Academic literature on the topic 'Meso-level marketing phenomena modelling'

Purpose As a frequently observed business phenomenon, the use of product scarcity to improve a product’s market performance has received increasing attention from both academics and practitioners. The resulting literature has covered a wide variety of issues based on various theories, using different research methods, in a diverse range of settings. However, this diversity also makes it difficult to grasp the core themes and findings, and to see the outstanding knowledge gaps. This paper aims to review previous studies on the use of product scarcity in marketing and identifies new directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach A systematic review was conducted to identify and analyse 66 research papers published in business and management journals between 1970 and 2017. Findings The authors examined the underlying theories of scarcity-based marketing, and developed a conceptual framework that describes the key factors of product scarcity and how they influence both consumers and the market. They also highlighted some key achievements in modelling the processes involved in using product scarcity in marketing. Originality/value This analysis of the identified papers suggests that there are substantial gaps in our knowledge of this field, which opens up new paths for future research. For future research, the authors identified three directions aimed at: addressing the practical needs of firms in understanding product scarcity; guiding the implementation of scarcity-based strategies; and measuring, monitoring and predicting the level of product scarcity and its impacts during implementation.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discover and structurally represent the overall possibilities and limitations of quality phenomenon in national health-care sector. The authors consider this domain as a whole and also deal with cross-sector relations, which are usually simplified or omitted. Design/methodology/approach – Presented problem represents a macro-level strategy planning task. The authors use the tools of system dynamics and the basic methodology consists of four generic stages, including problem formulation, conceptual specifications, computational modeling and experimentation. Findings – The authors propose architecture of quality-driven simulation model of national health-care system, validated by simple computational prototype. It covers all major players in this sector, i.e. patients, hospitals, government and insurers. Practical implications – The proposed model can be very useful, especially for current and future policymakers, as a tool for decision-making. They can create better decisions based on the knowledge of a wide variety of factors influencing the system and thus achieve the public health objectives more effectively. Originality/value – The innovativeness of presented research is based on an assumption that strategic concentration on quality in health-care sector can solve the majority of its current bottlenecks. According to the interpretation of the authors, qualitative aspects include primarily the non-clinical activities, such as management, marketing, external relations or staff development.

The subject of the research is theoretical-methodical and practical aspects of formation and ensuring the agricultural enterprises’ competitiveness taking into account the levels, dynamics, and other features of their financial and economic sustainability and economic security. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the theoretical and methodological principles and practical ways of increasing agricultural enterprises’ competitiveness based on their financial and economic sustainability and security. The methodological bases of the article are general methodological approaches, namely: dialectical, historical, monographic, system-structural analysis, and synthesis to the study of economic phenomena and processes. Legislative and normative-legal regulations for development and formation of agricultural enterprises’ competitiveness, their financial and economic sustainability and security; scientific works of leading domestic and foreign scientists on the theory and practice of competitiveness as one of the main categories of market mechanism and management in agriculture; analytical and statistical materials of the State Statistics Service are used in the work. In the work the methods of economic researches are used: abstract and logical – for substantiation of theoretical and methodical bases of agricultural enterprises’ competitiveness formation in the conditions of their financial and economic sustainability and security; in the formation of theoretical generalizations, factors and principles of competitiveness management, critical analysis of other authors’ research; statistical and economic – in determining the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises; marketing –when researching the food market and assessing market conditions for the future; comparative – when comparing indicators of enterprises’ competitiveness of the given region and agro sphere industry with the other ones; graphic – to determine structural changes in the food market; system-structural – to analyze the resource potential of agricultural enterprises’ competitiveness; analytical forecasting – to determine the system of measures of organizational and economic mechanism for its provision; economic and mathematical modelling – to substantiate the increasing of agricultural enterprises’ competitiveness, taking into account the levels of their financial and economic sustainability and security. The results of the article. It is determined that the leading importance in ensuring the agricultural enterprises’ competitiveness belongs to the competitive advantages, as well as their financial and economic sustainability and economic security. The factors and components of providing the latter are determined. A set of measures to increase financial and economic sustainability, ensure economic security as a basis for stable competitiveness, and assurance of its growth in the future is proposed. Field of application of results. The results can be used in the management of agricultural enterprises, in the educational process of higher education institutions, in training the specialists in economics and management. Conclusions. It is determined that the most significant feature of the theory and practice of rural green tourism enterprises in European countries is the expansion of their functions from purely business to more socially necessary and significant – as tools for preservation and reproduction of rural areas, including depressed ones. This provides for their greater support at the level of local communities and government, which is appropriate for all uses. It also makes sense to use the well-tested mechanisms and forms of tourism in the countryside.

