Publishing in an Environment of Predation: The Many Things You Really Wanted to Know,but Did Not Know How to Ask

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research note is to define and review the extent of “predatory¹1. Predatory an adjective of, relating to, or practicing plunder, pillage, or rapine; inclined or intended to injure or exploit others for personal gain or profit as in predatory pricing practices; living by predation, predaceous; adapted to predation. Source: (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/predatory#synonyms) To avoid connotative inaccuracies the authors intend to convey the construct predatory in its broader sense thereby striving toward denotative accuracy.” publishing process practices in academic journals in recent years. In addition, ascertaining what, if any, substantive damage can result from these practices. And to derive “warnings signs” for those embarking on the road to creating/distributing what they have learned. “Predatory publishing” is the charging of a fee or proving value in exchange for the publication of research material without providing the publication services an author would have reasonably expected such as peer review and editing to mention only a few. There is evidence that this “practice” has sadly grown in prevalence in recent years. Following a review of the literature and using case study methodology, it was found that damages in the case of one large publisher were estimated to be over $50 m, as per a court adjudication in the US. With open access publishing becoming more popular as a result of institutional, funder and national mandates, it is likely more authors could be tempted or even baited into making poor decisions and publishing their research articles in illegitimate journals, wasting funding resources and damaging their research reputations. These and other implications are considered, as well as enumeration of such behaviors with an eye toward fostering deterrence. Further research and actions that could mitigate the problems are outlined.     

Pretesting TV Commercials: Methods,Measures, and Changing Agency Roles

Abstract

Research directors with the largest 200 agencies and advertising executives with the largest 200 advertisers were surveyed to examine their views on the current state of TV commercial pretesting. One-hundred and one agency researchers and 89 ad executives returned completed questionnaires (adjusted response rates of 52% and 49.7%), which asked them 23 closed-ended questions about (1) the methods and measures used to pretest TV commercial executions; (2) the perceived role of the agency versus the client in the selection of pretest methods; and (3) perceived changes in the role of the agency research department in TV commercial pretest research. Of those responding, 18 percent of the agency researchers and 19 percent of the advertising executives indicated that their agencies do not pretest TV commercials for assigned brands. Based on the responses of the 83 agency researchers and 72 advertising executives whose agencies pretest commercial executions, the findings suggest that the role of the agency research department has changed over the past 10 years. Most notably, there has been a proliferation in the use of qualitative methods and measures in TV commercial pretest research.     

Do Web Users Care About Banner Ads Anymore? The Effects of Frequency and Clutter in Web Advertising

This study investigates the effects of frequency of exposure to banner ads and ad clutter in web pages upon online users’ psychological responses. In a 7 (frequency 1 through 7) × 2 (clutter vs. non-clutter) between-participants factorial experiment, participants (N = 250) were randomly assigned to one of fourteen news websites, each with 20 separate pages of news stories and animated banner ads downloaded from various websites. Results indicated that frequency of exposure is a powerful psychological cue affecting users’ memory, attitudes, and behavior. However, contrary to expectation, banner clutter does not lead to negative effects on recall, attitudes, and behavior. Negative impact of banner clutter was significant only on ad recognition.     

Agree to disagree

We, the Editors and Publishers of International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, have retracted the following article:

Sivakumar Balakrishnan &; Krishnamurthy Karuppanagounder (2019). Cost of two-wheeler road accidents in India. International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion 26(2). DOI: 10.1080/17457300.2019.1576208.

The above article has been retracted due to significant overlap in content with a Master’s Thesis entitled, “Estimation of Willingness to Pay Value for Crash Reduction,” by Geethu Ashok, 2015. The Thesis has subsequently been published as a book titled “Road Safety-Willingness to Pay for Crash Reduction” by Scholars’ Press in 2017 with ISBN: 978-3-330-65119-7. The authors have been informed of this decision and agree with the retraction.

We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions.

The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.     

