Corporate social responsibility as a participative process

Corporate social responsibility is frequently defined primarily in terms of the social and environmental impact of systemic organisational activity. This misses the point. To be applicable, corporate responsibility should be understood as a process , through which individuals ' moral values and concerns are articulated. Moreover, there are important grounds for asserting that such a process should be participative, involving employees (and perhaps other stakeholders). It seems inconsistent not to respect such groups' right to an opinion, while at the same time purporting to be ethical and responsible; also, a better alignment of organisational policy and employees' values holds possibilities for enhanced motivation and work performance. Through such a participative process, matters of social responsibility may be identified in the expectations and moral claims of an organisation's stakeholders. Such claims constitute prima facie obligations to which those responsible for corporate policy should attend, and where such demands conflict then dialogue is required in order to establish an appropriate course of action.     

Character and Virtue Ethics in International Marketing: An Agenda for Managers, Researchers and Educators

This article examines the applicability of character and virtue ethics to international marketing. The historical background of this field, dimensions of virtue ethics and its relationship to other ethical theories are explained. Five core virtues – integrity, fairness, trust, respect and empathy – are suggested as especially relevant for marketing in a multicultural and multinational context. Implications are drawn for marketing scholars, practitioners and educators.     

When MR = MC: Ethical Efficiencies in Valuing and Pricing

How do we determine value? What are the ethical implications of valuing goods and services with respect to economic profit maximization? To answer those questions, Primeaux and Stieber move their discussion of the ethical principles inherent to economic profit maximization from production to distribution, from internal costs to external pricing and consumer demand.     

The search for the best deal: How hotel cancellation policies affect the search and booking decisions of deal-seeking customers

This study examined cancellation policies and their role in shaping travelers’ deal-seeking behavior, exploring the impact of cancellation fees and deadlines on three, mutually exclusive, customers’ hotel booking behavior categories: “Book”, “Book and Search”, and “Search”. 291 subjects, who participated in a week long online “booking game”, attempted to book a room in a virtual hotel and get the best deal. The results were tested using small sample t-test for comparing proportions between two independent populations, non-parametric multiple pairwise comparisons, and multinomial logit regression models. The findings indicate that the cancellation deadline affected participants’ behavior while the size of the cancellation fee had no statistically significant impact. In addition, there was no significant difference between lenient cancellation deadline and no cancellation policy.     

The use of visual warnings in social marketing: The case of tobacco

Despite strong interest on the part of tobacco health practitioners, the effect of graphic warnings inserted on cigarette packs is unclear on several levels. First, the most effective themes for such messages have not been clearly identified by researchers. Second, no research has identified the ideal combination of self-efficacy and fear appeal warnings that should be inserted on cigarette packs, according to Protection Motivation Model principles. The exploratory study we conducted with French consumers to test the effectiveness of new graphic warnings proposed by the European Union in 2004 clearly demonstrates that visual messages, as opposed to text warnings, are more effective. This study also enabled us to identify the most effective themes of the European set: health warnings and social messages. Regarding future public health applications, if fear appeals are used, they need to be combined with self-efficacy and cessation support messages since they provoke avoidance reactions.     

Hotel Attributes and Consumer Satisfaction: A Cross-Country and Cross-Hotel Study

The main purpose of this study was to identify the influence of the consumer’s country of residence on hotel service attributes’ contribution to consumer satisfaction. The hospitality services of Disneyland Paris in Paris, France, were analyzed in the context of the study. Data came from their seven hotels and comprised 47,885 valid questionnaires. The Tetraclasse model was applied to identify hotel attributes’ contribution to satisfaction and compare them for consumer segments from eight European countries and between hotels. Results showed that the four service attributes’ contributions are influenced by country of residence and vary between hotels.     

The Marketers’ Prismatic Palette: A Review of Color Research and Future Directions

Color carries meaning and can influence consumers’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Many disciplines, such as neuroscience, psychophysics, visual cognition, and biology have used new technologies to gain insights in understanding the complexities of color perception, yet there exists relatively little research in the field of marketing. This paper aims to reestablish the importance of color research in marketing, draw attention to the complex nature of this research, and to fuel further investigation and the development of new insights about color as it relates to marketing. The authors offer an integrated conceptual framework centered on the embodied and referential meanings of color and highlight the complexities and nuances that researchers must consider in order to develop this area. Insights from and gaps in the extant literature are highlighted to present a set of questions and propositions for future research in this area of investigation.     

Land use transitions: Socio-ecological feedback versus socio-economic change

The concept of land use transition highlights that land use change is non-linear and is associated with other societal and biophysical system changes. A transition in land use is not a fixed pattern, nor is it deterministic. Land use transitions can be caused by negative socio-ecological feedbacks that arise from a depletion of key resources or from socio-economic change and innovation that take place rather independently from the ecological system. Here, we explore whether the sources of land use transitions are mostly endogenous socio-ecological forces or exogenous socio-economic factors. We first review a few generic pathways of forest transition as identified in national case studies, and evaluate the varying ecological quality of expanding forests associated with these pathways. We then discuss possible explanatory frameworks of land use transitions. We use the case of the recent forest transition in Vietnam as an illustration. Socio-ecological feedbacks seem to better explain a slowing down of deforestation and stabilization of forest cover, while exogenous socio-economic factors better account for reforestation. We conclude by discussing the prospects of accelerating land use transitions in tropical forest countries.