Firms exhibit or "manifest" three types of branding strategies: corporate branding, house of brands, or mixed branding. These strategies differ in their essential structure and in their potential costs and benefits to the firm. Prior research has failed to understand how these branding strategies are related to the intangible value of the firm. The authors investigate this relationship using five-year data for a sample of 113 U.S. firms. They find that corporate branding strategy is associated with higher values of Tobin's q, and mixed branding strategy is associated with lower values of Tobin's q, after controlling for the effects of several important and relevant factors. The relationships of the control variables are consistent with prior expectations. In addition, most of the firms would have been able to improve their Tobin's q had they adopted a branding strategy different from the one their brand portfolios revealed. The authors also discuss implications and future research directions.

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Weather affects many aspects of transportation, but three dimensions of weather impact on highway traffic are predominant and measureable. Inclement weather affects traffic demand, traffic safety, and traffic flow relationships. Understanding these relationships will help highway agencies select better management strategies and create more efficient operating policies. For example, it was found that severe winter storms bring a higher risk of being involved in a crash by as much as 25 times–-much higher than the increased risk brought by behaviors that state governments already have placed sanctions against, such as speeding or drunk driving. Given the heightened risk of drivers’ involvement in a crash, highway agencies might wish to manage better and restrict use of highways during times of extreme weather, to reduce safety costs and costs associated with rescuing stranded and injured motorists in the worst weather conditions. However, the first step in managing the transportation systems to minimize the weather impact is to quantify its impact on traffic. This paper reviews the literature and recent research work conducted by the Center for Transportation Research and Education on the impact of weather on traffic demand, traffic safety, and traffic flow relationships. Included are new estimates of capacity and speed reduction due to rain, snow, fog, cold, and wind by weather intensity levels (e.g., snowfall rate per hour).

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The authors examine how a firm's financial leverage affects marketing outcomes and consequent firm value. They find that leverage has a dual effect: it reduces customer satisfaction and moderates the relationship between satisfaction and firm value. The burden of making regular interest payments to debt holders pressures managers to generate adequate cash flows. The authors theorize that this may lead marketers to adopt short-term actions such as cutting advertising and research-and-development spending, which can hurt customer satisfaction by lowering perceived quality and perceived value. Furthermore, higher leverage reduces financial flexibility by constraining marketers from exploiting growth opportunities resulting from higher customer satisfaction. The authors empirically show that leverage leads to lower customer satisfaction, with advertising intensity mediating this effect. The negative impact of leverage on satisfaction is more pronounced for service firms and firms in competitive markets. Finally, leverage negatively moderates the customer satisfaction-firm value link. Increases in customer satisfaction are value enhancing at modest levels of leverage, but at very high levels of leverage, increases in satisfaction are value reducing.

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The authors study how a firm's financial leverage affects marketing outcomes and consequent firm value. They find that leverage has a dual effect -it reduces customer satisfaction and moderates the relationship between satisfaction and firm value. Due to the burden of making regular interest payments to debt holders, managers face pressure to generate adequate cash flows. The authors theorize that this may lead marketers to adopt short-term actions such as cutting advertising and R&D spending, which can hurt customer satisfaction by lowering perceived quality and perceived value. Further, higher leverage reduces financial flexibility by constraining marketers from exploiting growth opportunities resulting from higher customer satisfaction. The authors empirically show that leverage leads to lower customer satisfaction with advertising intensity mediating this effect. The negative impact of leverage on satisfaction is more pronounced for service firms and firms in competitive markets. Finally, leverage negatively moderates the customer satisfaction-firm value link. Increases in customer satisfaction are value enhancing at modest levels of leverage, but at very high levels of leverage, increases in satisfaction are value-reducing.