12 pages., Online via UI e-subscription., The author compiled restaurant sales and unit count estimates for 155 restaurant chains during 1981 through 1998. Unit-level sales and advertising expenditures were calculated by averaging annual system-wide totals by the number of units in operation during the year. Findings supported hypotheses that national advertising does not provide a positive return to advertising for many chain units and a larger proportion of chains exhibit a positive return to advertising at the system level than at the unit level.
19 pages., Online via UI e-subscription, Authors collected consumer data to understand the heterogeneity of consumer behavior and store competition in grocery shopping. Marketing research techniques were used to analyze consumers' decision processes and their preference models.
12 pages., Online via UI e-subscription, "In this essay the perspective of Ritzer's McDonaldization of Society thesis is the starting point for developing theses about corporate communication (CorpCom). The central idea of McDonaldization is that increasing numbers of organizations are run as fast food restaurants, focusing on efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control of people. "At the same time that CorpCom departments help organizations with the McDonaldization of their organizations, they are also the ones most likely to be the first to be confronted with the irrationality that the economic rationality of the organization evokes. Stakeholders who disagree with the opinions and ideas of the organization come knocking on the door and generally that will be the door of the CorpCom professional. The irrationality of rationality, as the fifth dimension of McDonaldization, is likely to become visible and tangible in their offices. All types of tensions throughout the organization, for example, those regarding environmental, health, and other societal issues, seem to converge in the CorpCom department."
