Das Paper "An Exploratory Investigation of Reverse Causality Relationships Among Brand Equity and Sport-Related Success", welches Prof. Hammerschmidt zusammen mit Stefan Hattula und Cornelia Ebertin (Universität Mannheim) und Johannes Hattula (Universität St. Gallen) verfasst hat, wurde für den Marketing Strategy and Organization Track der 2012 AMA Winter Marketing Educators' Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, akzeptiert. Die AMA Konferenz ist die weltweit renommierteste Marketingkonferenz.

Abstract: This paper explores the causal direction between brand equity and sport-related success. Contrasting the underlying stationary perspective of prior research, our first study tackles the reverse causality problem underlying a stationary analysis by testing a simultaneous equation model (2SLS). A second study takes a more appropriate dynamic perspective. Drawing on longitudinal data for professional sports clubs spanning more than 30 years, the results of vector autoregressive modeling (VARX) identify a direct impact of brand equity on sport-related success over time and not vice versa. The authors show that a direct effect of success on brand equity found in stationary models result from an indirect effect operating through fan commitment emerging in a dynamic investigation. These new insights have important resource allocation implications for managers of sports clubs and especially call for more accurate modeling within that field.