marketing as warfare: reassessing a dominant metaphor

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Page 1: Marketing as warfare: Reassessing a dominant metaphor

Marketing As Warfare: Reassessing A Dominant Metaphor

Aric Rindfleisch

I n this era of relationship marketing, strategic partnerships, and co-marketing alliances, a growing number of marketers have recog-

nized the strategic importance of establishing long-term cooperative relationships with direct competitors. Such relationships, along with infor- mation sharing, are now commonplace in the computer and semiconductor industries. Corpora- tions such as IBM, Apple, and Motorola have collaborated to spread the risk of new technology development and establish broad-based industry standards. In these industries and many others, the rising costs of capital involved in new prod- uct development make cooperative information sharing and joint research and developnlent ac- tivity a necessity.

based on a set of fundamental assumptions about the nature of competitive interaction that are largely incongruent with present-day environmental realities. Consequently, it is time for marketers to question the validity and appropriate- ness of this metaphor For understanding competitive interaction,

THE CONCEPT OF ME’I’APHOR

Recently a number of marketing scholars have suggested that these forms of cooperative relations between industry rivals represent a rather puzzling paradox and are antithetical to our typical view of competitive activity, As Kapron (1992) notes, marketing strategists have traditionally viewed cooperation as the inverse of conflict. Other researchers remain somewhat skeptical about the social welfare implications of intta-industry cooperation and warn of the poten- tial dangers for anticompetitive effects. In sum, the recent development and proliferation of co- operative relations among industry competitors seems to have produced a rather uneasy tension among many marketing scholars.

0 nly recently have social scientists in general and marketing strategists in particular recognized the conceptual

importance of metaphors. The importance- indeed, the pervasiveness-of metaphors in mar- keting thought and practice can be traced back to Arndt (1985), who outlined their role in science and detailed the characteristics of alternative metaphors in marketing. Arndt noted that meta- phors are best thought of as representations of different schools of thought or alternative ap- proaches within a given world view.

This tension arises primarily because coop- eration among competitors directly conflicts with marketing’s implicit metaphorical presupposition: Competitive activity is most appropriately viewed as a state of warfare in which competitors battle for customer spoils. But although this marketing- as-warfare metaphor may be widely held, it is

NOW a growing number of marketing schol- ars have focused attention on metaphor as an instrument capable of shaping marketing thought and practice. They recognize the subtle yet po- tent influence metaphors play in many areas of everyday life, including both business practice and academic research. Several prominent lin- guists and philosophers suggest that metaphors are the foundation of human knowledge and provide the lens through which we view the world.

Marketing As Warfare: Reassessing A Dominant Metaphor 3

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A Definition Of Metaphor

As defined by Sackmann (19911, a metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a term or phrase with a literal meaning is applied in a different context in order to suggest a resemblance.” It involves the transfer of meaning from a common and familiar source domain to a relatively uncommon and unfamiliar target domain. This transfer of mean- ing gives metaphors their poetic and rhetorical flavor and makes them effective tools for commu- nicating ideas.

Metaphors abound in daily conversations (“My Spanish could use some brushing up”), business communications (“That product is our cash cow”), and even within scientific discourse (“the consumer as an information processor”). Because of their pervasiveness, many theorists claim that all knowledge is ultimately metaphori- cal in nature. At the very least, the sheer volume of metaphors attests to their vital role in the for- mation and direction of thought.

Characteristics Of Metaphors

Philosophers of language claim that metaphors play a subtle and pervasive role in structuring our thoughts and, ultimately, our actions. The most

widely cited authority of this new “cognitive view” of meta- phor is the noted linguist George Lakoff, whose supposi- tions suffuse most metaphor- based discussions by business researchers. Although the fol- lowing discussion is largely derived from Lakoff’s seminal work, it also incorporates the ideas and concepts of other philosophers as well as a num- ber of metaphor researchers in

both marketing and management. The most notable aspect of this entire body

of literature is the high degree of consensus and conceptual consistency shared by all these phi- losophers and researchers. A synthesis of their work reveals that the proponents of this cognitive view believe that metaphors are fundamental, instrumental, systematic, partial, experiential, and able to shape both thought and action. In addi- tion to serving as an essential conceptual founda- tion, all of these characteristics (except the funda- mental aspect of metaphor) will be used in ana- lyzing and explaining the marketing-as-warfare metaphor.

