Modelling purchases as a function of advertising and promotion

This article describes the preliminary studies of the effect of advertising and promotion on purchases. The British single-source database Adlab has been the basis for this study of advertising and promotion effectiveness. The ST AS measure and logit modelling have been used to estimate the effect of advertising. The results from the two measures have been compared to determine the extent to which the two measures give occasion for the same conclusions. To indicate the accuracy of the two measures, their respective levels of significance have been studied. Two logit models have been estimated; one only includes the effect of TV exposure, while the other also includes the effect of promotions. The results from the two logit models are compared to determine which model gives the most accurate estimate of the effect of advertising. When comparing the results from the STAS measure with the parameter estimates from the second logit model, it is found that these two different measures largely lead to similar conclusions. Suggestions for further research and developments of the models are given.     

The Impact of Private Interest Contributions on RPS Adoption

In the last two decades, many U.S. states introduced policies to promote electricity generation from renewable energy sources (RES‐E). Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are considered to be the key RES‐E policy tool to date. This article tackles the question on why some state legislators were front‐running the trend of RPS implementation whereas others adopted policies just recently, and why others have not adopted them at all. We compile data on financial contributions of conventional energy interest groups (CEI) and renewable energy interest groups (REI) to state‐level policy‐makers between 1998 and 2010. By means of hazard and tobit regressions, we test the effect of these financial contributions on the probability of RPS adoption and on RPS stringency. The article provides evidence in favor of interest group theory. First, CEI have donated more to state‐level legislators affiliated with the Republican Party than to Democrats while contributions from REI went largely to the latter. Second, there are statistically significant links between the likelihood of RPS adoption and private interest contributions. Contributions from CEI have a negative effect on the likelihood of RPS adoption whereas REI contributions have a positive effect.     

Freeing work from the constraints of location and time

Information technology makes possible working patterns with flexibility in location and time. But traditional assumptions of managerial control serve as a strong deterrent. This article deals with these issues through an analysis of interviews at ICL and Texaco UK, with managers and high-level employees who work partially at home. Rank Xerox networkers are used as a point of comparison .     

Consumer understanding of food labels: toward a generic tool for identifying the average consumer

The ‘average consumer’ is referred to as a standard in regulatory contexts when attempts are made to benchmark how consumers are expected to reason while decoding food labels. An attempt is made to operationalize this hypothetical ‘average consumer’ by proposing a tool for measuring the level of informedness of an individual consumer against the national median at any time. Informedness, i.e. the individual consumer's ability to interpret correctly the meaning of the words and signs on a food label is isolated as one essential dimension for dividing consumers into three groups: less-informed, informed, and highly informed consumers. Consumer informedness is assessed using a 60-question test related to information found on a variety of Danish everyday food products and divided into factual questions and informedness about signpost labels. A test was made with 407 respondents who participated in four independent studies on fairness in consumer communication, and the average score for all was 57.6% of correct answers. A score of 64% and beyond would place a consumer in the upper quartile (the group of highly informed consumers), whereas a score of 52% or below would place the individual in the lower quartile (the group of less-informed consumers). Female respondents performed better than males on label recognition, and those around 40 years of age irrespective of gender performed best on factual knowledge, whereas those aged around 30 performed best on label recognition. It is foreseen that independent future studies of consumer behavior and decision making in relation to food products in different contexts could benefit from this type of benchmarking tool.     

Land and contract farming: Changes in the distribution and meanings of land in Kilombero,Tanzania

In the context of contract farming of sugarcane in an outgrower scheme in Tanzania, this paper explores how the scheme has fundamentally altered people's relationships with the land over the last 50 years, in particular, since 1999, when, after three decades, the sugar parastatal was privatized. The paper reviews the literature on the mutual relationship between contract farming and land ownership and examines the scheme with a focus on long-term changes in the forms of land acquisitions and land use. We argue that the meaning and importance of landownership in contract farming schemes needs to be reassessed if participation in contract farming entails a departure from previous forms of acquiring land, generates new spatial patterns of agricultural production, and necessitates additional economic and social resources in order to transform land into an economic asset.     

