Purpose

Advertising intensity is treated either as a resource that allows firms to create competitive advantages (intangible asset view) or as an investment to build advertising resource (investment expense view). This current research supports the investment expense view. The authors do so by examining the moderating role of firm age (a proxy for knowledge) in the relationship between advertising intensity and performance as well as the influence of cultural communication styles on this moderation.

Design/methodology/approach

Secondary data were collected from multiple sources. With a sample of 262 companies from 10 countries (149 firms from high-context cultures and 113 firms from low-context cultures), ordinary least squares was used to estimate the regression coefficients to test the hypotheses. An instrumental variable approach with two-stage least squares estimates was used to address an endogeneity bias. Average industry advertising intensity excluding the focal firm was used as an instrumental variable.

Findings

The findings demonstrate that firm age significantly moderates the advertising intensity/performance relationship, but this moderation is only significant in high-context cultures. These findings imply that firms within high-context cultures must continually invest in advertising expenditures, while firms in low-context cultures may not need to do so to increase performance.

Practical implications

The results of this study provide insight into the debate of whether advertising expenditures boost performance, as well as provide international marketing managers with a clearer picture on how to invest in advertising within their respective markets.

Originality/value

A majority of the studies that examine the advertising intensity/performance link rely solely on the resource-based view. The authors utilize a multi-theoretical perspective to provide a fine-grained understanding of this relationship. Moreover, the authors apply the investment expense view to examine advertising intensity as an investment to build advertising resources, rather than a resource. This investment must be incorporated with the knowledge to properly employ the investment to develop advertising resources. Further, the authors find that firms expanding into high-context cultures must devote more effort into developing advertising capabilities to properly employ advertising resources than firms in low-context cultures.

中文翻译：

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广告强度和企业绩效：企业年龄和文化传播方式的影响

目的

广告强度要么被视为允许企业创造竞争优势的资源（无形资产观点），要么被视为建立广告资源的投资（投资费用观点）。目前的研究支持投资费用观点。作者通过研究公司年龄（知识的代表）在广告强度和绩效之间的关系中的调节作用以及文化传播方式对这种调节的影响来做到这一点。

设计/方法/途径

二级数据是从多个来源收集的。以来自 10 个国家的 262 家公司为样本（149 家公司来自高语境文化，113 家公司来自低语境文化），使用普通最小二乘法估计回归系数以检验假设。使用具有两阶段最小二乘估计的工具变量方法来解决内生性偏差。不包括焦点公司在内的平均行业广告强度被用作工具变量。

发现

研究结果表明，公司年龄显着调节广告强度/绩效关系，但这种调节仅在高语境文化中显着。这些发现表明，高语境文化中的公司必须不断投资广告支出，而低语境文化中的公司可能不需要这样做来提高绩效。

实际影响

这项研究的结果让人们深入了解广告支出是否能提高绩效的争论，并让国际营销经理更清楚地了解如何在各自市场内投资广告。

原创性/价值

大多数检查广告强度/性能链接的研究仅依赖于基于资源的视图。作者利用多理论视角来提供对这种关系的细粒度理解。此外，作者应用投资费用观点将广告强度视为构建广告资源的投资，而不是一种资源。这种投资必须与知识相结合，以适当地利用投资来开发广告资源。此外，作者发现，与进入低语境文化的公司相比，进入高语境文化的公司必须投入更多精力来开发广告能力，以正确利用广告资源。