Robert Dahlstrom is the Joseph C. Seibert Professor of Marketing in the Farmer School of Business at Miami University. He is also an adjunct professor of marketing at BI-Norwegian Business School. He has published articles in the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and elsewhere. His research employs logic from institutional economics and related governance theories to investigate triple bottom line performance. The Chicago Business Press published his book titled Sustainable Marketing in 2018.
Purpose The topic of brand personality (BP) has received extensive research attention in the last 2 decades, with a particular focus on examining its antecedents and consequences. This study, therefore, systematically reviews and synthesizes extant research on antecedents and consequences of BP of consumer products. Design/methodology/approach A systematic review approach is used to identify and analyze relevant studies from five major databases and a search engine. This review identified 62 articles from 43 journals published during 1997–2018. The relevant literature germane to the research objectives is extracted from these articles. Findings This study identifies and classifies antecedents and consequences of BP of consumer products, along with key mediators and moderators underlying these relationships. Additionally, the study reveals pertinent characteristics of BP literature, including conceptualizations, measurements, methods, theories and research settings. Finally, this study develops an integrative conceptual model and presents avenues for future research. Practical implications This study provides insight to practitioners that create and develop brand personalities. The study would inform managers concerning the outcomes of BP. Originality/value To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first systematic review that synthesizes existing empirical research on antecedents and consequences of BP of consumer products.
Exchange partners devise and implement contracts to improve performance within a relationship. Detailed, specific contracts provide a blueprint designed to guide desired interfirm behavior, and firms may use the contract to resolve disputes and to ensure the partner fulfills its obligations. Extant research, however, reports contradictory findings on the efficacy of contracts. The objective of our research is to provide a quantitative review of contract specificity and utilization in business-to-business marketing. The findings suggest that specificity and utilization enhance economic performance, relationship quality, and relational norms. Contract specificity is found to discourage opportunism, whereas contract utilization exacerbates opportunism. Theoretical (specific investments, product complexity, and relationship length) and contextual factors (product type, market type, and study location) moderate influences of contractual properties on exchange outcomes. Discussion of these results addresses the implications of the meta-analysis for marketing theory and practice.
Crosno, Jody L.; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Friend, Scott (2020)
Assessments of equivocal salesperson behavior and their influences on the quality of buyer-seller relationships
In buyer-supplier relationships, salespeople engage in behaviors that buyers may (or may not) view as deceptive. Despite the salesperson’s underlying miscreant or innocent motives, buyers have a difficult time attributing the intentionality of salesperson behaviors after the fact. While extant research has explicated various governance mechanisms to mitigate the occurrence of opportunistic behaviors a priori, scholarship is not as well-versed in understanding (a) the relational factors that influence the buyer’s interpretation of debatably opportunistic salesperson behaviors and (b) the buyer’s retributive response within the ongoing relationship. To bring clarity to these issues, the authors examine relationship factors that influence the likelihood of perceived salesperson opportunism following equivocal salesperson acts. Utilizing data from industrial buyers in the U.S. healthcare industry, this study shows that buyer specific investments are related positively to attributions of salesperson guile, whereas contractual agreements are related negatively to attributions of guile. Relationship solidarity moderates these effects. Further, we find that attributions of salesperson guile lead to perceived salesperson opportunism, which in turn results in buyers lowering their expectations of relationship continuity and increasing their retributive responses. We corroborate these findings with cross-sectional survey data from a sample of industrial buyers. Collectively, these findings hold implications with regard to the role of the buyer’s attribution of salesperson guile for a specific behavior as a determinant of perceived opportunism in general, while also outlining conditions under which buyers are inclined to engage in retributive opportunism.
Flygansvær, Bente Merete; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Nygaard, Arne (2019)
Green innovation in recycling - A preliminary analysis of reversed logistics in Norway
There has been an exponential growth of new electronic products in the global consumer market. New electronic consumer products generate a growing need for new methods, processes and entrepreneurship in recycling. In this study, we examine how entrepreneurs involved in the recycling of electronic products innovate to create a more sustainable circular economy. The recycling system must take care of electronics that contains hazardous materials. Also, a recycling system should prevent the waste of potentially useful materials. Thus, entrepreneurship is crucial to improve the handling of toxic material and processing technology to reuse valuable elements. Innovation therefore is essential to facilitate a sustainable recycling process. In this study, we analyse entrepreneurial innovation in the light of the organisational structure of the recycling system. Following a study of 108 recycling entrepreneurs, competition and specific investments are found to be important factors that drive the sustainable innovation that make Norway one of the countries with the highest recycling rates of electronic and electric waste.
