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This paper studies a novel social commerce practice known as "help-and-haggle," whereby an online consumer can ask friends to help her "haggle" over the price of a product. Each time a friend agrees to help, the price is cut by a random amount, and if the consumer cuts the product price down to zero within a time limit, she will get the product for free; otherwise, the product reverts to the original price. Help-and-haggle enables the firm to promote its product and boost its social reach as consumers effectively refer their friends to the firm. We model the consumer's dynamic referral behavior in help-and-haggle and provide prescriptive guidance on how the firm should randomize price cuts. Our results are as follows. First, contrary to conventional wisdom, the firm should not always reduce the (realized) price-cut amount if referrals are less costly for the consumer. In fact, the minimum number of successful referrals the consumer must make to have a chance to win the product can be nonmonotone in referral cost. Second, relative to the deterministic price-cut benchmark, a random price-cut scheme improves firm payoff, extracts more consumer surplus, and widens social reach. Additionally, in most instances, it also reduces the promotion expense while increasing profit from product sales at the same time. Third, help-and-haggle can be more cost effective in social reach than a reward-per-referral program that offers a cash reward for each successful referral. However, using the prospect of a free product to attract referrals cannibalizes product sales, potentially causing help-and-haggle to fall short. Yet, if consumers are heterogeneous in product valuations and referral costs or face increasing marginal referral costs, help-and-haggle can outperform the reward-per-referral program. This paper was accepted by Elena Katok, operations management. Funding: L. Yang acknowledges the Berkeley Haas Center for Growth Markets [2022 Grant Award]. C. Jin acknowledges the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund [Tier 1 Grant 251RES2101]. Z. Shao acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72071188]. All authors acknowledge the Networks, Electronic Commerce and Telecommunications (NET) Institute [2022 Summer Research Grant]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4948. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened public awareness regarding the importance of health insurance. Several factors influencing the choice of an insurance brand include the plan value, agent characteristics, referrals, and consumer trust. Over the past five years, the use of influencers has expanded as they are believed to influence consumer intentions to purchase insurance services. Primary data was collected through a survey of 181 respondents who did not have an insurance policy but had seen the content of the insurance company's marketing communications presented by influencers. Using SEM-PLS to analyze the primary data, the study found that agent characteristics and influencer credibility directly affect an insurance brand's consumer trust and purchase intention. Meanwhile, referrals have a significant direct effect on consumer trust but not directly on purchase intention. Conversely, the plan value offered by insurance companies directly affects purchase intention but has no direct influence on consumer trust. Despite finding that consumer trust was insignificant in mediating the effect of referrals, agent characteristics, plan values, and influencer credibility on purchase intention, this study validates the role of agent characteristics, plan values, and influencer credibility in influencing consumer's intention to purchase insurance products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online platforms provide sellers' products on their websites and earn a commission fee for each unit sold. Recently, many platforms have tried to refer customers to their direct competitors. In this paper, we explain this counter-intuitive practice by developing a game-theoretic model where two competing platforms contracting with one common seller or two competing sellers. We first analyze a benchmark case where platforms and sellers are integrated, finding that competitor referral will aggregate competition and thus neither platform is willing to refer its competitor voluntarily. However, when each platform serves as a marketplace for an independent seller, it is possible that a platform voluntarily refers its competitor. The rationale is that there exists a double marginalization problem when platforms set commission fees and sellers set prices, resulting in low efficiency of product selling. By referring visitors to their competitors, platforms can introduce cannibalization to cope with the double marginalization problem. We also investigate the case when the two platforms serve one common seller, finding that as long as the seller does not charge discriminated prices for the same product, the platforms may also apply referral. This is because the benefits of the two platforms are more aligned when the common seller sets a common price. Thus, online referral which helps the competitor may also help the referring platform itself. This paper also makes serval extensions to check the robustness of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referrals are individuals' whose employment suitability for desired roles has been validated by referrers. Traditionally, referrers were individuals whom referrals know in real life (IRL). Referrers are also known to hiring authorities and can vouch for the referrals' employment credentials. Hence, referrals' employment applications are viewed more favorably than applicants who are not referrals. However, the internet/social media also serves as a referrer for applicants' employment qualifications. That is, people's employment attributes can be validated by their internet/social media activity and engagement with followers. They may not know their followers IRL and hiring authorities may not know the applicants' followers IRL, either. Nevertheless, applicants' internet/social media engagement can serve as a referral