Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard in Equity Partnerships: Evidence from Hollywood's Slate Financing Agreements

We use a movie industry project‐by‐project data set to analyze the principal–agent problem in slate financing arrangements. Under this specific film financing regime, which has become a significant mode of raising capital in Hollywood over the past decade, an external investor concludes a long‐term contract with a film producer and commits to cofinance a larger number of future film projects of that particular partner. In line with our theoretical conjectures, slate cofinanced movies receive poorer quality ratings and yield considerably lower return rates. Our data suggests that a substantial part of these performance differences may be attributed to adverse project selection and producer moral hazard.     

Export promotion in the context of technical cooperation

A large number of developing countries have introduced trade policy reforms in recent years. These have been supported by export promotion projects in the context of bilateral and multilateral development cooperation. The results of the advisory approach so far adopted have been disappointing on the whole, so a reorientation is now taking place in the design of export promotion. This article describes an alternative advisory approach by taking the Indo-German Export Promotion Project (IGEP) as an illustration.     

The role of emotions in decision-making on employer brands: insights from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Branding is a key concept in marketing for which extensive research has provided valuable insights into how to attract and retain customers. However, far less is known about how to use branding to attract and retain employees. The work presented here aims to narrow this research gap by drawing on dual-process theories from research on decision-making. First, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we show that decision-making for employer first-choice brands (as compared to less attractive employer brands) is associated with increased activation in brain areas linked to emotions and with decreased activation in areas linked to working memory and reasoning. Second, our region-of-interest (ROI) analyses reveal that neural processing of employer brands differs from the processing of consumer brands. Results support our theorizing on dual-processing regarding the role of emotions in decision-making on employer brands and, further, they indicate that decision processes differ between employer and consumer brands.     

A Tri-Country Marketing Project – Preparing Students for the Realities of a Global Marketplace

With rapidly increasing globalization, business students are required to understand complex global markets and adapt to the rapid changes in the global landscape. This paper discusses a project where students from International Marketing courses in Pakistan, the United States, and France used an interactive platform as a base to jointly explore the marketing of brand-name products across the three countries to better understand the realities of global marketing strategies. The results are discussed as are the difficulties and the recommendations for future projects.     

Strategic Technology Alliances: A Way to Innovative Enterprises in Russia?

This article examines whether, how, and to what extent international technology partnerships of Russian enterprises and research institutes contribute to their technological capability building. It presents results obtained by analysis of both a unique survey of Russian enterprises and research institutes co-operating with Western partners in seven selected high-technology fields and four Russian regions with a high concentration of R&D, and additional evidence from 16 in-depth interviews with managers of such Russian high-technology entities (HTE).     

Numerische Funktionen in der Präferenzen- und Entscheidungstheorie

Zusammenfassung Zur Existenz von Nutzenfunktionen über einer Menge von Entscheidungsalternativen gibt es seit etwa zwanzig Jahren sehr tiefliegende Aussagen, die im wesentlichen auf der vollständigen Kenntnis der Präferenzstruktur über dem Entscheidungsbereich beruhen. Bei der Ermittlung von Verfahren zur expliziten Bestimmung von Nutzenfunktionen ist man jedoch bis heute auf unbefriedigende empirische Verfahren angewiesen. Neben einigen verfeinerten Existenzaussagen für ordinale Nutzenfunktionen (Abschnitt 2) sollen daher Möglichkeiten zur Approximation von Präferenzstrukturen durch Nutzenfunktionen als Polynome diskutiert werden. Nachdem in Abschnitt 3 mehrere Approximationsmöglichkeiten angedeutet werden, wird in Abschnitt 4 dargelegt, welche Daten hinreichend sind, um eine ordinale Nutzenfunktion als Polynom explizit zu ermitteln.     

I thought it was over,but now it is back: customer reactions to <Emphasis Type="Italic">ex post</Emphasis> time extensions of sales promotions

In many industries, it is common practice to extend sales promotions ex post. That is, firms belatedly extend the initial deadline of a promotion shortly before or directly after the previously announced deadline, with the expectation of increased sales. Four experimental studies indicate both positive and negative effects of these ex post extensions. First, customers perceive an ex post extended promotional offer as less attractive, such that their repurchase intentions diminish. This negative effect arises consistently across different boundary conditions, such as different customer and product types. Second, the positive effect of ex post extensions stems from the possibility that the consumer can still use the promotional offer, so it emerges only for potential customers and existing customers of frequently bought products. Companies can mitigate the dark side of ex post extensions proactively, by designing the extensions to last for only a short time or offering an explanation for the extension that highlights the popularity of the initial promotion.     

Spieltheoretische Aussagen im Oligopolproblem

Zusammenfassung Um das Oligopol zu beschreiben, sind verschiedene spieltheoretische Ansätze entwickelt worden, die mehr oder weniger vereinfachende Annahmen machen. In dieser Arbeit wird von einer monoton fallenden Nachfragefunktion und von monoton wachsenden Kostenfunktionen der Oligopolisten ausgegangen, und daraus werden Auszahlungsfunktionen konstruiert. Die Mengen der Produktionsmöglichkeiten entsprechen den Strategiemengen, so daß man einn-Personen-Spiel erhält. Es zeigt sich, daß Existenz und Eindeutigkeit von Gleichgewichtspunkten sehr eng mit der Konkavität der Nachfragefunktion und der Konvexität der Kostenfunktionen zusammenhängt.