A strong sense of belonging can meaningfully enrich students’ academic and social experiences. This study investigates the key academic and social factors that contribute to marketing students’ sense of belonging and examines how that sense of belonging affects critical academic outcomes, focusing primarily on the mediating role played by sense of belonging. Based on survey data from 526 undergraduate marketing majors, results show that faculty support, peer support, institutional support, and perceived fit significantly strengthen students’ sense of belonging. In turn, sense of belonging functions as a mediating mechanism that reduces dropout intentions and increases students’ likelihood of recommending their major and college. These findings highlight the processes through which support and fit shape critical academic and behavioral outcomes. They also offer actionable recommendations for improving retention and support by activating on-campus stakeholder groups that contribute uniquely to marketing students’ sense of belonging.

Many business colleges offer specialized marketing majors in addition to the general marketing major. Given the extra resources needed to maintain multiple majors, in a time when higher education budgets are being strained, a need exists to understand how students make choices among these majors and what students perceive to be the advantages of general marketing majors versus specialized marketing majors. Using social cognitive theory, we examine how students make selections among choices in marketing-related majors, focusing on influence and compatibility factors. We surveyed 608 marketing majors representing one general and five specialized marketing majors. The findings indicate that, compared with general marketing majors, students’ choice of a specialized major is significantly more likely to be influenced by faculty and other students in the major. Also, the results show that students rate specialized majors better than a general marketing major in terms of self-efficacy, culture, and professional fit. On the other hand, students rate the general marketing major better than specialized majors in flexibility. These results have implications for supporting the priorities of students in both general and specialized majors.

Working from the expanded model of adaptive selling behavior offered by Eckert and Plank (2004), this paper attempts to add greater depth and specificity to the adaptive output categories making them more useful for research advancement and for both the teaching and execution of an adaptive selling approach. Relevant literature is identified, organized, and offered as theory sources to support and expand the adaptive selling model.

Abstract The alcohol industry has developed its own alcohol moderation advertising to combat the rising criticism about the industry's marketing and advertising practices. Today, many brewers and distillers promote “drink responsibly.” This paper attempts to explore what “drink responsibly” means to college students, a target audience who partakes in risky drinking behaviors. The results indicate that these words convey a variety of pro-health and -safety messages, yet don't address other topics, such as being of age. Implications for alcohol marketers, health advocates and public policy makers are presented, and future research directions are offered to stimulate further investigation into these advertising campaigns.

This research develops a classification framework of supplier‐customer relationships. Data were collected from active relationship managers and provided the empirical basis for the classification scheme. The resulting relationships were classified into seven groups. Names for each type of relationship were developed based on a set of Delphi group responses.

Electronic transportation marketplaces (ETMs) are Internet-based mechanisms that match buyers and sellers of transportation services. With claims of reducing the administrative costs of transportation procurement to virtually nothing, the allure of ETMs is considerable. Shippers (transportation buyers) must therefore determine whether to pursue the new-founded opportunity and buy transportation services through an Internet-based intermediary or to buy services in a traditional manner. To date, there has been little structured thought on the topic to guide managers. Transaction cost economics (TCE) provides a robust framework toward this end. The TCE framework is adapted to present the procurement decision as one of “make” versus “buy.” The analysis is designed to help firms navigate their own determination to use an ETM and, when considered, the most appropriate form of ETM. The merits and caveats of ETM adoption are presented in the article.

Supplier-Customer relationships come in many forms. Traditionally, these forms were governed by the bidding process and the hidden hand of the "market". More recently, close business relationships have become fashionable, and the discussion of these has dominated the landscape. However, as those involved in the management of supplier-customer relationships already realize, many varied types of relationships exist and there is no single successful management approach that can be applied. Thus, the aim of this research was to identify the specific forms of relationships that exist between suppliers and customers, and to identify the "distinguishing" attributes that characterize these relationships. The information presented in this report will give relationship managers a framework by which to classify the relationships they manage and presents them with a set of controllable variables that can be used to execute successful management approaches. To execute the research, a large set of relationship managers provided their interpretations of their best, average, and worst relationships with customers or suppliers. Using appropriate statistical techniques, the relationships were classified into seven distinct groups. Definitions and descriptions were developed for each group and are presented in this report. Armed with this classification scheme and the associated knowledge of the "distinguishing" variables that account for the differences in relationship types, a relationship manager should be able to communicate and negotiate better with the other party and develop internal and external strategies for positioning their relationships appropriately.

This paper reports simulation research that empirically investigates and compares supply chain performance under varying conditions of information exchange and demand uncertainty. Specifically, the research objective is to quantitatively document the characteristics and performance impact of information exchange among supply chain entities. The findings suggest that the response‐based supply chain model consistently outperforms the anticipatory model in terms of customer service delivered under conditions of both low and high demand variation. Comparisons of inventory holdings across supply chain models demonstrate that the retailers' inventory burden is significantly lower in the response‐based scenario. The inventory savings enjoyed by retailers in the response‐based model are substantial enough to lower system‐wide inventories. In sum, the study supports the feasibility of achieving both improved service and lower inventories as a result of information sharing.

Conceptualizes a model of customer service‐based segmentation derived from the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). Logistics organizations are utilizing improved customer service to achieve competitive advantage. However, these firms must segment customers to avoid escalating their service platform to those unlikely to provide adequate return. Based on ELM‐established relationships, proposes the following model: buying firms that demonstrate a high level of involvement with a product offering and show high organizational visioning are more likely to give ample consideration to the service improvements in their purchase decisions. In turn, these customers’ commitment to that product offering will be persistent and resistant to change ‐ leading to improved buyer loyalty.