Price discrimination through multi-level loyalty programs

Loyalty programs often feature multiple rewards with different requirements; for instance, an airline offering a free domestic ticket for 10 K miles, and an international ticket for 20 K miles. This research focuses on the role of multi-level rewards as a segmentation and price discrimination mechanism: Multi-level rewards can increase firm profits when buyers differ in purchase frequency and/or time discount factor. We propose that a program with two rewards can be designed in such a way that (i) it is more profitable than a one-reward program, and (ii) buyers self-select. Light users prefer to receive the smaller reward two times over receiving the larger reward one time, even though the smaller reward is less than half of the larger reward. We show that the smaller reward helps the firm enlarge its base in the light user segment. We also compare multi-level programs with quantity discounts.     

Strategically Assessing International Business Course-Specific Learning Aims

Abstract

During the past 30 years, there have been calls for universities and business schools to internationalize curriculum, students and faculty. As most U.S. business schools have added international components to their respective programs, the assessment of these programs was subsequently recommended from accreditation and competitive perspectives. To sustain competitiveness, business schools must expand their program assessment activities and rigorously conduct assessment at the course level as well. We propose a model of international business course assessment that links learning aims to delivery methods and reviews two separate approaches based on that model.     

A Global MBA for Tomorrow's Global Business Leaders

Abstract

Traditional IB programs have received mixed reviews from the corporate world. With this in mind, the Suffolk GMBA was benchmarked against the leading international business programs. The Suffolk GMBA was designed to be different and to ascertain the global environment in which business operates. A unique feature of the GMBA curriculum detailed in this article is the combination of Boston's international business locational advantage with functional integration of the many disciplines that make international business unique. Borrowing components from the fields of economics, government and politics, finance, marketing, ethics, and law, a curriculum matrix was developed identifying and sequencing the key topics to be taught. The authors also explain potential pitfalls and outline a model which can be successfully implemented in other graduate international business programs. This program is shaping the thoughts and actions of tomorrow's global business leaders through its integrative decision-making framework of global perspectives and competencies.     

The Influence of Customer Relationship Marketing Strategies on Supply Chain Relationships: The Moderating Effects of Environmental Uncertainty and Competitive Rivalry

Purpose: A firm's customer relationship marketing strategy also may affect its attitudinal loyalty toward its main supplier. Furthermore, environmental uncertainty and competitive rivalry could moderate this relationship. This research investigates both questions.

Methodology/Approach: The empirical study involves a structured survey of 141 industrial firms. A structural equation technique with EQS 6.1 estimated the causal model. Multi-sample analysis revealed whether environmental uncertainty and/or competitive rivalry act as moderators.

Findings: The influence of customer relationship marketing on attitudinal loyalty toward the main supplier is positive but indirect, working through effective communication, satisfaction, and trust. However, when environmental uncertainty is high, the negative direct effect becomes significantly more intense, and when competitive rivalry is high, the positive indirect effect through satisfaction and trust is less intense.

Originality/Value: This study explores potential new paths in the relationship marketing field. Most scholars focus on the influence of a firm's relationship marketing strategy on customers' loyalty, but no previous works consider its potential influence on the firm's relationship with other partners in the supply chain, notably its strategic suppliers.

Research Implications: Structured academic research on this topic is lacking, even though many firms have implemented customer relationship programs. Supply-side researchers must evaluate the effects of such programs. Furthermore, this study combines different theoretical approaches.

Practical Implications: Practitioners can use the findings to segment their customer base and develop specific programs adapted to each target.     

Groupware: Future directions and wild cards

Groupware is a perspective on telecommunications and computing that emphasizes the business team as “user,”; rather than the individual. This perspective and its associated products and services are riding a major wave of change: the trend toward business teams (small, cross‐organizational, ad hoc, task‐focused, time‐driven, cohesive work groups) as a primary mode of operation for the organization of the future. In this paper, I will explore future directions for the groupware perspective in the marketplace and the business teams wave. Current product classes will be presented, along with the experiences of early users of groupware. In addition to overall trends and future directions, possible wild cards will be introduced and discussed.     

