Scholars have questioned the effectiveness of several customer relationship management strategies. The author investigates the differential effects of customer relationship perceptions and relationship marketing instruments on customer retention and customer share development over time. Customer relationship perceptions are considered evaluations of relationship strength and a supplier's offerings, and customer share development is the change in customer share between two periods. The results show that affective commitment and loyalty programs that provide economic incentives positively affect both customer retention and customer share development, whereas direct mailings influence customer share development. However, the effect of these variables is rather small. The results also indicate that firms can use the same strategies to affect both customer retention and customer share development.

The authors report the results of three experiments that address the effects of health claims and nutrition information placed on restaurant menus and packaged food labels. The results indicate that when favorable nutrition information or health claims are presented, consumers have more favorable attitudes toward the product, nutrition attitudes, and purchase intentions, and they perceive risks of heart disease and stroke to be lower. The nutritional context in which a restaurant menu item is presented moderates the effects of both nutrition information and a health claim on consumer evaluations, which suggests that alternative (i.e., nontarget) menu items serve as a frame of reference against which the target menu item is evaluated.

In this article, the authors try to determine why and under what conditions consumers enter into strong, committed, and meaningful relationships with certain companies, becoming champions of these companies and their products. Drawing on theories of social identity and organizational identification, the authors propose that strong consumer–company relationships often result from consumers’ identification with those companies, which helps them satisfy one or more important self-definitional needs. The authors elaborate on the nature of consumer–company identification, including the company identity, and articulate a consumer-level conceptual framework that offers propositions regarding the key determinants and consequences of such identification in the marketplace.

Quantity surcharges occur when the unit price of a brand's larger package is higher than the unit price of the same brand's smaller package. The authors examine how price-setting practices in the grocery industry help explain the existence of quantity surcharges. Two studies support the authors’ contention that common pricing practices aimed at establishing a favorable store–price image can result in quantity surcharges. First, an experiment shows that consumer demand and the importance price setters place on establishing a low store–price image have an interactive effect on price-setting behavior. Second, an examination of retail sales volume, price, and cost data suggests that such price-setting reactions can result in quantity surcharges when certain asymmetries in demand exist across package sizes. The authors also discuss managerial and public policy implications along with areas for further study.

Implementation of the marketing concept in service firms is accomplished through individual service employees and their interactions with customers. Although prior research has established a link between service-worker customer orientation and performance outcomes, little research has addressed other potentially important outcomes of customer orientation. Drawing from the literature on person–situation interaction and fit theory, the authors develop and test a model that explains how service-worker customer orientation affects several important job responses, including perceived job fit, job satisfaction, commitment to the firm, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Across three field studies in two distinct services industries, the results indicate that the positive influence of customer orientation on certain job responses is stronger for service workers who spend more time in direct contact with customers than for workers who spend less time with customers. The authors discuss the implications of the results for services marketing managers and researchers.

Radical innovations are engines of economic growth and the focus of much academic and practitioner interest, yet some fundamental questions remain unanswered. The authors use theoretical arguments on the risk associated with radical innovations, and the resources needed for them, to answer the following questions on the sources and financial consequences of radical innovation: (1) Who introduces a greater number of radical innovations: dominant or nondominant firms? (2) How great are the financial rewards to radical innovations, and how do these rewards vary across dominant and nondominant firms? (3) Is it only a firm's resources in the aggregate or also its focus and leverage of resources that make its innovations more financially valuable? and (4) Which are more valuable: innovations that incorporate a breakthrough technology or innovations that provide a substantial increase in customer benefits? The authors pool information from a disparate set of sources in the pharmaceutical industry to study these questions. Results indicate that a large majority of radical innovations come from a minority of firms. The financial rewards of innovation vary dramatically across firms and are tied closely to firms’ resource base. Firms that provide higher per-product levels of marketing and technology support obtain much greater financial rewards from their radical innovations than do other firms. Firms that have greater depth and breadth in their product portfolio also gain more from their radical innovations.