Perceived Value of Mexican vs. US Products in Mexico,Venezuela and the United States

Abstract

With the advent of NAFTA and the liberalization of Latin American markets, Mexican firms have gained new strategic options, many of which revolve around exporting regionally or to the United States and Canada. The studies explore consumer reactions to Mexican products. The first study compares value perceptions of a cross-national sample of Mexican, US and Venezuelan respondents toward US and Mexican products. It also explores the moderating effects of product content and financial risk on value differentials. The second study, limited to Mexican and Venezuelan respondents, looks for evidence of a home country bias. While the strategy implications for Mexican products differ according to a product's level of content and financial risk, the studies indicate that inter-regional trade is a viable possibility.     

Grid analysis for sales supervision

Falling to recognize the unique need and desire of salespeople, the sales manager tends to allocate supervisory time according to the amount of his or her past selling experience. This time allocation results in either the excessive or insufficient supervision of sales personnel. This article describes a process of arriving at a more optimum allocation of supervisory time.     

How industrial salespeople gain customer trust

This study investigated how industrial salespeople gain the trust of their customers. Results show that trust increases as the customer gains the impression that the salesperson is dependable, honest, competent, customer oriented, and likeable. Based on the results, a general model of trust building is suggested.     

Applying financial portfolio and multiple criteria approaches to product line decisions

This article describes the application of decision rules from financial portfolio theory to the evaluation of product lines. The focus is on the risk/return implications of an “add” decision to the total portfolio versus the individual product. Multiple criteria approaches that aid product line evaluations are also presented.     

Key problems facing industrial distributors

This article reports on a survey of the problems faced by industrial distributors. Five major problem categories are identified and managerial implications are derived from the findings.     

A look at the public policy conflict regarding the discovery of accountants' tax accrual workpapers

This article focuses on the conflict in public policy between the need to provide the investing public with accurate information with regard to corporate financial statements and the need to provide the IRS with the necessary tools in order to assure corporate compliance with the tax laws of the country. The conflict arises because of the contention of the IRS that it is entitled to have access to an independent auditor's tax accrual workpapers on the one hand, and the contention by CPAs that such access will prevent adequate disclosure to the independent auditor. The article examines the policy questions on both sides of the issue and concludes that regardless of any decision by the Supreme Court in a pendingcase, Congress should pass legislation to resolve the conflict and clearly identify the scope of any previlage accorded with regard to tax accrual workpapers.     

Nested model comparison with structural equation approaches

Potential problems with the conventional nested model comparison procedure in the structural equation models context are discussed. It is argued that fixing parameter values might lead to creation of different unobservables in the nested model. A number of alternative ways of conducting model comparisons are reviewed and applied in a marketing example.     

A “Pure” long-term interest rate and the demand for money

This article presents the appropriate rate by which to discount a constant, certain, infinite stream of future payments: that is, the yield on a noncallable perpetuity or consol. The American consol series is a daily risk-free “pure” long term interest rate which is undistorted by tax effects, call premiums, and varying duration and reinvestment assumptions. If Hamburger had used the American consol series instead of the U.S. Government Long Term Bond Rate in his money demand function, he would have found more of the “missing money.” His average error (actual minus predicted money demand) as a percentage of actual money demand would have been reduced from 1.43% to 0.93% a 35% error reduction.     

The monetary base or M1? results from a small macromodel

This article investigates the issue of whether M1 or the monetary base should be used as an intermediate target for monetary policy. Because the target variable should be reliably related to future economic activity, each aggregate is used in estimating a small macromodel which consists of a nominal GNP growth equation and an inflation specification. The empirical results indicate that M1 better explains GNP growth and inflation for the period 1960–1980. Forecast errors of GNP growth from 1970–1980 are reduced when M1 is used instead of the adjusted base, although there is little difference between inflation forecasts. Based on the evidence presented in this study, M1 is preferred as the intermediate target variable.     

Similarities between conflict and cooperation in the marketing channel

This article examines the relationship between two causes of conflict: domain dissensus and perceptual incongruity, and the levels of conflict and cooperation within a marketing channel dyad. Utilizing a national sample of food broker-food wholesaler dyads, four hypotheses were tested—two relating domain dissensus and two relating perceptual incongruity to conflict/cooperation. Results indicated no significant relationship between either perceptual incongruities or domain dissensus and the level of conflict found in the dyad, while a significant negative relationship was found between both perceptual incongruities and domain dissensus and the level of cooperation in the dyad.