Lion's Share: The Research Cast

MKTG 556 | Session 3 | When and how Board Members with Marketing Experience Facilitate Firm Growth - 2018

Kimberly A. Whitler, Ryan Krause, & Donald R. Lehmann

Introduction:

Scholars have expressed concern that marketing's influence at the strategic levels of the firm is waning. Consistent with this view, only 2.6% of firms' board members have marketing experience. The authors suggest that this is shortsighted and that including more marketing-experienced board members (MEBMs) will increase firm growth by (1) helping firms prioritize growth as a strategic objective and (2) contributing their expertise to improve the effectiveness of revenue growth strategies. Drawing on the behavioral model of corporate governance, the authors develop a theoretical framework explicating the situational, dispositional, and structural influence moderators that alter the impact of MEBMs on firm growth. Using 64,086 director biographies from S&P 1500 firms, the authors find that MEBMs positively affect firm-level revenue growth and that this relationship is strengthened or weakened by important contingencies that occur in the firm. The findings suggest that the common practice of not including experienced marketers on boards of directors puts firms at a competitive disadvantage.

MKTG 556 | Session 3 | The Chief Marketing Officer Matters! - 2015

Frank Germann, Peter Ebbes, & Rajdeep Grewal

Introduction:

Marketing academics and practitioners alike remain unconvinced about the chief marketing officer's (CMO's) performance implications. While some studies suggest that firms financially benefit from having a CMO in the C-suite, others find that the CMO has little or no impact on firm performance. As a result, there have been strong calls for additional academic research on the CMO's performance implications. In response, the authors use various model specifications with different identifying assumptions (such as rich data models, unobserved effects models, instrumental variable models, and panel internal instruments models) and data from up to 155 publicly traded firms over a 12-year span (2000–2011). They find that firms can indeed expect to benefit financially from having a CMO at the strategy table. Specifically, their results show that the performance (measured in terms of Tobin's q) of firms with a CMO is, on average, approximately 15% higher than that of firms without a CMO. This outcome remains consistent across different model specifications. Given the ongoing uncertainty about the CMO's performance implications, these findings should pique the interest of marketing academics and practitioners. Additionally, the study enhances the methodology literature by consolidating diverse empirical model specifications—used to assess causal effects with observational data—into a clear and comprehensive framework.

MKTG 556 | Session 3 | Marketing Excellence: Nature, Measurement, and Investor Valuations - 2020

Christian Homburg, Marcus Theel, and Sebastian Hohenberg

Introduction:

Marketing excellence is a core principle in the field that is gaining more attention from managers and investors. However, the exact nature of marketing excellence and its effectiveness still remain unclear. This research provides insights by addressing two questions: (1) How do managers understand and practice marketing excellence? and (2) How do investors assess marketing excellence? Study 1 combines insights from 39 in-depth interviews with senior executives and secondary data from 150 company strategies to find that marketing excellence is a strategy focused on achieving organic growth by prioritizing aspects related to the marketing ecosystem, end users, and marketing agility. Study 2 measures the impact of marketing excellence on company value using a machine learning algorithm and text analysis with an original dictionary to classify 8,317 letters to shareholders in 1,727 U.S. firm annual reports. Calendar-time portfolio models show abnormal one-year returns of up to 8.58% for marketing excellence—returns that surpass those linked to market orientation and marketing capabilities. These findings guide managers, educators, and investors on how marketing excellence appears, paving the way for better resource allocation to ensure marketing drives organic growth.

MKTG 556 | Session 2 | The Role of Marketing - 1999

Christine Moorman & Roland T. Rust

Introduction:

The article explores the role of the marketing function within firms that have a strong market orientation, challenging the idea that widespread market orientation reduces the need for a separate marketing function. Using survey data from managers across six business functions and two time periods, the authors show that the marketing function adds value to a firm's financial performance, customer relationship outcomes, and new product success beyond the benefits of a general market orientation. The study also finds that this value comes from marketing's ability to connect the customer to the product, service delivery, and financial accountability—connections that have different levels of importance for goods and service firms.

MKTG 556 | Session 2 | How can academics generate great research ideas? Inspiration from ideation practice - 2024

Stefan Stremersch

Introduction:

How can academic scholars come up with great ideas, such that their research becomes even more important, relevant, and interesting? Based on ideation practices of sophisticated companies, this paper triggers academic researchers to self-reflect on: (1) the source used for ideation, (2) the scope applied to ideation, (3) the sharing of ideas during ideation, and (4) the selection of ideas. The paper also offers concrete improvements that researchers can implement in their ideation practices on ideation processes, tools, and methods along three ideation phases: domain exploration, domain immersion, and research project design. It reviews recent advances in AI and how researchers can leverage AI in their research ideation. The paper aims to stimulate more research on (academic) research ideation (i.e., ''more research on research") and advances a research agenda.