The Role of Groupware in Requirements Specification

This article describes how 2 forms of groupware - electronic Mail and Group Support Systems (GSS) were employed to support user requirements specification in a university department. The system being specified was a bibliographic information system, while the users were both qualified systems analysts and academic staff in the department. The background literatures to both requirements specification and GSS are introduced and linked. Groupware tools were used to support the group interaction and consensus formation. The article discusses the key stages in this process and discusses the appropriateness of the techniques used. The results are significant in that they identify techniques appropriate to supporting user groups in the clarification of system requirements before the involvement of development personnel.     

Technological Factors Relevant to Continuity on ERP for E-Business Platform: Integration,Modularity, and Flexibility

ABSTRACT

Most enterprise systems (ES) solutions have evolved with the technological factors of flexibility, modularity and integration embedded to fit both business and information technology (IT) requirements for many organizations. Recently, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and business-to-business electronic business (e-business) have received much attention within both the practitioner and academic communities, especially concerning the technological factors. The purpose of this study is to develop a framework that could be used to investigate a possible relationship between ERP and other ES systems with the factors of flexibility, integration and modularity for e-business.

In the 1990's, ERP systems were introduced to fulfill some of the technological requirements across functional areas within a corporate boundary. Moreover, with the exponential growth of Internet technology and the emergence of e-business, the focus of ERP systems has changed from an integrated functional focus within an organization to one reaching outside the organization throughout the value chain system. It is expected that an ERP system can facilitate an e-business effort of an organization.

In order to serve as a platform for e-business, an ERP system must also be able to be extended to support a range of external constituents for a firm. The process must involve an investigation of ERP technological factors along with any other emerging ES solution of the firm. This study investigates ERP and other ES systems for e-business with a focus on the technological factors of flexibility, integration, and modularity.     

Does Legal Tradition Affect Competition Policy Performance?

During the early 1990's, in the early days of the worldwide competition policy boom, Spencer Waller and Joshua Newberg argued that difficulties inherent in grafting common law concepts—such as antitrust—onto non common law traditions would undermine the administration of competition law in non common law tradition countries. Recent independent survey data on the performance of competition programs in 102 nations shows deplorable differences in performance, lending some weight to the Waller-Newberg thesis.

This article tests whether differences in legal tradition contributes to the observed variance in competition agency performance.

A careful understanding of the influence of legal tradition and other factors underscoring the relevance, shortcomings and problems of competition policy performance are useful for determining whether competition programs should be at all reproduced elsewhere, whether they should be modified prior to adoption or whether they should be adopted verbatim. Familiarity with performance factors is also useful both for program administration and program sequencing. Comparative examinations of competition programs enable decision-makers to properly allocate resources and to address policy issues.

The estimated model is a two-stage least-squares cross-section analysis between competition policy performance and various control variables, including the presence of a common law tradition. Limitations on the availability of control and instrumental variables, reduces the data set from 102 to 82 nations.

Succinctly, after accounting for other explanatory variables such as gross domestic product per capita, foreign direct investment, imports, physical size, the level of corruption, and national experience with a modern antitrust law, one can attribute statistical significance to historical legal tradition as established by the Waller-Newberg hypothesis.     

Selecting Software for Teaching International Business

Several software developers have recently introduced very powerful programs designed to assist educators, advisors and businesses to learn more about the exporting process. This paper analyzes the relative strengths and weaknesses of five such programs through the application of international marketing concepts and hypothetical case studies. The analysis herein will save potential users the time and effort needed to select the most appropriate program(s) for their teaching and learning objectives. This paper is intended to address the needs of business program educators and students. It may also be of interest to government agencies and other advisors involved in export education and administration, businesses seeking to learn more about the exporting process, and software developers producing programs designed to teach about exporting.     

Using “Best Practices” to Construct a Pro Forma Marketing Plan for Early Childhood Intervention Services

ABSTRACT

Each year thousands of infants are born with conditions that will lead to developmental delays in their ability to learn. Thousands more will develop these conditions as the result of disease, trauma, and other causes. Each state and territory now offers an early intervention program to identify and treat such infants and toddlers. Field practices which implement these programs were collected from 26 states and territories and combined into a pro forma marketing plan. This plan should help early intervention program managers successfully accomplish their task of generating public awareness and parental participation in early intervention programs.     

