The Cost of War: A Comment and a Reply

Intereconomics - In the July/August issue of Intereconomics, Ilona Sologoub argued that increasing the cost of war would limit the ability of an authoritarian state to wage a war. Here, Charles D....     

Predicting consumer behavior with two emotion appraisal dimensions: Emotion valence and agency in gift giving

Decades of emotion research have demonstrated the unique influences of many specific emotions on consumer behaviors. These countless numbers of emotion effects can make it difficult to understand the role of emotions in consumer behavior. The current research introduces a parsimonious framework that can predict the effects of emotions on the consumer behavior of gift giving with just two appraisal dimensions: valence and agency. A series of studies examining gift giving reveals that positive emotions exert positive effects on gift giving, independent of their agency. In contrast, agency does predict the effects of negative emotions on gift giving. Negative self-caused emotions increase gift giving, whereas negative other-caused emotions decrease gift giving. These findings seem to hold for inactive and active emotions, and for uncertain and certain emotions. Together, these findings make a unique theoretical and empirical contribution to the understanding of emotions in gift giving. Moreover, it provides a pragmatic framework for both academics and practitioners.     

Community supported agriculture membership: The benefits of spousal involvement

Fresh vegetables originating from alternative food networks (AFNs) are an increasingly popular choice all over the world. Being part of an AFN frequently redefines consumption and participation of family members in food‐related activities. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a type of AFN, providing increased access to produce in a form of risk‐sharing model between farmers and consumers, which at the same time influences organization of household resources. Thus, not only the given member of a CSA, but also his/her spousal activities in household processes should be taken in account. It is clear that entering into CSA significantly affects lifestyles and frequently requires a great deal of adaptation, possibly leading to a crisis of whether to stay within the CSA or cease membership. The objective of this study was to reveal how spouses influence CSA membership. Using an explorative design, this study has identified three emerging patterns of spousal influence: coherent, integrative and neutral/antagonistic. The spousal influence on CSA membership may represent partner activities regarding food issues but also has an effect on food preparation and culinary choices at home. Our findings suggest that membership in CSA presents challenges and thus spousal support is crucial in the long term. As a consequence, spousal influence should be examined in relation to CSA participation. Inconveniences associated with CSA membership could be avoided by providing more information about the importance of spousal support.     

Injuries,inequalities and health in Europe

Injuries account for a significant burden of mortality, morbidity, disability and health care costs. They differentially affect age and sex groups and reveal massive inequalities in occurrence within and between countries in Europe. Within countries, the poor suffer most and have least ability to change their exposures to risk. Addressing inequalities in injury occurrence would play a valuable role in reducing the differential burden of ill-health between rich and poor. Despite the evidence for many effective injury-related interventions, limited attention has been devoted to addressing injuries as a public health priority. This paper questions why attention has been limited to date and suggests policy action to support injuries being addressed as a mainstream concern by national and international health policy-makers. The paper briefly highlights the public health burden of injuries and violence; illustrates the range of inequalities that characterise their occurrence; highlights the scope for public health action and considers the extent to which policies that reduce the overall burden of injuries may also reduce inequalities in their occurrence; and finally examines why there has been a limited policy response to date and suggests ways of advancing the agenda.     

The Significance of the New Venture's First Sale: The Impact of Founders' Capabilities and Proactive Sales Orientation

Initial sale success in the market with a new product is a critical milestone for a new venture. Failure at the introduction stage of a new product could have lethal consequences for the venture. In the present study, the authors investigate the role of a new venture company's first successful sale in the venture's future commercial success. The authors develop and test a model of the impact of the founders' entrepreneurial and commercial capabilities and proactive sales orientation on the significance of the first sale and sales growth of a new venture. Using survey data and partial least squares estimation, the results reveal that the founders' commercial capabilities have a positive effect on proactive sales orientation, while their entrepreneurial capabilities positively moderate the effect of commercial capabilities. Further, the results reveal that a proactive sales orientation positively affects the significance of the first sale and that value‐based selling approach positively moderates the effect of proactive sales orientation. Finally, the results reveal that the significance of the first sale is positively related to sales growth. Thus, the authors conclude that combining the founders' commercial and entrepreneurial capabilities strengthens proactive sales orientation and that, in turn, a proactive sales orientation particularly increases the significance of the first sale when new venture companies practice value‐based selling. Research has convincingly demonstrated proactive selling behavior to be one of the most powerful predictors of sales performance. Value‐based selling is a sales approach to identify, quantify, communicate, and verify value of a new product to the customer. Our findings suggest that founders who possess both strong commercial and entrepreneurial capabilities engage considerably more in proactive sales practice as compared with founders that only possess strong commercial capabilities. Hence, rather than hiring specific sales expertise, founders should develop their proactive, value‐selling capabilities.     

Relating ultrasonic vocalizations from a pair of rats to individual behavior: A composite link model approach

Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are crucial in the social behavior of rats. We aim to relate USV rates of pairs of rats to individual activity in an automated home cage (PhenoTyper®) where USVs are recorded per pair and not per individual. We propose a composite link model approach to parametrize a mechanistic “sum‐of‐rates” model in which the pair's USV rate is the sum of the USV rates of individuals depending on their own behavior. In generalized linear models (GLMs), the individual's USV rates are multiplied. We verified through simulation that composite link model gave lower Poisson deviance than GLM. We analyzed the data from an experiment in which half of the cages did allow the pairs to interact (Pair Housing) and the other half did not (Individual Housing). The “sum‐of‐rates” model fits best for Individual Housing and GLM for Pair Housing. An additional simulation study strongly suggests that interaction between rats changes the underlying mechanism for vocalization behavior.     

