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Small forest landowner preferences for working forest conservation contract attributes: A case of Washington State,USA

In Washington State, small forest landowners (SFLO) play an important role in maintaining forest cover on the landscape as well as associated ecosystem services. This paper examines landowner preferences for the attributes of working forest conservation contracts (WFCC) using a choice experiment. The attributes examined are contract duration (from 10 years to perpetuity), forest management requirements, and the extent of forestland covered under the contract. We find that contract attributes are valued very differently depending on landowner objectives and harvesting behavior. Landowner characteristics and forestland spatial characteristics including distances to development and large public forestlands were found to significantly influence the likelihood of contract acceptance. While a significant portion of preference heterogeneity remains unobserved, we identify several key sources of landowner preference heterogeneity which allows for a better understanding of which landowners are likely to enroll in voluntary forest conservation contracts and may have implications for improved targeting of contracts.     

The Role of Consumers' Trust in Online-Shopping

Many consumers are sceptical or suspicious about the functional mechanisms of electronic commerce, its intransparent processes and effects, and the quality of many products that are offered online. This paper analyses the role of consumer trust as a foundation for the diffusion and acceptance of electronic commerce. Starting from a functional perspective trust is seen as distinct but potentially coexisting mechanism for reducing the uncertainty and complexity of transactions and relationships in electronic markets. The analysis focuses on conditions of e-commerce transactions that are relevant for the formation of trust problems. Drawing on the theory of information two types of uncertainty are described: system-dependent and transaction-specific uncertainty. Finally different activities and instruments are described and categorized that Internet firms can use to establish and maintain trust.     

Situation variation in consumers’ media channel consideration

In this article, the authors investigate consumers’ consideration of media channels during different usage situations. They develop a model that explains consumers’ media channel consideration as a function of the media channel’s perceived benefits. In addition, they hypothesize that the usage situation affects consumers’ media channel consideration and that situation-based benefit requirements moderate the effect of the benefits on their channel consideration. The authors test the hypothesized relationships using survey data from 341 consumers regarding their consideration of 12 different media channels used by manufacturers to communicate product information across three product-related usage situations. The results of the analyses support the proposed model structure and confirm the expected relationships among perceived media channel benefits, usage situations, media channel requirements, and consumers’ media channel consideration. Sonja Wendel (s.wendel@mw.unimaas.nl) is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marketing at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Her research interests lie in the area of consumer behavior, services marketing, and communications. She is particularly interested in exploring manufacturer-consumer communications. Benedict G. C. Dellaert (b.dellaert@mw.unimaas.nl) is Meteor Research Chair and a professor in the Department of Marketing at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. His research interests are in consumer decision making, consumer-producer interaction, customization and personalization, retailing, and tourism. His work has appeared in journals such as theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Interactive Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, andMarketing Letters.     

Social support among heterogeneous partners: an experimental test

This paper studies how dyadic social support is affected by heterogeneity of the partners. We distinguish heterogeneity with respect to three parameters the likelihood of needing support; the benefits from receiving support; and the costs of providing support. Hypotheses are based on a game-theoretic analysis of an iterated support game. First, we predict that heterogeneity in one of the parameters hampers social support. Second, we predict that under heterogeneity with respect to two of the parameters, support is most likely if there is a specific heterogeneous distribution such that heterogeneity in one parameter ‘compensates’ for heterogeneity in the other parameter. If there is no compensation social support is even more hampered. The hypotheses have been tested by experimental data with a mixed within-subject, between-subject design. The data gives support to the hypotheses.     

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The antecedents of SME innovativeness in an emerging transition economy

Understanding forces that contribute to the success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is very important, as these enterprises are vital for both developed and developing economies. Since innovativeness is among the most important means through which such businesses contribute to economic growth, numerous research studies were conducted to determine which factors positively impact SME's innovative efforts. This is an even more important issue for developing economies, where SMEs are often faced with inadequate infrastructure. Since there is a lack of studies on SME innovation in developing economies, often policy in such countries is based on findings from developed countries.In this paper, we explore factors that drive innovation activities in SMEs in a small emerging transition economy (Croatia), and compare it with findings from developed economies. In addition to factors used in most previous studies, we consider market scope, firm's market orientation and presence of strategic, managerial and marketing changes. We find that most factors that were found to be important in developed economies are important in developing economies as well. In addition to that, market scope was discovered to be a very important factor in both product and process innovation. Implementing corporate changes has positive impact on radical product innovation while implementing new organizational structures has positive effect on incremental innovation. When investigating determinants of product innovation, we distinguish new products of low novelty from new products of high novelty, and show that they need to be supported by different policies. To gain additional insight in innovation efforts, we examine obstacles to innovation. We find that firms that report facing obstacles are not less likely to innovate less, which suggests that innovators are able to work around obstacles without damaging effects to innovation. This study is based on a postal survey of 448 SMEs in Croatia, which was performed in 2004.