Virtual Product Placement as a New Approach to Measure Effectiveness of Placements

Product placement is a fast growing multi-billion dollar industry, yet measures of its effectiveness, which influence the critical area of pricing, have been problematic. Past attempts to measure the effect of a placement and, therefore, provide a basis for pricing of placements, have been confounded by the effect on consumers of multiple prior exposures of a brand name in all marketing communications. Virtual product placement offers certain advantages: as a tool to measure the effectiveness of product placements; as assistance with the problem in the lack of audience selectivity in traditional product placement; as a testing of different audiences for brands; and in addressing a gap in the existing academic literature by focusing on the impact of product placement on recall and recognition of new brands.     

Warehouse location problems for air freight forwarders: a challenge created by the airport relocation

The move of Hong Kong International Airport from the city centre to a suburban area in July 1998 provided sufficient capacity to meet the increasing demand of passenger and air-cargo flows in Hong Kong in the foreseeable future. However, the move has adverse side effects such as causing the readjustment of many existing systems and creating many imminent strategic problems. One of such problems is the warehouse location of freight forwarders: they have to decide whether they should locate their warehouses in the new airport, in current locations, or in new locations somewhere in the city. This paper delineates the results of a survey conducted in the summer of 1997 before the airport was relocated. The survey asked what decisions the freight forwarders had made and how they evaluated some potential warehouse locations. The paper also considers two mathematical models, which explain and predict, respectively, the location pattern of freight forwarder warehouses before and after the relocation of the airport.     

Consumers' perceptions and awareness of safe food preparation practices at homes in Trinidad,West Indies

The objectives were to evaluate consumer perception and awareness of safe food preparation practices at homes. A questionnaire was self‐administered to 124 consumers who were primarily responsible for preparation of foods and owned a refrigerator at home. Data were analysed by frequencies and chi‐square. Most (97.6%) consumers considered safe food practices as ‘very important’. Few (8.9%) related Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point to safe food preparation practices. Microbiological hazard was ranked as a most serious threat to food safety (80.5%). Salmonella was most well known (79.8%). Diarrhoea (23.7%) was a common symptom of food‐borne illness. More than 50% would ‘always’ check for expiry dates on labels, seals and would never purchase swollen cans. Only 48.4% consumers used separate cutting boards for meats and vegetables ‘always’. Some (6.5%) felt it was appropriate to give unfit food to someone else. The study identified critical points in safe food preparation practices for effective public health education.     

Management Motivation and Market Assessment: Revaluations of Fixed Assets

The study examines Hong Kong managers' motivation for upward revaluation of fixed assets. The results show that revaluations are positively associated with the firms' future operating performance, suggesting that the managers' primary motivation for upward revaluation of fixed assets has been to signal fair value of assets to financial statements users. Another motivation for revaluations has been to improve the firm's borrowing capacity. The results also indicate a significantly positive association between revaluations and stock prices and returns, suggesting that the market's assessment aligns with the managers' revaluations.     

An Institutional Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility in Kenya

There is little doubt that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now a global concept and a prominent feature of international business, with its practice localised and differing across countries. Despite the growing body of research focussing on CSR in developing countries, there is dearth research on CSR institutionalisation in African countries. Drawing on institutional theory (IT), this article examines the focus and form of CSR practice of companies in Kenya. It is evident from our findings that the nature and orientation of CSR differ across companies with operations only in Kenya and those headquartered abroad or with international operations. Significantly, firm-related drivers such as public relations and performance, as well as global institutional pressures explain the focus and form of CSR in Kenya. This article concludes that for the institutionalisation of CSR in Kenya, attention must be paid to conditions that stifle CSR uptake such as lack of government regulations, and the government’s capacity and commitment to enforce regulation. The establishment of functional CSR institutions and a vibrant civil society that advance civil regulation ought to be encouraged.     

An evolving theory of hybrid distribution: Taming a hostile supply network

Suppliers attempting to expand markets through hybrid distribution have created a complex, potentially hostile environment that reaches beyond dyads to network relationships. We offer a multi-theoretic paradigm that uses the network, social capital, structural holes and distributive fairness literatures to guide suppliers in the transition of governing hybrid channels so that when markets do overlap, cooperation and competition can effectively co-exist within the supply network. Specifically, we propose that social capital, structural holes, trust, and distributive fairness can be used to govern the effectiveness of cooperation and competition among hybrid channels and yield higher performance within the supply network. A corresponding propositional inventory is offered.