No abstract

Corporate name changes are relatively common events, with some evidence suggesting that name changes are strategic in nature. Although prior research has examined the effect of name changes on the firm, these studies have focused primarily on the stock price reaction to name changes. Such a focus has a number of limitations, including a reliance on samples that consist solely of publicly traded firms and an inability to determine whether the source of the impact is driven by increases in revenue, increases in efficiency, and/or reductions in costs. We overcome these limitations by testing the impact of corporate name changes on U.S. property-casualty insurers using detailed statutory data. We find a significant and positive relation between name changes and subsequent growth in premiums. The results are robust across various model specifications and suggest that name changes contain information that consumers interpret as meaningfully positive.

This research augments efforts to produce a richer understanding of the drivers of choice confidence. It investigates the interplay of a contextual factor that is readily influenced by marketing channel members (i.e., information diagnosticity) and an individual difference variable that alters the nature and extent of information processing (i.e., Need for Cognitive Closure; NFCC). Findings from two experimental studies demonstrate a positive influence of NFCC on choice confidence when information diagnosticity is low, but not when it is high. Furthermore, at high levels of NFCC, the influence of information diagnosticity is fully attenuated such that people with high NFCC derive equivalent choice confidence from information that is high or low in diagnosticity. The NFCC effect appears to operate by undermining the influence of information diagnosticity on perceptions of information adequacy and performance expectations. This research holds implications for marketing communications strategy, targeted marketing practices, and public policy.

How do consumers who miss extremely attractive sales promotions respond to merely attractive opportunities they later encounter when prices return to higher levels? The literature on inaction inertia suggests that the more attractive the missed opportunity, the less likely a consumer is to accept the subsequently encountered inferior opportunity, indicating that consumers may stay undecided. Thus, consumers are believed to be negatively influenced by the shadow of the attractive opportunities they missed. This has adverse consequences for both consumer and firm welfare. Yet, we sometimes do see consumers buying even after missing a sale. We draw from the literature on regret and personal responsibility to hypothesize the conditions that would allow the consumer to remain uninfluenced by the attractiveness of the missed opportunity. In three studies, we find support for the idea that personal responsibility for missing the first opportunity allows consumers to be less influenced by its attractiveness when they see a second inferior opportunity compared to conditions in which they were not personally responsible for missing the first opportunity; this bodes well both for consumer and marketer welfare.