This dissertation examines how the stock market reacts to announcements of introduction of co-branded new products. Despite the apparent enthusiasm of practitioners towards co-branding--the practice of using two established brand names on the same product--, there is a dearth of research on if and how co-branding can be effectively leveraged to significantly increase the value added of new products. Whether greater financial rewards accrue to the manufacturer of the co-branded product (i.e. the primary brand parent) or to the partner firm that lends its brand to the co-branded product (i.e. the secondary brand parent), and how these rewards may differ depending on the characteristics of the co-branded product itself are yet unanswered questions. Using data from the consumer packaged goods industry, I empirically examine the extent to which co-branding increases the market value of the parent firms and analyze the determinants of the magnitude of increase in market value for both firms involved in the co-branding alliance. I present empirical evidence in support of a positive stock market reaction to the introduction of co-branded new products and find that this reaction is greater, on average, than the market reaction to the introduction of single-branded new products. I also show that the consistency between the brand images of the two products, the innovativeness of the product, and the exclusivity of the co-branding relationship significantly impact the market?s reaction to the announcement of new co-branded products. Moreover, these effects manifest both in the short term (i.e., at the time of the announcement) and over a longer time window (i.e., during the year following the announcement). Furthermore, I find that not all types of co-branding partnerships are equal. Composite co-branding (where both brands bring a substantive contribution to the formulation of the new product) results in higher financial rewards to the partners compared to ingredient and endorsement partnerships. The findings provide important managerial guidelines for increasing firm value through co-branding partnerships.

Strategic alliances have become a recognized strategy used by firms in the pursuit of their diverse organizational objectives. Consequently, the literature on alliances is replete with research investigating the value strategic alliances generate for participating organizations. Strategic alliances have been shown to contribute to firm value through numerous sources, including scale economies, effective risk management, cost efficient market entries, and learning from partners. Largely overlooked in the literature however, are issues investigating the relationship between strategic alliances and one of the organization's most important constituents, the consumer. Questions such as how the consumer reacts to inter-firm alliances, how strategic alliances impact consumer value, satisfaction, and customer post-purchase behavior have yet to be answered. This lacuna has been recently highlighted by prominent researchers in the discipline (Rindfleisch and Moorman 2003). Focusing on marketing alliances, the present dissertation attempts to address this gap in the alliance literature by advancing and testing a theoretical framework examining consumers' cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions to organizational strategic alliances. The dissertation also contributes to the satisfaction literature. Scholars in this area have traditionally viewed satisfaction as a cognitive response to the comparison of actual consumption experiences with some comparison standard (confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm). Recently however, there have been increasing calls for satisfaction measures to capture not just how the customer thinks the product performed relative to the comparison standard, but also the resulting customer emotion. The study provides additional support of an affective route to customer satisfaction, particularly when customer hedonic value is enhanced. Moreover, the association between customer satisfaction and behavioral outcomes is also examined. While prior research shows that satisfaction is positively related to loyalty and word of mouth and negatively related to intentions to switch, it was found that these relationships are even stronger in the presence of alliances. The results of this dissertation provide important theoretical and managerial insights. The strategic alliance literature is enhanced insofar as this is the first effort aimed at investigating the impact of strategic alliances on the consumer. The study examines the relationship between marketing alliances and customer value, particularly utilitarian and hedonic value, as well as the moderating role of alliance type (functional or symbolic) in this relationship. From a managerial perspective, engaging in strategic alliances is strategically critical and costly. By providing insight into how alliances enhance consumer value, and how in turn value enhancement is related to customer satisfaction and behavioral outcomes, the present research will help managers make more appropriate and better-informed alliance decisions.

善因行銷之行銷聯盟在台可行否？ 發展一種模式以辨識必要之行銷和環境因素 / Cause-related marketing (CRM) alliances offer businesses and not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) a unique partnership opportunity to reach corporate and philanthropic goals. Since its inception in 1981 in the United States, CRM alliances have grown in popularity as a way for companies to increase sales and market share, open new market segments, build employee morale, differentiate their products and create brand image. For NPOs, the alliances have provided new ways to raise funds, reach out to new potential donors, increase awareness of the cause, and mobilize the public. While CRM alliances have been for the most part successful in the West, there is little in the way of research into the underlying factors that allow this success. For example, are there certain consumer markets that are more likely to respond positively to CRM? Are there environmental factors that encourage businesses and NPOs to partner, and that may not be present in every industry or country or do the characteristics of organizations themselves set the stage for partnership? These are the types of questions this paper address. By examining the factors that are shared across successful CRM alliances in the West, a new model is created that outlines the factors that are necessary to foster CRM within a national market. After introducing this model, we apply it to the case of Taiwan to determine if CRM is likely to succeed in the long-term on the island. We discover that business plays a strong role in driving the CRM movement in Taiwan, while NPOs and external forces play only a moderate role. Consumers, the government and outside facilitators, the other components of the CRM model, play a relatively weak role in bringing CRM alliances to the island, and therefore are the greatest challenges to CRM’s sustainability in the area. We also discover that the model needs to be modified to fit Taiwan’s unique environment. In the conclusion, future areas of research are discussed as well as recommendations and implications for the future of CRM alliances in Taiwan.

