The Business School 1st academic forum in 2015 was held on March 4th from 15:00 to 17:00 in the Business School 2nd floor seminar room.
The guest speakers were Dr. Gady Jacoby and Dr. Subramanian Sivaramakrishnan from Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba. Dr. Gady Jacoby is Associate Dean (Research) / Bryce Douglas Professor in Finance. Dr. Jacoby is a Full Professor and the Bryce Douglas Professor in Finance. He currently chairs the Finance Area Graduate Programs Committee. And Dr. Subramanian Sivaramakrishnan is Associate Dean of Undergraduate and MBA Programs. Dr. Sivaramakrishnan's primary interest is in the area of consumer behaviour. Issues he is currently researching include examining the effects of performing multiple cognitive tasks on the use of information and consumers' use of stereotypes in evaluating salespeople.
The lecture synopses are Understanding Exchange Traded Funds and Effect of Country Image And Ethnocentric Bias on The Perception of Host And Ingredient Brands.
First, Dr. Gady Jacoby gave the lecture. He reviewed the market for Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), which are investment funds traded on stock exchanges. Given the record growth of the ETF market and the popularity of this investment innovation worldwide, it is important to enhance the understanding of this market segment. The lecture defined these instruments and outlined the factors that drive their great popularity. Transparency, diversification, flexibility, cost effectiveness, tax efficiency and liquidity drive ETFs. In addition, the market mechanism, and also creation and redemption of ETF shares were reviewed. Finally, the lecture depicted the ETF market liquidity that is very high.
Then Dr. Subbu gave the lecture. In his research, they digged the effect of the originated country of an ingredient brand on consumers’ evaluation of a host brand. Using airlines as host products and aircrafts as ingredients, two experiments were conducted in Brazil and Canada respectively, to assess the effect of the originated country of an ingredient brand on the host brand. Results show that a host brand from the home country with a favorable image (Canada) is unaffected by an ingredient brand from a country with an unfavorable image (Brazil), whereas a host brand from the home country with an unfavorable image is benefited by an ingredient brand from a country with a favorable image. This effect is moderated by the ethnocentric bias of consumers. Evaluation of the local brand was unaffected by the country of origin of the ingredient brand among those with a high ethnocentric bias toward local brands. Audience are very interested in this research and talked about this topic a lot.
In the end, our host Kim Ye brought the forum to the end.
