IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v28y2009i5p820-825.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

—The Economic and Statistical Significance of Stock Returns on Customer Satisfaction

Author

Listed:
  • Claes Fornell

    (Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109)

  • Sunil Mithas

    (Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742)

  • Forrest V. Morgeson, III

    (National Quality Research Center, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109)

Abstract

According to Jacobson and Mizik [Jacobson, R., N. Mizik. 2009. The financial markets and customer satisfaction: Reexamining possible financial market mispricing of customer satisfaction. (5) 810–819], excess stock portfolio returns for firms with strong customer satisfaction are small and statistically insignificant, and if there is any above-market performance at all, it is due to a small set of firms in the computer and Internet industries. But their data seem to suggest the opposite. The returns are actually both exceptionally large and significant. Using monthly data, their portfolio consisting of strong American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) firms outperformed the market by 0.0053, corresponding to 6.4% cumulative risk-adjusted above-market returns on an annual basis over a 10-year period—a performance that would beat at least 99% of all large-cap U.S. stock funds tracked by Morningstar. Using a different treatment of risk, their annualized risk-adjusted return is a whopping 8.4% better than market. After eliminating computer, Internet, and utility companies, they find that the monthly risk-adjusted abnormal returns drop to 0.0045, which corresponds to an annual above-market return of 5.4%. This too is better than 99% of all actively managed stock funds in the population. Yet Jacobson and Mizik conclude that these returns are not statistically significant and that there is no evidence that stock returns from firms with strong customer satisfaction outperform the market over the long run. The failure to reject the null hypothesis is probably due to a lack of statistical power in Jacobson and Mizik's analysis. We discuss why this is likely the case and then present new data updating the results from our original article [Fornell, C., S. Mithas, F. Morgeson III, M. S. Krishnan. 2006. Customer satisfaction and stock prices: High returns, low risk. (1) 3–14]. The above-market returns persist and are both economically and statistically significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Claes Fornell & Sunil Mithas & Forrest V. Morgeson, III, 2009. "—The Economic and Statistical Significance of Stock Returns on Customer Satisfaction," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 820-825, 09-10.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:28:y:2009:i:5:p:820-825
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.1090.0505
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1090.0505
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mksc.1090.0505?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    2. Robert Jacobson & Natalie Mizik, 2009. "The Financial Markets and Customer Satisfaction: Reexamining Possible Financial Market Mispricing of Customer Satisfaction," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 810-819, 09-10.
    3. Lewellen, Jonathan & Nagel, Stefan, 2006. "The conditional CAPM does not explain asset-pricing anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 289-314, November.
    4. Laurent Barras & Olivier Scaillet & Russ Wermers, 2010. "False Discoveries in Mutual Fund Performance: Measuring Luck in Estimated Alphas," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 179-216, February.
    5. Y. Peter Chung & Michael J. Schill, 2006. "Asset Pricing When Returns Are Nonnormal: Fama-French Factors versus Higher-Order Systematic Comoments," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(2), pages 923-940, March.
    6. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2004. "The Capital Asset Pricing Model: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 25-46, Summer.
    7. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/3185 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. S. P. Kothari & Jerold B. Warner, 2001. "Evaluating Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1985-2010, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiban Khuntia & Raveesh Mayya & Sunil Mithas & Ritu Agarwal, 2021. "Managing Cellphone Services for Customer Satisfaction: Evidence from the Base‐of‐the‐Pyramid Markets," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(2), pages 438-450, February.
    2. Eric T. Bradlow, 2009. "Does Everything Being Resolved Equal Nothing Gained? Bringing in the Wisdom of the Academic Crowd," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 809-809, 09-10.
    3. Robert Jacobson & Natalie Mizik, 2009. "—Customer Satisfaction-Based Mispricing: Issues and Misconceptions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 836-845, 09-10.
    4. Sunil Mithas & Jonathan Whitaker & Ali Tafti, 2017. "Information Technology, Revenues, and Profits: Exploring the Role of Foreign and Domestic Operations," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(2), pages 430-444, June.
    5. Ayat Zaki Ahmed & Manuel Rodríguez-Díaz, 2020. "Significant Labels in Sentiment Analysis of Online Customer Reviews of Airlines," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-18, October.
    6. Michael A. Wiles & Shailendra P. Jain & Saurabh Mishra & Charles Lindsey, 2010. "Stock Market Response to Regulatory Reports of Deceptive Advertising: The Moderating Effect of Omission Bias and Firm Reputation," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(5), pages 828-845, 09-10.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mateus, Irina B. & Mateus, Cesario & Todorovic, Natasa, 2019. "Review of new trends in the literature on factor models and mutual fund performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 344-354.
    2. Frazzini, Andrea & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2014. "Betting against beta," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 1-25.
    3. Kee‐Hong Bae & Junesuh Yi, 2008. "The Impact of the Short‐Short Rule Repeal on the Timing Ability of Mutual Funds," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(7‐8), pages 969-997, September.
    4. Turan G. Bali & Robert F. Engle & Yi Tang, 2017. "Dynamic Conditional Beta Is Alive and Well in the Cross Section of Daily Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3760-3779, November.
    5. Morana, Claudio, 2014. "Insights on the global macro-finance interface: Structural sources of risk factor fluctuations and the cross-section of expected stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 64-79.
    6. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.
    7. Fisher, Mark & Jensen, Mark J., 2022. "Bayesian nonparametric learning of how skill is distributed across the mutual fund industry," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 230(1), pages 131-153.
    8. Cochrane, John H., 2005. "Financial Markets and the Real Economy," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 1-101, July.
    9. Kee-Hong Bae & Junesuh Yi, 2008. "The Impact of the Short-Short Rule Repeal on the Timing Ability of Mutual Funds," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(7-8), pages 969-997.
    10. Huang, Haitao & Jiang, Lei & Leng, Xuan & Peng, Liang, 2023. "Bootstrap analysis of mutual fund performance," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(1), pages 239-255.
    11. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S., 2015. "Asset-pricing anomalies at the firm level," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(1), pages 113-128.
    12. Campbell R. Harvey & Yan Liu & Heqing Zhu, 2014. ". . . and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," NBER Working Papers 20592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Urs von Arx & Andreas Ziegler, 2008. "The Effect of CSR on Stock Performance: New Evidence for the USA and Europe," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 08/85, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    14. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    15. Christos Argyropoulos & Bertrand Candelon & Jean‐Baptiste Hasse & Ekaterini Panopoulou, 2024. "Towards a macroprudential regulatory framework for mutual funds?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 3063-3082, July.
    16. Chowdhury, Biplob & Jeyasreedharan, Nagaratnam & Dungey, Mardi, 2018. "Quantile relationships between standard, diffusion and jump betas across Japanese banks," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 29-47.
    17. Ferson, Wayne & Mo, Haitao, 2016. "Performance measurement with selectivity, market and volatility timing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 93-110.
    18. Gagliardini, Patrick & Ossola, Elisa & Scaillet, Olivier, 2019. "A diagnostic criterion for approximate factor structure," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(2), pages 503-521.
    19. Gang Hu & J. Ginger Meng & Mark E. Potter, 2008. "Opinion Divergence Among Professional Investment Managers," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5‐6), pages 679-703, June.
    20. Kingsley Fong & David R. Gallagher & Adrian D. Lee, 2008. "Benchmarking benchmarks: measuring characteristic selectivity using portfolio holdings data," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(5), pages 761-781, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:28:y:2009:i:5:p:820-825. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.