Cost Analysis of Calcium in Store Brand versus National Brand Grocery Products

Objective: This study was to determine if calcium fortification yields a higher price per serving in grocery store products. Researchers compared store brand to national brand grocery products in relation to cost in order to examine if calcium values were similar between store brand and national brand products. Methods: A total of 112 store brand and 211 national brand grocery products were collected from three low (national chain store), middle and high priced (Virginia and North Carolina regional store) grocery venues. Products were compared using price and calcium percentage per serving. ANOVA was used to determine between store brand and national brand for price per serving and calcium content, and between grocery venues. Results: National brand fortified products had a significantly lower mean price per serving when compared to national brand non-fortified products (p = 0.0002). There was no statistical difference between store brand fortified and non-fortified products (p = 0.9256). Low priced store brand products had the lowest mean price per serving ($0.34 ±0.24). Conclusions: This study found store brand products have similar calcium content as national brand products. Product cost was lower at low priced store compared to middle and high priced stores.     

Factors that affect accountant's perceptions of alternative work arrangements

Advances in technology have impacted accounting careers with resulting changes in where, when and how accountants perform their job duties. In addition, employee attitudes towards, and need for, better work/life balance has led to more firms offering alternate work arrangements (AWA). Research suggests that AWA programs can lead to many benefits for both employers and employees. Despite the prevalence of these programs there are relatively few accountants working under these arrangements and concerns about work/life balance continue. This study examines factors that shape perceptions of the cost and benefits associated with the adoption and/or support of AWAs across work culture, gender and participation experience. Our results suggest that work environment had a significant effect on perceptions of AWAs. Public accountants perceived greater costs related to career advancement but correspondingly less concern about administrative issues than management accountants. We also found that accountants who have participated (or are currently participating in an AWA), perceived greater benefits and less concern for potential negative consequences to their careers than non-participants. Finally, women perceived greater benefits to result from participation in an AWA and men perceived correspondingly more costs. Regardless, both genders perceived that AWAs were not strictly a women's issue. These findings contribute to our understanding of alternate work arrangements and point to factors that must be addressed to increase the acceptance and success of these programs.     

The evolution of consumer knowledge and sources of information: Hungary in transition

The authors’ research in Hungary during the period of transition to a market economy provides an opportunity to examine the evolving relationships between consumer product knowledge and its antecedents, including advertising, personal search, interpersonal sources, and brand experience. Their findings, based on survey data collected in Budapest in 1992 and 1998, indicate that the market information variables explain more variance in consumer knowledge later rather than earlier in the transition. Advertising is an important predictor of consumer knowledge later but not earlier in the transition, personal search is important at both times, and interpersonal sources are not important in either time period; brand experience is negatively related to knowledge earlier in the transition and positively related later in the transition. This study allows one to begin to understand the boundary conditions associated with studies conducted in developed economies. Managerial implications for firms investing in transitional economies are presented. Robin A. Coulter (robin.coulter@business.uconn.edu) is Ackerman Scholar and an associate professor of marketing in the School of Business at the University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include branding, cross-cultural consumer behavior, advertising, and research methods. Her work has appeared in theJournal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Applied Psychology, and theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing. Linda L. Price (llprice@email.arizona.edu) is Soldwedel Professor of Marketing in the Eller School of Management at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies to examine the active, emotional, imaginative aspects of consumers’ decisions and activities, and the social and cultural context of marketplace behaviors. Her work has appeared in theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and other leading marketing, management, and social science journals. Lawrence Feick (feick@katz.pitt.edu) is a professor of business administration in the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. His current research focuses on cross-cultural consumer behavior, consumer word-of-mouth, and referrals. His work has appeared in the Journal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Research, Psychological Bulletin, andPublic Opinion Quarterly. Camelia Micu (camelia.micu@business.uconn.edu) is a marketing doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut. Her research interests include advertising and product trial and cross-cultural consumer behavior.     

