Apesar de todo o crescimento apresentado, o comércio eletrônico está apenas iniciando. As diferenças entre as lojas virtuais e as lojas físicas além das estratégias inovadoras de marketing neste novo ambiente devem estar mudando hábitos e estilos de compra. Não obstante às novas opções e formas para comprar que o consumidor passou a ter, muito pouco se sabe sobre as mudanças em relação às suas atitudes, percepções, adoção ou não da compra virtual. Este foi o elemento direcionador deste trabalho que procura analisar as inter-relações entre a inovatividade e o envolvimento, fatores que se apresentaram como preditores da adoção da internet em estudos anteriores, a atitude dentro do modelo TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior) decomposto desenvolvido, na Psicologia Social com o processo de adoção da compra pela internet. Considera-se a Cultura como fator moderador, comparando-se os resultados com países de culturas diferentes a partir das dimensões de Hofstede. Com este propósito foi elaborado um modelo integrativo considerando os estudos desenvolvidos sobre os fatores apontados e que possibilitasse explicar a relação entre estes fatores e a compra pela internet dentro de um contexto de diferenciação cultural de consumidores de diferentes países. O trabalho envolveu uma pesquisa de campo considerando uma amostra não probabilística internacional de estudantes de grupos de países com grandes diferenças nas dimensões culturais, possibilitando assim, destacar a influência da cultura na relação entre inovatividade, envolvimento, atitude e experiência com a internet e a adoção da compra pela internet. O procedimento de coleta envolveu o desenvolvimento de um site contendo um questionário com auto preenchimento pela internet. Para poder ser entendido pelos respondentes, o questionário é apresentado nos idiomas: português, inglês, francês, espanhol e alemão. Para a análise dos resultados foi utilizado o método multivariado de modelagem de equações estruturais, aplicado por meio da técnica PLS (Partial Least Squares) para a verificação, explicação e comparação das relações entre os construtos. Os resultados mostram que a intenção da compra pela internet é diretamente influenciada pela atitude como fator interno e pela pressão social como fator externo. Apresenta também a influência indireta do envolvimento. A relação entre os fatores intenção e compra, assim como, envolvimento e atitude é mais forte nos países com mais igualdade entre seus membros e mais individualistas, enquanto a influência dos fatores inovatividade e condições facilitadoras se apresentou mais forte nas sociedades mais coletivistas que nas mais individualistas. As sociedades mais voltadas para a realização e a aquisição de dinheiro e posses materiais apresentaram maior influência de fatores sociais na intenção de adotar a compra pela internet que as culturas com maior preocupação com com a qualidade de vida e com o meio ambiente. As culturas com menor aversão ao risco mostraram uma relação mais forte entre o envolvimento e a atitude que as mais aversas ao risco enquanto para estas últimas a influência social é mais forte na adoção da compra pela internet. Estes resultados podem ajudar no desenvolvimento de estratégias de marketing num ambiente em que as barreiras internacionais parecem estar estão diminuindo e as empresas buscam estar presentes em diferentes países por meio do marketing global. / Although all the presented growth, the electronic commerce is only initiating. The differences between the virtual store and the physical store beyond the innovative strategies of marketing in this new environment must be changing habits and styles of purchase. Not obstante the new options and forms to buy that the consumer started to have, much little is known on the changes in relation to its attitudes, perceptions, adoption or not of the virtual purchase. This was the driving element of this work that it looks to analyze the relations between the innovativity and the involvement, factors that if had presented as predictors of the adoption of the Internet in previous studies, the attitude inside of model TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior) decomposed developed in Social Psychology, with the process of adoption of the purchase by the Internet. The Culture is considered as factor moderator, comparing the results between countries of different cultures from the dimensions of Hofstede. With this intention an integrated model was elaborated considering the studies developed on the pointed factors and that it made possible to explain the relation between these factors and the purchase on line. The work involved a field research considering an international not probabilistic sample composed by students from groups of countries with great differences in the cultural dimensions, thus making possible, to detach the influence of the culture in the relation between innovativity, involvement, attitude and experience with the internet and the adoption of the purchase on line. The data collected procedure involved the development of a site contends a questionnaire with auto fulfilling by internet. To be able to be understood by the respondents, the questionnaire is presented in the languages: Portuguese, English, French, Spanish and German. For the analysis of the results the technique used was multivaried statistics of structural equations modeling applied by means of the program PLS (Partial Least Squares) for the verification, explanation and comparison of the relations between the constructs. The results show that the intention of the purchase on line is diectly influenced by the attitude as internal factor and the social pressure as external factor. It also presents the indirect influence of the involvement. The relation between the factors intention and involvement, as well as, involvement and purchase on line is stronger in the countries with more equality between its members and more individualistic. Societies that have tendency to the acquisition of money and goods. had presented greater influence of social factors in the adoption of the purchase by internet than the cultures with bigger concern with the quality of life and the environment. The cultures with less aversion to the risk had shown a stronger relation between the involvement and the attitude to buy on line than the societies with more aversion to the risk, while for this last the social influence is stronger in the adoption of the purchase on line. These results can help in the development of programs of marketing in an environment where the barriers are diminishing and the companies search to be gifts in different countries.

