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(2007)ThesisMajor problems are identified with the use of survey methodology to examine the relationship between market orientation (MO) and firm performance. The research, as it is argued, tells us more about managers' sense-making processes and causal attributions than whether and under what conditions MO drives performance, yet one way causal interpretations are still prevalent in the literature. The psychological mechanisms underlying managers' perceptions are identified and alternative causal paths specified for interpreting prior research results are proposed that also account for otherwise troublesome results. An exploratory experiment is designed to calibrate the extent of managers' attribution biases which is the most important part of the sensemaking framework. Different levels of performance, MO and environmental turbulence are manipulated in case scenarios. The results confirm a culture-centered view of MO and a strong psychological impact of performance on perceived environment turbulence. A multi-method view of studying the MO-performance link is proposed in the final part of the paper.
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(2007)ThesisConsumer satisfaction is a central topic in marketing. In the literature, a variety of conceptual models have been developed to capture the satisfaction formation process, with the dominant framework being the disconfirmation paradigm. However, despite its widespread acceptance and support, there is still a lack of clarity, especially regarding the role and relative importance of perceived performance in determining satisfaction. It has been suggested that satisfaction research has advanced into a stage where potential moderator variables need to be examined in order to explain previous mixed findings. The current research proposes a contingency model of the satisfaction formation process, which posits that the nature of the relationships between satisfaction and its two key antecedents (i.e., perceived performance and disconfirmation) is contingent on one situational moderator (ambiguity) and two individual moderators (experience and involvement). Empirical testing of the model is in the form of a cross-sectional survey in China's mobile phone services industry using a convenience student sample obtained from one Chinese university. The results show that both disconfirmation and perceived performance have a direct impact on satisfaction under conditions of low experience or high involvement, whereas satisfaction is solely determined by perceived performance in situations of high experience or low involvement. In addition, the results also support a joint moderator influence of ambiguity and experience on the relationships between satisfaction and its antecedents, which is especially true in the case of high ambiguity and low experience.
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(2008)ThesisCorporate Social Responsibility is becoming a central agenda item for companies as well as capturing the burgeoning interest of academic researchers. Taking a broad overview of the recent working in this area, only embryonic research has been dedicated thus far to the consumer cognition process towards the CSR information. Motivated by this, we construct a cognitive model to investigate why some CSR initiatives are highly valued by consumers while others go unacknowledged. We test the model under experimental conditions using university students in China and Australia. The results suggest that different types of CSR initiatives, in terms of commitment, timing and fit, stimulate different levels of consumer CSR association by affecting their information cognition process, which is motivation attribution and consequence expectation. The mediating effect of consumer attribution and awareness of consequence is supported in both the hypothetical brand context and real brand context, with some slight difference in cognitive structure possibly due to the unequal familiarity and size of the companies used in the scenarios. In addition, the effect of consumer moral identity on the model is also examined to address the growing concern in the literature that moral judgment should reflect the heterogeneity of moral personalities. The results indicate that moral identity has a # direct impact on consumer attribution and awareness of consequence. However, the interaction between respondents' moral identity and the properties of initiatives, as hypothesized in the thesis, is not supported by the data. This paper launches a new perspective of explanation for the under-performance of some CSR initiatives, offering managerial implications on how companies can structure their next wave of social-oriented initiatives (or initiative portfolios).
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(2012)ThesisThe concept of ICT/business alignment has been extensively discussed in the literature, but almost always in the context of large firms from the manufacturing and retailing industry. In addition, prior research has predominately conceptualized and operationalized ICT/business alignment at the firm level, very few attempts have been made to explore the issue at the process level. In this study, we developed an ICT alignment profile by adopting the value discipline theory to examine this concept from the business process perspective. Adopting the Resource Based View (RBV) and Contingency theory, a conceptual model that captures the antecedents of strategic ICT/business alignment, strategic alignment, and performance outcomes is proposed and empirically tested in the context of Australian professional conference organizers (PCO); Partial Least Square (PLS) was used for the data analysis. The contribution of this study is fourfold. First, ground in both RBV and Contingency theory, an integrative research model incorporating resources factors and contingency factors was developed to empirically assess the alignment between ICT and business strategy in the context of PCOs. Second, this study moves beyond the dominated firm level alignment paradigm by conceptualizing and evaluating the concept of alignment from the business process perspective, the process approach provided in-depth insights to the relationship between alignment and firm performance. Third, this study added the small firm perspective to strategic alignment literature in respect of antecedent to the alignment and its subsequent outcomes. Last but not least, this research also contributed to MICE literature by providing valuable insights as to the technology advancement in the business event industry in Australia.
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(2011)ThesisPrior empirical research has decomposed customer satisfaction into two related but independent dimensions—magnitude and uncertainty—and demonstrated the important moderating role of satisfaction uncertainty on the fuzzy satisfaction-loyalty link. In turn, research has focused on the psychological basis of satisfaction uncertainty by examining a few cognitive and situational antecedents of in consumer contexts. This study focuses on the role of important individual difference variables in the formation of satisfaction uncertainty. The empirical work seeks to explore the interplay of individual difference variables, cognition and affect in shaping satisfaction uncertainty. The proposed model maintains that need for closure and regulatory focus shape satisfaction uncertainty through their influence on affective and cognitive processes. The model was tested among 196 participants in a manipulated restaurant encounter. The empirical work unveils a rich network of relationships that illuminates how satisfaction uncertainty is formed.
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Driving preferences for co-branded products: effects of extendibility, compatibility and uncertainty(2010)ThesisFirms frequently use brand extension strategies to enter new product categories. Another type of entry strategy is co-branding by effectively exploiting the equity of both constituent brands. Co-branding may effectively drive consumer preferences if consumers believe the combination of two brands offers a better solution than either one separately. However, there is also the risk that consumers may get confused with the combination, or have perceptions of strengths regarding one of the brands diluted, leading to the failure of this strategy. While much has been written on brand-category extension, despite its prevalence, the use of co-brands to enter a new category has attracted relatively little attention. In this study, the author models the effects on consumer perceptions and preferences of combining two brand names for a new product. The proposed model provides a mechanism to represent how consumers’ prior attribute beliefs about constituent brands, the extendibility of the brands into the extension category, the compatibility between the constituent brands, and the uncertainty associated with them can jointly determine their preferences for the co-branded product. The contribution that this model enables is a means to study co-branding and new category entry simultaneously, by assessing the drivers of consumer preference for a co-brand in a new product category. An empirical study is designed to test the model, using real brands and hypothetical extensions and co-brands. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications of this study are discussed.