Metaphors are fundamental. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980). metaphors provide the foundation not only for our language but for our entire conceptual system. Because the latter plays a major role in determining our thoughts

and deeds, metaphors exert an essential and fundamental influence on those thoughts and actions. “If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical,” main- tain Lakoff and Johnson, “then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.”

Because most of our daily actions require little or no self-reflection, we rarely examine the components of our conceptual system. So these metaphorical foundations are unlikely to be ques- tioned or even observed. Self-reflection and iden- tification of implicit metaphors are crucial exer- cises for social scientists because these metaphors provide the foundations for the assumptions and ideals that underlie scientific investigation. Hirsch- man (1993) notes that the dominance of the con- sumer-as-computer metaphor has dramatically influenced the way consumer researchers think about consumers. She points out, “We no longer liken humans to computers; we now think of them as computers and are disappointed when they do not perform as efficiently and rationally as these machines can be programmed to do.”

Metaphors are instrumental. The funda- mental nature of metaphors has undoubtedly arisen in part from the functional and useful pur- pose they serve in our daily lives. Metaphors portray difficult and complex concepts more concisely than a literal explanation, so they lead to enhanced understanding. They render abstract ideas and concepts more concrete and more easily remembered. They highlight new, surpris- ing, and interesting likenesses between two or more concepts or objects by transferring meaning from a relatively familiar domain to a more ob- scure one. They can take old, tired, and familiar concepts and cast them in a new light, leading to new and creative forms of inquiry and expres- sion. This communicative power of metaphors has been acknowledged recently by a number of marketing practitioners, who are increasingly making use of them to create more effective mar- keting communications. Within academic circles, metaphors serve other useful functions as well, such as bringing legitimacy to a new area of re- search, lending a multidisciplinary focus, and expediting new concept formation.

Metaphors are systematic. Rather than representing individual, isolated concepts, meta- phors allow understanding to take place by trans- ferring entire domains of experience from a source to a target. For example, in the metaphor “Time is money,” the domain of money includes such concepts and activities as budgeting, wast- ing, giving, and spending, which can also be attributed to our views of time. Metaphors are frequently described as providing holistic or ge- stab types of understanding. The holistic and systematic nature of metaphor is seen in Arndt’s

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definition of it as representative of “different schools of thought or alternative approaches for using a given world view.” This systematic view of metaphor bears a close resemblance to the hermeneutic philosophers’ proposition that lan- guage conveys “traditions of meaning” (Thomp- son, Pollio, and Locander 1994).

Metaphors are partiaL Although metaphors are systematic, they are also partial because they highlight selected aspects of experience, down- play other aspects, and ignore some aspects alto- gether. For example, “Time is money” highlights the resource-based similarities between time and money, but downplays and ignores many sub- stantial differences between these two concepts, such as the fact that unlike money, time cannot be saved and used at a later date. This selective nature of metaphor has led Davidson (1990) to suggest that “most metaphorical sentences are patently false.” Likewise, Lakoff and Johnson note that this partiality is a defining characteristic of the concept of metaphor. “If it were total,” they state, “one concept would actually be the other, not merely understood in terms of it.” Because of this partial nature, some researchers suggest that multiple metaphors are often needed to portray a complex concept adequately.

Metaphors are grounded in experience. Ultimately, all metaphors are grounded via our interaction with our physical and cultural sur- roundings. As Lakoff and Johnson attest, “The kind of conceptual system we have is a product of the kind of beings we are and the way we interact with our physical and cultural environ- ments.” So whereas the time-as-money metaphor is largely coherent with our highly materialistic culture, it loses a good deal of its conceptual power in less materialistic ones. Although most metaphors are concepts expressed as other con- cepts, say Lakoff and Johnson, they are “grounded in systematic correlations with our experience.” For instance, “Time is money” is grounded in our particular cultural experiences that highlight the resource-like aspects of both time and money as objects that can be precisely quantified, are as- signed a specific value, and are progressively used up in accomplishing a particular objective.

