Australasian Marketing Journal

The Empirical Generalists (EGs) suggest that the accepted focus on segmentation and loyalty in Marketing Management is irrelevant and that the Dirichlet equation and Double Jeopardy provide the only useful theory of consumer behavior. Meanwhile the Segmentationalists adhere to a Marketing Management model and blithely ignore their claims. This discussion examines the extremes of a continuum which extends from the breadth of Kotler (1967) to the reductive analysis of Sharp (2010). Lowe et al., (2004) have provided an easily understood set of categories that describes these paradigmatic differences. This is applied along with an integrative framework adapted from Rossiter, (2012) which suggests remedial linkages. However recent work by the Empirical Generalists suggests that this is flogging a dead horse. The response from Marketing Management adherents has been a refusal to engage and a denial of oxygen to the debate. The implications for marketing strategy are considerable since the continued utility of the key technique of segmentation is under challenge. Will it survive as a valid technique for addressing the market or will it be reduced to a mere description of customer type? Is it a harmless symbolic activity or an organizational hallucination that blocks progress?

Shaw and Nowicki (2018) mistakenly suggests that the growing adoption of empirical science by marketing academics and practitioners is a return to an earlier time of treating all customers the same. Fundamental patterns discovered in buying and brand performance data accurately describe differences between buyers (e.g. in category buying rates and in personal brand loyalties), as well as predictable differences in loyalty metrics between rival brands. Theory has been proposed that fits these empirical generalisations; that rival brands largely differ and compete in terms of their mental and physical availability to category buyers (Sharp 2010). An implication is that marketers need to understand the differences between buyers in their category so that they can extend their brand's reach. This contrasts the practice of offering a single marketing mix to the whole market, and it is opposite to the practice of targeting a brand to a single homogeneous segment of the market and again offering a single marketing mix to that segment.

This commentary to Shaw and Nowicki (2018) proposes that academic paradigms are ‘dialogical’ discourses that both compete and collaborate in order to sustain their identities. They are all based on different underlying assumptions and are carried by different symbols, tropes and narratives. Each version of the truth cultivates an identity that principally depends upon it not being its alternative. As a result, each paradigm depends upon the continued existence of its opposite. In this sense, therefore, the paradigm wars were a concocted dispute over invented territories and contrived opponents. The contribution of the paper for those seeking paradigmatic peace is to emphasise that just as the war was a concocted ‘simulacrum’, any peace must also be designed as fantasies accomplished through language games.

It is suggested that the debate on Empirical Generalisation versus Marketing Management can be considered in terms of correspondence theory versus coherence theory. A critical theory response to the paper in question is moderated by an epistemological discussion giving rise to the useful notion of bridging via localized conceptual pontoons. This is followed by a marketing practice orientated response which straddles Empirical Generalisation and Marketing Management and makes some useful observations. High Involvement Products and Services (HIPS) are put forward as examples of areas where Empirical Generalisation may be less useful than Marketing Management. Finally, it is acknowledged that while proponents of Empirical Generalisation has finally declared their hand, it might be time for adherents of Marketing Management to respond in kind so that a useful discussion develops which improves marketing as a discipline and practice.

This study identifies how complex real-world marketing phenomena have been reported since the introduction of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as a methodology and set of data analysis and theory development tools in 1987. We provide insights into the idea adoption journey as reflected by marketing researchers’ published studies in 216 marketing-related articles across A- and A*-ranked marketing journals from 1988-2018. We find that QCA as a methodology and a set of tools is not yet firmly established in academic marketing literature. The paper identifies gaps, not covered in the extant literature, in the adoption stages of QCA as a research methodology. The paper suggests some research areas that need to be addressed to help inform improvements in marketing research practice. The paper extends both methodology and marketing research by reconciling insights from a fragmented emerging literature, and highlights the dynamics and interrelationships in the extant literature.

This paper examines the effects of the textual (headline, body copy and typography) and visual (image) elements of print advertising on the emotional responses of an audience. Six web-based experiments were carried out to determine the causal relationships between elements of print advertisements and viewers’ emotional responses. Data were collected from 105 respondents and Crisp Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) was undertaken. Results indicate that viewers were emotionally affected by the textual and visual elements of the advertisements. Moreover, the emotional responses were multivalent, indicating that people experience emotional ambiguity while viewing ads.

In the social sciences we often employ complex multi-dimensional concepts such as development, democracy or marketplace. In the past decades, these have become increasingly operationalized and documented in huge international databases such as those of the United Nations, the World Bank, and a host of other public or academic institutions. Serious problems arise when these data are taken at face value, as for example GDP per capita, without considering its specific context and meaning, or when multi-dimensional concepts are aggregated into single indices by such simple statistical procedures as arithmetic means. The validity of such concepts is then seriously put into question by misleading measurement or oversimplifying aggregation. The increasing use of set-theoretical methods, as in fuzzy-set QCA, now provides an important alternative by calibrating data more carefully and by aggregation procedures which allow to take necessary conditions of a multi-dimensional concept into account. This is the focus of this paper, which employs two examples of a broad, political-practical, relevance.

We examine participant satisfaction in the context of extreme sporting events, where participants seek intense sensations but want to feel in control over the risky challenges. We combine two streams of literature scarcely related by previous studies, addressing both event-related and psychological attributes of extreme individuals. Because of the complex set of inter-relationships in which the investigated phenomena unfold, complexity theory tenets can provide a more accurate understanding of what generates extreme sport participants’ satisfaction toward a sporting event. Applying this perspective, the present research determines the possible combinations that build strong participant satisfaction in the context of extreme sporting events. Through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), we identify more possible “recipes” that contribute to high levels of satisfaction. Results suggest that attributes related to the event (trust, image, attitude) and attributes related to the psychology of extreme sport participants (sensation-seeking, perceived control) contribute jointly in all “recipes”. Furthermore, satisfaction can emerge for events despite low attitude if their image is strong and participants feel in control of the challenges.

This study provides a theory of the influences of alternative national cultures (as complex wholes) on customers’ tipping behaviors following receiving of services in restaurants and taxis. Based on complexity theory tenets, the study constructs and tests models asymmetrically—offers separate models for explaining and forecasting high tipping versus low tipping national cultures. The study uses multiple sources of secondary data for 30 nations including Hofstede's first four culture values, religiosity, Gini index, and GDP_PPP. Model construction includes computing-with-words (CWW) screens that prior theory forecasts to be accurate in identifying high (low) tipping behavior. Analysis includes using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and somewhat precise outcome testing (SPOT) of the consistency (degree of accuracy) and coverage for each model. Model testing includes predictive as well as fit validation. The findings support core tenets of complexity theory (e.g., equifinality of different recipes for the same outcome, both negative and positive associations of individual ingredients in different recipes contribute to the same outcome, and causal asymmetry). Because national cultures are complex wholes, hospitality researchers need to embrace the complexity theory tenets and asymmetric tools to achieve deep understanding and for accurately forecasting of customer responses to hospitality services. This study provides new theory and methodological tools for recognizing the complexities and forecasting customers’ behavior in their responses following receiving hospitality services.