Commercial Bank Lending to SMEs in Poland

This paper explores the processes of financial intermediation that are used by commercial banks in their interactions with SMEs in Poland. The paper develops an argument for examining the empirical realities of commercial bank involvement with the SME sector within the context of economic transformation by suggesting that the connection between them influences the trajectories of economic change within transition. The paper provides a history of re-organisation of the commercial banking sector in Poland, paying particular attention to the involvement of foreign capital and foreign banks as the trend towards increasing foreign participation is apparent in the Central European transition economies. The findings from this research suggest that there are some significant variations within the commercial banking sector in the approach to, and practices for, lending to the SME sector.     

Materialism, status signaling, and product satisfaction

The consumer satisfaction literature has not, for the mos part, integrated individual values into the product evaluation process. Yet a comprehensive understanding of consumer satisfaction can best be attained by including both consumer and product factors. To demonstrate the usefulness of including individual values, this research focuses on one consumer value, namely, materialism. The authors empirically explore how this individual value is linked to consumers’ evaluations of products they have purchased. Using surveys, the authors collected data from a sample of college students (n=211) and a sample of adults (n=270). Across these two studies, using divergent samples and products, they find consistent evidence that materialism is negatively related to product satisfaction in product categories with high potential for status signaling, but unrelated to product satisfaction in product categories with lower potential for status signaling. The consumption goals that produce these product evaluations are empirically addressed Jeff Wang (jianfeng76@yahoo.com; PhD, City University of Hong Kong) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Faculty of Business at the City University of Hong Kong. This work was conducted when he was a doctoral student of marketing in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. His research interests include social networks and consumer behavior, consumer satisfaction and well-being, materialism and consumption meanings, and consumer interests and public policy issues. His dissertation studies credit card debt as a socially embedded phenomenon and investigates how consumers leverage their interpersonal ties as they accumulate and repay their debt. Melanie Wallendorf (mwallendorf@eller.arizona.edu) is Soldwedel Professor of Marketing in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. She holds an MS in sociology and a PhD in marketing from the University of Pittsburgh. Her articles on the sociocultural aspects of consumption have been published in theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Advertising and Society Review, Addiction, Journal of Macromarketing, andAmerican Behavioral Scientist, among others. Her coauthored article on “The Sacred and Profane in Consumer Behavior” won theJournal of Consumer Research Best Article Award in 1992. Her research has been featured in theWall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, American Demographics, andFortune, and has been funded by the Marketing Science Institute, the Arizona Disease Control Research Commission, and the Office of Earth Science at NASA.     

Die Arbeitszufriedenheit des kommunikations- und medienwissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses

The scientific landscape is subject to constant change but the recruitment problem within the field of communication science and media studies in the German-speaking countries persists. To explore this problem the present study investigates the working conditions of the non-permanent faculty (PhD students and postdocs). A special focus is set on job satisfaction because it presumably increases the likelihood for continuance in academia. An online survey among 504 PhD students and postdocs shows that they are, overall, satisfied with their jobs. However, occupational uncertainty is perceived as a major problem. OLS regressions reveal that the strongest predictors of job satisfaction are mentoring satisfaction and terms of contract. The relation between job satisfaction and publication output proves to be more complex than anticipated. Based on the results a set of recommendations is put forward.     

Making use of Internet interactivity to propose a dynamic presentation of web questionnaires

Quality & Quantity - New methodologies that aim to collect data in innovative ways (e.g. big data) are putting pressure on the traditional surveys based on questionnaires. In order to obtain...     

Uncertainty perception in bidding for Product-Service Systems under competition

This research investigates what impact of uncertainty perception arising from the existence of competition has on the pricing decision for Product-Service Systems (PSS) under uncertainty. PSS provision is an increasingly important area for many businesses and competition increases cognitive pressures on providers even further. We present an experimental study with industrial costing and bidding experts from the defence and aerospace sector. The study consisted of an experimental set-up via two questionnaires which differed in the existence of competition in the bidding scenario. The findings showed that bidding decision makers changed their evaluation of the cost estimate due to the introduction of competition but kept their evaluations of the profit margin and price bids constant. Furthermore, the participants listed the relevant sources of uncertainty that influenced their decision-making process. This research contributes to the literature in two ways. First, our findings showed that predictions from current theory regarding decision-making of cost estimation and pricing are not confirmed when competitively bidding for PSS. Second, we show uncertainty sources that influenced the decision makers and identified p the importance of internal processes of the PSS provider and environmental uncertainty.     

Bounds analysis of competing risks: a non-parametric evaluation of the effect of unemployment benefits on migration

By reexamining the effect of unemployment benefits on reemployment probabilities we make two contributions to the literature: first, we estimate separate effects for reemployment in the local or a distant region. Second, we address the problem of incomplete duration within a competing risks model. Our results confirm that missing data problems at first preclude any meaningful result even though we have access to daily individual data on 50 % of the male workforce in Germany. When we impose additional assumptions, we obtain evidence that the treatment effect depends on the household context, the treatment intensity and the destination state.     

Leapfrogging to Sustainable Consumption? An Explorative Survey of Consumption Habits and Orientations in Southern Brazil

In current political and scientific debates on sustainable consumption, the low- and middle-income classes of emerging countries are gaining attention. One common feature of such debates is the idea that these emerging consumer classes could be motivated to “leapfrog” directly to environmentally and socially aware consumption patterns and, thereby, avoid adopting the resource-intensive consumption styles of populations in industrialized countries. To be able to adapt sustainable product development or sustainable communication strategies to the needs of low- and medium-income classes, it is necessary to know more about the basic consumption orientations, current consumption habits, and future consumption aspirations of these societal groups. In order to contribute towards filling that knowledge gap, an exploratory survey was conducted, taking the example of emerging low- and middle-income classes in a Southern Brazilian city. The survey identified five different consumer types: the Home-Centered Traditionals, the Indifferent, the Up-to-date Privileged, the Wanna-be Materialists, and the Quality of Life-Oriented Postmaterialists. The paper outlines some ideas concerning how these types can be addressed with target-group-specific products and services as well as differentiated sustainability communication strategies. We conclude, however, that “leapfrogging” of Brazilian low- and middle-income classes towards sustainable consumption is not a very likely option. There are certain consumption orientations that sustainability strategies can link to, but these trends are not likely to compensate the general tendencies towards a resource-intensive lifestyle following the model of the industrialized countries.     

浴在奢华里

手拿上好的葡萄美酒，耳边环绕优雅的古典音乐，坐在结合高科技产品、有贵重金属镶嵌的浴盆中，墙上水晶灯发出迷醉的光芒，原来沐浴也可以这样奢侈。