What constitutes a constitutional amendment culture?

Why are some constitutions amended frequently and others hardly at all? An obvious candidate determinant is constitutional rigidity, i.e., the size and number of procedural barriers to amendment. Given some demand for amendment, greater rigidity implies a smaller supply. However, measures of rigidity often do not correlate significantly (or even with the predicted sign) with amendment rates. Ginsburg and Melton (2015) argue that amendment culture – “shared attitudes about the desirability of amendment” – is a more important determinant of amendment rates. We study up to 128 constitutional episodes from 54 countries and estimate relationships between amendment rates and Hofstede cultural indices. Cultures that are more individualistic and less prone to uncertainty avoidance are associated with higher amendment rates. When cultural dimensions are controlled for, the lagged amendment rate (Ginsburg and Melton’s proxy for culture) is not a robust correlate.     

Business-to-business selling in the post-COVID-19 era: Developing an adaptive sales force

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how salespeople interact with customers and with business-to-business (B2B) organizations. Organizations must confront the shifts in how their salespeople operate. Recent research recommends firms develop an adaptive sales force to address disruptions like a pandemic and be prepared to meet such challenges in the future. Based on interviews with marketing and sales executives, we explore how firms have responded to these interconnected changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and offer insight into best practices deployed across industries.     

Digital marketing communication in global marketplaces: A review of extant research,future directions,and potential approaches

Digital marketing communication, that is, communication through digital or electronic media among businesses and consumers, is growing rapidly, especially during the COVID-19 era. We propose a framework for analyzing digital marketing communication along four major dyads, business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and consumer-to-business (C2B). We review and summarize, for researchers and practitioners, the literature during 2000–2021 in these dyads along four major components: goals; channels, media, and platforms; content; and responses. We find that extant research in digital marketing communication pertains mostly to a specific, national level rather than a global level, despite the porousness of national boundaries for digital marketing. We derive important insights, identify key research gaps and questions in each of the dyads along these dimensions. We suggest approaches to address these research questions under three major components: substantive issues, data, and methods. These approaches can offer the insights that managers need to better formulate digital marketing strategies in local and global contexts.     

Relationship Quality as Predictor of B2B Customer Loyalty in the Pharmaceutical Sector: Evidence from Jordan

This article aims to investigate the impactful effect of relationship quality dimensions (i.e., trust, satisfaction, and commitment) on aspects of loyalty represented by attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. A quantitative survey method was employed to achieve the objectives of the study. Furthermore, a convenience sampling technique was adopted to select a representative sample from physicians working in the public healthcare sector in Jordan. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, and 408 questionnaires were used in the statistical analyses. The data were analyzed by applying structural equation modeling to test the study model, and hypotheses were constructed and tested quantitatively and discussed qualitatively. The results revealed that both aspects of customer loyalty (i.e., behavioral and attitudinal) were affected positively by the overall dimensions of relationship quality (i.e., trust, satisfaction, and commitment), providing a recommendation for pharmaceutical companies in Jordan to focus on improving the relationship quality between their medical representatives and physicians due to the importance of such a factor in improving customer loyalty, which will reflect positively in managing their customers effectively and enhancing future business opportunities.     

Sources of Productivity Growth Dynamics: Is Japan Suffering From Baumol's Growth Disease?

This study examines the sources of labor productivity growth dynamics in Japan (1970–2010) and investigates the extent to which Japanese economic performance has been affected by Baumol's growth disease (BGD). We find that BGD silently undermines Japanese economic growth. However, the magnitude is miniscule, and consequently the aggregate labor productivity growth rate has not been decreasing monotonically. We also explore how BGD is arising and why it is small in the Japanese economy. BGD is weak because (1) the positive Baumol growth effect is also working in certain services sectors and (2) BGD is not a durable phenomenon: even if a sector begins to suffer from BGD, it is likely to recover quickly.     

