一、

Title: Flourish or Perish: The Drivers of Amateurs’ Success on Literature Websites

Speaker: Shibo Li，Associate Professor of Marketing Department, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University

Time: 1:30-3:00pm, 26th Sept., 2012

Location: Room 217, New Building of GSM, Peking University

Abstract:

As a new fast-growing E-media industry, online literature produced by amateur authors has become a popular entertainment and brings fresh air and creativity into the publishing industry. To understand how and what drives amateurs’ success on literature websites, we examine readers’ click behavior and characteristics of amateurs’ books from four scientometric perspectives, namely universalist (quality and domain), social constructivist (who says it), presentation (how it is said), and competition (how competitive others are and market concentration) perspectives. To account for author and book heterogeneity and multiple sources of endogeneity, we propose a new descriptive model: a multivariate, discretized, Type-II Tobit model using a hierarchical Bayes framework. An estimate of the model using the data from a popular Chinese literature website demonstrates that the success of amateurs’ books depends on all four aspects of the book (“what is said”, “who says it”, “how competitive others are”, and “how it is said”) although less on “how it is said”. Interestingly, we find that competition on the site is not always a bad thing. This study therefore has important managerial implications for site managers, amateur authors, publishers, and marketers.

二、

Title： Contrasting Categorization between Domestic-Sourced and Imported Brands in Consumer Evaluation of a Multi-Brand Product-Harm Crisis

Speaker: Hongzhi Gao, senior lecturer in the School of Marketing and International business of the Victoria University of Wellington

Time: 4:30-6:00pm, 26th Sept., 2012

Location: Room 217, New Building of GSM, Peking University

Abstract:

A multi-brand product harm incident can potentially cause a chain reaction where mistrust spreads like an epidemic throughout the entire product category, regardless of domestic-sourced or imported brands. Drawing on categorization, associative network memory and attribution theories, the authors develop a conceptual model of brand mistrust spillover from contaminated brands to non-contaminated brands in a multi-brand crisis involving both domestic-sourced and imported brands. The central thesis is that although consumers rely on categorization or brand associations for ease of brand evaluation and decision-making in highly uncertain and confusing times, the categorization process needs to be reviewed in two forms: monological and contrasting. Monological categorization spreads mistrust within the same product category in a crisis time while contrasting categorization prevents and even benefits one subcategory (‘imported’) from the brand damage as opposed to the contrasting subcategory (‘domestic’) in the same product category. The study measures mistrust/trust in brands of dairy products by means of a survey of 2156 consumers in 9 metropolitan centers in China after the 2008 milk contamination crisis. The study includes a triangulation from interviews with industry insiders and historical sales data. This study reveals that brand categorization activated mistrust spillover but contrasting categorization quarantined imported brands from domestic-sourced brands in this crisis situation.

Short bio of Dr Hongzhi Gao

Dr Hongzhi Gao is a senior lecturer in the School of Marketing and International business of the Victoria University of Wellington and also the Associate Director in the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre. Dr Gao earned his PhD from the University of Otago in 2009. His research areas include intercultural relationship management, product-country-image, crisis management and branding. He has published papers in Journal of Business Research, Long Range Planning, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Appetite, British Food Journal, and among others. Hongzhi originates from Jilin, a Northeastern province in China. Before coming to New Zealand in 2002, he worked as an analyst and then the chief analyst of foreign loan risks for the Jilin Provincial Government Depart of Finance for six and half years.

Welcome to attend!