Extending the theory of metaphor in marketing: The case of the art gallery

Abstract

This study analyses the metaphor of spirituality in the non-profit art gallery, a metaphor overlooked in previous marketing research. Using content analysis and interviews in a single depth case study, this article illustrates how spirituality has been a staple in the non-profit art gallery over time. It was found that even though the non-profit art gallery acknowledges its use of spirituality, it has a paradoxical attitude to it. Therefore this article (a) traces the historical influences that led to the extension of metaphor in the art gallery and its relationship to marketing theory, and (b) draws on Hunt and Menon (1995 Hunt, S.D. and Menon, A. 1995. Metaphors and competitive advantage: Evaluating the use of metaphors in theories of competitive strategy. Journal of Business Research, 33(2): 81–90. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to identify deliberate and emergent strategies using metaphor in the non-profit cultural organisation.     

Customer Loyalty and Privacy on the Web

ABSTRACT

This study examines from simulation the effects of the privacy sensitivity of customers, the personalization practices or standards of retailers and the difficulty in locating favorable sites on the loyalty of consumers to a Web site. The key finding of the study is that customer privacy sensitivity is a critical success factor that significantly impacts loyalty to a retailer. Customers have higher loyalty to sites that request the least information, while they have lower loyalty to sites that request the most information. Web retailers considering expanded personalization of products or services to customers, through increased personal information, need to rethink their practices. The study also found that difficulty in locating a favorable site is a success factor that impacts retailer loyalty, and that customers have higher loyalty to difficult to locate favorable sites on the Web. These findings are important at a time when consumers are empowered with Web technology to immediately shop competitor sites.     

Differentiation and Cost Asymmetry: Solving the Merger Paradox

This paper investigates the impact of product differentiation and of cost asymmetry on the merger paradox using a Cournot framework. It finds that when all firms share the same costs, two-firm mergers in an n firm market generate at least no profit loss when goods are sufficiently differentiated. This result contrasts with that of Salant, Switzer, and Reynolds (1983) where mergers of strategic substitutes are rarely profitable, and Deneckere and Davidson (1985 Deneckere, Raymond, and Carl Davidson. 1985. Incentives to Form Coalitions with Bertrand Competition. The RAND Journal of Economics 16 (4): 473–486.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) where competition among strategic complements yields profitable mergers. Critically, when costs are asymmetric, a merger between an efficient and inefficient firm, with differentiated products, can be more profitable to participants than to excluded rivals. Following this merger, welfare is shown to increase given that the cost asymmetry between insiders is large enough.     

Ethics as an integrating force in management

Ethics will not become part of the management decision-making process until it ceases to be viewed as an add-on; first you decide, then you assess the decision ethically. This essay focuses on one ethical concept, the good or the valuable, and shows how to incorporate it in an ethically and economically effective decision process. We focus on this concept because it uncovers a key fault in strategic thinking and generates questions central to any complex decision.The concept of the valuable is used to distinguish goals and purposes. A goal is a more or less specific target toward which one aims. A purpose is a way of being or functioning viewed as valuable in itself.Purposes make values operational. We look at values through a set of questions derived from the concept of the valuable. One question probes the range of individuals relevant to a decision. Participatory and dialectical decision approaches are critiqued. A second question probes the standards of rationality implicit in management decisions.We conclude by responding to two objections. The first is that justice in decision-making is insufficiently considered. The second is that there is little reason to think that the proposals made here would work if implemented. Mark Pastin is Director of the Center for Private and Public Sector Ethics and Professor of Philosophy, Business, and Public Affairs at Arizona State University. He was formerly Associate Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University, and had visiting appointments at Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the University of Maryland. He has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and Research Fellow of the Center for Metropolitan Research of John Hopkins University. His most important publications are: Strategic Planning for Science, The Research System in the 1980s, ed. by John Logsdon (Franklin Institute Press, 1982), Ethics and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Business Horizons (December 1980), The Multi-Perspectival Theory of Knowlegde, Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Volume V (University of Minnesota Press, 1980), and Meaning and Perception, Journal of Philosophy (October 1976).This began as a joint project with H. J. Zoffer of the University of Pittsburgh. We both were promoting the idea of integrating ethics in management decision-making, but were embarrassed that we had little to say about how to proceed. So we picked the ethical concept of the good and set to work. This final product is my responsibility, but it certainly profited from Zoffer's efforts. This paper was presented at the 16th Conference on Value Inquiry, entitled: Ethics and the Market Place: An Exercise in Bridge-Building or On the Slopes of the Interface.     

