Key Factors in Understanding Trends in Hollywood Product Placements from 2005 to 2015

This study updates extant product placement research by identifying the evolutions in product placements between 2005 and 2015 in top grossing Hollywood films. Using a quantitative content analysis, this research also offers insights into how production costs impact the use and implementation of product placements. The findings revealed films with lower production costs have significantly more placements overall, products are on screen longer, more brands are in films, products are mentioned and shown more often, and films contain more character involvement. Significant increases were found between 2005 and 2015 in all variables except the number of brands and length of placements.     

Long waves,inventions, and innovations

It is argued that aggregate R and D and patenting activity, while generally less volatile than short term economic activity, is more closely related to the latter in the longer term. Second, ‘fundamental’ or ‘basic’ inventions exhibit a clustering behaviour, although there appears to be no clear-cut relationship with the overall level of economic activity. Third, we find no support for Mensch's argument that lead times between invention and innovation contracted in the 1930s. Fourth, we find some evidence for a bunching of innovations in the 1930s, but this does not appear due to depression-induced acceleration. Fifth, in the particular case of plastics, where the 1930s clustering is particularly clear, the forces at work were primarily related to ‘science push’ and the particular requirements of the German economy.     

Focusing on Ethics and Broadening our Intellectual Base

Declining levels of stakeholder trust in business are of concern to business executives and scholars for legitimacy- and performance-related effects. Research in the area of stakeholder trust in business is nascent; therefore, the trust formation process has been rarely examined at the stakeholder level. Furthermore, the role of personal values as one significant influence in trust formation has been under-researched. In this paper, we develop a contingency model for stakeholder trust formation based on the effects of stakeholder-specific vulnerability and personal values of the trustor. Using a factorial vignette methodology, we find that Schwartz’s (J Soc Issues 50:19–45, 1994) value set interacts with stakeholder roles so that trustworthiness signals of competence and character play differing roles during trust formation. These results inform stakeholder trust research, organizational trust research, and research in personal values. The research also informs managers tasked with rebuilding stakeholder trust in business.     

Some Problems with Employee Monitoring

Employee monitoring has raised concerns from all areas of society – business organizations, employee interest groups, privacy advocates, civil libertarians, lawyers, professional ethicists, and every combination possible. Each advocate has its own rationale for or against employee monitoring whether it be economic, legal, or ethical. However, no matter what the form of reasoning, seven key arguments emerge from the pool of analysis. These arguments have been used equally from all sides of the debate. The purpose of this paper is to examine the seven key arguments that have been made with respect to employee monitoring. None of these arguments is conclusive and each calls for managerial and moral consideration. We conclude that a more comprehensive inquiry with ethical concern at the center is necessary to make further progress on understanding the complexity of employee monitoring. The final section of this paper sketches out how such an inquiry would proceed.     

Economic interdependence among the EEC countries: An unconventional view

Economic theory suggests that increasing trade between integrating countries involves similar changes of key variables such as the main targets and instruments of economic policy. Empirical models built at various universities and research institutes show that economic fluctuations are almost not transmitted between countries.In this paper, the authors show that increased interdependence does not necessarily induce stronger transmission of economic fluctuations. This conclusion is drawn from both theory and actual data.