The article presents an attempt to describe mathematically the effect of the semantic kernel of a web resource on the Internet. In accordance with the theory of marketing, the product that we want to sell on the network is characterized by the following basic properties: price, time and place. In other words, a potential buyer wants to receive a given product in the right place at a given time. To satisfy this need, it is necessary to use the classic component of marketing, product promotion. However, this component is now becoming a fully virtual instrument. This tool functions in a hypertext, video and image environment. Therefore, the user analyzes the meaning of these elements in order to get the desired product. The results of web projects carried out in this area indicate the emergence of a new phenomenon, which reflects the main meaning of virtual promotion – this is the semantic core. The core is a short annotation of the main properties of the product, its location and time of appearance. Therefore, the purpose of this article is both a presentation of a new object of research and a mathematical description. It is assumed that the semantic core is formed on the basis of natural language terms. In other words, the semantic core is a set of keywords that are grouped by meaning. We propose to use data mining approaches for clustering to group terms. The classic clustering method at the moment is k-means. The article presents a model of the semantic core based on this method. This method and its distance function are considered as the second stage of web content processing. At the first stage, web content is converted into a semantic web. However, the k-means technique has significant drawbacks when modeling the semantic core. Therefore, in the development of this idea, the work shows an alternative way to modeling the kernel. As an alternative approach, the construction of clusters based on the concept of maximum flow is considered. This approach has the significant advantage that the type of links in the semantic network overlaps with the type of distance function in this method. As a result, on a real web project, the effect of the connection between the semantic core model and the level of new users of the web resource was demonstrated over the past five years. Keywords: semantic kernel, keyword, k-means, max flow.

Employees have long been playing the pivotal role in service organizations to achieve a success-oriented goal. The oil and gas industry is included in the high rising sectors in the world’s economy. Due to economic turmoil in this sector, a fear of being laid off remains in an employee’s mind. Thus, the goal of this study is to assess the impact between internal marketing factors (e.g., extrinsic and intrinsic employee rewards, leadership, internal communication, and training and development), and employee job satisfaction in the oil and gas industry. There were 215 complete and usable questionnaires received, and the answers varied among the demographic and functional designation within the oil and gas industry. Multiple regressions were utilized for analysis of data. Results revealed that internal communication is recognized to have the strongest effect on employee job satisfaction in the oil and gas industry. Organizations must emphasize on communicating to all level of employees by setting clear directions and key priorities in the organization, provided that the communications are not misled through upward and downward streams. Furthermore, organizations are to create a space for employees to give clear instructions via e-mail, paper, telephones, and face-to-face communication. A management can utilize the research results by conducting such internal marketing practices to keep their top rated employees within the organization. ut the individual differences related to entrepreneurial intentions, it is necessary to continue studying this phenomenon, considering that the results are still scarce and inconclusive.