Consumer's Perception of Website Service Quality: An Empirical Study

With the increasing penetration of the Internet, service quality has become one of the key areas of concern for online shopping sites. Website service quality has become a vital factor in making e-commerce successful because comparing the features of products in the online environment is easier, practically free of cost, and saves on time in comparison to conventional offline markets. To empirically explore the critical factors that determine perceptions of the service quality of online shopping sites, researchers adopted the eTailQ scale suggested by Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003 Wolfinbarger, M., and M. C. Gilly. 2003. eTailQ: dimensionalizing, measuring and predicting etail quality. Journal of retailing 79 (3):183–98. doi:10.1016/s0022-4359(03)00034-4.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Web layout, web info, customer service, fulfillment, and privacy emerged as the critical factors affecting website service quality. Findings of the study are expected to provide valuable insights to academicians in better conceptualizing the constructs and also help marketing practitioners in fine-tuning their strategies by addressing the peculiar needs of the Indian online shoppers.     

Drawing on “Producer-Tours”: A Technique for Addressing Consumer Uncertainty Surrounding the Consumption of Fair Trade Food Products?

Despite the global increase in both fair trade sales and awareness, actual market shares of some fair trade products remain disappointing. A number of authors have suggested various reasons for this, including the complexity of the situational context affecting actual purchase behavior (Carrington, Neville, &; Whitwell, 2010 Carrington, J. M., Neville, A. B. and Whitwell, G. J. 2010. Why ethical consumers don't walk their talk: Towards a framework for understanding the gap between the ethical purchase intentions and actual buying behaviour of ethically minded consumers. Journal of Business Ethics, 97: 139–158. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the disconnect between producers and consumers (Dickinson, 2001 Dickinson, M. A. 2001. Utility of no sweat labels for apparel consumers: Profiling label-users and predicting their purchases. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 35(1): 96–119. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the problems associated with the depersonalization of ethics in mainstream distribution (Bezencon &; Blili, 2011). This article introduces the drawing method into the field of research on fair trade consumption. Using this method, this study explores student perceptions of both fair trade consumers and how fair trade works. In doing so, the drawing method unveiled two potential consumer types; namely, the dreamer and the angel. On this, we argue that our study reveals some of the possibilities inherent in the use of the drawing method to explore uncertainty surrounding fair trade consumption.     

National Innovation Systems, ‘Real Economies’ and Instituted Processes

The design of institutions, policies and units of analysis are all predicated upon the ways in which we see the world and explain change. Today, as the pace of change quickens due to technological advancement and growing technoeconomic interdependencies in a series of processes generally referred to as globalization, analytic frameworks which emphasize national systems have emerged to provide a unit of analysis through which to explain these changes and growing interactions. These frameworks have the allure of trying to incorporate the ways in which economies, markets and economic agents actually behave – with particular reference to innovation, knowledge, learning and institutions. Our purpose in this paper is to raise some questions about the importance of these frameworks from a policy (managerial) and analytic perspective, to outline some limitations of their utility, and to suggest some useful paths for investigation.     

Falling walls and lifting curtains: analysis of border effects in transition countries

Since McCallum's (1995 McCallum, J. 1995. National borders matter: Canada-US regional trade patterns. American Economic Review, 85(3): 615–23. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) finding of surprisingly high border effects on trade between the US and Canada, there have been a number of studies on other parts of the world, and improvements made to the gravity model to measure this effect accurately. This paper suggests some other modifications to the model, and applies it to a region of the world that presents a distinctly interesting case. Changes in border effects of formerly socialist countries in Central and East Europe, and countries in the former Soviet Union are analyzed during 1976–2002 at country and sectoral levels, and also with respect to blocs of countries. A discussion on cross-country variations in border effects follows the computations.     