Burki, Umar; Ersoy, Pervin & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2018)
Achieving Triple Bottom Line Performance in Manufacturer-Customer Supply Chains: Evidence from an Emerging Economy
The influence of sustainability on innovation is well-established, yet the efficacy of innovation as a determinant of sustainable performance in supply chains has received less scrutiny. This study examines green innovation practices as determinants of the triple bottom line performance. Moreover, the study implicates top management commitment to sustainability as a driver of green managerial and process innovation. The research employs AMOS to assess survey-based data collected from 181 Turkish manufacturers. The results offer evidence that top management commitment fosters green innovation practices, and these innovations enhance economic performance, environmental performance, and customer cooperation. Top management should therefore commit to achieving sustainable operations and follow up this commitment with green innovations that drive triple bottom line performance.
Grewal, Rajdeep; Saini, Amit, Kumar, Alok, Dwyer, F. Robert & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2018)
Marketing Channel Management in Foreign Markets: Integrative Framework for Multinational Corporations
Multinational corporations (MNCs) adopt increasingly diverse and complex marketing channels to sell their products worldwide. They strive to manage channels that confront diverse demands from headquarters, foreign subsidiaries, and local partners, as well as complex market environments. Because extant research on MNCs’ marketing channels is sparse, we propose an organizing framework to spur and guide research on MNC channel management. As a meta-theory that integrates economic and social elements of MNC channel management, we use a political economy perspective to propose two testable frameworks pertaining to determinants of (1) MNC marketing channel structures and processes and (2) MNC marketing channel outcomes. Building on these frameworks, we advance a research agenda to test substantive relationships, elaborate new constructs, and study new contexts pertaining to MNC marketing channels. A set of propositions illustrates the applicability of these conceptual frameworks.
Flygansvær, Bente Merete; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Nygaard, Arne (2018)
Exploring the Pursuit of Sustainability in Reverse Supply Chains for Electronics
Abstract: This study examines reverse supply chains in the electronics industry. The analysis characterizes the flow of resources among firms in a reverse supply chain in the Norwegian electronics industry. The study subsequently examines influences of governance mechanisms and culture on the social, ecological, and economic performance in the supply chain. Based on principal-agency theory, the authors implicate collaboration, monitoring, and specific assets as determinants of the interfirm culture operating in the reverse supply chain. The interfirm culture and collaboration serve as antecedents to triple bottom line performance. Data collected with Norwegian electronics collectors indicate that collaboration and interfirm culture influence ecological, economic, and relational components of sustainable performance.
Burki, Umar & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2017)
Mediating Effects of Green Innovation on Interfirm Cooperation
Previous empirical research has largely neglected the mediating role of green innovations on the top management commitment-customer cooperation relationship. This study examines effects of green process innovation and green managerial innovations on this relationship. An empirical analysis with a sample of 181 ISO 14001 Turkish manufacturing firms suggests that top management commitment positively affects customer cooperation, process innovation and managerial innovation. Green process innovation mediates the positive association between top management commitment and customer cooperation, whereas green managerial innovation does not. These findings suggest that green process innovation facilitates business partners to mitigate the external negative impact on environment. By contrast, green managerial innovation has a stronger in-house orientation and facilitates business firms to minimize their carbon footprints.
Crosno, Jody L. & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2016)
An Empirical Investigation of Bilateral Investments and Opportunism in Buyer-Supplier Relationships
This study investigates alternative governance forms in the hotel industry. Agency theory maintains that the need for control over service quality, financial risk, and the market environment affect the choice of governance form. Prior agency research emphasizes alternative governance structures that principals employ, given local market conditions, agent incentives, and risk preferences. The study augments the established principal-agent perspective with a discussion of entrepreneurial motivations to join hotel alliances. The study analyzes the choice between independent ownership and affiliation with a voluntary chain as well as the choice between integration and franchising. Data analyses from 650 hotels indicate that the hotel size, amenities, population, and distance to headquarters influence governance. (c) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Dahlstrøm, Robert; Nygaard, Arne & Crosno, Jody L. (2008)
Strategic, Metric, and Methodological Trends in Marketing Research and Their Implications for Future Theory and Practice
Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 16(2), s. 139- 142.
