An investigation of problem-solving support and relaxation motivations on e-WOM

As a consequence of greater computer-mediated consumer-to-consumer communication within the firm's marketing communications, there has been a growing need to understand these digital interactions more explicitly. That is, we still know little about the exact extrinsic and intrinsic motivations that drive electronic word-of-mouth. The purpose of the paper is to better understand why members within community-based websites develop a need to exchange and/or develop a social bond within the community. Questionnaire data were gathered from 147 members of an online beauty forum in Australia. The findings highlight that those members seeking problem-solving support in combination with elements of relaxation will be more inclined to exchange with other community members and develop a social bond within that community. Marketing managers can capitalise these findings by strengthening problem-solving support systems and creating environments where community members can also relax and unwind to increase the exchange between members and also increase the social bonds within the community.     

HRM and Indian epistemologies: A review and avenues for future research

India is emerging as a super power, slated to be among the world's five largest economies and viewed by international investors, business conglomerates and tertiary education providers as a land of opportunity. A database search since the opening up of the Indian economy in 1991 reveals a slowly increasing number of scholarly articles on HRM, with a steep rise from the year 2000 onwards. While it is acknowledged that the field of HRM is a broad area, there is currently a dearth of research in specific HRM practices and policies in India to warrant a focus on only one area. Hence the primary objective of this article is to present a scholarly survey of important research literatures in the area of HRM in India, and to offer avenues for future research. To this end this article garners, integrates and discusses research on HRM in India with a focus primarily on the past fifteen years. It is within this complexity that research on India and its workforce is presented by illuminating HRM as embedded in the Indian environment with its intricate epistemologies and transitions in a period of dynamic change.     

Wise Up: Creating Organizational Wisdom Through an Ethic of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kaitiakitanga</Emphasis>

Organizations are searching for innovative business approaches that deliver profits and create shared value for all stakeholders. We show what can be learned from the relational wisdom approach of Indigenous Māori and reframe the prevailing economic argument that has seen companies profit and prosper at the expense of communities and ecologies. We develop an ethic of kaitiakitanga model premised on Māori values which holds the potential to enrich and further humanize our understanding of business. The Māori economy is a globally connected, prosperous, and profitable sector of the New Zealand economy. By drawing on Māori values, we present a wisdom position through an ethic of kaitiakitanga or stewardship to emphasize and illustrate the interconnectedness of life in a woven universe. Through practicing kaitiakitanga, organizations can build businesses where wisdom is consciously created through reciprocal relationships. In this worldview of business, humans are stewards endowed with a mandate to use the agency of their mana (spiritual power, authority, and sovereignty) to create mauri ora (conscious well-being) for humans and ecosystems—and this commitment extends to organizations.     

Agriculture and climate change in global scenarios: why don't the models agree

Agriculture is unique among economic sectors in the nature of impacts from climate change. The production activity that transforms inputs into agricultural outputs involves direct use of weather inputs (temperature, solar radiation available to the plant, and precipitation). Previous studies of the impacts of climate change on agriculture have reported substantial differences in outcomes such as prices, production, and trade arising from differences in model inputs and model specification. This article presents climate change results and underlying determinants from a model comparison exercise with 10 of the leading global economic models that include significant representation of agriculture. By harmonizing key drivers that include climate change effects, differences in model outcomes were reduced. The particular choice of climate change drivers for this comparison activity results in large and negative productivity effects. All models respond with higher prices. Producer behavior differs by model with some emphasizing area response and others yield response. Demand response is least important. The differences reflect both differences in model specification and perspectives on the future. The results from this study highlight the need to more fully compare the deep model parameters, to generate a call for a combination of econometric and validation studies to narrow the degree of uncertainty and variability in these parameters and to move to Monte Carlo type simulations to better map the contours of economic uncertainty.     