MKTG 556 | Session 1 | Reality Check: Infusing Ecological Value into Academic Marketing Research - 2021

Harald J. van Heerde, Christine Moorman, C. Page Moreau, and Robert W. Palmatier

Introduction

The article advocates for embedding ecological value (EV) into academic marketing research, defined as the degree to which research reflects and is relevant to marketing as it exists and evolves among stakeholders and ecosystems. The authors argue that while external validity concerns generalizability, EV is broader, encompassing integration of real-world perspectives throughout the research process. They propose a framework of "reality checks" across stages—problem identification, theory development, research design, analysis, and reporting—to ensure that research meaningfully connects to marketing practice and societal stakeholders. This shift, they contend, will enhance both scholarly contributions and practical impact (p. 1–2).

MKTG 556 | Session 1 | Learning from Data: An Empirics-First Approach to Relevant Knowledge Generation - 2023

Peter N. Golder, Marnik G. Dekimpe, Jake T. An , Harald J. van Heerde , Darren S.U. Kim, and Joseph W. Alba

Introduction:

A theory-first paradigm tends to be the dominant approach in much academic marketing research. In this approach, a theory is borrowed, refined, or developed and then tested empirically. In this challenging-the-boundaries article, the authors make a case for an empirics-first approach. "Empirics-first" refers to research that (1) is grounded in (originates from) a real-world marketing phenomenon, problem, or observation, (2) involves obtaining and analyzing data, and (3) produces valid marketing-relevant insights without necessarily developing or testing theory. The empirics-first approach is not antagonistic to theory but rather can serve as a stepping-stone to theory. The approach lends itself well to today's data-rich environment, which can reveal novel research questions untethered to theory. The present article describes the underlying principles of an empirics-first approach, which consists of exploring a domain purposefully without preconceptions. Using a rich set of published examples, the authors offer guidance on how to implement empirics-first research and how it can lead to valuable knowledge development. Advice is also offered to scholars on how to report empirics-first research and to reviewers and to editorial teams on how to evaluate it. The ultimate objective is to pave a way for the empirics-first approach to enter the mainstream of academic marketing research.

ACCTG 502 | Session 3 | Accounting standards and debt covenants: Has the "balance sheet approach" led to a decline in the use of balance sheet covenants? - 2011

Peter R. Demerjian

Introduction:

Recent years have seen a sharp decline in the use of balance sheet-based covenants in private debt contracts. I hypothesize that changes in accounting standards can explain part of this decline. Standard setting has shifted towards a ''balance sheet approach'', which I predict has made the balance sheet less useful for contracting. I measure the effect of the balance sheet approach on specific borrowers using a volatility ratio. I find that borrowers with greater volatility ratios are less likely to have balance sheet-based covenants. This evidence is consistent with reductions in the contracting usefulness of the balance sheet being associated with reductions in balance sheet covenants.

ACCTG 502 | Session 3 | Financial statements not required - 2024

Michael Minnis, Andrew G. Sutherland, Felix W. Vetter

Introduction:

Recent years have seen a sharp decline in the use of balance sheet-based covenants in private debt contracts. I hypothesize that changes in accounting standards can explain part of this decline. Standard setting has shifted towards a ''balance sheet approach'', which I predict has made the balance sheet less useful for contracting. I measure the effect of the balance sheet approach on specific borrowers using a volatility ratio. I find that borrowers with greater volatility ratios are less likely to have balance sheet-based covenants. This evidence is consistent with reductions in the contracting usefulness of the balance sheet being associated with reductions in balance sheet covenants.

ACCTG 502 | Session 2 | Financial statements vs. FinTech: A discussion of Minnis, Sutherland, and Vetter - 2024

Peter Demerjian

Introductions:

Minnis, Sutherland, and Vetter (MSV) document a significant decline in lenders' collection of attested financial statements, including unqualified audits, reviews, and compilations, from 2002 to 2017. They attribute this change to the adoption of new technology by lenders and the entry of new non-bank lenders into the market. In this discussion, I examine several aspects of their findings. First, I offer a framework for assessing the usefulness of financial statement information in debt contracting. Using this framework, I analyze how financial statements may be helpful for small and medium loans studied by the authors, and how this role could be impacted. Second, I explore how financial technology (FinTech) has disrupted traditional lending and possibly altered the role of financial statements. Lastly, I discuss the implications of these changes for the accounting profession.