for their qualifications. This study investigates how early career individuals perceive internet/social media activity as evidence of applicants' employment attributes and, thus, a referral method for employment opportunities. The study broadens research on referrals by including applicants' internet/social media activity and provides practical strategies to enhance early career individuals' employment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate circumstances in which referral-based hiring can exacerbate rather than mitigate agency problems. When incentive contracts cannot fully align employees' incentives with the interests of the firm, employees may behave opportunistically. Referred job candidates likely obtain inside information from existing employees about opportunistic incentive responses, and it is this information that exacerbates agency problems. Our research setting enables us to distinguish between referred and nonreferred employees. It also features a context in which the incentive contract consists of two measures with different properties (efficiency and quality), which allow for opportunistic incentive responses, i.e., sacrificing quality for efficiency. We find that referred employees focus more on efficiency and less on quality than nonreferred employees. We further document the persistence of this behavior and the differential departure likelihood of referred and nonreferred employees. Our findings suggest that referral-based hiring can exacerbate agency problems when incentive contracts allow for opportunistic gains. Data Availability: All data are proprietary. Confidentiality agreements prevent the authors from distributing the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Incentivized referrals are frequently used by firms to recruit new customers. Currently, most companies use two-sided incentive plans that reward both the referrer and the target. This is sensible and likely popular since both parties (the existing customer and target of the referral) are rewarded, potentially increasing the likelihood of successful referral conversion. That said, a small number of firms use one-sided incentives that reward only the referrer or only the target, which tend to be of lower cost. In the current paper, we examine how to effectively use one-sided incentives from a cross-cultural perspective. Specifically, we posit that reward-target incentives are more effective than reward-referrer plans among consumers who are high (instead of low) in interdependence because reward-target plans can appease social concerns, which are more important to those high (vs. low) in interdependence. Across a series of studies, we confirm these predictions and show that managerially relevant variables that influence social concerns (e.g., opaqueness of the referral information, product-liking risk) moderate our effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The International Labour Organization (ILO) Classification of Radiographs of Pneumoconioses is used as the primary tool to determine compensation for pneumoconiosis in Turkey. Aims We aimed to evaluate how the ILO classification applied, but obtaining chest radiographs in the workplace for screening until the completion of compensation claim files by the referral centres, based on the ILO reading. Methods The study included 320 digital chest radiographs previously taken for screening from eight different ceramic factories and having finalised claim files by referral centres. We used an expert reference panel consisting of five ILO readers to re-evaluate all the radiographs independently using ILO standard films and reached a conclusion based on the agreement among at least three readers. The evaluation primarily included technical quality and silicosis diagnosis with an ILO 1/0 or above small profusion. The results were compared with previous findings. Results Sixty-three (20%) chest radiographs were unacceptable for classification purposes according to the ILO technical quality grades. Among the remaining 257 chest radiographs, we diagnosed 103 with silicosis (40%), while the referral centres diagnosed 182 (71%). A discrepancy was found between our results and previous evaluations. We diagnosed silicosis in 50% and 17% of the previous silicosis and normal evaluations, respectively. Conclusions Our findings suggest that the use of the ILO classification for compensation claims may be problematic due to the way of its implementation in Turkey in addition to its subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, in the Romanian legal system, the judge interprets and adapts law to the actual realities, remedies normative gaps and discovers remedies to inspire the legislator. In this regard, we should emphasize the role of the judicial precedent substantiated by means of the decisions of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, ruled within the referral in the interests of the law, given that, such judgments create general rules of interpretation and application of the legal provisions which generate non-unitary practices. There are situations in which the interpretation of the legal texts, offered by the High Court of Cassation and Justice, is subject to a constitutional review exercised by the Romanian Constitutional Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem definition: This paper studies the optimal design of referral priority programs, in which customers on a waiting list can jump the line by inviting their friends to also join the waiting list. Academic/practical relevance: Recent years have witnessed a growing presence of referral priority programs as a novel customer-acquisition strategy for firms that maintain a waiting list. Different variations of this scheme are seen in practice, raising the question of what should be the optimal referral priority mechanism. Methodology: I build an analytical model that integrates queuing theory into a mechanism design framework in which the objective of the firm is to maximize the system throughput, that is, accelerate customer acquisition as much as possible. Results: My analysis shows that the optimal mechanism has one of the following structures: full priority; partial