Metaphors shape thought and action. Because of their grounding in our conceptual experience, systematic nature, and communica- tive power, metaphors actively shape both our thoughts and our actions. As Lakoff and Johnson again suggest, “New metaphors have the power to create a new reality.” However, because meta- phors are partial, they define reality selectively by highlighting particular features of a concept while hiding others. Firm believers of the time-as-money metaphor might enact it by carefully budgeting their time out of a fear of wasting it, while ignor- ing the fact that at the end of the day they have

no more of this valuable resource than their less thrifty counterparts. Hence, this particular meta- phor affects the way they think about and man- age their time.

The pervasive influence of metaphors also carries over to scientific activities such as prob- lem definition, concept formation, and research methods. As Arndt notes, metaphors influence both the framework of scientific analysis and the specific puzzle-solving methods used. In fact, metaphors have been identified as the providers of the very foundation of scientific inquiry. As stated by Morgan (1980), “[Slchools of thought in social science. are based upon the acceptance and use of different kinds of metaphor as a foun- dation of inquiry.”

Though some theorists bemoan the use of metaphors in scientific research, most philoso- phers and scientists acknowledge the useful role metaphors play in scientific inquiry. First of all, because of their fundamental nature, metaphors are unavoidable. Even if such thinking could be controlled, such a move would very likely lead to impoverished theories and concepts. The solar system model of the atom helps researchers grasp their very objects of study by making this difficult concept more tractable.

MARKETING AS WARFARE

A dvocates of the marketing-as-warfare metaphor posit that markets should be thought of as battlegrounds on which

competitors engage in fierce and relentless war- fare for consumer spoils. Though business practi- tioners have long employed such terms as “price wars, ” “market invasion,” and “arms races” in discussing competitive activities, marketing-as- warfare did not gain popularity among marketing scholars until the early 1980s. Oxenfeldt and Moore (1978) laid the foundation by suggesting that markets should be viewed as “struggles among individual firms for valuable marketing prizes, of which consum- ers are the ultimate prize.” Kotler and Singh’s semi- nal 1981 article “Market- ing Warfare In The 1980s” formally introduced the metaDhor and clearlv

1 ,

outlined a number of prescriptive strategies for both offensive and defensive marketing warfare. In their introductory comments, the authors sug- gested that “[tlhe increased need of businesses to develop competitor-centered strategies to win market share will lead managers to turn increas- ingly to the subject of military science.”

Marketing As Warfare: Reassessing A Dominant Metaphor

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Over the past 15 years, the marketing-as- warfare metaphor has dominated the way re- searchers in marketing and business strategy think about and discuss industry competition. Porter’s (1980) well-known framework of the forces driving industry competition, with its asso- ciated references to “threats,” “battlegrounds,” and “rivalry,” is implicitly based on this metaphor. The rich conceptual imagery imbues many of the

field’s widely ac- cepted dogmas, such as the belief in an external envi- ronment filled with threats and oppor- tunities, and the portrayal of a new product manager as a champion who must rail against corporate bureau- cracy. This meta-

phor gained even further support ihrough the publication of Ries and Trout’s best-selling 1986 book, Marketing Warfare, as well as a 1994 ar- ticle in Business Horizons by Parks, Pharr, and Lockeman entitled “A Marketer’s Guide to Clausewitz: Lessons for Winning Market Share.”

As outlined above. the marketing-as-warfare metaphor draws much of its conceptual imagery from the domain of military science. Specifically, it appears to rely largely on the writings of the nineteenth-century Prussian general, Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831). It also bears a strong conceptual linkage to traditional neoclassical economic theory, which views competitive rivalry as the guiding hand that leads to market effi- ciency and consumer satisfaction.

Analysis

According to the marketing-as-warfare metaphor, the domain of marketing is largely congruent to the domain of warfare. As evidence for this asser- tion, advocates have argued persuasively that both domains share a set of common features: (1) two or more opposing forces, (2) competition for a limited and valuable resource, (3) a zero- sum orientation in which gains come at the ex- pense of competitor losses, and (4) defined rules of engagement in which one competitor attacks while the other defends.

