A simple note on herd behaviour

In his ‘Simple model of herd behaviour’, (Banerjee A (1992) A simple model of herd behaviour. Q J Econ CVII:797–817) shows that—in a sequential game—if the first two players have chosen the same action, player 3 and all subsequent players will ignore his/her own information and start a herd, an irreversible one. In this paper, we analyse the role played by the tie-breaking assumptions in reaching the equilibrium. We show that: players’ strategies are parameter dependent—an incorrect herd may be reversed; a correct herd is irreversible.

Estimating the Euler Equation for Aggregate Investment with Endogenous Capital Depreciation

This article looks at the empirical consequences of introducing endogenous capital depreciation in the standard neoclassical model with quadratic adjustment costs. To this end, we formulate an empirical specification that accommodates capital maintenance and utilization in the Euler equations for aggregate investment. The empirical estimates with data from the Canadian Survey on Capital and Repair Expenditures show that, in contrast to the existing literature, the performance of the Euler equations is improved when we account for the impact of variable capital depreciation.     

HRM and organizational performance in northern and southern Europe

This article aims to extend understanding of the firm-level impact of strategic HR practices on organizational performance. Adopting a contingency approach, it develops a structural model that considers direct and indirect influences of market growth, business strategy formalization and HRM centrality and practices on organizational performance in Europe. The study uses a comparative approach, revealing differences between northern and southern Europe. Clear differences appeared between the two clusters in the HR policies and practices correlated with higher performance, thus indicating that the link between HRM and performance may be different in different geographies.     

Design of a novel adaptive inventory control system based on the online identification of lead time

In this paper, an adaptation method for the online identification of lead time is incorporated in production–inventory control systems. Based on the lead time estimate, the tuning parameters are updated in real time to improve the efficiency of the system. Combination of the adaptive scheme with a proportional control law is able to eliminate the inventory drift that appears when the actual lead time is not known in advance or when it varies with time. A detailed analysis is provided for the proposed production–inventory system, including a stability analysis and the quantification of its bullwhip effect. Several examples and comparison with state-of-the-art alternative approaches illustrate the efficiency of the system.     

Seven challenges to combining human and automated service

We introduce this special issue by addressing seven key challenges associated with managing hybrid human-automated service systems. These consist of the following:

• 1 What strategic and tactical issues arise when managing hybrid service systems?
• 2 How should the core “value proposition” be set?
• 3 What special considerations arise in the design and implementation phases?
• 4 How can service delivery be managed to identify systemic problems and to address service breakdowns?
• 5 How can communications with clients improve the functioning of service systems?
• 6 What performance measures should be used to monitor process, outputs, client perceptions, and financial outcomes?
• 7 How can we coordinate the various interdisciplinary activities needed to address the previous six issues?

We consider these challenges after first characterizing the historical evolution of service delivery, reviewing some of the literature in the administrative sciences, and proposing a conceptual framework. Copyright © 2009 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distribution of Marketing Research Material to Universities: The Case of Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR)

ABSTRACT

The aim of this note is to understand how content relating to marketing and market research is distributed to and within universities. The focus of the study includes the behavior of all those in this market for information, namely suppliers (whether content generators, aggregators, packagers, or distributors of content) of marketing research, university staff, and students. The case study method was implemented to collect data. The case study focuses on UK Higher Education. Specifically, the authors use the case study of the newly developed Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR) to explore how content relating to marketing and market research is distributed to and within universities. The research involved personal interviews with 15 librarian senior managers selected from 14 universities.

The interviews with librarians provided insight into how AMSR could be distributed to university libraries and how it could be accessed. The findings highlight the role of university academics in specifying the content of marketing and market research. They focus on ‘real world’ management problems to deliver research with impact and relevant teaching. Therefore, they need company and industry information and are more likely to use current sources. The study maps the process of acquisition of marketing and market research content by universities and identifies the different roles involved in this process. The study is in line with the emerging literature that focuses on the role of education in explaining the relevance gap in marketing research. The study contrasts between the situation in the university market and industrial buying and adds to our understanding of the complexities associated with the distribution of the marketing research material. The result is expected to be a much sharper focus for the marketing of the archive material, leading to greater use of recent high-quality market research by marketing educators, and changes to marketing and market research syllabuses.

This note provides insight into how suppliers (whether content generators, aggregators, packagers, or distributors of content) of market and marketing research should market to universities and ensure the use of their information resources by students and teachers and how they should. The findings of the study contribute to understanding customer needs and shaping a new service product proposition. In addition, the study provides insight into how university students and staff access and should access commercial research on marketing from the market research industry (in particular from the Archive of Market and Social Research) and use it in their learning, so that their knowledge will be more up to date and their employability will be increased. Adding several insights to the issue of distribution of marketing research material to universities. The paper relates to the marketing of information resources to universities, specifically to the work of the Archive of Market and Social Research, in marketing their information assets to universities, and more specifically the relationship between the “push” of suppliers, libraries, journal and textbook suppliers and information aggregators (such as EBSCO and JISC) and the pull coming from academic researchers and lecturers, who might use this information in their teaching and research. The present study can be seen as a classic case study of understanding buyer behavior, but in a modern world of information platforms, aggregation, and the digital economy.     

Career success schemas and their contextual embeddedness: A comparative configurational perspective

We introduce career success schemas as critical for understanding how people in different contexts perceive and understand career success. Using a comparative configurational approach, we show, in a study of 13 countries, that two structural characteristics of career success schemas—complexity and convergence—differ across country contexts and are embedded in specific configurations of institutional factors. Adopting complexity and convergence as primary dimensions, we propose a taxonomy of career success schemas at the country level. Based on this taxonomy, we contribute to the understanding of subjective career success across countries, discuss the importance of schemas for organisational career systems in multinational enterprises, and propose specific guidelines for future comparative careers research.     

Leadership Personality and Firm Culture during Hereditary Transitions in Family Firms: Model Development and Empirical Investigation

The present study is the first to propose a theoretical framework for an exploration of the relationship among organizational culture, leader personality, and the success of hereditary transitions in family businesses. Using Dyer's cultural framework and Jungian personality concepts, the authors test empirically this framework among family businesses in Cyprus. In turn, they identify certain common dimensions of leader personality and firm culture in relation to the success of a transition, which could serve as the basis for further research on the subject.     

COMMON STOCHASTIC TRENDS AMONG THE CYPRUS STOCK EXCHANGE AND THE ASE,LSE AND NYSE

Common stochastic trends among major international stock price indices have been an intensively analysed issue mainly as a result of the 1987 stock market crash and the need for policy coordination in financial markets. This paper investigates the existence of common stochastic trends among an emerging equity market, the Cyprus Stock Exchange, and three mature equity markets, namely the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).     

Impact of cooperatives on smallholders' commercialization behavior: evidence from Ethiopia

This article examines the impact of marketing cooperatives on smallholder commercialization of cereals using detailed household data in rural Ethiopia. We use the strong government role in promoting the establishment of cooperatives to justify the use of propensity score matching to compare households that are cooperative members to similar households in comparable areas without cooperatives. The analysis reveals that although cooperatives obtain higher prices for their members, they are not associated with a significant increase in the overall share of cereal production sold commercially by their members. However, these average results hide considerable heterogeneity across households. In particular, we find that smaller farmers tend to reduce their marketed output as a result of higher prices, whereas the opposite is true for larger farmers.