The effect of controversial global sourcing practices on the ethical judgments and intentions of U.S. consumers

Global sourcing has led to lower cost and more effective supply chains for many companies. However, when the cost-driven practices of many suppliers in these chains come to light there is often considerable debate over the ethics of these practices. This research uses the well-known Hunt–Vitell framework as the theoretical foundation for a structural equation model of the deontological and teleological evaluations used by consumers when making ethical judgments of a firm's controversial cost-driven global sourcing practices. Data from a large-scale U.S. consumer survey show the importance of deontological and teleological evaluations in forming consumers’ ethical judgments of global sourcing practices, and establish a strong relationship between ethical judgment and the intention of consumers to alter consumption of a firm's products. Extensions to the framework and demographic analyses for age, gender, and income provide insights as to how perceptions of these practices affect consumer evaluations of a company involved in global sourcing and how consumers actualize their resultant intentions.     

A non-cooperative approach to the ordinal Shapley–Shubik rule

In bargaining problems, a rule satisfies ordinal invariance if it does not depend on order-preserving transformations of the agents’ utilities. In this paper, a non-cooperative game for three agents, based on bilateral offers, is presented. The ordinal Shapley–Shubik rule arises in subgame perfect equilibrium as the agents have more time to reach an agreement.     

Equilibrium theory under ambiguity

We extend the classical results on the Walras–core existence and equivalence to an ambiguous asymmetric information economy; that is, an economy where agents maximize Maximin Expected Utility (MEU). The interest of considering ambiguity arises from the fact that, in the presence of MEU decision making, there is no conflict between efficiency and incentive compatibility (contrary to the Bayesian decision making). Our new modeling of an ambiguous asymmetric information economy necessitates new equilibrium notions, which are always efficient and incentive compatible.     

Pareto-undominated and socially-maximal equilibria in non-atomic games

This paper makes the observation that a finite Bayesian game with diffused and disparate private information can be conceived of as a large game with a non-atomic continuum of players. By using this observation as its methodological point of departure, it shows that (i) a Bayes–Nash equilibrium (BNE) exists in a finite Bayesian game with private information if and only if a Nash equilibrium exists in the induced large game, and (ii) both Pareto-undominated and socially-maximal BNE exist in finite Bayesian games with private information. In particular, it shows these results to be a direct consequence of results for a version of a large game re-modeled for situations where different players may have different action sets.     

Impact of commuting by workers on household dietary diversity in rural India

Drawing insights from the literature on transformation of rural non-farm employment, pathways from agriculture to nutrition, and linkages between migration and nutritional status of household, we seek to understand differences in dietary diversity across three mutually exclusive types of rural Indian households: where all members work in rural areas, at least one member commutes to urban areas, at least one member has no fixed place of work. Our analysis is based on a nationally representative data set from India for the year 2009–10 and we use propensity score matching methods. We find that as compared to households with no commuters, households with rural–urban commuters have higher dietary diversity; whereas households with no fixed place workers have lower dietary diversity. We also find differences in dietary diversity across households which differ by their primary source of income.     

Updating Input–Output Tables with Benchmark Table Series

Numerous methods have been proposed to update input–output (I–O) tables. They rely on the assumption that the economic structure will not change significantly during the interpolation period. However, this assumption may not always hold, particularly for countries experiencing rapid development. This study attempts to combine forecasting with a matrix transformation technique (MTT) to provide a new perspective on updating I–O tables. Under the assumption that changes in the trend of an economic structure are statistically significant, the method extrapolates I–O tables by combining time series models with an MTT and proceeds with only the total value added during the target years. A simulation study and empirical analysis are conducted to compare the forecasting performance of the MTT to the Generalized RAS (GRAS) and Kuroda methods. The results show that the comprehensive performance of the MTT is better than the performance of the GRAS and Kuroda methods, as measured by the Standardized Total Percentage Error, Theil's U and Mean Absolute Percentage Error indices.     

On pure-strategy Nash equilibria in price–quantity games

This paper examines the existence and characteristics of pure-strategy Nash equilibria in oligopoly models in which firms simultaneously set prices and quantities. Existence of a pure-strategy equilibrium is proved for a class of price–quantity games. If the demand function is continuous, then the equilibrium outcome is similar to that of a price-only model. With discontinuous demand and limited spillover, there are rationing equilibria in which combined production falls short of market demand. Moreover, there might again be an equilibrium reflecting the outcome of a price game. Competition in price and quantity thus yields Bertrand outcomes under a variety of market conditions.     

Corporate sustainability strategies in institutional adversity: Antecedent,outcome, and contingency effects

This study examines (i) how top-level managerial institutional ties drive corporate sustainability strategies of emerging market firms operating under conditions of institutional adversity; (ii) the impact of corporate sustainability strategies on market performance; and (iii) the moderating role of financial resource slack on the relationships between corporate sustainability strategies and market performance. The study builds from institutional development logic and the structure–conduct–performance paradigm. Primary data are collected from 300 firms operating in a major sub-Saharan African market. Findings show that top-level managerial institutional linkages with regulatory national governmental officials, local community leaders, and top managers at other firms drive corporate proactive and responsive sustainability strategies, which in turn influence market performance. In addition, the findings reveal that financial resource slack strengthens the path between corporate proactive sustainability strategies and market performance, but not the path between corporate responsive sustainability strategies and market performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The State as Both Regulator and Player: The Politics of Transfer of Development Rights in China

The conventional argument that the introduction of transfer of development rights (TDR) shifts the power of land use regulation from the state to the market is increasingly under challenge. In China, the state's grip on land is reinforced through TDR, in which the state is both regulator and player. This state-dominated form of TDR affects China in three ways. First, competing aspirations of different scales of government complicate how TDR is implemented. Although the central state promotes TDR to maintain a national balance of arable land, some local states instrumentalize it to expand their landed basis of accumulation. Secondly, TDR tends to benefit the state but not its people. It may increase the fiscal income of the sending government and lessen the land shortage of the receiving government, but sometimes at the expense of the interests of land users without land ownership. Thirdly, given the state's deep involvement in TDR programs, the key for China's TDR to protect arable land lies not so much in clear property rights or a fully fledged market as in effective checks and balances regarding the state's powers over TDR. These three observations attest to the embeddedness of TDR in the local political economy.     

Place attachment,host–tourist interactions,and residents’ attitudes towards tourism development: the case of Boa Vista Island in Cape Verde

A clear understanding of residents’ attitudes towards tourism development and its determinants is a crucial pillar for designing tourism development strategies to promote sustainable development. The literature on the influence of host–tourist interactions and place attachment on residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in developing countries is still scarce. To extend knowledge in this field, this study aims at developing and testing a structural model to examine direct and indirect causal effects of place attachment, host–tourist interaction, and perceived positive and negative tourism impacts on the residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in an island tourism destination – Boa Vista Island in Cape Verde. Results suggest that the residents’ attitudes are positively affected by place attachment, host–tourist interaction, and perceived positive impacts; and negatively affected by perceived negative impacts. Host–tourist interaction emerges as the strongest (direct and indirect) determinant of the residents’ attitudes towards tourism development. Moreover, although both positive and negative perceptions of tourism impacts have significant impacts on the residents’ attitudes, the influence of the former is stronger than that of the latter. The paper ends with relevant theoretical and practical implications to promote positive residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in Boa Vista.