In the pre-relationship exploration stage of a business-to-business (B2B) relationship, firms find it difficult to evaluate other parties because of the prevalence of information asymmetry. Firms must make informed decisions, otherwise, they end up in a contentious long-term relationship, which adversely affects the performance of both sides. While majority research on B2B relationships is focused in the post-relationship phase, very little has been done to identify strategies that firms can adopt to signal their firm characteristics in the pre-relationship phase. This is important, as such signals can help firms make informed purchase decisions by cutting through the information asymmetry. Also, sending the right signals can help firms extract a price premium from their prospective partners, contributing positively to their bottom line. Therefore, this dissertation consists of three essays with the objective to (i) identify positioning strategies that sellers can use to signal firm characteristics and test which elements of firm characteristics enable them to extract a price premium (ii) identify branding strategies that sellers can use to signal firm characteristics and test which elements of firm characteristics enable them to extract a price premium (iii) investigate signals that affect firm performance.

The technology for storing and using big data is evolving rapidly and those that can keep pace are likely to garner additional competitive advantages. One approach to uncovering existing practice in a manner that provides insights for building theory is the use of grounded theory. The current research employs qualitative research following a grounded theory approach to explore gap in understanding the relationship between big data (BD) and the supply chain (SC). In this study eight constructs emerged: Organizational and environmental factors, big data and supply chain analytics, alignment, data governance, big data capabilities, cost of quality, risk analysis and supply chain performance. The contribution of this research resulted in a new theoretical framework that provides researchers and practitioners with an ability to visualize the relationship between collection and use of BD and the SC. This framework provides a model for future researchers to test the relationships posited and continue to extend understanding about how BD can benefit SC practice. While it is anticipated that the proposed theoretical framework will evolve as a result of future examination and enhanced understating of the relationships shown the framework presented represents a critical first step for moving the literature and practice forward.

The purpose of this three-essay dissertation was to expand knowledge and theory regarding soft systems methodologies (SSMs) and data visualization approaches in business, engineering, and other social sciences. The first essay depicts a bibliometric analysis study of the historic impacts of SSM from 1980-2018 on business, engineering, and other social sciences fields. This study found 285 articles that described or employed SSM for research and included outcomes such as top SSM authors, author citation impacts, common dissemination outlets, time-bound distribution of publications, and other relevant findings. This study provided a picture of who, what, why, when, and where SSM has had the greatest impact on academic thought and practice. The second essay presents research on the academic impact of Systemigrams, an associated data visualization approach, finding examples of conceptual or research development that employed Systemigrams to depict complex problem situations. Recommendations for improvement of designing these data visualizations to increase their field use resulted from this study. The final essay leverages a selection of the articles as use cases to produce a grounded theory study to identify phenomena that arose from the use of SSM for operations and firm strategy research. This study identified two broad themes including (i) scope, …

The objective of this three-essay dissertation are to develop a weighted cash conversion cycle (CCC_EVA) and empirically investigate its commensurability of corporate financial performance. Essay 1, titled "Supply Chain Finance: Developing a Weighted Cash Conversion Cycle to Proxy Operations Liquidity", presents the development and supporting empirical evidence of CCC_EVA measurability of operations liquidity. This essay shows the processes of scaling capital intensity and financing cost into time intervals captured by the traditional metric. Specifically, this essay investigates how accurately CCC_EVA indexes operations liquidity captured working capital, operational cash flow-to-modified working capital ratio, and quick ratio. The sample used in this essay consists of 4,333 firm-year observations of publicly traded industry classified firms listed on the U.S. exchange markets. The results of the empirical testing have statistically supported the essay hypotheses, that is CCC_EVA is a more accurate proxy of operations liquidity in comparison to the traditional metric (CCC_D). Essay 2, titled "Supply Chain Finance: Weighted Cash Conversion Cycle and Corporate Finance", expands the first essay findings by accounting for well-known financial measurements. Specifically, this essay examines the relations between CCC_EVA and operations liquidity and leverage, Market value, operating profitably and growth, and long-term asset management efficiency. This essay paper has …

