Zusammenfassung

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Abstract

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Kapitelvorschau

Abstract

Generally, company expenses for sponsoring (i. e., corporate financial or non-financial assistance in order to achieve commercial goals) have been increasing worldwide, with sport sponsoring being the most common type of sponsoring, followed by art sponsoring. On the one hand, corporate art sponsoring, which is often regarded as an activity that is part of corporate social responsibility, is a common method to support and finance art institutions in Europe, and thus, to keep them alive. On the other hand, corporate sponsoring is proposed as a successful marketing communication tool in order to positively influence the sponsor’s image and reputation as well as to increase the brand’s awareness. In reality, however, visitors or spectators are often not aware of the company that sponsored an event. Visitors’ ability to recall a sponsor is, thus, an important variable in this context. Additionally, even though consumers’ involvement is shown to be a crucial aspect for conscious information processing, it is still unclear how important different types of involvement are for sponsoring success. This research therefore looks into the success of corporate art sponsoring by considering the visitors’ ability to recall the sponsor and involvement in terms of (1) situational involvement with the art exhibition, and (2) enduring involvement with art. A field study in a German museum was conducted and provides interesting results for marketing managers, art museum managers as well as sponsorship research. While situational (art exhibition) involvement positively drives corporate image, visitors’ involvement in art has a negative impact on both corporate image and the emotional appeal of reputation. This negative influence, however, is different for visitors who can recall the sponsor compared to those who cannot. For the group that cannot recall sponsors, there is less of a negative effect compared to the total group of visitors. Importantly, managers need to distinguish between different ways of involving visitors because involvement has an ambiguous role. While involvement in art exhibitions has a positive effect, art involvement has a negative effect on sponsor-related outcomes. Important implications for marketing communication and art exhibition management can be derived from these results. Marketers need to focus on individuals who are very involved in art exhibitions to positively impact the sponsor’s image. That is, companies should gather information on potential visitors in order to find out their level of involvement, and thus, create an appropriate sponsoring strategy for a specific event. Following such a strategy requires an intense exchange and collaboration with museum management that might also help to design an exhibition making visitors highly involved in. In doing so, it is necessary to focus on experiential marketing elements such as a special interior design that matches the exhibition theme, special guided tours or walkways through the exhibition, or a special lighting system that makes visitors more attentive. Contrary to art exhibition involvement, the sponsor and sponsee need to be aware of the negative effect of art involvement on sponsor-related outcomes, and, thus, need to sensitively relate to visitors who are very involved in art and communicate the sponsorship so that visitors can recall the sponsor. For visitors who can recall the sponsor after their visit, the negative effects do not exist. In sum, by successfully executing corporate art sponsoring, both the sponsor and the sponsee can better benefit from art sponsorships.

Abstract

Service employees represent an important part of the service itself. Their behaviour shapes customer outcomes and determines a service organization’s success. However, service employees do not always engage in organizationally desired behaviours but may also behave in a way that deviates from the organization’s norms and rules. Employee deviance is especially important to service marketers and managers, as deviant employee behaviour may detrimentally affect customer-related organizational performance. Examining the reasons why employees might engage in such deviant behaviours is therefore highly important. In prior studies of antecedents of employee deviance, scant research addresses the different types of deviance or the effects of organizational resources. Drawing on psychological contract breach theory, the current research proposes a model that links two job demands (mental pressure, perceived customer unfriendliness) as antecedents of psychological contract breaches with two types of service employee deviance (process and general workplace deviance). Most importantly, it considers the moderating role of organizational resources (perceived organizational support, supervisor knowledge). The results reveal that supervisor knowledge weakens the effect of the job demands on process deviance. The moderating effect of supervisor knowledge on the effects of mental pressure and perceived customer unfriendliness on general workplace deviance are non-significant though. These results reinforce the close connection between the more active form of process deviance and the organization. Surprisingly, perceived organizational support strengthens the relationships between mental pressure and perceived customer unfriendliness on process deviance in our study. This result is counterintuitive and may point to an interesting phenomenon: when highly supported by the organization, employees may feel they do not ‘own’ the task process and as a result, their responsibility for the process slips. These findings underscore the important yet insufficiently explored role of organizational resources in buffering the detrimental effect of job demands, with implications for service marketing and management research and practice.

