This paper builds on consumer storytelling theory and childhood memory research by proposing that earliest childhood memory stories are useful for developing brand myths and providing relevance to iconic brands. This article investigates consumers' childhood memories with Coca-Cola and finds...

The aficionado consumer is one who consumes and enjoys a hedonic product regularly but has failed to obtain product expertise from his/her many experiences. We conceptualize the aficionado as having asymmetric perceptual and conceptual knowledge and posit that when these two types of knowledge...

Consumer services such as airlines and hotels include a proliferation of bookings through Internet-proprietary and Internet-third party sites. The other dominant channel for making airline and hotel purchases is via telephone. This research investigates differences in how buyers utilize the...

In this paper, we study retail pricing in Canadian beer markets, where access to the liquor distribution system and the retail price list is restricted by government ownership and control of the system. We consider alternative explanations for price uniformity in the differentiated beer products...

In Canada, as well as in the U.S., the rationalization of retail gasoline networks has been occurring since 1970. Rationalization may be the outcome of a competitive process or a tacitly collusive one. This paper provides a description of how rationalization has played out in retail gasoline...

In Canada and the US, shopping center developers may impose 'radius restrictions' on tenants in their shopping centers, prohibiting tenants in a particular shopping center from opening another store within a certain radius. Whether a radius restriction is imposed on a chain will depend upon the...

Spatial competition models have established the importance of localized competition in determining competitive outcomes. However, few empirical studies attempt to determine to what extent actual local market conditions affect strategic decisions. This paper uses data provided by the acquisition...

This study examines the link between economic freedom (a measure of government intervention) and the penetration of three durable goods (televisions, radios and automobiles) across countries. After controlling for the influence of income, there is a significant relationship between greater...