Faculty & Research
Research Summaries
Knowledge arising out of Weatherhead’s original research impacts teaching, learning, business practices, and how business operates in society. These stories are out of our extensive archives of articles and summaries of studies by faculty, and by PhD and Executive Doctor of Management Candidates. Return here often, as we rotate to different topics.
Making Sales Technology Effective
Weatherhead marketing professor, Gary K. Hunter, co-authored a recent paper that appeared in the January 2007 issue of the Journal of Marketing on the increasingly important means through which salespeople achieve competitive differentiation by the effective use of information technology. The paper, co-authored with William D. Perreault, Jr. of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, advances marketing knowledge by showing how salespeople can integrate relationship-building sales processes with emerging and established information technologies.
Consumer Loyalty Dynamics in Service Markets
Despite the emerging consensus that winning consumer loyalty is critical for a firm’s long-term survival and bottom line returns, the marketing discipline remains divided about the key loyalty determinants and the mechanisms by which they operate. Some extol the virtues of fully satisfying consumers by exceeding their expectations. Others contend that a total trust strategy is the ultimate test of consumer loyalty, and satisfaction based strategies are untenable. Yet others chide the discipline for falling prey to faddish trends involving satisfaction and trust, and challenge marketers to consider that it is value that drives loyalty. These debates and divides appear to grow in intensity and stridency even as consumer loyalty remains elusive and unpredictable.
