Steven Murphy
PhD

Old Country Passions: An International Examination of Country Image, Animosity, and Affinity Among Ethnic Consumers

Ethnic consumers are an important market segment in both traditionally multicultural countries and newer destinations of growing immigration waves. Such consumers may carry with them “old country passions” that may influence their attitudes toward the products of countries perceived as friendly or hostile in relation to the consumers’ original home countries. This study is the first to examine together four place-related constructs—namely, country and people images, product images, affinity, and animosity—and their potential effects on purchase intentions for products from countries that may be perceived as friends or foes from the perspective of the ethnic consumers’ homeland, while also juxtaposing these measures against views toward a neutral “benchmark” country for comparison. The results show that country/people and product images, affinity, and animosity work differently depending on the target country; both affective and cognitive factors influence product and people evaluations; and attitudes vary in their predictive ability on purchase intentions. The article concludes with a discussion implications from the findings and directions for further research.

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Ethnic Identity, Consumer Ethnocentrism, and Purchase Intentions Among Bi-cultural Ethnic Consumers: “Divided Loyalties” or "Dual Allegiance”?

Consumer ethnocentrism has been studied extensively in international marketing in the context of one's country of residence. This paper investigates for the first time the notion of “dual ethnocentrism”, which may be encountered among ethnic consumers who have an allegiance toward, or divided loyalties between, two countries: One with which they are ethnically linked, or “home”, and one where they presently live and work, or “host”. The study examines the relationship between ethnic identity, dual ethnocentrism, and purchase intentions among ethnic consumers, a market segment of growing importance in research and practice. The analysis focuses on differences in the respondents' home- and host-related ethnocentrism and finds that indeed ethnocentric feelings and their effects differ depending on the country of reference. In this light, the study suggests that ethnocentrism is a considerably more complex construct than previously thought, advances our understanding of ethnicity and ethnocentrism, and discusses the theoretical and managerial implications arising from dual ethnocentrism.

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The Inescapably Ethical Foundation of Sustainability

In this paper, we show how various authors have discussed the idea of sustainability and linked it to ethics and ethical behaviour. We further show that ideas of sustainability are closely linked to the notion of sameness through time. We discuss sameness in an object-predicate framework and show that in this context, it requires selecting clear criteria, with behaviours adopted to meet those criteria. An important insight from the object-predicate framework is that selection of the criteria for sameness is shown to rest entirely on the value judgements of those making the selection. We provide a detailed example that demonstrates this, and argue that given the prominence of value judgements in assessments of sameness (and in this sense, of sustainability), ethics are unavoidably at its foundation. Examining ideas of sustainability in this way may provide insights into how we might become better able to meet the conception of sustainable development articulated in the Brundtland Report.

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The Exposed Self: A Multilevel Model of Shame and Ethical Behavior

In this article, we review the shame and ethical behaviour literature in order to more fully develop theory and testable propositions for organizational scholars focusing on the behavioural implications of this ‘moral’ emotion. We propose a dual pathway multilevel model that incorporates complex relationships between felt and anticipatory shame processes and ethical behaviour, both within and between persons and at the collective level. We propose a holistic treatment of shame that includes dispositional and organizational (contextual) influences on the cognitive and emotional forces that shape ethical behaviour in organizations. The implications of our review of shame for ethical behaviour, organizations, and concrete research action are discussed.

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Sustainability and Large Corporations

This paper reports the results of a content analysis conducted on the annual reports and corporate social responsibility reports of the members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The content analysis explored how these corporations address sustainability matters in these reports, and compared these with the intergenerational conception of sustainability expressed in Brundtland and Khalid's (1987) landmark work - referred to as Our Common Future. By intergenerational conception of sustainability, we mean thinking of sustainability in terms of the current generation acting responsibly with respect to the impact that their activities have on the society and the environment in order to ensure that they are not compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The findings reveal that two of the 30 corporations explicitly referred to the Brundtland definition while three others mentioned intergenerational rights more generally. Furthermore, although the term sustainability appears frequently in the documents that were reviewed, it was often difficult to determine with a degree of exactitude what the users mean by it. A number of corporations espoused their adherence to a 'three pillars approach' and touted incremental gains made year over year. Finally, many referred to external agencies to add legitimacy to their efforts.

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Do Firms Seek Social License to Operate When Stakeholders are Poor? Evidence from Africa

The purpose of this paper is to test for the salience of social licence to operate in the context of a very poor community. The idea of social license to operate is closely linked to ideas of stakeholder power, legitimacy and urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997). But what if a community is impoverished, and lacks the tools and privileges to effect change? Do the stakeholders believe they have influence over extension of the social license to operate? Does the employer listen to them? To examine this issue, survey data was gathered from 12,000 stakeholders working in a poor township in South Africa. The township is located near a major South African city in an employment market dominated by a single heavy industry. Responders perceived their welfare to be of importance to the employer and that they had a role in extension of the social license to operate.

