Perspectives on the Sources of Heterogeneity in Indian Industry

This paper examines technical efficiency variation across four industrial sectors in India using a stochastic production frontier technique. The results obtained are comparable to technical efficiency distribution patterns obtained in other countries. Heterogeneity in firm-level efficiency is examined against internal, firm-level and external, industry and location characteristics. The results suggest that managerial effectiveness significantly influences efficiency and that there are considerable benefits deriving from location within established industrial clusters for particular industries. The methodology and findings indicate that the study of industry-specific technical efficiency patterns is a useful analytic tool for tracking firm response to ongoing liberalization.     

Peter Drucker on marketing: an exploration of five tenets

The authors review Peter Drucker’s contributions to marketing theory and practice. A bibliometric analysis of Drucker’s academic influence in marketing is presented. The five main tenets that are derived from the bibliometric study are expanded upon as follows: (1) The Marketing Concept: Creating Value for Customers; (2) Broadened Role of Marketing in Society: Corporate Social Responsibility, Consumerism, Social Marketing, and Lessons from Non-Profit Organizations; (3) Contributions to Marketing Strategy: The Obvious and Not So Obvious; (4) Marketing-Innovation Interface: New Product Development; (5) Future of Globalization: Rise of Non-National Enterprises.

Russian enterprises in mid-2010: Slow improvements in the context of a high degree of economic uncertainty

The results of a recent regular survey of opinions among enterprises of the real economy sector, which was conducted by the Laboratory for the Analysis and Forecasting of Microeconomic Processes of the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the RAS (IEF), are analyzed in this paper.     

Problems of eurozone expansion to the East: Example of Poland

This article presents real and nominal convergence, which defines the conditions of expansion of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union; on the basis of an analysis of the financial and economic problems of Poland, the prospects of its accession to the eurozone are estimated.     

Glass Houses? Market Reactions to Firms Joining the UN Global Compact

We examine market reactions to publicly held multinational firms announcing their affiliation with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). The UNGC is a voluntary initiative to support four areas of United Nations viz. Human Rights, Labor, Environmental, and Anti-Corruption. Because firms must file annual Communication on Progress (COP) reports toward these initiatives, we argue this creates a differentiating transparency of interest to stakeholders. Using a sample of 175 global firms, we find support to the theory for joining the UNGC. Returns differ markedly, however, between multinational firms headquartered in the United States (negative) and Europe (positive). We also find that failing to complete the annual COP generates a negative market reaction.     

Sponsorship effect metric: assessing the financial value of sponsoring by comparisons to television advertising

Since sponsoring is an increasingly important marketing communication medium, it is important for managers to know whether their sponsorships are giving a good financial return relative to other communication alternatives. Although several “rules of thumb” are commonly used in the industry for converting sponsorship exposure time into television advertising equivalent values, this research is the first to empirically test them by means of two experiments employing realistic stimuli and representative samples. Across 6 stimuli brands, study 1 finds that an average of 127 s of sponsor logo exposure achieves the same effects as a 30 s TV ad, but variance around this figure is high and depends on a variety of factors such as communication goal, sponsor fit, type of exposure, and whether the sponsor is a known brand. Study 2 finds that combining sponsoring with television advertising does increase the effects of sponsoring, although effects vary widely depending on the context, but even in the best case the increase is not supportive of the high levels of advertising suggested by many industry experts. Overall, the findings will allow managers to more confidently assess the financial value of their sponsorship investments.     

Control-based channel governance and relative dependence

Control and governance theories recognize that exchange partners are subject to two general forms of control, the unilateral authority of one firm and bilateral expectations extending from their social bond. In this way, a supplier both exerts unilateral, authority-based controls and is subject to socially-based, bilateral controls as it attempts to manage its brand successfully through reseller channels. Such control is being challenged by suppliers’ growing relative dependence on increasingly dominant resellers in many industries. Yet the impact of supplier relative dependence on the efficacy of control-based governance in the supplier’s channel is not well understood. To address this gap, we specify and test a control model moderated by relative dependence involving the conceptualization and measurement of governance at the level of specific control processes: incenting, monitoring, and enforcing. Our empirical findings show relative dependence undercuts the effectiveness of certain unilateral and bilateral control processes while enhancing the effectiveness of others, largely supporting our dual suppositions that each control process operates through a specialized behavioral mechanism and that these underlying mechanisms are differentially impacted by relative dependence. We offer implications of these findings for managers and identify our contributions to channel theory and research.     

Productivity and Trade During the Softwood Lumber Dispute

The gap in total factor productivity in sawmills and wood preservation between the US and Canada generally increased from 1958 to 2005. The present paper examines the effects of the various phases of the softwood lumber dispute, including relatively free trade, Canadian export taxes, and low and high countervailing duties, on this productivity gap. Exogenous control variables include US housing demand, the exchange rate, softwood lumber prices, and ratios of capital and nonproduction labor to labor. The effects of phases of the dispute on US imports from Canada are also examined.     

Corporate social responsibility: attributions,loyalty, and the mediating role of trust

This study investigates whether consumers’ perceptions of motives influence their evaluation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. The study reveals the mediating role of consumer trust in CSR evaluation frameworks; managers should monitor consumer trust, which seems to be an important subprocess regulating the effect of consumer attributions on patronage and recommendation intentions. Further, managers may allay the negative effects of profit-motivated giving by doing well on service quality perceptions. On the other hand, appropriately motivated giving continues to positively affect trust regardless of the performance of the firm on service quality provision.     

Economy of Russia’s Northern regions: Investment in fixed assets

This article discusses the features of the dynamics of investment in fixed assets in northern regions and the main factors of its rapid growth before the crisis and sharp decline in the crisis period. The contribution of individual regions to the growth rate of investment in the entire economy of the North is determined, and the territorial structure of investment by sectors and types of economic activity and the main sources of financing and changes in the structure of investment are investigated. An evaluation of the tendency towards investment and the investment attractiveness of northern regions are given.