priority; first in, first out (FIFO); and strategic delay. A full-priority (partial-priority) scheme enables referring customers to get ahead of all (only some) nonreferring ones. A FIFO scheme does not provide any priority-based referral incentive. A strategic-delay scheme grants full priority to referring customers but artificially inflates the delay of nonreferring ones. I show that FIFO is optimal if either the base-market size or the referral cost is large. Otherwise, partial priority is optimal if the base-market size is above a certain threshold; full priority is optimal at the threshold base-market size; strategic delay is optimal if the base-market size is below the threshold. I also find that referrals motivate the firm to maintain a larger capacity and therefore can surprisingly shorten the average delay, even though more customers sign up and strategic delay is sometimes inserted. Managerial implications: My paper provides prescriptive guidance for launching an optimal referral priority program and rationalizes common referral schemes seen in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how customers' perceptions of brands' social media interactivity impact customer engagement behaviors (CEBs) (e.g. customer purchases, referrals, influence and knowledge) while accounting for the moderating role of brand type and social media platform. Design/methodology/approach: Two separate online surveys (Study 1 (N1) = 341, Study 2 (N2) = 183) were conducted to measure the constructs of interest. Regression analyzes tests research hypotheses; PROCESS Model 1 was used to test the moderating roles of brand type and platform. Further, the pick-a-point approach (i.e. spotlight analysis) was used to probe the interaction terms. Findings: The results indicate that when customers perceive a brand to be highly interactive on social media (vs inactive), they are more willing to buy brand offerings, refer the brand in exchange for monetary incentives, inform their family and friends about the brand on social media and provide feedback and suggestions for improving the brand. Furthermore, the positive impact of perceived social media interactivity on customer purchases, referrals, influence and knowledge varies across brand and social media platform types. Research limitations/implications: Online surveys using convenience samples were conducted to assess the constructs of interest. Archival data may provide an avenue for further insight. Future research may be able to track actual online customer behavior using such data. Further, researchers are encouraged to corroborate the results found here over time as the winds of social media shift to new platforms. Practical implications: The results suggest that interacting on social media encourages customers to contribute to brand value directly (through purchasing) and/or indirectly (through referring, influencing and suggesting). While all brands may leverage social media activity for success, the positive impact of perceived social media interactivity on CEBs is particularly impactful for non-global 500 brands. The results also indicate that customers are more willing to add value to the brand through purchases and suggestions when they perceive the brand to be highly interactive on both social media networking sites and the brand's website. However, they are more willing to promote this brand and influence their social networks about it only when they perceive the brand to be highly (vs less) interactive on its own website. Originality/value: This study examines the novel issue of the impact of perceived social media interactivity on different CEBs while accounting for the moderating role of the brand and platform used by customers. The results provide value in better understanding the levers through which social media affects performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Based on theories related to coopetition, the purpose of this paper is to examine the patterns of business-to-business digital referrals inscribed in businesses' digital content. Design/methodology/approach: A complete industry-wise digital data set is formed by extracting digital referrals in all the content pages. The authors outline how digital referrals are strategically used among peer businesses in the peer-to-peer digital network and in the augmented digital network, taking into consideration geographical framing and physical distance. Findings: The authors reveal how geographical framing and physical distance influence peer-to-peer referral patterns in the digital space. Quite counter-intuitively, businesses are more likely to give digital referrals for peers residing in the same region, as well as for peers located in closer proximity. Further, results from the augmented digital network show that peer businesses in closer proximity exhibit greater strategic similarity in their digital referring strategy. Research limitations/implications: The findings extend the understanding of business-to-business coopetition to the digital space and suggest that geographical framing and physical distance can induce reciprocated relationships between peers by offering each other digital referrals. Practical implications: The findings shed light on the formation of a business-to-business digital coopetition strategy using digital referral marketing. Originality/value: This study highlights the impact of digital referrals in business-to-business relationship management, especially in the digital coopetition context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referral programs have become a popular way to acquire customers. Yet there is no evidence to date that customers acquired through such programs are more valuable than other customers. The authors address this gap and investigate the extent to which referred customers are more profitable and more loyal. Tracking approximately 10,000 customers of a leading German bank for almost three years, the authors find that referred customers (1) have a higher contribution margin, though this difference erodes over time; (2) have a higher retention rate, and this difference persists over time; and (3) are more valuable in both the short and the long run. The