Clearly these four features are essential ele- ments of military warfare, in which the opposing forces are national or cultural groups usually engaged in a struggle for geographic territory (an inherently zero-sum proposition) by alternately attacking to gain it and defending to keep it. A related set of elements can also be found in com- petitive marketing, in which the opposing forces

are firms or strategic business units that typically engage in a struggle for consumers (expressed in the zero-sum terms of relative market share) and alternate between attacking (cutting prices, run- ning comparative advertisements) to gain market share and defending (strategic withdrawal, mar- ket diversification) to keep it.

The relationship between marketing and warfare appears to be well grounded in our re- cent historical experiences with both. Perhaps one reason for their high degree of apparent conceptual overlap is the fact that over the past 50 years warfare and marketing have often been carried out by the same individuals. Many promi- nent military officers, such as Robert MacNamara. Arjay Miller. and the other “Whiz Kids” who helped develop the technical and logistical inno- vations that led to victory in World War II, moved into positions of postwar power at Ford, Stanford Business School, and other prominent business- related organizations. There was also a two-way link, as leading businessmen were readily tapped for high-level positions in the Department of Defense and other military-related assignments. In addition to this cross-pollination of human resources between military and business do- mains, most large businesses were structurally organized in a manner analogous to military units. As described by Reich (1992):

America‘s corporate bureaucracies were organized like military bureaucracies, for the efficient implementation of precon- ceived plans. It is perhaps no accident that the war veterans who manned the core American corporations in the 1950s accommodated so naturally to the mili- taly-like hierarchies inside them. They were described in much the same terms as military hierarchies-featuring chains of command, spans of control, job classi- fications, divisions and division heads, and standard operating procedures to guide every decision.

Although the link between military and busi- ness organizations has clearly weakened over recent decades, the accumulation of shared struc- tures and processes between the two domains seems to have produced a powerful grounding in our social and historical experience, making it seem perfectly natural to associate marketing with war. But despite the important similarities, the metaphor also marginalizes a host of essential distinctions between these two very different domains. As Keegan (1994) reminds us, it is diffi- cult to equate the uncertainty and violence of war with any other human activity.

Carl von Clausewitz’s work On War is widely regarded by both business and military scholars

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as the most influential treatise on strategy ever written. In a rough simplification, the general’s distinctive view of warfare can be boiled down to two essential components: (1) a continuation of politics by other means and (2) the complete annihilation of the enemy as the primary objec- tive. Both of these propositions appear to be grounded in our society’s recent warfare experi- ence, but they do not accurately describe the way in which war has actually been conducted among many non-Western cultures throughout history. Furthermore, they provide an incomplete and one-sided portrayal of marketing competition. Thus, marketing-as-warfare is deficient in both its source and target domains, resulting not only in a biased perspective of marketing competition but also in a biased perspective of warfare itself.

In Clausewitz’s formulation, warfare is simply another form of state-supported action designed to serve a political end. But though largely con- gruent with our twentieth-century American ex- perience of conflicts ranging from the World Wars to Vietnam to the Gulf War, such a view does not accurately describe the objective of warfare in societies in which politics are subservient to cul- ture. The ritualized battles of the Zulu warriors in late nineteenth-century southern Africa, the in- dentured servitude of the slave-soldier Mamelukes employed by Muslim rulers for more than 700 years, and the primacy of ritualized and stylistic combat among the Samurai in feudal Japan serve as examples of this. In warfare, notes Keegan, more often than not instrumental objectives such as politics take a back seat to a host of more palpable terminal concerns. He states:

War in our time has been not merely a means of resolving inter-state disputes but also a vehicle through which the embittered, the dispossessed, the naked of the earth, the hungry masses yearning to breathe free, express their anger, jeal- ousies, and pent-up urge to violence.

