Panel Estimates of the Canadian Rural/Urban Women's Wage Gap

This article analyzes the female rural-urban wage gap in Canada using longitudinal data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics 1993–96. We estimate a two-step wage equation accounting for unobserved heterogeneity and sample selection. The results indicate that a statistically and economically significant rural-urban wage gap remains after controlling for observed and unobserved characteristics. Further, the results suggest this rural-urban wage difference is not simply induced by immobility between rural and urban markets. Rather, consistent with the effect of thinner rural labor markets, the evidence indicates that rural-urban differences in the impact of a number of explanatory variables are significant.     

How New Product Strategies Impact on Performance

What is involved in a successful new product program? Is it high spending on risky R&D? Is it close contact with customers? Is it the overall competitive strength of the firm? Well, it might be any of these things, and more, according to Robert G. Cooper, depending on your definition of success. In an exhaustive examination of the new product strategies and performances of 122 industrial products firms, Cooper found that the strategy that a firm elects for its new product program is closely linked to the performance results that firm achieves. But what's performance? Cooper's analysis uncovered three different and independent ways of viewing new product performance. He brings some clarity to the meaning of a “high-performance” product innovation program, but there's a catch—the strategies leading to high performance in one direction are quite different from the strategies leading to positive results by other measures. In his summing up, Professor Cooper proposes sets of generalized strategies—guides to action—that product innovation managers should consider.     

Cultural Economy Planning in Creative Cities: Discourse and Practice

While a growing body of research analyses the functional mechanisms of the cultural or creative economy, there has been little attention devoted to understanding how local governments translate this work into policy. Moreover, research in this vein focuses predominately on Richard Florida's creative class thesis rather than considering the wider body of work that may influence policy. This article seeks to develop a deeper understanding of how municipalities conceptualize and plan for the cultural economy through the lens of two cities held up as model ‘creative cities’ — Austin, Texas and Toronto, Ontario. The work pays particular attention to how the cities adopt and adapt leading theories, strategies and discourses of the cultural economy. While policy documents indicate that the cities embrace the creative city model, in practice agencies tend to adapt conventional economic development strategies for cultural economy activity and appropriate the language of the creative city for multiple purposes.     

Willingness to pay for credence attributes associated with agri-food products—Evidence from Canada

Credence attributes such as environmental impact, origin, fairness/unfairness, and food safety/health are not available with certainty prior to or at the time of the consumer purchase decision. This creates a problem of imperfect or asymmetric information, leading to suboptimal supply and demand for products with these desirable attributes. Using a representative sample of 2001 Canadian consumers, we adopt, within an attribute-based decision-making framework, the asymptotically efficient double-bounded stated preference approach, to estimate Canadian consumers' willingness to pay for origin, fairness, environmental impact, and food safety attributes associated with pork chops and fresh apples. We find that, on average, consumers are willing to pay significantly more for pork chops and fresh apples that are farmers-advantaged, sourced from their own province, grown or raised under a production system designed to be environmentally sustainable, and chemical-free. However, these findings differ significantly by the province of origin, gender, age, and income of the respondents, as well as by product type and attributes being valued.     

发达国家食品安全监管体系及对中国的启示

一些发达国家或地区为了加强食品安全管理,建有食品安全预警机制、明确的监控机制、迅速有力的应急机制、全面配套的法律体系、科学健全的标准体系、严格及时的食品追溯与召回制度和食品安全的责任追究及惩罚制度。在分析美国、欧盟、加拿大、日本等发达国家食品安全监管体系的基础上,结合当前我国食品安全监管体系中存在的一些问题,提出：我国应当借鉴发达国家食品安全监管体系的成功经验,积极探索和建立一套适合中国国情的食品安全监管机制和法律制度。     

“开放政府战略”下的加拿大电子公文管理体系

在世界主要发达国家中,加拿大电子政务的水平是首屈一指的。近两年,随着加拿大联邦政府“开放政府战略”的推出,加拿大电子政务及公文管理体系也在朝更高水平迈进。通过介绍“开放政府战略”对加拿大电子政务及公文管理的要求及加拿大电子政务和电子公文管理机构设置,总结分析了加拿大电子公文管理的法律基础、政策框架以及主要内容。加拿大正在通过专门部门推行技术平台计划,旨在通过IT基础设施的整合,为联邦政府部门提供更加可靠、创新和成本节约型的服务。在一个统一高效的IT基础设施平台上,加拿大的电子政务发展将会更加高效。     

National Government Responses to Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fisheries Certification: Insights from Atlantic Canada

Over the last decade, the proliferation of social and environmental certification programmes has attracted the attention of a growing number of political scientists interested in new forms of ‘private’ transnational governance. However, we still lack analyses on the nature and extent of different state responses to and involvement in new private transnational governance arrangements in particular sectors and in different jurisdictions. This article advances our understanding of the interactions between nation-state and private transnational modes of governance by analysing the role of national government authorities in Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) fisheries certification in Atlantic Canada, known more for the disastrous collapse of Northern cod stocks than good marine stewardship. Focusing on the 2008 certification of Northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) fisheries off the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the analysis finds that the implementation and maintenance of MSC certification in this case depended on significant support from government authorities. The delicate legitimacy of both authorities faces a period of uncertainty in this case since some certified shrimp stocks appear to be in decline and perhaps also migrating northward off Newfoundland and Labrador.     

An examination of the use of legitimate power in marketing channels

The importance of understanding and managing the channel conflict process has been well discussed, however little research has been conducted to examine the relationship between channel conflict and channel structure. In order to provide the focus for an in-depth research effort, this investigation was restricted to one type of channel structure, a retailer-owned co-operative wholesaling-retailing system, and to an examination of the role and importance of legitimate power as it contributes to channel conflict. A cross-sectional study was conducted of management and boards of directors of the wholesaler and 165 member-retailers of the Co-operative Retailing System. Results from correlational analysis of the aggregated data from sixty-four retail outlets indicated that a co-operative retailing-wholesaling system offers a model of distribution where the benefits of independence and co-ordination have been melded. From the retailers' perspective, autonomy for the independent retailers and a degree of control over channel decisions is offered. For the wholesaler, the decision-making structure provides a model for managing relations between large and small organizations which incorporates a mechanism for conflict resolution, while maintaining standardized delivery of products and services.     

Context-Dependent BSE Impacts on Canadian Fresh Beef Purchases

Household-level Nielsen Homescan data from 2002 to 2006 were used to identify Canadian consumers'; reactions to the early Bovine spongiform encephalopathy discoveries that severely impacted Canada's beef industry. Consumers reacted to the initial BSE event by purchasing more fresh beef, apparently to support struggling ranchers. Reaction to each subsequent BSE discovery, however, was negative and diminishing in magnitude. The results were consistent across 3 measures of monthly beef purchases: participation, units purchased, and beef expenditure. Failing to account for the context of individual BSE events would have produced little evidence of consumer reaction, a common finding among prior North American BSE studies.     

The process of obtaining new accounts

How should a sales force be managed so as to realize a significant increase in business from new accounts? Data from a survey of industrial sales representatives and sales managers were studied to draw conclusions about this task. The results indicate that in the opinion of sales managers, sales representatives are not spending enough time on new accounts. There appear to be two major reasons: they frequently fail to see the pay-off to themselves in new account development activities, and often they lack the ability to perform these activities effectively. The article also develops a model for successful new account development and a plan for correcting the major problems.