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The U.S. Brand Personality: A Sino Perspective

This research applies the personality metaphor to examine the U.S. brand personality in China. Results indicate that the U.S. brand personality is a multidimensional construct composed of three main dimensions: amicableness, resourcefulness, and self-centeredness. An overall view indicates that Chinese perceptions of the U.S. brand personality encompass a bipolar personality type where amicable and resourceful traits seemingly battle with self-centered personality traits. The emergent Brand Personality Scale is a significant predictor of Chinese people's behavioral intentions toward the U.S. Several implications are discussed and guidelines for further research are provided.

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Animosity, Affinity, and Purchase Intentions Among Ethnic Consumers

This book contains the full proceedings of the 2015 Academy of Marketing Science World Marketing Congress held in Bari, Italy. The current worldwide business environment is leading marketing scholars and practitioners to reconsider a number of historical and current views of the marketplace and how it functions. Further, determining new marketing theories and practical methods whose effectiveness can be truly measured must be added to the list of current challenges for today and tomorrow. In such a period in marketing history, achieving and managing efficient and effective marketing actions is a necessity. Determining such actions is based on practical experience, solid theory and appropriate research methodology. The enclosed papers focus on new research ideas on vibrant topics that can help academics and practitioners gain new perspectives and insights into today’s turbulent marketplace.

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Planned and Emergent Strategy

Since the 1970s, there has been an ongoing debate in the literature as to the most effective means of formulating strategy. One camp has touted the merits of formal, deliberate strategic planning, while the other camp has maintained that strategy simply emerges over time as a firm takes various actions in response to environmental stimuli. Recently, researchers have recognized the more realistic view that deliberately planned strategies transform during implementation through an emergent strategy formation process. This chapter will review the literature on deliberate and emergent strategies, exploring the perspectives of the proponents and critics from each academic camp. It will then examine the two perspectives as ends of a continuum, citing a number of strategy types that exist between the end points. The concept of planned emergence, or a complementary deliberate and emergent approach, will next be discussed followed by an examination of the numerous empirical studies that have sought a link between formal strategic planning and organizational performance. Finally, a discussion of the emergent impact of chaotic systems and improvisation on deliberate strategy will be followed by perspectives on the future of strategy creation and implementation.

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Place Brands and Brand-place Associations: The Role of ‘Place’ in International Marketing

The field that studies the potential effects of a product’s Country of Origin (CO) or Product-Country Image (PCI) on buyer behaviour is often cited as ‘the’ or ‘one of the’ most researched in international marketing (Tan and Farley, 1987; Peterson and Jolibert, 1995; Jaffe and Nebenzahl, 2006). Indeed, at the first International Marketing Theory Conference of the Center of International Business Education and Research at the University of Connecticut, in 2001, drawing from his comprehensive database of the relevant literature, one of the authors of this chapter reported 766 PCI publications during the 40 years since the inception of the field in the 1960s (Papadopoulos and Heslop, 2003). Of these, 361 were journal articles. The same database shows the number of journal articles to have gone over the 1000 mark as of this writing in 2010, or an increase of about 150 per cent over less than a decade. This suggests that research interest in this area continues unabated and, if anything, has increased dramatically now that ‘place-’ or ‘nation-’ branding, the flip-side of the PCI coin, has become popular. Since, with globalization, almost anything can be produced almost anywhere, there has been some criticism concerning the relevance of the field to contemporary markets – consumers, it is argued, may not know or care about exactly where the products they buy are made (e.g. Liefeld, 2004; Samiee et al., 2005; Usunier, 2006). We will discuss these concerns.

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SSHRC Partnership Development Grant - Examining the Social Return on Investment in Policing

Ranked the SSHRC's top partnership grant in 2013; this three-year, collaborative research project examined the social return on investment in policing across different regions of the country. Dr. Murphy’s research explored ways to strengthen strategic community partnerships with Toronto Police Service.

Chair of the Ontario Region, Canadian Federation of Business School Deans (CFBSD), and CFBSD Director

The CFBSD is the association for Deans and Directors of faculties of business and management in Canada. The association is dedicated to working with its members toward achieving excellence in business education, and its mission is to promote quality in management education and the professional development of business school administrators through various types of events, research and information services, and representation.

Director of the Toronto Board of Trade

For over 170 years, the board has been focused on Trade, Transportation and Talent. Its vision is to make Toronto one of the most competitive and sought after business regions in the world, and its mission is to be a catalyst for a vibrant globally competitive Toronto region business community.

Advisory Board in Arlington Partners International

Arlington Partners builds boards and helps Selection Committees attract, assess, select and appoint their new Chief Executive Officers and senior executive team members. It supports organizations and their leaders at transformational times in their business growth and development.

Sponsor Team Lead

Dr. Murphy was responsible for overseeing the resettlement of a Syrian refugee family to Toronto.

Carleton University Research Achievement Award

Dr. Murphy received a $15,000 Research Achievement Award for his extensive work on the role of emotions in the workplace and daily life.

Carleton University Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Award

Dr. Murphy received this academic achievement for the culmination of his innovative research.

Carleton University Teaching Achievement Award

An Assistant Professor in the Sprott School of Business for four years, Dr. Murphy received this $15,000 award for his ability to engage students in his emotions in the workplace research.