The double-edged sword of purpose-driven behavior in sustainable venturing

This paper examines the relationship between purpose and purposeful organizing and how such arrangements influence the entrepreneurial journey as sustainable ventures move from idea to markets. We leverage an iterative multi-stage process-tracing design to understand the mechanisms whereby 14 different B Corp certified organizations embed purpose before, during and after the certification process. Our analyses reveal three types of venture paths for purpose-driven entrepreneurs, which are shaped by distinct imprinting sequences with three critical sensitive windows playing a pivotal role: the definition of scope of purpose, timing of purpose formalization through B Corp Certification and shifts in the source of feedback. Different imprinters occurring within the critical sensitive windows shape particular imprinting sequences triggering situations of both productive and counterproductive path development. Our results challenge the assumed linear relationship between purpose and purposeful organizing and more specifically the belief that seeking (purposeful) B Corp certification at firm foundation is necessarily productive for society and for the ventures themselves regardless of when the certification is achieved.     

Partnerships and production: Agriculture and polygyny in Tanzanian households

Women make important contributions to household food production in sub‐Saharan Africa. Women's agricultural productivity is often reduced, however, by inefficient intrahousehold allocation of agricultural resources. Complex marital structures found in polygynous households may complicate resource allocation. Using three waves of the Tanzania Living Standards Measurement Survey–Integrated Survey on Agriculture, we measure the effect of the marital structure, wife position, and plot management on agricultural productivity and input allocations. We find evidence of cooperation within polygynous households. Plots managed by husbands and wives in polygynous households produce more valuable crops, have higher yields, and are more likely to use fertilizer than their monogamous counterparts. Within polygynous households, we observe that plots jointly managed by husbands, first wives, and second wives (together) have significantly more family labor than plots managed by husbands and first wives. This result may provide evidence of different production technologies across plot managers within the same households.     

Peer effects in the diffusion of water‐saving agricultural technologies

We investigate the role of peer effects in the diffusion of an important water‐saving irrigation technology: low energy precise application (LEPA). Using detailed irrigation behavior data for growers in the High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas covering 1990–2014, we find clear evidence of peer influence in adoption of LEPA, net of environmental factors. Specifically, an additional neighboring LEPA installation within 1 km increases the probability of adoption by about 0.3 percentage points, on average, and this effect diminishes with distance. Our empirical estimates indicate that in the absence of peer effects, LEPA adoption would have been about 10% lower (1,000–1,600 fewer installations) per year. In addition, we find that growers install LEPA in response to higher energy prices.     

WHAT DETERMINES VACATION LEAVE? THE ROLE OF GENDER

Vacation leave is introduced in workplaces to improve the working environment. Surprisingly, it has been observed that a large number of workers do not use all of their entitled vacation days. This paper provides a novel set of facts about the gender differences in taking vacation time using the Canadian Workplace Employee Survey, which is a linked longitudinal employer‐employee dataset. The results show considerable differences between men and women in the estimated effects of some demographic characteristics after controlling for job and workplace characteristics. However, they reveal significant implications of work arrangements (e.g., part‐time work, flexible work schedules, and home‐based work), job promotion, supervisory tasks, and union membership for vacation use, for both men and women. This paper provides further insights on the use of fringe benefits that may be useful to policymakers and businesses.     

Exploring the development trend of internet finance in China: Perspective from club convergence

We first employ β-conditional convergence and log t regression tests based on nonlinear time-varying factor model and club clustering algorithm to analyze the convergence characteristics of the development level of Internet finance in 335 prefecture-level cities in China. The result of log t regression test illustrates that there is no convergence as a whole in the development level of China's Internet finance. However, seven convergence clubs and a divergent group have been formed, and the development level and growth rate of Internet finance among these convergence clubs have shown obvious differences. Moreover, we also employ the Ordered Probit to explore the formation mechanism of the convergence clubs. The results reveal that the regions with a higher level of economic development, traditional financial development, economic openness and Internet development are more inclined to converge in a club with a higher Internet finance development level. Alternatively, the regions that are interfered with more by the government or that have a lower degree of marketization, tend to converge in a club with a lower level. Finally, according to the conclusions, we propose corresponding policy recommendations for promoting the regional coordinated development of China's Internet finance.