Under the unifying theme of supply chain learning, this three essay dissertation extends scholarship by investigating these multi-tier relationships. Theory is emerged, grounded in data, gathered from functioning supply chains in an effort to provide scholars and practitioners with an increased understanding of the SCL phenomena. Essay 1, entitled "Supply Chain Learning: An Exploratory Literature Review" examines the current literature in an attempt to address the shortcomings and emerge areas that have been less explored and less understood. By exposing these areas of research opportunities using a grounded theory methodology, a framework was emerged allowing identification of the limitations of extant literature and providing a springboard for future research. This framework also allowed further investigation into the SCL processes and expansion of the current understanding by providing academia with a comprehensive review of the literature and revealing the shortcomings that exist related to SCL. Using the framework emerged in Essay 1, Essay 2 entitled "Toward Supply Chain Learning: A Focus on the Customers of Logistics Service Providers" explores the rationalization and cognitive processes of senior level executives of firms utilizing national or global supply chains. These respondents are directly engaged in creating, establishing and operating relationships with third party logistics …

Co-creation has been conceptualized in a number of ways but is generally referred to as an ongoing partnership between a firm and stakeholders (i.e. consumers) to collaboratively identify and solve mutually beneficial issues. While current scholarship has deepened our knowledge about the process of including consumers in the co-production of value, much remains to be learned. This is particularly true with respect to the consumer behavior side of the discipline as it pertains to creativity and motivation. Thus, the focus of the following three essays is to investigate how customer participation in the ideation of products and advertising influences down-stream responses, depending upon an individual's regulatory focus. According to regulatory focus theory, individuals are motivated to pursue their goals based upon two distinct self-regulatory systems known as promotion and prevention. Promotion-focused consumers are most concerned with the achievement of accomplishments and aspirations, which often results in approach oriented behavior. In contrast, prevention focused individuals seek to avoid negative end states, such as losses, and therefore are concerned with their security, duties, and obligations, resulting in avoidance-related behavior. These two distinct motivational states influence the way these individuals approach creative goals, which shares commonalities with co-creation. By its very nature, the …

his dissertation advocates that value and its creation are often misunderstood concepts since both lack robust comprehensive conceptual foundations from which to advance rigorous theoretical development and analysis. Furthermore, this dissertation characterized value as the subjective assessment of the total worth of benefits received for the price paid or costs, i.e. money, time, energy, etc. The purpose of this dissertation was to conduct a holistic examination of value through the lens of service-dominant logic (S-D) and several historical economic periods of thought. I conducted a comprehensive S-D literature review in conjunction with a conceptual Boardman Soft Systems Methodology to develop a systemigram that captured the most critical S-D concepts and interrelationships to clarify its purpose and future research opportunities. During this process, value was recategorized and simplified into five primary dimensions, i.e. nature, perspectives, measures, storage, and creation. I employed Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory to illustrate that value at the lowest level of abstraction is the efficient satisfaction of human needs. I also investigated value creation and introduced a comprehensive value creation conceptual framework. Value creation is seen as a continuum of activity of key processes, i.e. value co-production, value in exchange, and value co-creation, and key procedural elements, …

Supply chain resilience refers to the capability of a supply chain to both withstand and adapt to unexpected disturbances. In today's turbulent business environment, firms are continually seeking to create more resilience within their supply chain through increased information communication technology use and enhanced business-to-business relationships. The focus of this dissertation is the investigation of how information communication technology creates resilience at the differing process levels of supply chain operations. Past research into information communication technology use within supply chains has often been conducted at the macro-level of supply chain phenomena. As such, there is still much to understand about how decision-makers interact with information communication technology at the micro-level of supply chain decision-making. A more in-depth, broad coverage of this interaction will provide both practitioners and academics a better understanding of how to leverage information communication technology in achieving supply chain resilience. To meet this aim, this dissertation contains three essays that re-orient conceptual thinking about supply chain phenomenon, explore how advances in information communication technology influence business-to-business relationships, and identify how information communication technology effects the decision-making of supply chain managers.

There exists heightened research attention afforded to the pivotal demands - both internal and external - that exist within the salesperson role set. Unprecedented pressures on salespersons to acquire, retain, and build enduring customer relationships to enhance the firm's bottom-line performance coincides with increasing complexities within the work environment. This relevant and timely research introduces an original construct derived from the long-standing attention afforded to relationship selling, relational incongruity that exists within the buyer-seller exchange. Relational incongruity, defined, is the relational tension spawned between the salesperson, the customer, and the firm when situational psychological incongruity exists within the buyer-seller exchange itself. Framed in resource-advantage theory, this research investigates divergent demands and the increasing complexity of sales relationships through the lens of relational incongruity. A research program based on minimizing relational incongruity will augment the sales management and B2B literature by looking at how he salesperson and the customer build strong relationships as well as the antecedents that can undermine these relationships by generating realtional incongruity.

