This dissertation investigates the role of two marketing practices—returns policies and group-buying services—in improving channel coordination. The first study (presented in Chapter Two) focuses on the interaction between two types of returns policies—returns of unwanted products from consumers to retailers and returns of unsold inventory from retailers to manufacturers. Even without the right to return unsold inventory to the manufacturer, the retailers may accept returns from consumers; by doing so, they benefit from a less pricesensitive market demand, an ability to screen for high-valuation consumers, and a competitive advantage (offering a returns policy makes a retailer more attractive to consumers). From the manufacturer's perspective, accepting returns may induce the retailers to order more stock, set lower prices, generate more sales, and therefore, improves the performance of the channel. However, under some conditions (e.g., when the marginal cost of stock-outs is relatively high), this study shows that this effect disappears and the manufacturer does not accept returns from the retailer in equilibrium. The second study (presented in Chapter Three) investigates the rationale for using group-buying services vis-a-vis the traditional posted-pricing mechanism. It focuses on the behavior of consumers and explores the role of heterogeneity in their valuation for the product and cost of purchasing via group-buying in the functioning of group-buying services as a price-discrimination device. Finally, the role of group-buying services in improving channel coordination under asymmetric information is studied in Chapter Four. This analysis shows that the availability of group-buying services provides an opportunity for the manufacturer to reduce the informational rents of the retailer arising from its private information about the market condition. Interestingly, the manufacturer can avoid paying these rents and regains the first-best profitability when asymmetry in information exists regarding the relative sizes of consumer segments. In other settings (e.g., when asymmetric information exists regarding consumers' price sensitivity), leveraging the group-buying mechanism nevertheless allows the manufacturer to design a contract that requires lower rents and improves channel coordination to some extent.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between public service advertising and the likelihood of Generation Y to react in the prescribed manner. Public service advertising can be paid or unpaid but is used to try and influence a particular audience to act in a prescribed manner. This research will be comparing two different types of message styles, argumentative and emotional, and two contemporary prominent issues, organ donation and prescription drug abuse. The two issues are classified as either altruistic, where there is no direct benefit, or self-help, where the results are personal. Four different messages will be used: altruistic argumentative, altruistic emotional, self-help argumentative, and self-help emotional. Also, previous knowledge levels will be taken into account. All combined, the end results will measure the likelihood of an individual to perform the act, donate to the cause monetarily, or tell another person.

Brand extensions are new products or services, beyond an organization's current offerings, that are introduced under the brand name. Sport organizations are increasingly implementing extension strategies in an effort to create additional revenue streams and to enhance their relationship with their fans. Although brand extensions have been a topic of extensive study in the mainstream marketing literature, only three studies have examined this practice in the sport setting. This dissertation aims to add to the limited sport-related literature but also provide insights to practitioners by examining the effect of three factors on consumers' evaluation of brand extensions introduced in the sport setting. More specifically, the strength of the parent brand and the perceived fit between the parent brand and the extension are manipulated in a 2 x 2 factorial design, to examine whether there are differences in the way consumers view extension products based on the parent brand introducing the extension and the degree of fit of the new product. Further, driven by the unique nature of the sport product, which fosters strong emotional connections between fans and their favorite teams, fan identification is also included in the design. Its effect on consumers' evaluation of the extensions as well as its interaction with the other two independent variables are examined via a series of analysis of variance. Limitations related to the measurement and manipulation of the parent brand strength variable do not allow for any conclusions on the value of this factor. Nevertheless, the results of the study clearly suggest that fan identification is a significant factor, as increasing levels of fan identification are highly related to more favorable evaluations of the proposed extensions and higher intention of sport consumers to try or purchase the extensions. Furthermore, perceived fit appears to be significant for the evaluation of the extensions, even when high levels of identification with the two parent brands are present. Sport managers interested in introducing extensions of their brand should capitalize on existing high identification levels, but also create meaningful links between the brand and the new products to facilitate their acceptance and support from consumers.

Power is a fundamental concept in social science (Russell 1938), which has gained much academic attention in various disciplines. Two essays of this dissertation examine the theoretical and practical implications of power effects on donation decisions and material/experiential consumption. The first essay demonstrates power's moderating effect on the relationship between publicity and donation. Specifically, it is proposed that powerful people tend to donate more in public (vs. private) situation, whereas powerless people do not show such a difference. This effect is driven by people's concern about self-presentation in a donation scenario. Additionally, this effect only holds when people strongly believe that high donation enhances others' positive impression of them, but dilutes when such belief is not held. The theorizing is supported across four studies. The second essay focuses on how power influences consumers' preferences for material and experiential products. It is predicted that those who feel powerless tend to spend more of their discretionary money on material products than experiential products. This effect occurs through feelings of resourcefulness caused by possessing material or experiential goods. In addition, this effect is further moderated by implicit theory, such that the impact of power on material versus experience product choice persists for incremental theorists but dissipates for entity theorists. Three experiments provide support to this proposition. Overall, by investigating how power influences people's donation behavior and choice of material/experiential products, this dissertation strengthens the understanding of power's effects on consumer behavior and provides practical implications on how power status can influence consumers' well-being.

While the number of brand extensions has proliferated in the 1980's, there is little theory or methodology to help managers understand how extensions may affect a family brand name. The purpose of this research was to explore how brand extensions may affect a parent brand's image. Categorization theory was used as a theoretical framework. Four hypothetical extensions from an existing brand name were developed. The study manipulated an extension's product category and attribute similarity with the family brand and evaluation from an independent testing agency. Undergraduate students served as subjects. ANCOVA was performed to compare the brand's image before and after subjects encountered and received information (positive or negative) about one of the four extensions. The results were not those predicted by categorization theory. A new extension that is slightly incongruous with its brand schema may lead to an increase in brand image when consumers can resolve this inconsistency.

Advertisers are increasingly using comparative advertising to influence product/brand evaluations. Broadly defined, a company is said to be using comparative advertising when the sponsoring brand makes implicit or explicit comparisons with some other identified or unidentified brand at the attribute(s) or overall level. Empirical research examining the process through which comparative advertising impacts brand evaluations is not well understood. The purpose of this research is to examine the process through which comparative advertising influences evaluations. Several social psychology theories such as the cognitive response approach, attribution theory and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion are considered to develop the research hypotheses. The primary hypothesis advanced was that comparative advertising has a significantly more favorable influence on attribute importance, brand evaluations, confidence in brand evaluations and behavioral intentions than noncomparative advertising. Additionally, the mediating effects of cognitive responses generated as a result of message exposure were also considered. The study was conducted in a laboratory setting using university employees as subjects. A 2 x 2 x 3 full factorial design was used. The three factors were message type (noncomparative, comparative), message content (evaluative, factual), and message sidedness (one-sided, two-sided unrefuted, two-sided refuted). The investigations were carried out using print medium with the context of bank checking accounts. The results from this study supported the hypothesis that comparative messages are superior to noncomparative messages in terms of their impact on evaluation processes. However, with respect to message content and message sidedness there was limited support.

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