The measurement of meaning

Despite recurring concerns about common method variance (CMV) in survey research, the information systems (IS) community remains largely uncertain of the extent of such potential biases. To address this uncertainty, this paper attempts to systematically examine the impact of CMV on the inferences drawn from survey research in the IS area. First, we describe the available approaches for assessing CMV and conduct an empirical study to compare them. From an actual survey involving 227 respondents, we find that although CMV is present in the research areas examined, such biases are not substantial. The results also suggest that few differences exist between the relatively new marker-variable technique and other well-established conventional tools in terms of their ability to detect CMV. Accordingly, the marker-variable technique was employed to infer the effect of CMV on correlations from previously published studies. Our findings, based on the reanalysis of 216 correlations, suggest that the inflated correlation caused by CMV may be expected to be on the order of 0.10 or less, and most of the originally significant correlations remain significant even after controlling for CMV. Finally, by extending the marker-variable technique, we examined the effect of CMV on structural relationships in past literature. Our reanalysis reveals that contrary to the concerns of some skeptics, CMV-adjusted structural relationships not only remain largely significant but also are not statistically differentiable from uncorrected estimates. In summary, this comprehensive and systematic analysis offers initial evidence that (1) the marker-variable technique can serve as a convenient, yet effective, tool for accounting for CMV, and (2) common method biases in the IS domain are not as serious as those found in other disciplines.

Common Method Variance in IS Research: A Comparison of Alternative Approaches and a Reanalysis of Past Research

Branding has emerged as a top management priority in the last decade due to the growing realization that brands are one of the most valuable intangible assets that firms have. Driven in part by this intense industry interest, academic researchers have explored a number of different brand-related topics in recent years, generating scores of papers, articles, research reports, and books. This paper identifies some of the influential work in the branding area, highlighting what has been learned from an academic perspective on important topics such as brand positioning, brand integration, brand-equity measurement, brand growth, and brand management. The paper also outlines some gaps that exist in the research of branding and brand equity and formulates a series of related research questions. Choice modeling implications of the branding concept and the challenges of incorporating main and interaction effects of branding as well as the impact of competition are discussed.

/pdf/brands-and-branding-research-findings-and-future-priorities-2n1yuyrxc1.pdf

Brands and Branding: Research Findings and Future Priorities

The authors conduct a meta-analysis that aggregates empirical findings from the market orientation literature. First, the study provides a quantitative summary of the bivariate findings regarding the antecedents and the consequences of market orientation. Second, the authors use multivariate analyses of aggregate study effects to identify significant antecedents of market orientation and the process variables that mediate the relationship between market orientation and performance. In addition, using regression analysis, the authors find that the market orientation–performance relationship is stronger in samples of manufacturing firms, in low power-distance and uncertainty-avoidance cultures, and in studies that use subjective measures of performance. The authors also find that the market orientation–performance correlation is stronger for both cost-based and revenue-based performance measures in manufacturing firms than in service firms. On the basis of the findings, the authors conclude with a ...

https://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~moorman/Marketing-Strategy-Seminar-2015/Session%202/Kirca,%20Jayachandran,%20and%20Bearden.pdf

Market Orientation: A Meta-Analytic Review and Assessment of Its Antecedents and Impact on Performance

▶ Compact, hands-on and step-by-step introduction to quantitative market research techniques ▶ Presents the most important techniques and shows how to translate theoretical choices into SPSS and how to analyze the output ▶ Range of education elements such as learning objectives, keywords, self-assessment tests, case studies ▶ Innovative supplementary online concept, including mobile tags, sample datasets and additional cases

A Concise Guide to Market Research

Comparing the validity of numerical judgements elicited by direct rating and point allocation: Insights from objectively verifiable perceptual tasks

Blinded by science: the managerial consequences of inadequately validated cluster analysis solutions

Many disciplines of scholarship are interested in the Relative Age Effect (RAE), whereby age-banding confers advantages on older members of the cohort over younger ones. Most research does not test this relationship in a manner consistent with theory (which requires a decline in frequency across the cohort year), instead resorting to non-parametric, non-directional approaches. In this article, the authors address this disconnect, provide an overview of the benefits associated with Poisson regression modelling, and two managerially useful measures for quantifying RAE bias, namely the Indices of Discrimination and Wastage. In a tutorial-like exposition, applications and extensions of this approach are illustrated using data on professional soccer players competing in the top two tiers of the “Big Five” European football leagues in the search to identify paragon clubs, leagues, and countries from which others may learn to mitigate this form of age-discrimination in the talent identification process. As with OLS regression, Poisson regression may include more than one independent variable. In this way we test competing explanations of RAE; control for unwanted sources of covariation; model interaction effects (that different clubs and countries may not all be subject to RAE to the same degree); and test for non-monotonic versions of RAE suggested in the literature.

/pdf/the-relative-age-effect-in-european-elite-soccer-a-practical-1he80t4ulw.pdf

The relative age effect in European elite soccer: A practical guide to Poisson regression modelling.

In this paper, we examine whether the relationship between high‐commitment human resource (HR) practices and two employee outcomes, quit intentions and organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs), is contingent on organisational identification. Incorporating insights from both social exchange and social identity theories, we propose that the relationship between high‐commitment HR systems, intention to quit, and OCBs is attenuated when employees strongly identify with their organisation. This proposition was tested and supported with employees of a Swedish relocation company and a Greek shipping organisation. For high identifiers, as perceptions of HR practices deteriorated from high to low, they were associated with smaller increases in quit intentions and smaller decreases in citizenship behaviours. But overall, high identifiers always had lower quit intentions and higher citizenship behaviours than low identifiers, which is managerially reassuring.

/pdf/high-commitment-human-resource-practices-and-employee-4n080p03hl.pdf

High‐commitment human resource practices and employee outcomes: The contingent role of organisational identification

Newsjacking (real-time deployment of news stories in communications) is now ubiquitous for brands using social media. Despite its pervasiveness, little analysis of its effectiveness exists. The purpose of this paper is to test if newsjacking positively influences various consumer responses (attitude toward content, brand attitude and purchase intent). Taking an audience perspective supported by the elaboration likelihood model, the research also establishes if a higher level of news involvement, as well as an ability to recognize the story behind the content, enhances the effectiveness of newsjacking content. An experimental design using taglines (newsjacking vs non-topical content) from a real BMW campaign was tested on a sample of 252 consumers. Three research questions pertaining to the effectiveness of newsjacking were specified and analyzed within a structural equation modeling framework.The findings support the conclusion that newsjacking is an effective communication tool. More favorable consumer responses were elicited in the newsjacking condition, as compared to content deploying a non-topical tagline. In addition, recipients reporting a higher level of news involvement rated the content more favorably in the newsjacking (vs the non-topical) condition. Deploying news stories that are more recognizable increases the chances of successful newsjacking. Messages received by those with higher product involvement (category level: cars) were more effective regardless of the type of the appeal.

/pdf/news-you-can-use-evaluating-the-effectiveness-of-newsjacking-8iridpec8x.pdf

Paul Andrew Bottomley

Papers

Comparing the validity of numerical judgements elicited by direct rating and point allocation: Insights from objectively verifiable perceptual tasks

Blinded by science: the managerial consequences of inadequately validated cluster analysis solutions

The relative age effect in European elite soccer: A practical guide to Poisson regression modelling.

High‐commitment human resource practices and employee outcomes: The contingent role of organisational identification

News you can use! Evaluating the effectiveness of newsjacking based content on social media