Strategic Alliances, defined as long term relationships undertaken with strategic intent for the joint accomplishment of individual objectives, have become prominent in recent years. Many alliances do not achieve their objectives, yet there is no consensus opinion regarding why. In this dissertation, I introduce and evaluate a framework to examine the outcome of alliances. In the framework, strategic fit, relationship quality, expectation confirmation, and alliance structure are conceptualized as antecedents of alliance outcomes. I draw support for the framework from empirical literature on alliances, and four theoretical perspectives. The theory bases I draw on are transaction cost analysis, the resource based view of the firm, channels management and satisfaction. I evaluated the framework empirically using a pharmaceutical context. Interviews with experts were used to establish the face validity of the framework. A survey methodology was used to gather quantitative data from firms involved in alliances. Measures and composite indices of the constructs in the alliance outcome framework were developed. The relationships in the framework were tested with OLS regression. The interviews supported the contention that each of the constructs in the framework influences alliance outcomes. The quantitative study suggested that strategic fit does help explain alliance outcomes, but in a different way than was anticipated. Specifically, it appears from this study that more resources lead to better alliance outcomes even if the resources of the partners are redundant. The key contributions of this research are threefold. First, it compares the relative contribution of structural, behavioral (relationship quality), economic (strategic fit) and perceptual (expectation confirmation) explanations of alliance outcomes, suggesting that relationship quality may be relatively less important than previous research reports. Second, it highlights the role of partner compatibility in alliance outcomes and introduces three different compatibility measures. Third, it introduces a measure of alliance outcomes that is more consistent with managerial conceptualizations of this construct than previous research.

Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) is an effective tool for building long-term and mutually beneficial relationships between suppliers and consumers, especially in competitive and saturated markets (Morris, Brunyee, and Page, 1998; Sharma and Sheth, 1997; Peterson, 1995; Evans and Laskin, 1994). Sport studies in this area have primarily focused on relationships between fans and teams and between sport properties and corporate sponsors (Chadwick, 2002; Cousens, Babiak, and Slack, 2001; Lachowetz et al. 2002; Sutton et al. 1997; Rohm, 1997; McDonald and Milne, 1997). The purpose of this study is to determine whether the strength of the relationship between the sport property and its fans positively affects the fans' evaluation of the property's corporate sponsors. The proposed model includes three antecedent constructs (overall satisfaction, communication effectiveness, community involvement) and two mediating constructs (trust and commitment) to consumers' sponsorship evaluation. These are used to measure sports fans' relationship value with a sport property. Based on the literature, these five constructs are crucial for creating and maintaining relationships (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Sharma, Niedrich and Dobins, 1999; Duncan and Moriarty, 1998; Rodwell, Kienzle, and Shadur, 1998; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh, 1987; Steers, 1977). Additionally, three dependent variables (favorable attitude, interest in other marketing communications, and actual purchasing intention) are used to assess fans' evaluation of sponsors. Data were collected from 148 season ticket holders for a team of the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA). Structural equation modeling was conducted to understand the relationship among the three groups of variables. The results of testing research hypotheses indicated that fans' overall satisfaction and perceived communication effectiveness with a sport property cause fans' trust and commitment to the sport property. In addition, only commitment mediated the three constructs—overall satisfaction, effective communication, and trust to be positively related with the evaluation of a sponsor. These results clearly suggest that fans' committed relationship to the sport property is the most important factor not only in building fan loyalty but also in creating and maintaining continuous support for corporate sponsors.