Abstract: Impulsive buying behavior is an emerging phenomenon in marketing literature and it affects consumers across the board. Impulsive buying is seen as the outcome of demonstrative reactions that breed the unexpected craving to purchase. Impulsive buying is becoming an important factor for retailers since they generate a lot of income through this kind of behavior. Due to the expansion of organized retail over the country, shops are trying to comprehend the buying behavior of consumers and try by all means that they trigger consumers to act in an impulsive way. Traditional buying behavior of consumers was seen as when purchasers made a list for purchasing products then depart to a particular store and purchase it. But now the whole buying behavior is changing due to the rise in the income level of consumers. This is giving the consumers more buying power, transformation in the socio-cultural environment way of life and consumption pattern. This, therefore, influences the consumer to act in an irrational manner which is known as unplanned buying without considering the potential consequences which may include non-usage of the product, negative economic consequences and feelings of regret, fury and fault. So the present study aims to analyze how uniqueness, price and past orientation influence impulse buying behavior are focusing on classical clothing brands like Nike, Adidas and Reebok. This study attempts to discern how consumer's traditional planned shopping behavior is shifting to impulse buying behavior. The study used a quantitative research method and analyzed the data by means of SMART PLS to test the relationships and the model. 350 questionnaires were used for data analysis using convenience sampling process. The outcomes of the research showed a progressive and significant association between the predictors (the need for uniqueness, price and past orientation) and the outcome variable (impulsive buying behavior).

Purpose This study aims to test the central role of the perceived reputation of country-of-origin (COO) firms between cultural and socio-psychological variables and management and economic variables that help to explain the multi-faceted phenomenon of COO on a developing market. It also tests the moderator role of ethnocentrism, which is the objective of recommending different segment marketing strategies for international firms. Design/methodology/approach The study opted for the structure equation modelling methodology to analyze data collected from 274 Mexican car owners who evaluate Korean automobiles. Findings The results show that the COO reputation of firms from a developing market has a mediating role on the relationship between cultural openness and animosity and trust, risk and purchase intention, but the consequents of the perceived reputation of COO vary depending on the level of consumers’ ethnocentrism. Research limitations/implications Firms seeking to internationalize need to find out how to overcome the hurdle of target market animosity, to increase the cultural openness and to promote trust and purchases in international markets; at the same time, they reduce the perception of risk. In this sense, it might help to increase the perceived reputation of COO firms and to use different marketing strategies according to the target market. Originality/value This study analyzes reputation of firms associated to a COO as a signal that can help to solve purchase decisions in the relationship between consumers and firms from developing markets and also corroborates its role as a mediator factor. In addition, this study empirically tests how animosity and cultural openness influence perceived reputation of COO firms, relationships that has scarcely been studied in literature. This study has also found that less and more ethnocentric consumers have differences in how the COO cues influence on their evaluations and behaviour. Finally, as insufficient consumer research has been conducted into emerging and developing markets, this study focuses on consumers from a developing country and regards automobiles from an emerging country.

These days, countries around the world continue with their process of globalization in the digital business and marketing. However, they find themselves straddling different national cultures, which lead to problems of cross-cultural communication management resulting in, for instance, miscommunication and misunderstanding. Consequently, an understanding of the characterisation or mapping of culture is significant, and while there are not many theories of cultural mapping, most stem from the base work of Hofstede. Basically, most people begin with a categorisation of culture through the creation of an ontology that differentiates relatable levels of reality, as a theory of levels allows culture to be broken down into parts that can be analysed more easily. It also helps them to facilitate the creation of a set of generic or universal dimensions of culture which can be used to map different cultures. However, a problem with this theoretical approach is that it does not offer a very dynamic representation of culture, and it has manifestations that impoverish the way that phenomenal manifestations of culture can be explained. On the other hand, there is an alternative approach was adopted by Schwartz. This approach does not discuss ontology but it creates a value inventory in which respondents assess ‘comprehensive’ cultural values. Consequently, there is some relationship between outcome of Hofstede’s and Schwartz’s results. Yolles has developed a theory of Knowledge Cybernetics that delivers a new ontology and a dynamic modelling approach. Schwartz’s results have been merged into this, resulting in a new theory dynamic theory of culture quite distinct from Hofstede’s level theory.

