Purpose – This paper aims to respond to issues posed in the four commentaries on Armstrong, Du, Green and Graefe (2016, this issue) regarding the immediate usefulness of that paper’s test of advertisements’ compliance with persuasion principles, and regarding the need for further research....

Competitor-oriented objectives, such as market-share targets, are promoted by academics and are common in business. A 1996 review of the evidence indicated that this violation of economic theory led to reduced profitability. We summarize the evidence as of 1996 then describe evidence from 12 new...

Managers are often advised, beat your competitors, which sometimes contrasts with the advice, do the best for your firm. This may lead managers to focus on comparative measures such as market share. Drawing on game theory, the authors hypothesize that managers are competitor oriented under...

Sports and war metaphors abound in business today. For example, one management book, 'Thunder in the Sky', by Thomas Cleary, opens with a Chinese saying that translates: The marketplace is a battlefield. The Asian people view success in the business world as tantamount to victory in battle. The...

Sports and war metaphors abound in business today. For example, one management book, Thunder in the Sky, by Thomas Cleary, opens with a Chinese saying that translates: quot;The marketplace is a battlefield. The Asian people view success in the business world as tantamount to victory in...

Corporate cultural emphasis on long-term competitiveness as opposed to shorter-term rofitability is evaluated in terms of effectiveness in achieving higher profit margins, real profitability, and survival in the long term. Competitive orientation continues to have adverse impact even with a lag...

Competitor-oriented objectives, such as market-share targets, are promoted by academics and are commonly used by firms. A 1996 review of the evidence, summarized in this paper, found that competitor-oriented objectives reduced profitability. We describe new evidence from 12 studies, one of which...