Java and object standardization in the Internet – A way to more competition in the software industry?

The computer software market is a textbook example of network externalities: if a user decides to work with a specific program, the utility of all other users of the same product increases. This increase in utility is not compensated for by the market; thus one speaks of network externalities. Such network externalities lead to a natural tendency towards quasi standardization, favoring a high market concentration on the supply side. This article demonstrates that Java programs combined with an appropriate object standardization may reduce the influence of the network externalities, giving smaller companies a better chance to compete successfully. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Dynamics and objectives of international trade

Standard international trade models universally consider maximizing the availability of inexpensive goods as the objective of international trade. They then go on to show that tariffs and other impediments to trade cause a loss of economic efficiency. Fewer goods are available in the trading nations because of the impediments. The common method of analysis is to use price / quantity curves and two-nation / two-product curves.

Here we show that international trade is far more complex. It is a vast network beyond our present ability to accurately model. It can, however, be structured as a linear program. As a linear program it has many of the characteristics of a network. The chief difference is that linear programs provide static analysis. The world trade network is dynamic. However, by structuring it as a linear program, many of the components of international trade omitted by price/ quantity and two-nation / two-product analysis can be incorporated.

An important part of any programming analysis is determination of the objective function. Several objective functions are examined, particularly with respect to employment impacts. A variable compensatory tax (VCT) is selected as a means of dealing with the dynamics and complexity of international trade. It has the potential to repatriate 6 million jobs, is simple to implement, precludes retaliation, and would bring U.S. trade into a permanent balance of ± 5%.     

Advertising Education

Abstract

The author asserts that the quality of advertising education in four year colleges and universities has improved with age. Graduate courses in the field of advertising have aided teachers into becoming more research oriented. Schools of business have moved their advertising programs into a management technique direction while journalism/communications programs have stayed more on the functional and creative sides.

Advertising education is stronger today than at any time in its brief history. yet there are weaknesses. Some claim that schools are still not giving a strong moral and social responsible base to our students. Educators feel that there is a lack of current material to use in the classroom. They also feel that there needs to be more campus cross-fertilization bringing students together with other disciplines.     

Relating Television Preference Viewing to Shopping Orientations,Life Styles,and Demographics: The Examination of Perceptual and Preference Dimensions of Television Programming

Abstract

Matching advertising to the appropriate segment is especially critical for television advertising which reaches many diverse segments. This problem has received much attention from researchers over the years. Attempts have been made to develop a television program typology based on the program's most salient feature rather than the dimensions perceived by the audience. However, little research has related preference for these program types to market related variables. The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived dimensions underlying the television programs and the similarity of the programs along the dimensions, and if various program preference groups differ with respect to life styles, shopping orientations, and demographics. The results of this research suggest that consumers prefer distinct sets of programs rather than one specific type. The preference groups were found to differ with respect to life styles and demographics but not shopping orientations.     

Distance Education

ABSTRACT

This article examines management of accountancy education in Zambia and Zimbabwe, two countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Both programs are collaborative efforts to manage the link between the accounting profession, governments of emerging economies and in-country postgraduate training facilities. Both programs are designed to promote the study of accounting at a level recognized by the international accountancy profession.

The programs are being developed in the context of World Bank research, which confirms linkage between economic growth and an appropriately trained accounting profession, and recognizes the need for economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Six principal program characteristics are examined: the challenge facing the accountancy profession in Sub-Saharan Africa; funding sources; details of the programs; delivery of the programs; program costs, and graduation outcomes. This article reports on the struggle faced by the accounting profession in emerging economies to make the managers of the global accountancy profession, donor agencies, and multinational commercial enterprises aware of this aspect of the developing SSA market.     

Review of the Housing Allowance Program

Housing allowances are being touted as the popular solution to the low-income housing problem. This article briefly examines the historical background, past research, factors, and issues which must be considered in designing an effective program. Major household concerns considered are: equity, eligibility and allowance formulas. Attention is given to program goals and their influence on the amount and kind of subsidy, definition of income and allowance formula selected. The response of the housing market to the new demand created is examined along with related factors such as requirements that recipients live in standard dwelling units and collusion opportunities for landlords and recipients. Based on research conducted on the food stamp program, household expenditure change is projected. Finally the impact of a housing allowance on other support programs and the need for program integration and administrative simplicity is considered.     

