Global Insights Into Essential Elements Food Safety: The Chinese Example

This article brings together insights on the global challenges of achieving a safe food system. Through looking at examples of food safety initiatives, relevant success factors are identified and then distilled into five essential elements for developing a robust and safe food system. While much of the work in this area looks at government initiatives, this article looks particularly at industry-led initiatives. The article includes a brief look at the importance of food in Chinese culture and the current structure of the Chinese food chain. Specific initiatives from other markets are reviewed, and the five elements are outlined.     

When impediments make you jump rather than stumble: Regulatory nonfit, implementation intentions, and goal attainment

This paper examines the relative effectiveness of forming implementation intentions (i.e., making specific plans regarding how to go about achieving a goal) for increasing goal attainment under regulatory fit vs. nonfit. We discuss and empirically test the proposition that regulatory nonfit increases the effectiveness of implementation intentions. Extant research contrasts goals of differing difficulty (e.g., buying a textbook vs. finding an apartment) in order to test the relative effectiveness of implementation intentions. In contrast, the present study focuses on identifying the change in implementation intention effectiveness for the same goal (i.e., collecting and turning in receipts for a reward) under conditions of fit vs. nonfit. We empirically demonstrate that when faced with the same goal, people who experience regulatory nonfit perceive the task to be more difficult to complete than people who experience regulatory fit. In turn, when the task is perceived as being more difficult, implementation intentions prove more effective to enhance goal attainment. Our study provides insight into the interaction between regulatory fit and implementation intentions and subsequent effects on goal attainment.     

‘Surfing on the ironing board’ – the representation of women's entrepreneurship in German newspapers

Despite extensive attempts to enhance women's entrepreneurship in Germany, a gender gap continues to exist. This article sets out to analyse the representation of women's entrepreneurship in German media, by analysing how it is depicted in newspapers and how this changes over time. Images transported in media might regulate the nature of women's entrepreneurship, as they contain information about ‘typical’ and ‘socially desirable’ behaviour of women as well as of entrepreneurs. This article contributes to developing an understanding of the relevance of media representation of the entrepreneurship phenomenon for influencing the propensity towards entrepreneurial activity.     

Leading corporate sustainability: The role of top management team composition for triple bottom line performance

Sustainable development at the corporate level requires balancing social, environmental, and financial performance goals. Achieving such “triple bottom line” (TBL) performance is a very challenging task. In this study, we explore the role the organization's top management team (TMT) plays in leading their organization towards corporate sustainability. We focus on how two distinct aspects of the TMT's structural composition—the presence of a “chief sustainability officer” (CSO) and the TMT's functional diversity—affect the organization's ability to reach high levels of TBL performance. We follow the presence of 22 global energy companies in Corporate Knight's “Global 100” sustainability index for a period of 11 years and find that, surprisingly, the presence of a CSO does not boost TBL performance. However, we do find a positive effect for TMT functional diversity, suggesting that more diverse TMTs are better able to lead their organization to higher levels of TBL performance.     

Managing sub-branding affect transfer: the role of consideration set size and brand loyalty

Although the essential role of affect transfer has been evidenced in the brand extension literature, scant research has focused on affect transfer when a firm attempts to add sub-brands into its brand portfolio. We conducted a series of four experiments to demonstrate that affect associated with a family brand does in fact transfer to its sub-brand, and the effect is more pronounced for a sub-brand that is closer to (vs distant from) its family brand. Further, the transfer of affect is contingent upon consideration set size and brand loyalty. While affect transfer is observed when consideration set is small, this effect dissipates when consideration set expands; such moderation effect further interacts with consumers’ loyalty to a family brand and a competing brand. Our findings caution brand managers to take into account consumers’ consideration set size and brand loyalty when managing their brand portfolios.