Clausewitz’s limited perspective of the basis and objective of warfare becomes even more apparent when contrasted to the writings of the Eastern world’s oldest and most influential mili- tary strategist, Chinese general Sun Tzu from the fifth century B.C. Unlike Clausewitz, Sun Tzu acknowledges both the influence of culture on military warfare and the benefits of a contingency view of conflict. The importance of combative restraint has also been noted by a number of scholars of modern strategy, such as Axelrod (1984) and Schnelling (1963). As Schnelling ob- serves, combatants usually set guidelines on ac- ceptable actions or “rules of the game” even in warfare. For example, the horrible afflictions wrought by mustard gas in World War I led to the

universal banning of poison gas in World War II. In fact, as Axelrod documents, under suitable conditions combatants may even develop tacit forms of cooperative behavior. This is evidenced by the “live-and-let-live” norm that was an en- demic characteristic of trench warfare during World War I.

In addition to its deficiencies as a model of military warfare, Clausewitz’s view of strategy provides an inadequate portrayal of marketing competition. First, its assumed primacy of rational political (or business) objectives downplays the impact of organizational culture on marketing strategy formulation and implementation. Al- though marketers are just beginning to explore the role of culture, preliminary evidence suggests that it has a key influence on strategic decision making. For example, the type of highly struc- tured and calculating strategic planning implied by marketing-as-warfare may be more fitting for companies with bureaucratic cultures and less appropriate for firms with more clan-like cultures.

In addition to cultural differences at the orga- nizational level, various industries appear to ex- hibit distinct cultural patterns as well. As noted by Day (1992), “In some markets the direct rivals coexist comfortably [and] appear content with their respective market shares.” Thus, it appears that different indus- tries share different cultural or norma- tive orientations toward competitive interaction. How- ever, the marketing- as-warfare meta- phor implies that marketing activity is universally an us-versus-them, win-lose encoun- ter. “Ordinarily,” say Oxenfeldt and Moore, “the total sum of available prizes increases slowly, if at all. In other words, market competition is often a zero-sum c

P ntest. There need not be a single

winner or oser, but what one firm gains comes mainly from its rivals.”

Although this zero-sum orientation and pat- tern of negative exchange may accurately depict certain markets, marketers, and marketing prac- tices, it fails to account for the substantial degree of implicit coordination and cooperation among firms that characterizes most industries. As Alder- son (1965) has noted, industry players often de- velop a recognized group identity within which “there is rivalry but not hostility.” Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) cite the case of a manufacturer whose plant was destroyed by fire and whose rival firms, rather than preying on their helpless competitor, volunteered the use of their factories

Marketing As Warfare: Reassessing A Dominant Metaphor

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during off-shift hours. According to Pfeffer and Salancik, this form of normative social restraint serves the long-run interest of an industry ‘Iby establishing general norms which limit predatory competitive behavior.”

Even industries that have been traditionally considered dominated by “cutthroat” competitive practices engage in some form of cooperative behavior to further their collective self-interest. In the petroleum industry, for example, it is com- mon practice for competitors to engage in joint bidding, cooperate in research and development, and process each others’ products. Likewise, price-war plagued competitors in the deregulated airline industry regularly sell each other’s tickets and collectively disseminate schedule and fare information via a central clearinghouse.

Impact on Marketing Thought And Practice

The marketing-as-warfare metaphor appears to have successfully answered Oxenfeldt and Moore’s call by bringing a competitor-based ori- entation to the attention of marketing scholars. By portraying markets as strategic battlegrounds and marketers as actors with a competitive moti- vation whose key task is to vanquish competitors, the metaphor highlights the importance of ob- taining a strategic competitive advantage to build and sustain a customer franchise. It permeates the marketing strategy literature and has served as the impetus for enhancing knowledge of such topics as offensive and defensive marketing strategies, competitive reactions, and first mover advantage.

Unfortunately, by definition, this metaphor largely ignores the broad range of cooperative and conciliatory behaviors among marketing competitors. Thus, the existing strategy literature appears to present a one-sided, overly conflictual view of competitive interaction. For example, in discussing the implications of predatory pricing, Gundlach (1990) warns, “Marketing academics should also be attentive to the implications of espousing progressively adversarial theory, which may promote predation.” These issues are just beginning to be addressed by a number of recent research efforts, including Heil’s signaling theory and Thomas and Soldow’s (1988) rules-based approach to competitive interaction. The relation- ship marketing literature has begun to embrace vertical relationships between direct competitors within their conceptual domain.