Abstract

To be successful, foreign retailers must meet the expectations of local consumers and they must also position themselves as strong retail brands. This may be difficult because foreign firms often face competitive disadvantages in comparison to local counterparts. This disadvantage may be partly attributed to consumers’ perception of foreign companies as part of an out-group. The study investigates whether consumers’ willingness to buy from a foreign grocery retailer is affected by their perception of both localised corporate social responsibility activities and of perceived brand localness. Scholars rarely focus on localised corporate social responsibility activities in the retail context, which in practice are not uncommon. Moreover, scholars often focused on the effects of perceived brand globalness but rarely paid attention to perceived brand localness. In addition, because it is likely that both of these appeals differ depending on consumer groups, we question how consumer ethnocentrism affects the above-mentioned relationships. Therefore, the study investigates whether localised corporate social responsibility activities and perceived brand localness influence consumers’ willingness to buy from a foreign grocery retailer, and whether these influences interact. The study also analyses the moderating role of consumer ethnocentrism. To elucidate these issues, three experiments were conducted, using a cumulated sample of 984 US respondents. The experiments were based on a fictitious foreign grocery retailer to avoid consumers’ pre-existing knowledge of the retailer and pre-existing brand familiarity. The results suggest that both appeals positively impact consumers’ willingness to buy. This indicates that retail managers should actively communicate localised corporate social responsibility activities and should invest in building a local brand identity using emotional anchors localised to the domestic market. Contrary to the proposed hypothesis, the interaction between localised corporate social responsibility and perceived brand localness is negative, implying that retail managers should strongly focus on one of the two dimensions rather than trying to satisfy both dimensions without full success. Consumer ethnocentrism was found to increase the effect of localised corporate social responsibility but not of perceived brand localness. Therefore, ethnocentric consumers who perceive that the retailer positively influences the domestic economy and local society are more willing to buy from this foreign retailer, meaning that localised activities can help overcome ethnocentric consumers’ preferences against buying from foreign stores.

Abstract

This paper analyses consumers’ reactions when retailers and brands jointly employ a potentially deceptive sales tactic we term native selling. Native selling describes the use of brand representatives acting as sales personnel in retail stores. Our research investigates whether consumers are aware of the possibility that firms might be using this tactic, how they respond when they discover it has been employed, and whether firm disclosure of the tactic changes consumers’ reactions. We develop a theoretical framework for predicting consumers’ responses to native selling based on the literature on selling tactics, persuasion knowledge, and the effects of disclosing information to consumers. Research on persuasion knowledge has shown that consumers frequently respond negatively to marketing tactics that they perceive to be a deliberate attempt to influence them. We argue that native selling may be perceived, not just as an attempt to influence consumers, but as an attempt to hide salespersons’ motives. As such, we predict that native selling may be considered deceptive, leading to negative reactions toward both the store and brand. Like native advertising and other hidden or disguised tactics, however, we also suspect that native selling is often hard to detect in typical retail settings, and that it is likely subject to different degrees of disclosure. We predict that disclosure of native selling (i. e., revealing that the salesperson is employed by the brand) will lessen consumers’ negative reactions by reducing the perceived deceptiveness of the tactic. We conducted two experiments and a series of mediation and moderation analyses to test our hypotheses. In both experiments, we manipulated whether firm’s disclosed the tactic to consumers. This was done through the information provided on the salesperson’s name tag. In the second experiment, we also manipulated whether consumers were independently aware of the tactic, so that we could directly assess reactions to native selling. Results revealed, first, that native selling was not well-known among consumers. Consumers expected sales personnel to be employed by the retailer, for some consumers, even when the name tag specifically indicated otherwise. Second, when consumers were aware of the tactic, they felt deceived by native selling, which lowered attitudes toward the retailer and the brand and reduced purchase intentions. Third, both studies showed that firm disclosure of native selling did nothing to alleviate consumers’ negative reactions. Disclosure either failed to alert consumers to the tactic, or, when consumers did notice, they felt deceived by the use of the tactic. They appeared to give firms no credit for being transparent. This does not mean that marketers should hide the use of native selling. Consumer who become aware of the tactic through other means (e. g., through news media or word-of-mouth) react badly. Moreover, there are ethical and legal ramifications associated with obscuring native selling. Overall, our work suggests that firms considering the use of native selling need to take into account the costs of consumers’ negative reactions alongside any anticipated benefits.