Which manufacturing industries and sectors are most vulnerable to Brexit?

When the UK leaves the EU, trade arrangements between the UK and EU will change. Most of the options for future UK‐EU relationships currently under discussion imply increased trade barriers, which will reduce trade and also have effects on output and prices. In this paper, we use a multi‐market partial equilibrium model to analyse the vulnerability of 122 manufacturing industries to Brexit. In all five Brexit scenarios we model, there is an overall reduction in UK manufacturing output. Output grows in some industries but at the expense of higher consumer and intermediate goods prices. High tech and medium–high tech sectors are more at risk of a decline in domestic production than lower tech sectors. In most areas of the country, demand for high‐skilled workers falls more than for medium and low‐skilled workers.     

Bereichernd oder belanglos?

Although participatory press photography has existed for decades, its institutionalization by tabloid journalism is a relatively new phenomenon. The most popular example in Germany is constituted by the “reader reporters” of the tabloid newspaper Bild. Supporters of participatory press photography hope for an enrichment of news coverage while its critics consider the photos as insignificant. This paper tries to clarify this controversy on the basis of news value theory. It presents the results of a census of reader reporter photographs and their adjacent articles. This paper tries to answer the question of whether selection and prominence of the photographs is oriented toward societal or individual relevance. It can be shown that selection is dominated by “soft” news factors while prominence is mainly influenced by “hard” news factors. The latter are also attributed to the photographs via the adjacent text. The results can be transferred to other forms of participatory journalism. They support the hypothesis of a complementary rather than competitive relation between participatory and professional journalism.     

Buchbesprechungen

Zusammenfassungen  Im Fach Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft liegen bislang kaum empirische Daten zur Situation des promovierten wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses vor. Diese Studie gibt Aufschluss über Besch?ftigungssituation, Berufszufriedenheit, Betreuung sowie Karrierevorstellungen und -strategien der Post-Doktorandinnen und-Doktoranden des Faches. Die Ergebnisse einer Befragung im deutschsprachigen Raum zeigen, dass die Postdocs mit ihrer beruflichen Situation, vor allem mit den Arbeitsinhalten und der Flexibilit?t der Arbeitszeiten zufrieden sind und eine akademische Karriere anstreben. Die Konkurrenz und die Hürden auf dem Karriereweg werden allerdings als gro? wahrgenommen. Zudem scheinen die als vielversprechend eingesch?tzten Karrierestrategien wie das Publizieren in internationalen Fachzeitschriften nur schwer umsetzbar zu sein. Einzig jene Postdocs, die von ihrer/m vorgesetzten Professor/in beim Publizieren und beim Aufbau eines Netzwerks unterstützt und betreut werden, schaffen es, viel zu publizieren und international in Erscheinung zu treten. Hingegen sind zwei andere Gruppen weniger erfolgreich in der Umsetzung der eigenen Ziele bzw. verfolgen mit der Habilitation eher traditionelle Karrierestrategien.

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Are many paths leading to Rome? Professional situation and career strategies of post-doc scholars in communication and media studies

There are hardly any data on the situation of post-doc scholars in the field of communication and media studies. This study describes the employment, job satisfaction, mentoring, and career concepts and strategies of post-docs in the field. A survey among post-docs in the German-speaking countries shows that they are satisfied with their job situation, especially the kind of work they have to do and the flexibility of their working hours. They also aspire to a career in academia. Competition and obstacles on the career path are, however, perceived as considerable. Some strategies such as publishing in international journals are seen as promising, but hard to attain. Only those post-docs who are supported by the professor they work for succeed in publishing much and getting to be known internationally. Other groups are less successful in reaching their goals or pursue the traditional career path of habilitation.

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Dr. Werner Wirth ist ordentlicher Professor für empirische Kommunikations- und Medienforschung am Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung (IPMZ) der Universit?t Zürich. Ilona St?mpfli (lic. rer. soc.) ist wissenschaftliche Assistentin am IPMZ. Saskia B?cking (Dr. des.) ist ebenfalls wissenschaftliche Assistentin und Dr. J?rg Matthes wissenschaftlicher Assistent am IPMZ.     

Information and consumer willingness to pay for biofortified yellow cassava: evidence from experimental auctions in Nigeria

In this article, we use the Becker‐DeGroot‐Marschak mechanism to estimate consumer demand for biofortified yellow cassava varieties in two states of Nigeria: Imo in the southeast and Oyo in the southwest. These two states exhibit distinct habitual product color preferences for staple food made with cassava. We estimate the effect of nutrition information campaigns and nature of planting material delivery institutions on consumer demand. Willingness to pay estimations account for the effect of product endowment, censoring in bids and nonpayment. In Oyo, consumers are willing to pay a premium for light yellow cassava variety even in the absence of nutrition information. The article finds that nutrition information results in a large and significant price premium for biofortified cassava in both states, and the nature of delivery institution has no significant effect.