

This paper investigates customer commitments to suppliers based on customer performance outcomes, supplier quality and delivery performance, the presence of relational norms and customer perspectives of environmental uncertainty over the duration of the customer-supplier relationship. Customer commitments to suppliers during short, intermediate and long-term relationships are investigated with the results showing that the influences of performance, relational norms and environmental uncertainty differ as the duration of the relationship extends over time. These results also offer suppliers insights into how they could vary their marketing and sales strategies to influence customer loyalty over time.

Cognitive complexity and alienation: A reexamination☆

Abstract The relationship between the content variable, alienation, and the structural variable, cognitive complexity, is reaxamined. The results suggest that contrary to previous research, the relationship between cognitive complexity and alienation varies, depending upon the dimension of alienation being examined with cognitive complexity. Also, the results raise serious validity questions about scales frequently used to measure alienation in marketing research. The findings have serious implications for development of effective communication strategies directed toward the alienated and strongly support the need for further study to validate current alienation scales or to develop new ones.

Macneil's Relational Norms and His Non-mirrored Ends Propositions

Macneil (1978, 1980, 1983) believed different norms would apply at the different ends of his exchange continuum. This article explores this proposition in an industrial market and tests two null hypotheses: one, that there is no difference in the norms shaping decisions at the ends of the discrete and relational exchange continuum and two, the hypothesis that the relevant norms at the ends of the spectrum are not mirror images of each other. Since Macneils propositions have become the basis for research in law, management, and marketing, this study contributes to both theory development and measurement across a broad spectrum of research.

An exploratory study of factors associated with customer perceptions of paying above and below market prices

This paper studies the relationships between customer and supplier exchange benefits, relational marketing, customer size, environmental uncertainty, competition and industrial customer perceptions of when they are paying above or below market prices for their supplier product. The results indicate that customers perceive they are paying above average market prices in situations characterised by lower levels of customer exchange benefits, reduced supplier resource allocations, transactional relationships, high environmental uncertainty and elevated levels of competition. These results offer marketing managers with insights into factors associated with enhanced revenue through above market prices and factors associated with revenue reductions through below market prices.

An Attempt to Validate Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling Maps

An attempt was made to validate nonmetric MDS perceptual maps in marketing by comparing them to configurations generated by the direct method. The congruence between these two approaches was generally low although it was reasonable for approximately 44% of the subjects.