Corporate social responsibility in emerging economies: Investigating firm behavior in the Indian context

Scholars have questioned the appropriateness of using a western‐centric framework to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) in emerging economies. This study assesses the appropriateness of using such a framework in one emerging economy—India. More specifically, the drivers of CSR and their impact on firm‐level CSR activity in the Indian context are investigated and compared with those in developed economies. Content analysis of 369 CSR policy statements of publicly traded Indian firms revealed the factors that drive CSR activities of Indian firms are similar to those found in developed economies. However, the ways firms respond to the drivers of CSR are surprisingly different in the Indian context, and these differences can be traced to attributes of the Indian socio‐cultural context. Implications and recommendations for future research conducted in India, and in other emerging economies, are offered.     

Job Satisfaction in the United States: Are Blacks Still More Satisfied?

Despite the substantial literature on the paradox of the happy female worker, research has been sparse in investigating race differences in job satisfaction. The last national level study on racial differences in job satisfaction was done in 1981 when, using national level U.S. data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Mature Men for 1966, 1969 and 1971, Bartel showed that blacks had significantly more job satisfaction and further, that this racial gap had widened during this time. Though the reasons for this gap and its widening were not investigated, it was suggested, in a close parallel to the reason for the contented female worker, that lower expectations, in this case due to discrimination in the labor market, could be a reasonable explanation. Surprisingly, since then, there have been only a handful of studies focused on smaller, specific groups. This paper exploits two U.S. national level data sets, the GSS and the NLSY 1997, to examine the racial gap in job satisfaction. Simple means show that blacks are much less satisfied than whites and moreover, this difference has persisted not only across genders but also across almost four decades. To isolate the pure race effect, a sequential process is adopted by first examining the simple difference in the means of job satisfaction, then, through probit estimation, seeing the impact of individual attributes, finally progressing to incorporation of job attributes. Probit estimates give robust results. Blacks are significantly less satisfied than whites even when income, benefits and occupations are controlled. However, this racial gap is greater in the case of women and younger black men. An exploratory analysis shows that when discrimination is accounted for, the satisfaction gap is further reduced and the race coefficients are rendered insignificant. Estimates with comparison income show that the satisfaction gap is driven by perceived discrimination and not necessarily discrimination as captured by comparison income. This highlights the importance of policy measures to reduce perceptual discrimination.     

Investigating the Pleasures of Sin: The Contingent Role of Arousal‐Seeking Disposition in Consumers' Evaluations of Vice and Virtue Product Offerings

Mixed bundles of vice and virtue are an increasingly important product category. However, many mixed bundles fail in the marketplace, and so it is important to examine how consumers evaluate such mixed bundles. This paper examines consumers' affective responses and consequent purchase evaluations for a mixed vice‐virtue bundle versus a pure vice product. Results of Study 1 show that purchase intentions are higher for a pure vice product versus a mixed product; also, increased purchase intentions are mediated by differences in arousal. Given that consumers differ in their arousal‐seeking dispositions, results of Studies 2 and 3 show that individual differences in arousal‐seeking moderate the relationship between product type (pure vice product vs. mixed product) and purchase intentions, with arousal‐seeking consumers preferring pure vice bundles, and arousal‐avoidant consumers preferring mixed bundles. This paper contributes to theory on mixed vice‐virtue bundles, and also provides pointers on how to better market mixed bundles.     

Demand Curves for Stocks Do Slope Down: New Evidence from an Index Weights Adjustment

Weights in the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 index are determined by the market values of the included stocks' public floats. In November 1996, the exchange implemented a previously announced revision of its definition of the public float. This revision, which increased the floats and the index weights of 31 stocks, conveyed no information and had no effect on the legal duties of shareholders. Affected stocks experienced statistically significant excess returns of 2.3 percent during the event week, and no price reversal occurred as trading volume returned to normal levels. These findings support downward sloping demand curves for stocks.     

Evaluation of subsidiary marketing performance: combining process and outcome performance metrics

Issues in evaluating marketing performance and devising appropriate metrics for measurement have taken center stage in marketing thought and practice in recent years. We propose an empirical model that enables a multinational enterprise (MNE) to assess the marketing performance of its subsidiaries, taking into explicit consideration the fact that tactical actions by subsidiaries contribute to the creation of assets that can be harnessed for marketing outcomes. Thus, our model captures the asset creation abilities of marketing expenditures and also takes in to account the environmental differences of the context in which each MNE subsidiary operates. We evaluate comparative, overall, and process-level (creation of market assets and market yield) marketing performance in the context of multi-country operations. This simultaneous examination of marketing process and marketing outcome performance enables a global corporation to gain strategic, operational, and diagnostic insights into the performance of its subsidiaries. Our approach is empirically illustrated with an evaluation of the marketing performance of subsidiaries of a large global corporation.     

Changing Economic Structures and Impacts of Shocks: Evidence from a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model for China

We present a small‐scale dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that features price rigidities, habit formation in consumption and costs in capital adjustment. We estimate the key parameters and calibrate the model with data for the Chinese economy. Our interest centres on the impact of technology and monetary policy shocks for different structures of the Chinese economy. In particular, we evaluate how a rebalancing of the economy from investment‐led to consumption‐led growth would affect the economic dynamics after a shock occurs. Our findings suggest that a rebalancing would reduce the volatility of the real economy in the event of a technology shock, which provides support for policies aiming to increase the consumption share in China.     

The impact of Chinese monetary policy shocks on East and South‐East Asia1

We study the effects of Chinese monetary policy shocks on China's major trading partners in East and South‐East Asia by estimating structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) models for six economies in the region. We find that a monetary expansion in Mainland China leads to an increase in real GDP (temporary) and the price level (permanent) in a number of economies in our sample, most notably in Hong Kong and the Philippines. The impact could result from intertemporal substitution present in a general equilibrium framework, which allows for positive domestic impacts of foreign monetary expansions. Our results emphasize the growing importance of China for its neighbouring economies and the significance of Chinese shocks for the design of monetary policy in Asian economies.     

Cultural influences on new product adoption of affluent consumers in India

The purpose of the study was to explore how individual/personal and group-level factors influence Indian consumers' adoption of new food products. The results reflect the interdependence of consumers' individual views and beliefs with those of the group. Indian consumers' perceived characteristics of new foods and their innovativeness are key personal-level factors in impacting their new food purchase decisions. Reflecting collectivist tendencies, interpersonal communication sources and subjective norms at the group level are important mediators of Indian consumers' new food purchases. Marketing implications for food businesses are discussed.