Color is important not only in terms of aesthetics but also because it carries meanings that can influence affect and behavior. People’s daily experiences are saturated with color, however scant research focuses on the influence of color in marketing. Essay one of this dissertation offers a conceptual model that provides a framework for understanding how people experience and create meaning from color in order to contribute to a better understanding of how color affects consumer behavior. Additionally, it provides a review of color research in different areas of marketing. This review brings attention to areas where more empirical research is needed and also provides research questions and directions for future study. Essay two examines the role that color plays in branding and fills a major gap in the brand personality literature by empirically testing how nonverbal elements contribute to the establishment of and shape brand personality (Batra, Lehmann, and Singh 1993). In addition, this essay fills a gap in the branding literature by examining the brand-building qualities of logos (Keller and Lehmann 2006). Based on color theory and previous empirical work in psychology and marketing, the relationship between color and brand personality (Aaker 1997), and color and brand equity is tested in a series of five studies. Study 1 demonstrates the link between hue and brand personality using two fictitious and two real brand logos. Study 2 further examines the relationship by focusing on the other two components of color, saturation and value, using four fictitious brand logos. Together, these studies show that all three components affect brand personality perceptions. Study 3 offers replication and extends these findings to package design. Study 4 shows the incremental value of color in logo design, using one hundred real brand logos. Results show that color is an important driver of brand personality and that the combination of logo design and color influences likability and familiarity. Lastly, the relationship between color and brand equity is examined in Study 5. The results provide evidence of product category color norms and reveal that while color differentiation may be helpful for certain categories, it may hurt others.

With a growing focus on the knowledge economy, the Professional Service Firm (PSF) is becoming an integral part of the business landscape. PSFs deal in the business of providing knowledge services. The uniqueness of these services creates the need to explore how those services are delivered and how PSFs use their service successes to create organic growth through retaining and attracting clients. This study explores how transactional and relational contract/governance structures may impact clients' assessments of the professional service transaction. Organizational justice variables (distributive, procedural, informational, and interpersonal justice) are used to determine what elements of the professional service are most salient to clients in their assessment of the professional service transaction. The study was conducted using a web-based survey instrument sent to clients of an international PSF. Responses were received from 142 clients in a variety of industries and government agencies. The study found that the type of contract between a client and the PSF impacts what elements of the transaction are salient to the client in relation to client outcomes like satisfaction, trust and commitment and client behaviors like intent to repurchase services from the PSF and willingness to provide word-of-mouth (WOM)/referrals. Distributive justice, which has more of an economic/exchange basis, was found to be more relevant to client-PSF exchanges involving transactional contracts. The study also found that interpersonal and informational justice factors are more relevant to client-PSF exchanges involving relational contracts. However both distributive justice and informational justice were significantly related to client outcomes in both contract types. The findings have implications for how PSFs deliver their services and the impact that the delivery has on a PSF's organic growth through client retention and acquisition.

Channel relationships, market knowledge, strategic partnerships and brand equity are examples of marketing resources which firms can possess. Marketing resources are especially valuable when they are properly leveraged by agents of the firm (Srivastava, Fahey, and Christensen 2001). This dissertation examines how one marketing resource—corporate sponsorships—can be leveraged by companies to enhance financial performance. Based on the tenets of social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1985), two conceptual models are developed which propose corporate sponsorship can develop the attractiveness of a company's identity and thus enhance levels of company identification among salespeople (Study 1) and customers (Study 2). It is further proposed that through this strengthening of company identification, these stakeholders will become motivated to perform supportive behaviors on behalf of the company which will lead to the firm's enhanced performance. To empirically test the conceptual models, data were collected from the sales force and a sample of customers of a Fortune 1000 company which actively engages in a single national corporate sponsorship. The data set used in Study 1 includes survey responses from 490 sales representatives (21.7% response rate) which are combined with objective sales data gathered from company records. The data were analyzed utilizing linear regression and Hierarchical Linear Modeling. The conceptual model developed in Study 2 was tested utilizing structural equation modeling of survey data collected from 246 active customers. The two studies contained in this dissertation make several important theoretical and substantive contributions to both marketing theory and practice. First, evidence is provided that company identity can be influenced by a company and its marketers. By affiliating with a prestigious entity through a corporate sponsorship, a firm can enhance the attractiveness of its identity which in turn, influences levels of identification among salespeople and customers. The studies also provide additional evidence highlighting the power of identification in terms of predicting firm-directed supportive behaviors. The analysis in Study 1 shows that company identification influences salesperson sales growth and Study 2 confirms that customer-company identification leads to customer sales and positive word-of-mouth communications. Implications of these findings are provided.