Purpose This study was carried out to identify mall image dimensions, analyse and discuss how shopping well-being is influenced by mall image and impacts on mall loyalty with the moderating role of gender differences. Besides, the relationship between hedonic value (HV) and utilitarian value (UV) on shopping well-being are investigated. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Through a questionnaire, data were obtained from shoppers at the biggest and the most remarkable malls in Tehran that has a high level of brand awareness. A two-stage method of structural equation modelling was used for testing the hypotheses. Findings The results show that shopping well-being is affected by mall image and HV but not by UV. In addition, as indicated in previous researches, this study supports the idea that shopping well-being influences mall loyalty. In other words, it is argued that shopping well-being is more about pleasure and fun than doing task-oriented activities. Originality/value Most of the mall image dimensions overlapped each other, therefore the purpose of this research is to choose and introduce the best and the most comprehensive combination of those dimensions. Also, in spite of the recent emergence of the shopping well-being concept, it has proved to be delicate in the Iranian context through value, consumer well-being, consumption experiences and sociological life space theories in the quantitative method. In addition, this study shows that shopping well-being is a subjective well-being. This is in contrast to what the common Islamic philosophers opine. Additionally, not only did it propose how to make shoppers more loyal through shopping well-being, but it also discussed the role of gender difference on the subject of shopper loyalty phenomenon. More importantly, this study enables other researchers to investigate cultural differences in this region and make it possible to compare Middle Eastern Countries, especially Iran, to other countries.

The article explores several aspects of the possible existence of informational actions and counteractions in the field of economy. The analysis of similar processes has been made utilizing structure-functional and structure-dynamic modelling. The basic models that allow revealing the essence of the phenomena under analysis are the systems of differential equations that are congruent with the constructions, which have used in the traditional dynamic system. The combination of contextual and subsidiary DFD-diagrams, developed following the technology SADT, allows understanding the functional logic of performed actions. The experimental part of the research had based on the use of imitation platform Analogic and the real statistic data that testified to the dynamic marketing behaviour of a range of business entities. These entities promoted their products in the market using information-communication technologies. The scholars of the study integrated structurefunctional and structure-dynamic patterns of informational actions and counteractions in the field of the economy that have successfully tested. The results of modelling possess a high level of compatibility with the empirical data. It provides adequate prediction and assessment of the possibility of implementing various scenarios of events, and, consequently, in economy management.

The general aim of this research is to investigate approaches to: •improve small area market demand (i.e. SAMD) prediction accuracy for the purchase of automobiles at the level of each Census Collection District (i.e. CCD); and •enhance understanding of meso-level marketing phenomena (i.e. geographically aggregated phenomena) relating to SAMD. Given the importance of SAMD prediction, and the limitations posed by current methods, four research questions are addressed: •What are the key challenges in meso-level SAMD prediction? •What variables affect SAMD prediction? •What techniques can be used to improve SAMD prediction? •What is the value of integrating these techniques to improve SAMD prediction? To answer these questions, possible solutions from two broad areas are examined: spatial analysis and data mining. The research is divided into two main studies. In the first study, a seven-step modelling process is developed for SAMD prediction. Several sets of models are analysed to examine the modelling techniques’ effectiveness in improving the accuracy of SAMD prediction. The second study involves two cases to: 1) explore the integration of these techniques and their advantages in SAMD prediction; and 2) gain insights into spatial marketing issues. The case study of Peugeot in the Sydney metropolitan area shows that urbanisation and geo-marketing factors can have a more important role in SAMD prediction than socio-demographic factors. Furthermore, results show that modelling spatial effects is the most important aspect of this prediction exercise. The value of the integration of techniques is in compensating for the weaknesses of conventional techniques, and in providing complementary and supplementary information for meso-level marketing analyses. Substantively, significant spatial variation and continuous patterns are found with the influence of key studied variables. The substantive implications of these findings have a bearing on both academic and managerial understanding. Also, the innovative methods (e.g. the SAMD modelling process and the model cube based technique comparison) developed from this research make significant contributions to marketing research methodology.