An increasing global tourism offers great opportunities for Sweden as a tourist destination. However, an attractive destination requires competitive destination marketing strategies. Tourist destinations often include a complex network of stakeholders of small and large en-terprises that represent both the public and private sector. One condition for successful des-tination marketing is that all of these stakeholders collaborate in their marketing to create an integrated and powerful image. Another important aspect in terms of increasing the des-tinations competitiveness is that the local tourist companies are "export-oriented", in order to ensure that international tourists are looked after appropriately. This study has focused on the destination marketing of Stockholm. The aim of the study was to find out to what extent the local tourist companies collaborate in their marketing, how "export-oriented" their marketing is, and who ultimately controls the tourism development of the destination. The organisation in charge of coordinating the destination marketing of Stockholm is the local government organisation Stockholm Visitors Board (SVB). We interviewed them plus six local tourism companies to study if and how they collaborate in their marketing. The study showed that some of the smaller businesses felt excluded from the marketing activities due to lack of financial resources. SVB also has a product that competes with a product of a pri-vate tourist company. This result has a negative effect on SVB’s reputation as being the offi-cial representative of Stockholm, and leads to a more fragmented destination marketing. For SVB to change this negative image they need to build good relationships with the local tour-ist companies and adjust their pricing policy so that the smaller companies can participate in their marketing activities. The local tourist companies did however participate in other forms of marketing collaborations, which is a first step toward more integrated destination marketing. Some companies were more "export-oriented" than others, which mean that the foreign tourists are subject to varying standards of service. Despite this, the majority displayed an awareness of their role on the destination; that they together with other tourism companies form the "tourist product" that is Stockholm. Nonetheless, more thorough market research is needed to learn more about what foreign tourists want and expect from their visit to Stockholm. In that way Stockholm as a destination can become more competitive interna-tionally. We also interviewed the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (Tillväxtverket), which is the public authority responsible for the tourism industry, in order to find out who is in charge of the tourism development of the destination. We found that the tourism devel-opment of Stockholm is purely market driven. This can have a negative effect on sustainabil-ity issues. Our proposal for future research is therefore to examine which are the mecha-nisms that drive the development and how one can secure a sustainable tourism develop-ment without centralized control.

The accountability of marketing investments continues to be a key area of concern for researchers and practitioners (MSI Research Priorities, 2008). In particular, market-based assets, specifically customer relationships, and their potential impact on firm performance are a significant source of interest. Though research in this area continues to grow, little is understood about how investments in human capital and the acquisition of alliance partners through factor markets relate to customer relationship management and the impact of customer relationships on performance. This dissertation presents two studies which, together, investigate how investments in market-based assets influence on abnormal stock returns. In the first study, the resource-based view of the firm (Barney 1991) is used to posit several hypotheses related to investments in human capital. The hypotheses are tested using ten years of data from the U.S. airline industry and analyzed using a mixed-effects methodology. Results indicate that investments in customer service personnel impact abnormal stock returns through their impact on customer relationships. Moreover, these investments tend to have decreasing returns in terms of their impact on customer relationships, and the relative strength of this relationship is shown to be contingent upon a firm's service delivery capabilities, advertising expenditures, and operating focus. This study helps clarify how market-based assets are managed, how investments in specific resources used to manage them relate to stock returns, and why the same dollar invested in human capital by different firms can lead to different levels of returns. The second study also takes a resource-based view of the firm and the management of market-based assets. From this perspective, alliances are considered as external resources acquired in strategic factor markets (Barney 1986) for the purpose of complimenting a focal firm's strategy and performance. This study investigates the long-term impact of alternative types of alliances and the potential impact of alliance partners' customer relationship management capabilities on a focal firms' performance. Just as in study one, ten years of U.S. airline data are used, and a mixed-effects methodology is implemented to test hypotheses. Results indicate that the direct benefits of horizontal marketing alliances tend to be positive, but dependent upon the extensiveness of the alliance. Furthermore, it is revealed that the impact of a partner's customer relationship management capabilities on a focal firm's performance is contingent upon whether the partner's capabilities are similar or dissimilar relative to the focal firm. In short, results indicate that when differences exist, the positive impact of a focal firm's customer relationship management capabilities can be reduced to almost zero if that firm allies with a less competent partner. Taken together, these studies tend to suggest that firms which learn to successfully manage investments in customer relationships may risk nullifying expected positive returns if they simultaneously select alliance partners which are less successful at managing such investments. Similarly, firms which are not able to improve their own management of customer relationships can potentially limit the potential negative consequences by allying with more able firms. In all, this dissertation helps address the accountability issue for marketers.