IMC: Has anything really changed? A new perspective on an old definition

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) has emerged as a new concept in marketing in the twenty-first century. IMC is mostly thought of, taught and written about as simply the integration of advertising and promotional activities. However, this paper proposes IMC as a broader concept. It is more than a process or activity within an organisation: it is a system of belief or engagement, embedded in an organisation's culture, underpinned by communication and driven by technology and senior management. We identify seven major tenets of the integrated view of marketing communication within the IMC literature, and argue that early marketing concepts of the twentieth century are no longer valid. IMC can be seen as a new paradigm in marketing, equipped with central concepts that apply to many business environments.     

The value of imperfect sample separation information in mixtures of normal distributions

This paper conducts a Monte Carlo study in order to evaluate the value of information in a normal mixture model when an imperfect sample separation indicator is available. For a variety of cases, computations are done on the ratios of asymptotic variances of the parameter estimators when sample separation is known versus when only the indicator is available. This study is patterned closely on a paper by Schmidt (1981), and obtains similar results when parameters appearing in Schmidt's model are allowed to vary. The new results here focus on the importance of the probabilities that the regime indicator is correct, for each of the two possible regimes.     

What Advertisers Need to Know about the iYGeneration: An Australian Perspective

A great challenge exists today: how to reach youth (a.k.a. the iYGeneration) who consume multiple media concurrently, who can access information on demand, and who have intertwined virtual social media networks in their lives. Our research finds that Australian youth multi-task and rarely use traditional media, although significant differences between males and females, as well as late tweens and 20-somethings, exist. Technology convergence facilitates two-way dialogue, allowing growing social interactions to occur in their technological environments. Our findings show that in order for marketing communication professionals to effectively communicate with this market, it is crucial to know exactly how the iYGeneration use media, which media they use, and when they use it.     

International briefing 17: training and development in New Zealand

New Zealand is one of the world's most geographically isolated and least crowded countries. New Zealand organizations are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of training and development as the country becomes more technologically sophisticated, multiethnic and older. The country needs higher productivity, business investment and skills development. Both the government and the corporate sector work to strengthen system capability and quality, to increase opportunities for on‐the‐job experience and to raise the skills of all New Zealanders for participation in a knowledge society.     

The HR competency requirements for strategic and functional HR practitioners

HR competency research has predominantly focused on identifying generic HR competencies for HR practitioners using a universalist approach. This approach has led to the distinction between strategic and functional HR competencies, and a belief that the former is superior to the latter for successful performance in the HR domain. However, little attention has been paid to the interrelationships between strategic and functional HR competency dimensions, and their perceived relevance to strategic and functional HR roles. Drawing on a situationalist perspective and using a mixed-method approach, seven HR competency concepts are identified and examined for their perceived relative importance to strategic and functional HR roles. The findings indicate that Business Awareness competencies are important differentiators between strategic and functional HR roles, whereas Leadership and Relationship Building and Self-Belief and Social Factors are generic to all HR practitioners. The findings also indicate that there is a wider range of HR attributes required for HR job success than those espoused in the HR literature. Theoretical implications and recommendations on selection and development programmes for HR practitioners are also discussed.     

The future of food demand: understanding differences in global economic models

Understanding the capacity of agricultural systems to feed the world population under climate change requires projecting future food demand. This article reviews demand modeling approaches from 10 global economic models participating in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP). We compare food demand projections in 2050 for various regions and agricultural products under harmonized scenarios of socioeconomic development, climate change, and bioenergy expansion. In the reference scenario (SSP2), food demand increases by 59–98% between 2005 and 2050, slightly higher than the most recent FAO projection of 54% from 2005/2007. The range of results is large, in particular for animal calories (between 61% and 144%), caused by differences in demand systems specifications, and in income and price elasticities. The results are more sensitive to socioeconomic assumptions than to climate change or bioenergy scenarios. When considering a world with higher population and lower economic growth (SSP3), consumption per capita drops on average by 9% for crops and 18% for livestock. The maximum effect of climate change on calorie availability is ?6% at the global level, and the effect of biofuel production on calorie availability is even smaller.