Crosno, Jody L.; Nygaard, Arne & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2007)
Trust in the Development of New Channels in the Music Industry
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 14(3), s. 216- 223.
Dahlstrøm, Robert; Haugland, Sven A., Haugland, Sven A., Nygaard, Arne & Rokkan, Aksel I. (2003)
Norsk hotellindustri: Blodbad eller konstruktiv reorganisering?
Magma - Tidsskrift for økonomi og ledelse, 6(1), s. 92- 100.
Dahlstrøm, Robert; Haugland, Sven A., Haugland, Sven A., Nygaard, Arne & Rokkan, Aksel I. (2003)
Norsk hotellindustri: Blodbad eller konstruktiv reorganisering?
?, s. 92- 100.
Nygaard, Arne & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2002)
Role Stress and Effectiveness in Horizontal Alliances
Journal of Marketing, 66(2), s. 61- 82.
Dahlstrøm, Robert (2019)
Market Knowledge, Specific Assets and the Efficacy of Formal Contracting in International Western Buyer-Asian Supplier Relationships
[Academic lecture]. AMA Winter Educators' Conference.
Dahlstrøm, Robert; Crosno, Jody L. & Friend, Scott (2018)
Oh No You Didn’t: Examining Antecedents to Reciprocal Opportunism in Distribution Channels
[Academic lecture]. AMA Summer Educators' Conference.
Silkoset, Ragnhild; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Nygaard, Arne (2018)
The End of Organizations? The Disruptive Impact of Blockchain Technology on Trust, Opportunism and Transactions
[Academic lecture]. SMS Special Conference.
Silkoset, Ragnhild; Dahlstrøm, Robert & Nygaard, Arne (2018)
The Blockchain Disruption: From Lemons to Peach Markets
[Academic lecture]. Blockchain Technology & Organizational Research Symposium.
Dahlstrøm, Robert & Crosno, Jody Lynn (2018)
Sustainable Marketing
[Textbook]. Chicago Business Press.
Dahlstrøm, Robert; Haugland, Sven A., Haugland, Sven A., Nygaard, Arne & Rokkan, Aksel I. (2003)
The Inter-Organizational Effect of Monitoring Costs, Market and Scale in the Service Industry
[Academic lecture]. The 19th Annual IMP Conference.
Dahlstrøm, Robert; Haugland, Sven A., Haugland, Sven A., Nygaard, Arne & Rokkan, Aksel I. (2002)
An Empirical Investigation of Governance Structures in the Hotel Industry
[Report]. Samfunns- og næringslivsforskning.
Haugland, Sven A.; Haugland, Sven A., Nygaard, Arne, Rokkan, Aksel I. & Dahlstrøm, Robert (2002)
The Interorganizational Effect of Monitoring Costs, Market and Scale in the Service Industry
[Academic lecture]. 12th Nordic Workshop on Interorganizational Research.
Academic Degrees
Year
Academic Department
Degree
1990
University of Cincinnati
Ph.D.
1980
Xavier University
B.S.B.A.
Work Experience
Year
Employer
Job Title
2012 - Present
BI Norwegian Business School
Adjunct professor
2011 - Present
Miami University
Professor
2011 - 2016
Miami University Department of Marketing
Department Chair and Seibert Professor
2010 - 2011
University of Kentucky Gatton College School of Management
Director
2009 - 2011
University of Kentucky Center for a Sustainable Aluminum Industry
Director
2008 - 2011
University of Kentucky Douglas K. Von Allmen Center for Green Marketing
Founder and Director
2007 - 2011
University of Kentucky Gatton College Marketing Area
Area Coordinator
2002 - 2011
University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics
Bloomfield Professor of Marketing
1990 - 2011
University of Kentucky
Professor
2006 - 2009
BI Norwegian Business School
Adjunct professor
2000 - 2004
University of Kentucky Gatton College Marking Area
Area Coordinator
1996 - 2002
University of Kentucky, Gatton College of Business and Economics
Associate Professor
1990 - 1996
University of Kentucky, Gatton College of Business and Economics
Assistant Professor
1992 - 1993
University of Kentucky Summer Program in Vienna, Austria