average value of a referred customer is at least 16% higher than that of a nonreferred customer with similar demographics and time of acquisition. However, the size of the value differential varies across customer segments; therefore, firms should use a selective approach for their referral programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of suggested beneficial effects of word-of-mouth (WOM) referral, service companies have invested large amounts of money in customer referral programs as well as programs aimed at fostering positive communication among their existing customers. The question of cross-cultural differences in the effectiveness of WOM has recently gained increased prominence. The authors contribute to research on this topic by proposing a positive effect of received WOM on service quality perceptions among existing customers. Moreover, they predict that cultural values moderate this effect. They test the model on 1910 bank customers in 11 countries. The results show that received WOM has a positive effect on customer service quality perceptions. Furthermore, received WOM has a stronger effect on the evaluation of customers in high-uncertainty-avoidance than in low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures. No other cultural value is a significant moderator. The results imply that received WOM is also important to existing customers and that managers should adjust their strategy of referral marketing to match their target group's uncertainty-avoidance level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 1999 and 2001 Canadian matched employer-employee data with rich information on worker and job characteristics, the authors identify the relative importance of immigrant wage differentials within and across establishments and the sources of these differentials. Whereas existing explanations of immigrant wage differentials emphasize immigrants' productive characteristics, differentials across establishments may be entirely independent of immigrants' actual or perceived skills or quality. The findings show highly non-random sorting of immigrants across establishments within Canada's major cities and geographic regions. For immigrant men, this sorting affected wage differentials more than did differences in how immigrant and native men were paid within establishments. For immigrant women, however, particularly those from less developed world regions, within-establishment wage differentials appear to have been more important. These findings raise numerous important questions for future research, such as whether the highly non-random sorting of immigrants across establishments primarily reflects immigrants' search behavior or employers' recruiting methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because referral reward programs reward existing customers and build the customer base, firms use them to encourage customers to make recommendations to others. The authors report on four experiments in which they find that rewards increase referral likelihood. More specifically, they find that rewards are particularly effective in increasing referral to weak ties and for weaker brands. It is also important who receives the reward. Overall, for weak ties and weaker brands, giving a reward to the provider of the recommendation is important. For strong ties and stronger brands, providing at least some of the reward to the receiver of the referral seems to be more effective. The authors discuss the implications of the results for the design of reward programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining insights from organizational ecology and social network theory, we examine how the structure of relations among organizational populations affects differences in rates of foundings across geographic locales. We hypothesize that symbiotic and commensalistic interpopulation relations function as channels of information about entrepreneurial opportunities and that differing access to such information influences the founding rate. Empirical analyses of U. S. Instruments manufacturers support this argument. The founding rate of instruments manufacturers rises with the densities of organizational populations that have symbiotic and commensalistic relationships with instruments manufacturers. These factors encourage the initial foundings of instruments manufacturers in areas where such organizations were not previously found. The dominance of organizational populations tied to instruments manufacturing by symbiotic or commensalistic relations increases the rate of foundings of instruments manufacturers, whereas the dominance of organizational populations that lack these relations decreases it. Finally, we find that interpopulation relationships that hinge on direct contact have less impact on initial foundings as geographic distance increases. These results have implications for research on organizational ecology, entrepreneurship, urban sociology, and economic geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The referral priority program—an emerging business practice adopted by a growing number of technology companies that manage a waitlist of customers—enables existing customers on the waitlist to gain priority access if they successfully refer new customers to the waitlist. Unlike more commonly used referral reward programs, this novel mechanism does not offer monetary compensation to referring customers, but leverages customers' own disutility of delays to create referral incentives. Despite this appealing feature, our queueing-game-theoretic analysis finds that the effectiveness of such a scheme as a marketing tool for customer acquisition and an operational approach for waitlist management depends crucially on the underlying market conditions, particularly the base market size of spontaneous customers. The referral priority program does not generate referrals when the base market size is either too large or too small. When customers do refer, the program could actually backfire—namely, by reducing the system throughput and customer welfare—if the base market size is intermediately large. This phenomenon occurs because the presence of referred customers severely cannibalizes the demand of spontaneous customers. We also compare the referral priority program with the referral reward program when the service provider optimally sets the admission price. Numerical study suggests that the referral priority program is more profitable than the referral reward program when the base market size is intermediately small. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3034. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health care delivery is the duty of every hospital, while some hospitals are equipped with medical experts and cutting edge equipment some are not, this lack of experts and equipment in one hospital calls for the need of the referral of patient from one hospital to another. Base on the vast number of hospitals scattered around the country, locating and having access to these facilities in time remains a problem. Manual referral process is currently adopted by the hospital in finding and referral of patient to a higher facility for treatment, this takes a longer time for the paper process to be completed before actual referral is carried out, hence the need for a Unified hospital referral system (UHRS) in Nigeria. This paper proposes a UHRS system that will facilitate prompt referral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Watts and Dodds (2007) showed that in a simulation, supporters of opinion leaders have larger influence than opinion leaders themselves. In this paper, a case analysis was done of an anonymous housewife who created a network and acquired supporters on a social network and then started an apparel brand. The analysis revealed that influence strengthens by having both (a) a network centered around an opinion leader and (b) a complete network with six hardcore fans acting as supporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the prospect preference index model, which provides a workable approach to the problem of selecting which of several sales prospects should be pursued. One problem faced by all sales representatives is how to determine the value of a prospective customer. Although an important concern of the salesperson, literature on the subject is surprisingly dearth. The model considers the revenue expected the first year, and future revenues that can be predicted with some accuracy. The revenue expected in year one is expressed as the price of the product times the volume of sales less any discounts allowed. This figure can normally be expected to be fairly accurately forecast. Risk may be quantified as a function of reputation and the likelihood of converting the prospect to an account. Credit reputation was considered to be a quantifiable surrogate for reputation by interviewed executives. Businesses that pay their bills on time and take advantage of discounts are desirable. Previous research indicates the net present value of an investment exhibits the greatest increase in its beginning years and tends to level off around the twelfth year regardless of its life.

Recent advances in data gathering through checkout scanners have produced vast amounts of data on the actual behavior of consumers in the marketplace, creating new opportunities for managers and researchers to understand competition and consumers' response to the marketing mix. Previous analyses of this data in the literature have focused either at the household (micro) or store (macro) level. The authors propose a method of enriching the analysis of competitive behavior by combining the in-depth consumer information obtained from a micro-level household scanner panel with the comprehensive market data supplied by a macro-level retail-tracking panel. The approach offers the manager detailed information about consumers (e.g., identification of consumer segments in terms of brand preferences and socio- economic characteristics) along with strategic diagnostics of the product- market (e.g., the sensitivity of the market to price promotions, impact of a brand's strategy on competitors, vulnerability of the brand to competitive actions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though many marketers--particularly those in the service sector--depend on word of mouth (WOM) for referrals, the traditional sample survey methodology used in previous WOM research does not explicate the interpersonal nature of informal communication. The authors propose network analysis as an alternative method for research on referral behavior. The sampling, data-gathering, and analytic aspects of referral network analysis are described in general terms and illustrated with a case study which, in addition to yielding interesting descriptive information about a service marketer's referral network, affords a test of the strength-of-ties hypothesis in influencing referral flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A social network perspective was used to determine whom brokerage firm employees selected as social referents. In particular, this study focused on cohesive actors (friends) and structurally equivalent actors (individuals occupying the same position in a network) as sources of social information. Results on the social networks of brokers, sales assistants, and operations employees (support staff) indicate distinct differences in interaction patterns, information seeking, and social comparison processes across the three job categories. Overall, the results suggest that employees rely on structurally equivalent referents for job-related information and on cohesive referents for general organizational information and as social comparison referents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The client referral activity of 41 human service agencies operating within the same community was examined using recently collected data. Hypotheses were developed focusing on agency service technology and interagency activity as predictors of referrals from and to other organizations. The hypothesis for technology was supported; hypotheses for interagency activity received mixed support. Additional analysis revealed an agency's service orientation to be a strong predictor of referral inflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This field study sought to determine whether