Marketing-as-warfare has also been subject to a considerable amount of criticism by several marketing ethics writers, who claim that it may promote socially irresponsible and unethical be- havior. In particular, these researchers suggest that by presenting a zero-sum, combative per- spectil-e of marketplace competition, the meta- phor allows marketers to justify (both to thetn-

selves and others) irresponsible and unethical activities by viewing these actions as unavoidable and acceptable tactics necessary to survive on the strategic battleground.

As shown by their introductory remarks, it is clear that Kotler and Singh believe the use of a warfare metaphor has a significant influence on the conduct of business practice:

The real question is whether the use of “warfare” language in business is just descriptive or whether it really aids in thinking and planning competitive strat- egy. We believe it does. We will show how principles drawn from military strat- egy apply in three critical business deci- sion areas-namely, determining objec- tives, developing attack strategies, and developing defense strategies.

As noted earlier, it appears that marketing practitioners had enacted the marketing-as-war- fare metaphor long before marketing theorists labeled it. Considering the extensive military experience of many postwar corporate executives and the positive feelings toward the military in the wake of World War II, practitioner embrace- ment of this metaphor is not surprising. Unfortu- nately for many firms, marketing-as-warfare may have produced a host of unintended conse- quences for both themselves and their customers.

A growing number of business strategists, economists, and legal scholars have begun to challenge the long-standing neoclassical eco- nomic assumption that unrestrained competition leads to social and individual wealth maximiaa- tion. These writers suggest that unrestrained com- petition lowers consumer, industry, and social welfare by reducing innovation, raising costs, lowering production, and alienating consumers. Based on their study of stock price movements following the 1987 Pennzoil vs. Texaco lawsuit, Hertzel and Smith (1993) concluded that “the dispute reduced the combined wealth of the shareholders of the two firms by over $2 billion.”

ALTERNATIVE METAPHORS FOR MARKETING STRATEGY

C onsidering the conceptual limitations of the marketing-as-warfare metaphor, strat- egists are faced with the need for alterna-

tive metaphorical perspectives in which to frame their strategic marketing world views. As recently noted by Hunt and Menon (19951, three alterna- tive metaphors for marketing strategy are:

1. The game metaphor from the domain of competitive sports. which emphasizes the team- work and goal-directed behavior characterizing strategic organizational activity.

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2. The organism metaphor from the field of biology, which employs such concepts as life- cycle, growth, and adaptation to understand the evolution of products and markets.

3. The marriage metaphor from sociology and home economics, which focuses on the role of commitment and trust in forming and main- taining strategic alliances.

Each of these three metaphors provides op- portunities for marketing strategists to expand their world views by drawing from alternative domains of thought and experience. To fully embrace the complexity of strategic marketing, however, researchers and practitioners may have to consider several alternative metaphors simulta- neously. As Alvesson (1993) suggests, metaphori- cal understanding “becomes not only a process of finding or developing a metaphor, but rather a complicated struggle to provide partial under- standings of the various combinations and inter- actions of different metaphors.”

M arketing theorists have paid too little attention to the metaphorical assump- tions that underlie their standard

world views. In addition to providing the founda- tion for a given world view by transferring mean- ing from other domains, marketing metaphors shape the way marketers think and act. By equat- ing marketing with warfare, marketers often lose sight of the benefits to be gained from various forms of intercompetitor cooperation. Because all metaphors are partial and incomplete, it is im- perative that marketers seek to understand the inherent biases and particular assumptions of those that shape both scientific inquiry and managerial practice.

By examining the origins, characteristics, and implications of marketing as warfare, marketers can gain a better understanding of one of their field’s most dominant metaphors. As the number of strategic alliances, joint research and develop- ment projects, and other forms of collaboration between industry rivals proliferates, both market- ing academics and practitioners will be forced to question the applicability of viewing marketing as war. Cl

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Marketing As Warfare: Reassessing A Dominant Metaphor

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Aric Rindfleisch is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. The author thanks Jim Burroughs, Alan Malter, Christine Moorman, Michael Rothschild, and Craig Thompson for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

10 Business Horizons / September-October 1996