Accounting Quality in Eastern Europe after Communism

Research Question/Issue: This study, in the taxonomy of Schiehll and Martins (2016 Schiehll, E. and H. C. Martins. 2016. Cross-national governance research: A systematic review and assessment. Corporate Governance: An International Review 24 (3):181–99. doi:10.1111/corg.12158.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), examines cross-national corporate governance, within their “legal” category. It rests on the understanding that to fully grasp corporate governance it is essential to understand the embedded institutions. The research question is: Does an increase in legal quality cause an associated increase in the quality of corporate governance in the form of financial reports to investors? If so, this supports the fundamental importance of legal systems to earnings quality. Reliable evidence on whether there is an association between legal quality and financial reporting quality would be an empirical association showing that where legal quality is higher, earnings quality is also higher, and conversely.

Research Findings/Insights: The results show clearly that in 2005 and 2010, when adequate data are available for testing, earnings quality is poor: far more companies show small gains than small losses. A great deal of managerial discretion is exercised in arriving at accounting figures, since many amounts depend on forecasts of future events. A significant number of firms use that latitude to show positive earnings. As to patterns of earnings management among three clusters of countries, the small number of firms generally precludes strong statistically supported evidence of management within the clusters. Nevertheless, the whole is the sum of the parts, and the parts (clusters) indicate the clusters most responsible for the overall result. There is little evidence of small gains exceeding small losses in the Baltics, greater differences in the Visegrád countries, and big differences in southern Europe.

Theoretical/Academic Implications: Based on both (a) the historical background of legal systems and (b) attitudes concerning legal quality measured at the same time as the earnings measures, the accounting results are consistent with the prediction of a strong legal culture driving effective corporate governance.

Practitioner/Policy Implications: The results show that eastern firms, on aggregate, have yet to reach the level of their western counterparts. However, the differences do not seem highly significant, and indicate that convergence is close in this area. This, in turn, should guide and encourage legislators in their work.     

On market forces and adjustments: acknowledging consumer creativity through the aesthetics of ‘debadging’

Abstract

This paper explores the social dynamics by means of which market forces are enacted at the level of everyday consumption. In particular, it draws on Holt's (2002 Holt, D.B. 2002. Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29: 70–90. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) notion that as ‘unruly bricoleurs’, consumers kick-start processes of market adjustment and innovation through improvising ways to negotiate the demands of daily life. In this way, consumers can become active players in realising new possibilities for identity construction and empowerment that involve the creative re-appropriation of marketer-based meaning. To investigate those issues, we turn to a virtual community in the empirical setting of car customisation. Over an eight-month period, an internet-based methodology generated textual observations of online posting activity on five internet newsgroups attracting those interested in the particular pursuit of car modification. Participants used those web-forums to share information, passions, and enthusiasms. Analysis shows that grounded aesthetics function as vehicles for creativity and the reworking of dominant market logics (Vargo & Lusch, 2004 Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. 2004. Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing. Journal of Marketing, 68: 1–18. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). We conclude that online discussion threads offer valuable access to the emergent interplay of discursive resources in circulation among virtual communities and that this has implications for the conduct of environmental scanning. The paper illustrates how the discursive resource-base is nurtured, sustained, and transformed through various interpellations, including performing claims to prestige and self-defining distinctions, as well as constructing narratives of personal history and social dynamics.     

Negotiating Technology Implementation: An Empirical Investigation of a Website Introduction

Negotiated implementation is suggested as a cogent approach to meeting user and implementer needs, and thus, to increasing technology implementation. Negotiated implementation is expected to have its effect through three wellknown dimensions: ease of use, usefulness, and commitment. The efficacy of negotiated implementation is tested in the context of a universitybased field study of World Wide Web site use. Empirical support is found for the negotiated implementation approach. Implications and future research related to both theory and application are provided.     