the sources through which employees are recruited are related to subsequent job performance, absenteeism, and work attitudes. The study found strong source-of-recruitment effects. Newspapers and college placement offices were, in general, poorer sources of employees than journal/convention advertisements and self-initiated contacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms can substantially profit from customer referrals, but they must understand the different stages of the referral process to determine what drives the number of referrals (first stage), conversion (second stage), and average contribution margin per referral (third stage). Applying a framework that integrates perceptual and behavioral drivers, this study uses a financial services company’s customer survey and transaction data to investigate how the effect of contribution margins of referring customers at all three stages depends on their perceived extraversion and opinion leadership. Extreme extraversion and opinion leadership diminish the positive effect of the contribution margins of referring customers on the number of referrals; their effect on the number of successful referrals is insignificant. In terms of the contribution margin of successful referrals, extraversion has a negative and opinion leadership a positive moderating effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes two new donation strategies that focus on either the amount or the frequency of corporate donations, and verifies that consumers have very different perceptions of and behavioral responses to firms that adopt these different donation strategies. Through three lab experiments and two field studies with adult consumers, the authors show that an amount-focused donation strategy leads consumers to generate more resource- and capability-related associations about the firm’s endeavor in helping charities, whereas a frequency-focused donation strategy leads consumers to generate more commitment- and persistence-related associations about a firm’s endeavor in helping charities. Furthermore, consumers tend to perceive a donation as more instrumental in helping charities and are more likely to purchase from the donor firm, pay a higher price for the donor firm’s products, and make referrals when the firm adopts a frequency-focused (vs. amount-focused) donation strategy to support an approach-oriented (vs. avoidance-oriented) charitable goal. The findings hold important implications for corporate donation strategies regarding how firms should allocate their philanthropic budgets and strategically communicate their donation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because online circumstances allows communication remotely and out of synchronization, along with a better communication capacity, online referral reward programs in social networks may have different characteristics compared with traditional referral reward programs. This paper studied the effects of reward allocation, tie strength and brand relationships on receivers’ responses in referral reward programs and confirmed the mediating effects of social cost. It investigates the impact of online referral reward programs on receivers’ responses from the perspectives of social norms and market norms. We identify the moderating conditions that are expected to affect when and how a reward leads the receiver to infer social norms, thereby increasing the referral’s effectiveness. In study 1, because receivers with different tie may have relationships based on market norms or social norms (Wentzel et al. in J Serv Res 17(2):119-133, 2014), we examine the effect of tie strength and reward allocation on receivers’ responses in online referral reward programs. Furthermore, we extended the analysis of study 1 in two ways through the introduction of brand relationships and reward characteristics. In study 2, we introduced brand relationships to analyze the effect of tie strength and reward allocation on receivers’ responses. In study 3, we studied the effects of reward type and tie strength on receivers’ responses in online referral reward programs. To capture the underlying process, we also examined the participants’ perceptions of social cost in three studies. Finally, we conclude by discussing the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings. People with strong ties tended to accept a referral more often than those with weak ties, because people with strong ties gave their friends’ benefits more consideration. However, in strong brand relationships, receivers with strong ties in No Reward conditions tend to respond to referrals more than those with strong ties in the Reward Recommender conditions, because rewarding recommenders makes social norms transfer into market norms. This paper extended the theory on effect of reward on receivers’ responses in online referral reward programs and further verified that social cost was a key element of psychological mechanism that caused reward to strengthen receivers’ responses under market norms or social norms. This paper researched how social norms and market norms affected consumers’ behaviors differently, which helped company design online referral reward programs. This paper researched the relationships between market norms and social norms on receivers’ responses in online social network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how to optimally attract new customers using a referral program. Whenever a consumer makes a purchase, the firm gives her a link to share with friends, and every purchase coming through that link generates a referral payment. The firm chooses the referral payment function and consumers play an equilibrium in response. The optimal payment function is nonlinear and not necessarily monotonic in the number of successful referrals. If we approximate the optimal policy using a linear payment function, the approximation loss scales with the square root of the average consumer degree. Using a threshold payment, the approximation loss scales proportionally to the average consumer degree. Combining the two, using a linear payment function with a threshold bonus, we can achieve a constant bound on the approximation loss. This