Internationalization of MBA Program in Asia-Pacific

Abstract

With the global village becoming a reality, efforts at the internationalization of business education have ceased to be merely fashionable. The internationalization of business education has become an increasing relevant and important goal for business schools. Most of the efforts have been focused at the internationalization of MBA programs as this is the level of business education targeted at the training of middle management personnel, for whom the creation of a global mindset and the exposure to the international realm of business would have the most immediate effect. With the Asia-Pacific becoming a major arena of international trade and business in what has been called the Pacific century, the internationalization of MBA programs in Asia is of great interest as most of the efforts at internationalization of MBA programs have taken place in developed countries, with much of the literature being about the North America and European experience. Little is known about the MBA programs offered in Asia and their internationalization. This paper provides some insights on the internationalization efforts at the Nanyang Business School (NBS), Singapore. The experience at the NBS is unique because its efforts at internationalization have coincided with government policy initiatives in encouraging Singapore businesses to extend their operations into countries of the region. The paper provides some lessons from the experiences at regionalizing the MBA programs in China, India and the transitional economies of Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia. Apart from the admission of international participants to its programs and the changes to its Business Study Missions, new initiatives have been introduced in the form of the MBA in International Business. The paper also explores other future initiatives for the internationalization of MBA programs in Asia-Pacific.     

The Internet in Social Marketing Research

SUMMARY

Social marketing campaigns are usually aimed at problems that exact a large toll in the community. Any campaign must be properly researched during the development process and afterward, to assess its impact. The target market for social marketing campaigns often includes younger members of the community. The research methodology used when developing or assessing these campaigns must therefore be appropriate to adolescents.

This article discusses the application of Internet technology to research among adolescents using experience gained while testing potential anti-smoking messages among a sample of UK school students to illustrate the issues.

Internet-based research has the potential to generate data that is comparable to that generated by conventional research methods and with improved efficiency in terms of timescale, cost, quality, and quantity of responses.     

Current activites in the field of child safety within CEN aand ISO

Abstract

Many countries have implemented safety and performance requirements for children's products. There is, however, a need to harmonize existing legislation and standards to facilitate a uniform flow of trade. At the same time, it is essential to extend existing requirements to restrict certain hazards which have not been covered in the past.

In CEN, the European Committee for standardization, several technical committees are developing European Standards for products to be used by or for children. On a global level as well, within ISO, there are standardization projects covering such products.

Child safety is the main objective for the standardization work on:

?Safety of toys (CENATC 52, ISO/TC 181)

? Child use and care articles (CEN/TC 252)

?Playground equipment for children LCEN/TC 136/SC 1)

? Children's furniture (CEN/TC 207, ISO/TC 136(

?Child-resistant packaging (CEN/TC 261/SC 2, ISO/TC 122) Children's products constitute a group of consumer products with large variations between the different products. Nevertheless, since they all come in contact with children (and their parents), several hazards associated with these products are similar for the various products. This is reflected in the work of CEN/TC 252, Child use and care articles, established in 1990.

To establish a horizontal framework for the hazard-based approach, CEN/ TC 252 created a working group with the task to specify general and common safety requirements (WG 6). Five working groups started the elaboration of product standards in parallel.

The traditional concept of a standardization project was found inadequate and other solutions were sought. Finally, it was decided to combine the results from working group 6 into one guidance document, to be published as a CEN Report.     

Advertising and the Department of Energy's Campaign for Energy Conservation

Abstract

Motivating consumers to conserve energy has proven to be a difficult task in the United States. One tactic that has been used on a limited basis by the Department of Energy is paid advertising. This paper examines the role of conservation within the country's broader energy problems, delineates several consumer issues that affect the success of government conservation programs, discusses the controversy surrounding the use of paid advertising to promote consumer conservation efforts, and describes those DOE programs that have used paid advertising as an integral component of conservation program strategy.