M&E Research Publications
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Item The effects of innovation on product recall likelihood(Elsevier Inc., 2024-02) Cockrell, Seth; Friske, Wesley; Voorhees, Clay M.; Calantone, Roger J.Although the consequences of product recalls are well-documented in the literature, literature on the antecedents of recalls is lacking. This study investigates the effects of innovation practices on the likelihood of product recalls in the automotive industry. In doing so, we assess if pushing too hard on innovation can increase the risks that trigger recalls. We assess this potential by leveraging 284 make-year observations. The results demonstrate that innovation radicalness and product line breadth are positively associated with recalls. Furthermore, previous recall magnitude moderates the relationship between innovation radicalness and subsequent recalls. The authors find that the interaction of innovation radicalness and previous recall magnitude increases subsequent recalls, suggesting that firms that are already struggling with recalls can fall further behind by taking risks with their innovation strategy. The managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.Item Editorial: critiques and conflicts in service research: suggestions for redefining the marketing of goods and services as a business discipline(Emerald Publishing, 2023-11) Cronin, J. Joseph, Jr.; Nagel, Duane M.Purpose: This commentary aims to identify the myopic drift of the marketing discipline and to opine on the areas in which the leadership of service scholars is needed. The authors identify specific areas where the input of service scholars is needed to enable the discipline to better contribute to users, providers, and society. For example, the growing gap between marketing scholarship and practical business needs is acknowledged, emphasizing the unique position of service scholars to bridge this divide. While consumer well-being is crucial, the exclusive focus on behavioral science is critiqued. Marketing's roots are deeply connected to economics, shaping consumer choices, and service scholars can help revive marketing's essence. Design/methodology/approach: Personal reflections and historical literature assessment. Findings: The services discipline is caught in the general myopic behavioral drift of the marketing discipline. However, they are well positioned to reverse the trend by seeking leadership in PhD programs, journal editorships and review boards, faculty recruiting, hiring and promotion, and by continuing its engagement with industry professionals. Research limitations/implications: The authors suggest extensive goals for service scholars. To accomplish these goals, it will be necessary to challenge the increasing behavioral drift of the majority of existing scholars in the discipline. Originality/value: This work is original and controversial. It is meant to inspire discussion and focus attention on the problems inherent in the increasingly myopic behavioral orientation of the members of the discipline's academic community.Item Sympathy or shock: How transgression diagnosticity impacts consumer perceptions and intentions regarding person-brands(Emerald Publishing, 2023-10) Matthews, A. Lynn; Luebke, Sarah S.F.Purpose: Moral transgressions committed by person-brands can negatively impact consumers through the transgression's diagnosticity (severity, centrality and consistency). This paper aims to test how a transgression's centrality and consistency impact important consumer perceptions and behavioral intentions toward a person-brand, holding constant the transgression in question. These outcomes are crucial for person-brands to understand how to minimize and manage the impact of a given transgression. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses three online consumer experiments to manipulate transgression diagnosticity via centrality and consistency and identifies the resulting impact on consumer-brand identification, trustworthiness and consumer digital engagement intentions through PROCESS models. Findings: High-diagnosticity transgressions lower consumer digital engagement intentions regarding the person-brand and their endorsed products. This effect is serially mediated by consumer-brand identification, as predicted by social identity theory, and by perceived trustworthiness of the person-brand. Practical implications: Person-brands should emphasize the nondiagnostic nature of any transgressions in which they are involved, including a lack of centrality and consistency with their brand, and guard against the appearance of diagnostic transgressions. Originality/value: This paper shows that transgression diagnosticity impacts consumer engagement through the pathway of consumer-brand identification and trustworthiness. It also manipulates aspects of diagnosticity that can be influenced by the person-brand (centrality and consistency) while holding the transgression constant. As such, this paper extends the literature on transgressions, on person-branding strategy, and on social identity theory.Item How do embarrassing service disruptions impact bystanders' word-of-mouth, complaining, and avoidance? The moderating role of self-construal(John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2023-10) Ziegler, Alexander H.; Allen, Alexis M.; Peloza, John; Norris, J. IanIn public settings such as retail, an embarrassed consumer may be witnessed by others. Thus, vicarious embarrassment may be even more ubiquitous than embarrassment itself. However, the impact of observers' individual characteristics on reactions to embarrassing service disruptions is not clear. To close this gap, the current research examines how observers' self-construal, or their perception of the self in relation to others, systematically alters observers' responses to embarrassing service disruptions. The data for this research was collected from 674 US respondents recruited amongst undergraduate students at a large North American university (study 1, $n$ = 193) and from an online subject panel (study 2, $n$ = 281 and study 3, $n$ = 200). Across all three experiments, the authors demonstrate that vicarious embarrassment is conditional on observers' self-construal. Specifically, the results demonstrate that observers with a predominantly interdependent self-construal experience stronger vicarious embarrassment than consumers with a predominantly independent self-construal. This occurs because they are more likely to take the actor's perspective. These differences manifest whether we operationalize self-construal as a measured individual difference or use a prime to induce self-construal situationally. Furthermore, observers with a predominantly interdependent self-construal alter their word-of-mouth, complaining, and avoidance intentions, effects mediated by perspective-taking and vicarious embarrassment. The current research contributes to theory and practice by introducing self-construal as a boundary condition to the vicarious embarrassment literature.Item Customer success management, customer health, and retention in B2B industries(Elsevier B.V., 2023-09) Hochstein, Bryan W.; Voorhees, Clay M.; Pratt, Alexander B.; Rangarajan, Deva; Nagel, Duane M.; Mehrotra, VijayCustomer Success (CS) Management is an emerging B2B marketing strategy. The task of CS management is to increase customer retention through dedicated and ongoing proactive attention to improving the value customers realize from a product or solution. Leveraging a theories-in-use approach, we demonstrate the adoption of CS management across a wide range of B2B settings and unpack how the implementation of a CS strategy can complement existing sales and service efforts to increase customer retention. We find that a central element to CS management is the tracking of customer health, which is a new marketing metric that is viewed as the pulse of CS strategy. Customer health is a formative metric comprised of objective and subjective data points that track (1) relationship quality, (2) product usage, and (3) customer value realization. CS managers leverage customer health data to proactively manage B2B relationships and reduce churn. While CS management has been widely adopted, we also find that not all CS implementations are initially successful. As such, we describe contingency factors related to short-term ambiguities within the organization and long-term factors that impact implementation of CS management. Given the nascent nature of research on CS management in the marketing literature, our article closes with a comprehensive set of future research opportunities and emerging challenges for firms focusing on customer success.