This dissertation analyzes the effect of R&D and advertising on profitability from the perspective of transfer pricing analysis. After providing a review of the theoretical and economic literature on R&D and advertising, it examines the standard financial models applied to intangible asset valuation and finds them lacking. The dissertation then examines the empirical relationship between R&D, advertising, and profitability in greater detail using financial data for publicly-listed manufacturing firms over the period 1950–1998. As expected, the analysis confirms that current-period advertising and R&D have a significant impact on current-period profitability. For transfer pricing analysis, establishing the relative contribution of R&D and advertising to profitability is an important consideration. These results suggest that the impact of advertising on profitability is considerably closer to the impact of R&D than the literature review suggests. This dissertation also estimates various distributed lag models to determine the relative duration of advertising and R&D, although these models do not provide robust results. As an alternative, an estimate of the relative duration of advertising and R&D is derived from a financial market valuation approach. These results support the conclusion that the duration of advertising's effect on profitability is considerably closer to that of R&D than previous studies have suggested. Both the relative magnitude and the relative duration of advertising and R&D effects have important ramifications for transfer pricing policies. This dissertation then examines geographical segment data for manufacturing firms over the period 1991–1996, in order to determine whether there is evidence that is consistent with the hypothesis that MNCs use cross-border technology payments to minimize their overall tax burden. While the evidence is not conclusive, it does show that firms with greater R&D intensity have greater profitability differences between the parent companies and their foreign locations, and that these profitability differences are positively correlated with tax differentials. These results suggest the need for greater clarity and consistency in the development of international tax regulations on intercompany transactions involving intangible assets.

When entering foreign markets global marketers often try to standardize their marketing strategies and tactics (Taylor, Miracle and Wilson, 1997; Chan, 1996; Sandler and Shani, 1992). In this research I focused on standardization in advertising, concentrating on factors that may influence standardization of advertising appeals across nations with different cultural and socioeconomic characteristics. The purpose of this research study was twofold. First, based on research by Hofstede (1980) and Roth (1995a&b), I analyzed the influence of the individualism-collectivism dimension, uncertainty avoidance, power distance and socioeconomic factors on the reactions to different ad appeals designed for different product types. The reactions to ads included attitude towards ads, attitude towards products and purchase intention. Products were divides into four groups based on the FCB Matrix (Vaughn, 1980). Then I attempted to utilize these findings to compare the preference for ad appeals of Polish and American consumers.

Sales force compensation presents an important strategic decision to many firms. It has been widely acknowledged that the compensation of the sales force may be used to enhance sales, control sales force activities, and improve customer relationships (Coletti and Cichelli 1991, Stanton and Buskirk 1987, and Gomez-Mejia and Balkin 1992). Despite the acknowledged importance of sales force compensation, the marketing literature on the topic is rather limited. Of the existing sales compensation studies, most simply pit the two main types of compensation systems (i.e., behavior/salary and output/incentive) against each other (Oliver and Anderson 1994 and Cravens et al. 1993). The literature to date has neglected to consider the idea that the effectiveness of the compensation system may be contingent on other factors. This study serves to expand current knowledge concerning the effectiveness of sales force compensation by examining possible moderators. Based on contingency theory, it is proposed that the effectiveness of type of compensation cannot be adequately assessed without consideration of these factors. It is hypothesized that the fit between the chosen type of compensation and other variables will determine the overall effectiveness of the compensation program. Thus, this study addresses the following key research question: Does a good fit between the type of compensation and other variables impact employee satisfaction, stress, turnover intentions, and/or performance? To test the proposed hypotheses, two empirical studies were conducted. Study 1 employed a survey methodology. Questionnaires were mailed to approximately 1,000 salespeople from public firms within the service industry. Approximately, 21% of salespeople completed and returned the questionnaire. Questionnaires included multi-item scales for the dependent measures and some of the independent measures. The remaining measures were obtained from secondary company information. Multivariate analysis of covariance and planned comparisons were used to test for moderator effects. Study 2 proposed a conjoint methodology. In total, 500 additional service salespeople were mailed a questionnaire of which 20% responded. This questionnaire asked participants to report their preferences for certain job situations offering different manipulations of the independent variables. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Este trabajo de investigación desarrolla un plan de marketing para la Empresa Editora El Comercio donde se plantea un modelo de negocio pensado en ofrecer un medio de información impreso gratuito y localizado. Este medio está orientado a hombres y mujeres de niveles socioeconómicos B y C que vivan, estudien y/o trabajen en Lima Norte, específicamente en los distritos de Comas, Independencia, Los Olivos y San Martín.