Contagion Effects from the 1994 Mexican Peso Crisis: Evidence from Chilean Stocks

The contagion, or informational spillover, effects of the 1994 peso crisis from the Mexican market to the Chilean market, and to the Chilean American Depository Receipts (ADRs) trading in the U.S., are examined. Significant excess returns are observed for Chilean stocks for the event dates of the Mexican Peso crisis, providing evidence of contagion effects. Significant excess returns on these Chilean ADRs are also observed for each of the five event dates associated with the Peso crisis, suggesting that the contagion effects spilled over to the ADRs. A multiple regression model shows that the spillover contagion effects were very efficiently transmitted from the Mexican market to the Chilean market to the Chilean ADRs. Multifactor regressions show that the most significant influence on the pricing of Chilean ADRs is the raw Chilean Index, rather than the Chilean Index expressed in U.S. dollars.     

The Evidence on Product-Market Diversifying Acquisitions and Joint Ventures by U.S. Banks

We examine the acquisition and joint venture strategies of U.S. banks from 1980 to 1998 to diversify into non-banking sectors. We find that the market responds favorably to both types of expansions, with the gains being shared between acquiring banks and their targets and venture banks and their non-bank partners, respectively. Acquisitions expose acquiring banks to significant increases in nonsystematic, market, and total risk, while joint ventures result in significant decreases in the nonsystematic and total risk measures for participating banks. Our results suggest that product-market expansions, in general, provide U.S. banks with value-enhancing opportunities, and that joint ventures may improve both the return and risk characteristics of the partner banks.     

Same Boundary Management Preference,Different Outcome: Toward a Gendered Perspective of Boundary Theory Among Entrepreneurs

Work‐family boundary research debates whether family demands should be integrated or separated from work demands. Our thesis is that the impact of boundary management preferences on business performance depends on the entrepreneur's gender. We also investigate how family‐to‐business support and business location alter the gender and boundary management preference interaction. Results show that an integration preference enhances business performance for men regardless of family‐to‐business support or business location. A segmentation preference aids women's business performance, especially among those with high family‐to‐business support and an independent business. An integration preference yields greater business performance for women with an at‐home business.     

E-Shopping Patterns of Chinese and US Millennials

A conceptually based taxonomy of 22 distinct forms of e-shopping vehicles is proposed. A modification of the UTAUT and UTAUT2 models is introduced to explain how vehicles are interrelated in regard to consumer reliance upon them for their e-purchasing. A survey of over 1,000 millennial university students, 697 Chinese and 306 US, revealed strong support in both samples for the hypothesized six dimensional pattern underlying consumer vehicular reliance. Further, differences between Chinese and US samples lay not in the nature of the dimensions, but rather in the strength of reliance upon each dimension. Thus, the study demonstrates the utility of the concept/measure of shopper vehicular reliance, VPR (Vehicle Purchasing Reliance) for both practitioners and scientists. In cross-national comparisons, observed differences between samples in strength of reliance supported four of five hypotheses predicated on previously established national distinctions a) in trust and b) in the cultural value of individualism-collectivism.     

The effect of latency variables on repeated measures inference applied to the measurement of risk-taking as a function of psychopathy

In numerous psychology studies, subjects are asked to perform some task a number of times, T. The effect of the choice of T on the associated inference, however, is usually not assessed. We investigate the appropriate choice of T empirically by using data collected in a study on the relationship between psychopathy and risk-taking in 90 inner city drug users enrolled in a residential treatment program. We show that, when studying this relationship, the latency variable usually discarded from the analysis behaves exponentially allowing a natural division of the study period 1, . . . , T into two distinct subperiods. These subperiods yield significantly different results—in the early period only (which we call “reactive”), subjects with high psychopathy scores exhibit lower sensitivity to reward and punishment in our risk taking experiment. The later period (which we call “stable”) shows no relationship between sensitivity to reward and punishment and psychopathic tendencies.