Madeline Mays

Part A

 
Part B

• Class: MKTG 4003H-- Honors Marketing Colloquium

• Instructor: Bradley Allen
• Keyword: Disruptive Innovation
Part C
Dissertation 1
1. Who is author? Moriah Houser
2. What is the name of the theses/dissertation? “Why Teens Today Wear the Brands They
Wear and How This is Affected by Reference Groups”
3. What is the year of the theses/dissertation? 2016
4. What institution did the author go to? University of Arkansas
5. What was the purpose of the study? The paper describes and reports the results of a
study that examines how teenagers choose to purchase and wear different brands. The
author wanted to find out if teenagers would be affected positively or negatively
towards different brands when they were associated with their membership,
aspirational, or dissociative reference groups as well as how they decide what brands
are relevant to them or convey what they want to convey about themselves.
6. What was the conclusion of the study? Friends or peers were revealed as the foremost
factor in why teens choose the brands they do because that is what they see on a day-
to-day basis. She found hobbies are also very important especially in boys because of
the symbolic nature of the brands they like.
7. Why would this particular study be important in your field? Understanding what
drives demand is imperative in the marketing field. In order to appeal to your target
market, you must discover what their priorities are. Once you understand the most
important drivers in your target audience, then you can most effectively sell your
product.
8. Pretend that you want to do a similar study to this one. What would you do different?
Why? If I was doing a study like this, I would begin with fewer hypotheses. Instead of
going really in depth on a few hypotheses, the author was vague about a lot of
hypotheses. I would’ve solely focused on the way teenagers find the brands they
choose to wear. I would have focused less on the impact friends and hobbies have on
teenagers and zeroed in on the impact social media has on purchasing trends. I also
would have interviewed a larger number of teenagers. The author only collected data
from 5 teenagers, and I believe that that is not enough information to paint a full
picture of the majority of teens’ decisions.
Dissertation 2
1. Who is the professor that you have taken a class with? or a professor that you are
currently taking a class with? Dr. Vikas Anand
2. What year did he/she write their dissertation? 1999
3. What is the name of the dissertation? “Using an Organizational Memory Framework
to Study the Effect of Organizational Knowledge”
4. What institution did the professor go to when he/she published their dissertation?
Arizona State University
5. Skip to the end of the dissertation. What was the conclusion of the study? Knowledge
has emerged as a key organizational resource in determining organizational outcomes.
Despite its recognized importance, studies that have attempted to measure
organizational knowledge have been few and far between. A major reason has been the
difficulty in conceptualizing and measuring knowledge. Recently, a variety of new
ways of looking at knowledge have emerged. One such approach is the organizational
memory approach which suggests that personally known knowledge is significantly
augmented by knowledge that individuals can extract from other individuals
networked to them. However, the benefits of such external knowledge are moderated
by the individual's communication characteristics. The insights provided by the above
approach were tested through a field study in the computer software industry. Chief
Executive Officers (CEOs) and managers were surveyed and their responses were
analyzed using canonical correlation analysis in conjunction with univariate
hierarchical regression modeling. Results provided reasonable support for the
organizational memory approach to knowledge management. Internal and external
knowledge were both found to be significant components of the organization's/
individual's total knowledge. However, little support was received to indicate that the
value of external knowledge depended on the communication characteristics exhibited
by the organization or by the individual