Research

Pride and purchases: Do these designer pants make my head look fat?

Apr 1, 2014

Beedie study finds dark side to rewarding ourselves with luxury goods. The following article was published by Canada.com on March 31, 2014.

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How the Miami Heat parlayed career trajectories into NBA Finals team: Beedie research

Jun 18, 2012

As the Miami Heat professional basketball team duels with the Oklahoma City Heat Thunder in the NBA Finals for the league's biggest prize, new academic research from SFU's Beedie School of Business is putting the spotlight on the business thinking that brought the Miami team together. Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Lebron James’ decision to play with a higher-profile Heat team and all-star teammates shows sound marketing and career-management acumen, according to the newly-published article focused on the evolution and importance of star status for today’s professional athletes. In order to maximize their earnings and endorsements, today’s celebrity athletes — from James to David Beckham to Peyton Manning — need to be mindful of the evolution of their star status. That in turn has major implications for the teams they choose to play for, and the teams they turn down or leave behind. So what makes a star shine even brighter in the world of pro sports? It’s a combination of not only personal performances and team records, but also includes the markets that athletes play in and the star calibre of the athletes they compete with. The study, “Investigating the evolution of star status in professional team sports,” describes the rise and fall of celebrated athletes using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1987 to 2008.

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Academic award toasts SFU branding research

Apr 28, 2012

New marketing research from SFU professor Leyland Pitt, focused on the relationship between luxury wine branding and social media, has been awarded the Outstanding Paper prize for 2012 by the Emerald Literati Network. The article, entitled “Luxury wine brand visibility in social media:  An exploratory study” and published in International Journal of Wine Business Research, garnered the top billing as part of the Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2012.

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Pro athletes bolster star status through team selection, teammates and career evolution: Study

Jan 17, 2012

So what makes a star shine even brighter in the world of pro sports? It's a combination of not only personal performances and team records, but also includes the markets that athletes play in and the star calibre of the athletes they compete with. The study, “Investigating the evolution of star status in professional team sports,” describes the rise and fall of celebrated athletes using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1987 to 2008. Published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, it was authored by professors Yupin Yang of the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and Mengze Shi from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

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Political cartoons reflect public sentiment around high-profile scandals

Jul 18, 2011

Context, it turns out, is everything when it comes to politicians’ sex scandals and the impact of editorial cartoons that reflect the public’s reaction to them. A recent study from Simon Fraser University shows that political cartoons – pervasive in newspapers and increasingly social media channels such as blogs and YouTube – serve as a reflection of public sentiment in the wake of such scandals. They can be a valuable source of information to those who direct and manage individual political brands and guide their campaigns and careers. As a gauge of public reaction, they are for better or worse influenced by the unique circumstances of each scandal.

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