Unternehmenswachstum und Internationalität als Qualitätssignale

Many companies show an exogenously or endogenous growth due to mergers and acquisitions or due to increase in sales. Furthermore many companies expand their markets to other countries. Thus the question arises whether consumers interpret information about a company’s growth and increasing internationality as signals of product quality. We apply the signaling theory of <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">SPENCE, the cue utilization theory of <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">COX, and theories of experimental information processing to our question. Based on these theoretical considerations we expected that neither highly or low involved consumers use a company’s growth and internationality as quality signals, whereas moderately involved consumers might rely on these information as quality indicators. In an empirical study we find support for this hypothesis.1 Copyright Springer-Verlag 2007