Co-creation is an emerging phenomenon that occurs when two or more parties work together to create value. Co-creation, which is a key component to service dominant logic, is present in business to business, business to consumer, and consumer to consumer processes. This dissertation will focus on the business to consumer (and consumer to business) co-creation relationship. Much of the current business to consumer co-creation literature is qualitative in nature, with quantitative work just now beginning to emerge. As such, there is still much about the phenomenon of co-creation that is not understood. When looking at co-creation in the context of brand management, even less is known. In today's age of digital interaction where consumers are gaining more power on a daily basis, practitioners and academics should understand the motivations for consumers to engage brands in co-creation and what the outcomes of these co-creation partnerships are. Because of this, the dissertation contains three essays with the purpose of (1) identifying the motivations for co-creation from consumer and brand perspectives, (2) exploring each of these motivators on their individual relationship to the outcome of co-creation, and (3) understanding how the perceived ability to influence a brand impacts the outcomes of co-creation. Essay …

Size information is vital in many consumer contexts, but currently, no central framework or conceptual model exists for a thorough understanding of the underlying process of how consumers interpret size information and form size judgments. Thus, the purpose of this three-paper dissertation is to introduce such a framework, discuss future research directions based on that framework, and pursue a few of these directions in the second and third papers, both of which focus on a vanity sizing context. The resulting work and findings illustrate the process through which consumers go in forming size judgments and collectively present both scholars and practitioners with a common basis for future study and implementation of findings in contexts in which size information is salient.

This dissertation uses service-dominant logic to understand customer value creation in service innovation context. Although co-creation became an interesting phenomenon among marketing scholars, the underlying mechanisms of co-creation process are still vague. To fill the gaps in the literature, we draw from S-D logic to understand antecedents and outcome of co-creation to service innovation context. The results of this study show that most of the hypotheses are supported, thus finding support for the overall model of value co-creation.

This dissertation explores data fusion methodology to deduce an overall inference from the data gathered from multiple heterogeneous sources. Typically, if there existed a data source in which the data were reliable and unbiased, then data fusion would not be necessary. Data fusion methodology combines data form multiple diverse sources so that the desired information - such as the population mean - is improved despite redundancies, inaccuracies, biases, and inflated variability in the data. Examples of data fusion include estimating average demand from similar sources, and integrating fatality counts from different media sources after a catastrophe. The approach in this study combines "inputs" from distinct sources so that the information is "fused." Another way of describing this process is "data integration." Important assumptions are 1. Several sources provide "inputs" for information used to estimate parameters of a probability distribution. 2. Since distributions for the data from the sources are heterogeneous, some sources are less reliable. 3. Distortions, bias, censorship, and systematic errors may be more prominent in data from certain sources. 4. The sample size of sources data, number of "inputs," may be very small. Examples of information from multiple sources are abundant: traffic information from sensors at intersections, multiple …

Brands are intangible assets that provide companies with the potential to extract higher rents or prices from customers. However, only few organizations are able to build and sustain brands over a long period of time. Brand management capability - the organization's ability to build and sustain brands becomes important for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Despite the importance of brand management capability to organizations, majority of the brand management literature has primarily focused on the consumer perspective of brands. This gap in knowledge about the components of brand management capability impedes firms from replicating brand successes, and makes them reliant on brand managers. More recently, there have been multiple calls in literature to identify marketing-related organizational capabilities, which can provide organizations with a sustainable competitive advantage. The focus on developing marketing-based capabilities comes at a time when marketing is losing its influence in organizations. To this end, the current dissertation uses organizational capability theory and literature on brand management to identify the primary resource (intellectual capital comprising of structural, human, and relational capital), organizational culture type (clan, adhocracy, hierarchy, and market), and processes (strategic brand management, internal branding, and market information processes comprising of information acquisition, information transmission, conceptual utilization, and …

Much of consumer behavior research focuses on how consumers process and evaluate information to make current decision. In contrast, many consumer choices ares are underpinned by the need to make choices that incorporate the past or future, other places, other people and other situations that are seemingly hypothetical. The imagination provides the chief means by which consumers are able to traverse this psychological distance. Construal Level Theory (CLT) explains how individuals are able to plan for the future, consider the perspective of another individual and even consider situations that are counter to reality. Construal mindsets are enacted when people form mental representations of distant objects, people, or places. In abstract construal mindsets, individuals think generally, in terms of global features of an object, person, or situation. On the other hand, concrete construal mindsets center around the detailed aspects of an object, person, or situation. These two different construal mindsets serve to help people cope with the uncertainty of the future. This is because abstract cosntruals are more likely than concrete construals to remain unchanged as distance from a future object, person, or place reduces. A number of consumer behavior settings require the use of the imagination. Sticking to a weight …

