| Author: | Zhao, Danyang |
| Title: | Impact of communication creativity on customer acquisition in B2B marketing communication under cross-border context |
| Advisors: | Gu, Fang Flora (MM) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2023 |
| Subject: | Industrial marketing Advertising, Industrial Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Department of Management and Marketing |
| Pages: | xi, 165 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | In the customer acquisition stage of B2B (business-to-business) transaction, suppliers’ communication creativity in the B2B marketing communication is crucial for capturing customers’ attention and differentiating themselves from competitors. Especially under cross-border context, when the suppliers and customers are from different institutional backgrounds and may not meet face-to-face, suppliers’ communication creativity is particularly important. However, in practice, suppliers’ communication creativity does not always guarantee successful customer acquisition. Research on the effect of suppliers’ communication creativity on customer acquisition is mixed. Reasons are threefold. First, although previous research on communication creativity has categorized it into communication relevance and communication novelty, the differential effects of these two aspects have not been clearly elucidated. That confuses suppliers about what to focus on when intending to attract customers’ attention. Second, information processing theory suggests that customer cognitive response plays a key role between communication message and customer feedback. However, current research fails to provide a concrete understanding of the underlying mechanisms between communication creativity and customer acquisition. It is not yet clear how customers, as the subjects of information processing, will respond to these two dimensions of communication creativity. Third, it is unclear how the B2B marketing communication process is influenced by institutional constraints under cross-border context. To fill these research gaps, based on communication creativity research, signaling theory, information processing theory, and institutional theory, this research proposes the key research question: in B2B marketing communication under cross-border context, how will two dimensions of communication creativity of supplier influence its customer acquisition? To answer the research question, first, this research investigates the role of communication relevance and communication novelty on supplier’s customer acquisition, based on signaling theory. Second, to understand how customers respond to different types of creative communication message, this research investigates the mediating roles of two types of customer cognitive response (customer learning and risk evaluation) between communication creativity and customer acquisition based on information processing theory. Third, this research investigates the moderating roles of a formal institutional constraint (government effectiveness distance) and an informal institutional constraint (trade reference) on the impact of customer cognitive response on customer acquisition, based on institutional theory. Based on the analysis of survey data collected from 195 B2B customers from electronics manufacturing industry and secondary index from the World Bank, 16 of the 19 hypotheses of this research were supported. By answering three research questions proposed above, this research aims to make three theoretical contributions. First, based on communication creativity research, this research classifies two dimensions of communication creativity (communication relevance and communication novelty), and uses signaling theory to reveal and explain their distinct roles on supplier’s customer acquisition. By doing so, this research reconciles the mixed findings in prior research about the role of communication creativity. Previous research drew mixed conclusions regarding how communication creativity leads to supplier’s customer acquisition. Although previous communication creativity research has classified communication creativity into communication relevance and communication novelty, empirical evidence failed to reveal their distinct roles and still regarded communication creativity as a unified construct for investigation. Given the variations in how communication relevance and communication novelty are defined and demonstrated, a potential approach to address the previous mixed findings thus far is to categorize and explore these two of communication creativity separately. By using signaling theory to reveal the distinct effects of communication relevance and communication novelty, this research finds that suppliers’ communication relevance is positively related to customer acquisition, but communication novelty does not significantly influence customer acquisition. Communication relevance and communication novelty have a positive interacting effect on customer acquisition. The distinct effects delineate the necessity to classify and examine two dimensions of communication creativity. That helps reconcile the mixed relationship between communication creativity and customer acquisition, and provide managerial implications for suppliers in the customer acquisition stage. Moreover, the application of signaling theory enhances the theoretical foundation of communication creativity research, and broadens the theoretical application of signaling theory. Second, by introducing information processing theory and investigating the distinct mediating roles of two types of customer cognitive response (customer learning and risk evaluation) in the relationship between communication creativity and customer acquisition, this research clarifies the underlying mechanism by which communication creativity influences customer acquisition, and also addresses the limitation of signaling theory in providing insufficient explanation in customer information processing. Signaling theory explains how communication creativity affects customer acquisition from suppliers’ perspective as signal senders, but fails to reveal customers cognitive response from customers’ perspective. Information processing theory states that customer cognitive response of the information processing influences how customers perceive suppliers’ communication message and make purchase decision. Based on information processing theory and characteristics of B2B transactions, this research introduces and examines two types of customer cognitive response (customer learning and risk evaluation) as underlying mechanisms in the link between communication creativity and customer acquisition. The findings indicate that communication relevance and communication novelty can increase customer learning, but communication novelty also increases customer’s risk evaluation. Customer learning has a stronger mediating role than that of risk evaluation. The findings enrich the understanding on the underlying mechanism between communication creativity and customer acquisition. By integrating information processing theory with signaling theory, this research is able to comprehensively explain suppliers’ communication message signals sending and customers’ information processing simultaneously, and make up for the lack of signaling theory in explaining the role of communication creativity in customer acquisition. Third, by investigating how formal (government effectiveness distance) and informal (trade reference) institutional constraints moderate the B2B marketing communication process under cross-border context, this research reveals the boundary conditions under which customer cognitive response influences customer acquisition. Moreover, the findings echo scholars’ call on investigating formal and informal institutional constraints simultaneously under cross-border context. In the cross-border B2B marketing communication where suppliers and customers are from different institutional backgrounds, the influence of formal institutional constraint and informal institutional constraints are important. However, current cross-border business literature has widely investigated the role of formal institutional constraints guaranteed by governments, but seldomly paid attention to the role of informal institutional constraints provided by business networks. Based on institutional theory, this research introduces a formal institutional constraint (government effectiveness distance) and an informal institutional constraint (trade reference) into the framework. The findings show that a high government effectiveness distance alleviates the positive effect of customer learning on customer acquisition. A high level of trade reference strengthens the positive effect of customer learning, and mitigates the negative role of risk evaluation on customer acquisition. Therefore, this research adds empirical evidence on boundary conditions on how customer cognitive response influences customer acquisition. Moreover, the findings enrich institutional theory by clarifying the moderating effects of both formal and informal institutional constraints under this research context. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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