paper was accepted by Noah Gans, stochastic models and simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer engagement marketing-defined as a firm's deliberate effort to motivate, empower, and measure customer contributions to marketing functions-marks a shift in marketing research and business practice. After defining and differentiating engagement marketing, the authors present a typology of its two primary forms and offer tenets that link specific strategic elements to customer outcomes and thereby firm performance, theorizing that the effectiveness of engagement marketing arises from the establishment of psychological ownership and self-transformation. The authors provide evidence in support of the derived tenets through case illustrations, as well as a quasi-experimental field test of the central tenet of engagement marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To determine how often general dentists receive gifts from orthodontists, the value and number of the gifts they receive, and how they perceive the motivation behind the gift. Materials and Methods: This was a questionnaire-based study. A questionnaire was constructed and tested for validity and reliability . An electronic version of survey was sent via email to 1300 general dentists. Results: The validity and reliability of the survey was confirmed. Two hundred fifty-four valid responses were received (20%). Eighty-five percent of responding general practitioners reported that they received gifts from an orthodontist. Almost 100% reported that they referred patients to orthodontists. About one-third of the responding general practitioners reported that their office provided orthodontic care. There were statistically significant correlations between the number of annual patient referrals the general practitioners reported making and the number and value of the gifts they received from the orthodontists. Female general practitioners reported receiving a higher number of gifts of greater total value than male practitioners. General practitioners who reported providing orthodontic treatment did not differ from those who did not in the number of referrals they made annually and the number and value of the gifts they received. Quality of care was the most common reason general practitioners reported for their referral to an orthodontist. Forty-four percent of the responders reported that they received discounted orthodontic treatment. Conclusions: General practitioners refer patients to orthodontists and receive gifts from them. The number and value of the gifts reflects the number of referrals they make. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the relative influence of advertising and word of mouth (WOM) for new season TV programmes, both new and returning.Design/methodology/approach The study’s longitudinal research design tracks individuals before and after possible exposure to advertising and/or positive WOM (PWOM) to model the effects of both paid versus earned media on behaviour.Findings This study provides contrary evidence to previous research that suggests that WOM has more influence on consumers than advertising. By controlling for viewers’ benchmark probabilities of viewing the TV programme, the effect of receiving PWOM becomes insignificant, whereas the effect of TV advertising remains unchanged. Because WOM is commonly exchanged between people with shared interests, it reaches an audience that is already highly disposed to view the TV programme.Research limitations/implications The findings implicate that we need to reinvestigate the power of WOM to avoid misattribution of effects. This study is only study in one category, which means replication and extension to more categories are needed. The limitations of the study include the inability to control for creative differences in the execution of programme promotions or examine possible cross-media synergies for multimedia campaigns.Practical implications Findings have implications for how much to invest in WOM-generating activities. Findings also have wider implications for cross-media research and media-mix models, as different media may reach audiences with differing predispositions to act.Originality/value This is one of the rare individual-level, longitudinal studies that investigate the influence of WOM in comparison to advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each of two experts may provide a service to a client. Experts' cost comparative advantage depends on an unknown state, but an expert may exert effort to get a private signal about it. In a market, an expert may refer the client to the other for a fee. In equilibrium, only one expert exerts effort and refers, and the equilibrium allocation is inefficient. Referral efficiency can be restored when experts form an organization, in which a referring expert must bear the referred expert's cost. However, the referred expert shirks from work effort because of the lack of cost responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with Anne-Marie Rabago, director of the Texas Opportunity & Justice Incubator is presented. When asked abou he involvement in the Section, she discussed on being th Law Student Tax Challenge, in 2007. She discussed on ending the work for PwC in their International Tax Services as a Senior Associate. She mentions that non-tax attorney are the part of referrals.

Real estate agents rely on clients for referrals to generate future business; this article examines whether concern for referrals disciplines agents. We compare results for sellers who move to another area (and are less likely to provide referrals) with results for sellers who remain in the area (and are more likely to provide referrals). We find that moving-away sellers' houses have a higher sale rate, sell faster and sell for less (even after controlling for moving-away sellers' greater impatience). We also provide evidence that the disciplining effect of concern for referrals is stronger for agents who place a greater value on reputation. Finally, among sellers who are better at evaluating and monitoring agents, we see less of the high sell rate, low sale-price effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]