Branding dates back to centuries ago when traders were trying to distinguish their products from others in order to promise a higher quality to their consumers. Today, brands are considered as intangible resources that can have a significant contribution to the firm performance. Based on the Resource-Based Theory (RBT), valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable brands are strategic resources that create superior value and play a key role in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage over rivals. In the process of developing and maintaining strong brands, brand managers constantly need to make multiple decisions. Whether to add, delete or retail brands are among the routine decisions that brand managers face in managing their brand portfolios. Brand managers need to regularly assess their brand portfolios in order to make sure they are not selling redundant brands. Through brand portfolio assessment, brand managers can recognize weak brands and delete the unprofitable brands from the portfolio in order to free up resources and reinvest them in their stronger and more successful brands to gain competitive advantage in the market. This admonition is in line with the RBT of competitive advantage. This dissertation builds upon and extends previous literature on RBT in the context of brand …

SpaceX as aerospace manufacturer and space transport service technology company work along to make reusable rockets, their long term plan is to make spaceflight affordable routine. Elon Musk, as CEO, is involved in every step of decision making as he has mentioned in interviews. The rocket's engine has undergone a number of improvements, and to increase its efficiency and power, a number of parts has been reduced. The redesigning process involves several decisions, such as in-house or out-source production. This research provides a practical framework for contractors, suppliers, and manufacturers to build a more reliable, affordable, and low cost supply chain. As a result, the objective of my dissertation is to explore how managers can extend the useful life of their assets and reduce their total cost of ownership. The main research focus for this dissertation is lifecycle affordability (LCA) for capital intensive products when post production costs are significantly higher than production costs. Lifecycle cost is often not considered by firms in a product, service or asset when making acquisition decisions. Firm's acquisition are mainly based on the initial cost of the product. Decision making without considering the entire lifecycle cost of a product impacts the firm's profitability, revenue, …

The field of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) suggests that transactions, collaboration, and value are important in the supply and delivery of products and services to meet the need of impoverished end-consumers. In many cases, the application of LSCM is paramount in most strategic decision-making efforts. Therefore, this research explores the applications of LSCM processes and activities within the community-based context. The methodology used to address the research questions consisted of a hybrid of mixed methods. This mixed methodology provides three essays that investigate the application and development of LSCM in the community-based context. The essays address the flow of charitable products and services through supply chains. The dissertation does not pay close attention to the first-tier suppliers’ suppliers, which is looking at the originating flow of goods and services (raw materials, manufacturing, etc.). However, the dissertation puts a focus on products and services supplied to focal organizations and how these products are then passed on to end-consumers. Essay I looks at the transaction (costs) that ensue from the supply of charitable products. Essay II analyzes a social service ecosystem and investigates how the network of organizations enable the distribution of charitable products and services. Lastly, Essay III examines …

On March 2011 a destructive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami along with nuclear explosions struck northeastern Japan; killing thousands of people, halting industry and crippling infrastructure. A large manufacturing company operating outside of Japan received the news in the middle of the night. Within a few hours of the tsunami hitting Japan, this manufacturer’s logistics team ran global materials management reports to communicate the precise status of the products originating from Japan to their entire global network of facilities. With this quick and far reaching communication the manufacturer was able to launch a successful contingency plan. Alternative suppliers, already existing as part of their global network, were evaluated and used to mitigate Japan’s disruptive impact. The resiliency of this manufacturer’s trusted network of supply chain trading partners allowed for minimum disruptions, saving countless money and maintaining continuity for its end-to-end supply chain. This manufacturer was part of a cloud-based supply chain that provided the catalyst to quickly shift its resources to allay the impact of no longer being able to receive product from Japan. Today's supply chains are global and complex networks of enterprises that aim to deliver products in the right quantity, in the right place, and at the right …

Intellectual Capital (IC) is the intellectual capability of an organization; it drives the usage of other productive resources and adds value to the business structure. Although the expanding literature on IC has enhanced our understanding, the effects of IC with relation to consumers have not been explored in the marketing literature. Thus, this study fills this void by approaching the notion of IC from a customer perspective. Customer value also has attracted extensive attention in recent years. However, the lack of agreement among scholars with respect to the conceptualization of customer value has resulted in inconsistent empirical measures. Furthermore, despite extensive research focus on IC and customer value separately, there is a void in the literature as far as investigating the relationship between the two is concerned. Thus, this study also empirically investigates the predictive relationships among the various dimensions of IC and perceived customer value. This dissertation delineates three dimensions of IC (i.e., Human Capital, Structural Capital, and Relational Capital) available to a retail store in creating value for customers. This study tests the psychometric properties of scale items for measuring these three resources in an apparel retailing context. It also tests the effects of IC on customer value …

