Extending the External Validity of the FITD Effect to the Industrial Marketplace

Authors: Harrie Vredenburg, Judith J. Marshall
Year Published: 1988
Topics: Marketing, Statistics

The foot-in-the-door (FITD) effect (Freedman and Fraser, 1966) involves gaining compliance with a small innocuous request as a lead-in to a larger subsequent request of interest to the requester. Telecom Canada implemented a field experiment to improve the performance of its seminar program, to see if the FITD phenomenon holds in an actual industrial sales environment, and to ascertain if FITD behavioral-influence-inducedcompliance results in differences in actual behavior and intensity of compliance behavior. A sample of 400 wholesale firms was divided into a treatment group of 200 and a control group of 200. The control group received a telephoned request to receive sales literature, and both groups were sent the direct mail package. All were contacted by phone and asked to attend the seminar. The small request treatment group had a higher rate of actual compliance than the control large request group — 14.5% versus 6.5%. Evidence found for differences in intensity of behavior was only directional but was not significant statistically.

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Keywords: Personal Selling, Statistical Analysis, Studies

Direct Selling in the West and East: The Relative Roles of Product and Relationship

Authors: Bill Merrilees, Dale Miller
Year Published: 1999
Topics: Direct Sales, Marketing, Statistics

A study compares the effectiveness drivers from an Eastern country (China) and a Western country (Australia). To determine whether the drivers are different or similar between countries, a study of direct selling in China by Luk, Fullgrabe, and Yi (1996) is used as a benchmark. The study is replicated in Australia, with a few minor adaptations and extensions, and the effectiveness drivers in the 2 countries are compared. The study concludes that in each country, both product elements and relationship elements affect direct selling effectiveness, but in relative terms, relationship elements are relatively more important in China. In China, the elements of relationship marketing are more coherent and form a holistic configuration known as guanxi. In Australia, there are several separate dimensions of direct selling relationship marketing. Cultural differences seem to be the main reason for this contrast between the samples from the 2 countries.

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Keywords: Comparative Analysis, Direct Selling, Marketing, Statistical Analysis, Studies

Development of Market Orientation and Competitiveness of Ukrainian Firms

Authors: Irina Akimova
Year Published: 2000
Topics: Marketing

Recent studies have reflected the need to investigate the development of market orientation in the transitional economies under conditions of economic decline and great systemic change. However, the relationship between the level of market orientation and firm’s competitiveness in a turbulent environment has not been analyzed. Personal interviews conducted with 221 managers of Ukrainian enterprises provided data to investigate the level of the development of market orientation and competitiveness. Managers’ attitudes toward marketing are used to create a typology of marketing approaches in the Ukraine. Competitiveness is measured as a multi-dimensional concept using variables of organisational adaptability to the changes in business environment, advantages across the marketing mix and performance indicators as the dimensions. The results of the study suggest that the level of a firm’s competitiveness in the turbulent environment of a transitional economy is associated with the level of the development of market orientation.

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Keywords: Competition, Feature, Global, Marketing, Statistical Analysis, Studies