Little is known about how channel members react to violations of explicit contracts. The authors develop and test an integrative conceptual framework that focuses on the severity of the enforcement response in channel relationships. The empirical results provide evidence of discerning enforcement practices by channel members, reflecting channel system, network, and dyadic concerns.

to the participants of the First Erin Anderson Invitational B2B Conference at the Wharton School of Business for their feedback, and for the helpful comments of Jan Heide on previous versions of the article. Jan-Benedict Steenkamp served as associate editor for this article.

The research examines viewers' actual responses to four televised fund-raising drives by a public television station over a 2-year period. The 584 pledge breaks we studied contain 4,868 individual appeals that were decomposed into two underlying dimensions based on the empathy-helping hypothesis: the appeal beneficiary (self versus other) and emotional valence (positive versus negative). We find that the most effective fund-raising appeals communicate the benefits to others rather than to the self and evoke negative rather than positive emotions. Appeals that emphasize benefits to the self significantly reduce the number of calls to the station, particularly when they have a positive emotional valence. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

How Does Enforcement Deter GrayMarket Incidence?Gray market activity has become increasingly prevalent. The prevailing wisdom in marketing is to use more severe enforcement to deter gray marketing. However, the certainty and speed of enforcement may also have a bearing on the incidence of violations. This article examines whether and how enforcement deters gray marketing. The results from a field survey of manufacturers and an experimental design suggest that, by itself, enforcement severity has no impact. Deterrence results only when the multiple facets of enforcement are used in combination.

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