Exceptional performance of multinational suppliers: theory and evidence

Review of World Economics - This paper focuses on an unexamined area of trade—the behaviour of heterogeneous intermediate suppliers facing final producers of different ability and pursuing...     

Reference points for measuring social performance: Case study of a social business venture

We present a longitudinal qualitative case study to elaborate on how a social venture forms reference points for social performance. Although organizations increasingly use various social performance targets to direct their operations, the scholarly knowledge on social performance reference points remains limited. We make use of the prior accounting literature and draw on the idea of compromising accounts to discuss how provisional and performative metrics can have a significant role in how organizations develop new ways to evaluate their social performance. Given that the social performance reference point criteria are ambiguous and the corresponding referents malleable, performative accounts are helpful as they can intervene in the organizational life by making particular things visible, providing space for interpretations, and facilitating discussion, thus creating temporary settlements and enabling opportunities for productive compromises between different organizational groups and evaluative principles. The recursive feedback loops between reference point referents, criteria and accounting artefacts help the organization to make sense of its own social performance and interpret the associated performance feedback, and thereby provide ground for organizational decisions on further action. Moreover, we discuss how imperfect accounts can be useful for social businesses in their pursuit of developing their activities and achieving social impact.     

Are You a Chocolate Lover? An Investigation of the Repurchase Behavior of Chocolate Consumers

This study aimed to understand the factors affecting repurchase behavior of chocolate brands and, consequently, customer retention and acquisition. The study adopted a qualitative, inductive approach using in-depth interviews with 31 Australian consumers. The factors identified in the extant literature as antecedents of customers’ repurchase intention in the chocolate industry, including brand recognition, sales promotion, product price value, variety, taste, texture, size, packaging, and customer satisfaction, were confirmed. The results also indicated that functional value, product selection value, self-gratification value, socialization value, and transactional value were also considered during the consumer decision-making process. Implications for practitioners are provided.     

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....     

Brexit: How Will UK Agriculture Fare?

There is little doubt that Brexit would have significant implications for UK agriculture, a sector with strong trade links to the EU and strong reliance on CAP income support. This article reports preliminary results from employing a Computable General Equilibrium Model, a Partial Equilibrium Model and Farm Level Models to explore selected trade and domestic policy scenarios post‐Brexit. These allow for the estimation of changes in producer prices, production and farm incomes against a baseline scenario of continued EU membership. Under a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, agricultural impacts are relatively modest. By contrast, unilateral removal of import tariffs has significant negative impacts on prices, production and incomes. Adoption of the EU's WTO tariff schedule for all imports favours net importers (e.g. dairy) and harms net exporters (e.g. sheep). Given the strong dependence of most UK farms on direct payments, their removal worsens negative impacts of new trade arrangements and offsets positive impacts. Impacts vary across different types and sizes of farm, but also regionally. However, the period of adjustment to new trade and domestic policy conditions may prove very challenging for a large number of farm businesses.     

Influence of livelihoods on climate change adaptation for smallholder farmers in the Mekong Delta Vietnam

Farmers in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta face a wide range of climate-related and hydrological factors which threaten rice production. Smallholder farmers must adapt to climate change to sustain rice production as their central and most important livelihood activity. A sample was stratified across agro-ecological areas in the Delta affected by flooding, alluvial soils, acid sulphate soils, and saline water intrusion and by derived farmer typologies. A rural livelihoods approach was used in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to identify and enumerate enabling and constraining adaptation factors. Smallholders experienced diverse natural hazards such as floods, abnormal rains, high temperatures, water scarcity, and salinity intrusion specific to the agro-ecological areas. Adaptation was constrained by labour shortages, water quality, topography, access to combine harvesters, transportation infrastructure, dryers and household savings. Adaptation was enabled by farming techniques and experience, cooperative groups, water quantity, access to information, and ability to purchase agro-chemicals through credit. Small farmers (< 1?ha) were more constrained than large farmers (> 1?ha) who had an expanded livelihood asset base. A range of policy implications are discussed, but adaptation is not just about technological fixes but requires overall improvements in a range of human, social and financial components.     

Plantation Slavery and Economic Development in the Antebellum Southern United States

The relationship of plantation slavery in the Americas to economic and social development in the regions it was dominant has long been a subject of scholarly debate. The existing literature is divided into two broad interpretive models –'planter capitalism' (Fogel and Engerman, Fleisig) and the 'pre-bourgeois civilization' (Genovese, Moreno-Fraginals). While each grasps aspects of plantation slavery's dynamics, neither provides a consistent and coherent historical or theoretical account of slavery's impact on economic development because they focus on the subjective motivations of economic actors (planters or slaves) independent of their social context. Borrowing Robert Brenner's concept of 'social property relations', the article presents an alternative analysis of the dynamics of plantation slavery and their relation to economic development in the regions it dominated.     

Role transitions in older adults: A marketing opportunity

Consumers act out roles throughout their lives. Marketers assist in this role playing by providing the wardrobes, props, and sets in the form of products and services. They also help people understand acceptable role behavior by portraying roles in their communication programs. Consumers assume new roles as they age. This article is designed to enhance understanding of the often-ignored roles that accompany aging and provides examples of and suggestions for effective marketing for these role transitions.