Convergence Rates to Output Growth in a Global World: The Roles of Openness and Government Size

In this article, we examine the effects of three openness measures on 54 industrial and emerging economies' output growth over the “globalization years” of 1986–2004. Controlling for standard determinants of the Solow growth model in panel data, we find positive effects of openness on real output growth. While we find support for higher convergence rates under the open economy, the convergence rates in this article for both samples are remarkably close to the 2% level documented in Mankiw et al. (1992) Mankiw, G., Romer, D. and Weil, D. 1992. A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(2): 407–437. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. The inclusion of G/Y, however, reduces the speed of convergence more substantially in industrial economies.     

The ethics of using Chapter XI as a management strategy

In the past decade, the use of the Chapter XI has soared to the detriment of many creditors, workers, and consumers. A good number of cases were not based on imminent insolvency, but on firms attempts to avoid litigation claims against them, to terminate labor or other contractual obligations, or to gain new financing.These filings for Chapter XI highlight the use of bank-ruptcy as a strategic option used by management in running a viable organization. This usage is even advised by some academics and management consultants.While such uses may not be illegal, this paper questions the seeming ease with which a firm may use bankruptcy to escape contractual obligations to customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. It also questions the ethics of the academics and management consultants who recommend such usage. Finally, the paper calls for a change in the law in order to minimize the opportunity for the unethical abuse of the bankruptcy law.Dr. Mahmoud Salem is a lecturer, consultant, and executive training specialist. He is President of The Center for Organizational Synergy in Uniondale, New York. His major areas of interest are Global Strategic Management, Organizational System Transformation, Executive Integrity and Business Ethics.Ms. Opal-Dawn Martin is on the administrative staff of Science Applications International Corporation in McLean, Virginia. Her major areas of interest are International Business and Finance.     

Measuring Internet retail service quality using E-S-QUAL

Abstract

Despite its acknowledged importance, there are few rigorous empirical studies examining Internet retail service quality. An exception is the development of the E-S-QUAL scale by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Malhotra (2005 Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Malhotra, A. 2005. E-S-QUAL: A multiple-item scale for assessing electronic service quality. Journal of Service Research, 7(3): 213–233. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Whilst E-S-QUAL demonstrated good psychometric properties in the original study, the scale lacks external validation. This paper presents a reassessment and validation of the E-S-QUAL in the context of the Internet grocery sector. Data were collected via a web-based cross-sectional survey using self-administered questionnaires distributed to online grocery shoppers. A total of 491 usable questionnaires were received. The results show that there are potential discriminant validity problems with the Efficiency and System Availability dimensions of E-S-QUAL. Further analysis shows that a second-order, three-factor model of E-S-QUAL, consisting of Efficiency, System Availability, and Fulfilment, provides the best fit to the data in this study. Privacy is shown to be the least important dimension for the data set in this study.     

Sustainability Balanced Scorecards and their Architectures: Irrelevant or Misunderstood?

In a recent systematic review of the Sustainability Balanced Scorecard (SBSC) literature in this journal, we developed a typology of architectures as a basis for the process of SBSC design, implementation, use, and evolution. This paper addresses a comment by Hahn and Figge (2016) designed to stimulate further research. We argue that the existing literature demonstrates that the SBSC management tool can play an important role in corporate sustainability. The SBSC architectures—as representations of goals and priorities—form an integral and iterative part of the corporate sustainability strategy-making process and therefore cannot be isolated from it. However, the concept as such should not be overloaded (e.g. as a tool for radical change). In this paper, we first reflect on the potentials and constraints of the SBSC in relation to (1) radical or transformational change and (2) measuring performance outcomes on the level of human–earth systems. Second, we discuss the importance of SBSC architecture concerning (1) how it enables the integration of sustainability into business organisations; (2) how both strictly hierarchical cause-and-effect chains and less hierarchical designs can allow companies to seek inclusive profits; and (3) the contingency-based use of generic architectures (i.e. using the sustainability strategy and value system to determine a fitting architecture) in contrast to its use as a diagnostic tool (i.e. the architecture revealing the sustainability strategy and value system).