Product return is a necessary part of the exchange process between companies and customers. It accounts for approximately 16% of total sales and a reduction in retailer / manufacturer profits by 3.8% on average. However, industry data also indicates that a significant portion of products are returned for reasons other than product failure – e.g., change of mind, found a lower price elsewhere, or fraudulent and unethical reasons. Consequently, many firms (e.g., REI) have altered their generous return policies to protect their profits. However, it’s been found that the restricted return policy could also reduce customer satisfaction, increase the perceived risk, and thus negatively affect customers’ loyalty towards a particular store or firm. Thus having a restrictive return policy does not help either. Extant literature mainly focuses on return policies. Little attention has been devoted to the product return behavior itself, thus missing the consumer’s perspective. This study, therefore, focuses on understanding consumers’ return behaviors, including different types of return behaviors, and the drivers and consequences of these different return behaviors. Towards this goal, this study first categorizes all possible types of consumers’ return behaviors into two broad categories - legitimate return behaviors and opportunistic return behaviors. Second, both internal …

Consumers consistently set goals for themselves. Despite good intentions, consumers often deviate from their goals. If consumers understand the benefits that arise from goal success, then why do most consumers fail to accomplish goals? Often, temptations are more appealing than achievement of goals; temptations are tangible while the benefits of a goal are difficult to grasp. An individual who uses his/her imagination to visualize goal success makes the goal more present-minded and attainable (Oettingen 2000). Thus, imagination facilitates self-efficacy, the belief in one’s ability to reach a goal. Higher self-efficacy, then, provides an individual with the willpower to achieve a goal (Taylor, Pham, Rivkin, and Armor 1998). Whereas previous work has examined temptations’ relationship with goals (e.g. Fedorikhin and Patrick 2010; Wilcox, Vallen, Block, and Fitzsimons 2009; Zhang, Huang, and Broniarczyk 2010; etc.), the scope of this dissertation study differs. Rather, the research aim is to identify how consumers can overcome visceral temptations. Thus, the main objectives include: contributing new perspectives on goal research by merging the literatures on imagination and visceral cues, outlining how imagination regulates the impact of visceral temptations, and identifying the underlying mechanism that explains how imagination regulates the relationship between visceral cues and ad-evoked thoughts, …

Existing co-branding and brand extension research generally coalesces around two important constructs: perceptual fit and attitude toward the brand. Studies in co-branding and brand extension to date have generally emphasized the transference of affective elements of attitude from parent brand to the extension. Researchers and practitioners clearly need to learn more about the transfer of belief, the cognitive elements of attitude. Too little is currently known about whether and how beliefs are actually transferred in co-branding and brand extension applications, particularly in terms of perceptual fit. This dissertation investigates belief transfer and the effect of perceptual fit on belief transfer in co-branding and brand extension scenarios and develops answers to the following research questions: 1.Are different categories of beliefs transferable from parent brand to theextension? 2.How do various sub-dimensions of perceptual fit affect belief transfers fromparent brands to the extension? 3.How do different categories of beliefs affect consumers’ intentions to purchasethe extension products? Categorization Theory was used as the fundamental theory to build the hypotheses. This dissertation involved qualitative studies, belief scale development, and experimental design studies. The results revealed that aesthetic and functional beliefs are positively transferred from parent brand to the extension. The transfer of aesthetic beliefs is …

When games were first developed for in-home use, they were primarily targeted almost exclusively at children and males. However, today’s marketplace manifests a more diverse population plays Internet-enabled games that can be played virtually anywhere. The average gamer is now 30 years old. Many gamers, obviously, are much older. Yet more strikingly, and more germane to this study’s purpose, 47% of the U.S. gamer population is female, as compared to 40% in 2010. Despite these trends the gaming industry remains a male-dominated culture. The marketer’s job is to facilitate game engagement and to motivate gamers to play. The notion of “engagement” is not new in business. The term was developed in the last decade. Many studies were devoted to understand, explain, and define the term. It suggests that within interactive, dynamic business environments, consumer engagement (CE) represents a strategic position that companies can use to enhance their sales growth, competitive advantage, and profitability. Moreover, there are three levels of engagement in any experiential consumption (i.e., playing video game): presence, flow, and psychological absorption. The findings of this study affirm that consumer engagement, including presence, flow and psychological absorption are explanatory factors that impact gamer’s purchase intentions. Our results show that …