Let’s Get Real (Time)! The potential of real-time marketing to catalyze the sharing of brand messages

Abstract

Social media are increasingly populated with brand messages that are linked to timely events, a practice that is also known as real-time marketing (RTM). In this study, we examine whether RTM is an effective strategy to boost sharing behaviour, and if so, what moment- and content-related characteristics contribute to its effectiveness. A content analysis of brand tweets from Nielsen’s top-100 advertisers (n?=?1500) shows that RTM positively affects word of mouth. RTM is especially a more effective strategy when brand messages are linked with unpredictable events (vs. predictable). This can be explained by the meaningfulness dimension of creativity; brands make a more meaningful connection to timely moments in unpredictable RTM than in predictable RTM. Furthermore, we found support for the beneficial effects of moment-driven visuals; RTM messages are shared more when public events are visually integrated with those messages. No such effect was found for moment-driven hashtags.     

Food consumption and political agency: on concerns and practices among Danish consumers

Increasingly ordinary individual consumers are expected to perform some kind of societal or political agency. In the debates about political consumption it is a recurrent topic to what degree consumption practices can be seen as political practices and how many consumers perform such practices. The aim of this article is to empirically qualify the demarcation of the political in individual consumer activities by integrating the concept of political agency in the definition of political consumption. On the basis of empirical results from a representative survey among food consumers in Denmark, the article suggests that by supplementing the criteria of consumers performing specific consumption activities with a criteria of consumers expressing political agency, a more precise empirical delimitation of political consumption can be achieved. Three groups of food consumers are identified: those who perform political consumption practices; those who perform politicized consumption practices; and those who vocalize the discourse of political consumerism.     

Leading public service organizations: how to obtain high employee self-efficacy and organizational performance

Concerns are sometimes raised that transactional leadership harms public organizations’ performance because demands thwart employees’ self-efficacy. However, the opposite may be argued – conditional rewards strengthen feelings of competence because they provide positive feedback on performance. We study ninety-two high school principals’ reported use of contingent rewards and sanctions and self-efficacy among their 1,932 teachers. The results indicate that contingent rewards strengthen self-efficacy, and that sanctions are not negatively related with self-efficacy or performance. Furthermore, the teachers’ self-efficacy can be linked positively to organizational performance. This suggests that rewards can be an important tool for managers in the public sector.     

Predicting job satisfaction and workers’ intentions to leave at the bottom of the high value agricultural chain: evidence from the Ethiopian cut flower industry

While there is a large body of research focusing on working conditions in labour-intensive industries, none has yet considered how workers themselves perceive their own working conditions. This paper draws on a sample of workers from the cut flower sector industry in Ethiopia to examine the extent to which workers are satisfied with their jobs and to explore the relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave. Results suggest that a positive evaluation of extrinsic organizational rewards (wage, job security and healthy environment) contributes to workers’ job satisfaction. Dissatisfied workers report higher intentions to leave their job in the flower farms. In addition to low levels of job satisfaction, having alternative livelihood strategies is a key determining factor in the intention to leave. Interestingly, being a member of an informal savings net organized at the work floor mitigates the intention to leave. The paper ends with some implications for managers and policy-makers, along with limitations and suggestions for future research.     

The Post‐Privatization Role of Out‐growers' Associations in Rural Capital Accumulation: Contract Farming of Sugar Cane in Kilombero,Tanzania

Contract farming is widely promoted by multilateral agencies as an engine of economic growth in developing countries. The agencies often stress the need for governments to create strong farmers' organizations that can shoulder the risks associated with contractual relationships with large corporations. However, empirical studies of farmers' organizations in contractual schemes are few and tend to dismiss the performances of these organizations for not measuring up to donor expectations. This paper seeks to offer a more unbiased examination of what farmer's organizations actually do by recounting the development of out‐growers' associations in a contract farming scheme in central Tanzania. The paper explores the new space for social organization and business operations which emerged after privatization in 1998. It is argued that under certain conditions, out‐grower associations occupy a crucial position with regard to classic agrarian questions of land, labour and capital accumulation.