Commoditization in Food Retailing: Is Differentiation a Futile Strategy?

This article addresses commoditization in food retailing whereby competition has a tendency to lead to a continuous addition of new but similar products in a category. This often results in products that are more homogeneous and may make it more difficult for firms to gain unique market positions. In light of this development, we ask whether product differentiation is a futile strategy in food products marketing. We also address how consumers perceive and react to the seemingly ever-increasing number of similar products. These questions are explored through insights from relevant literature and a small-scale study of a seemingly highly differentiated category—smoked salmon—sold at the flagship store of an upmarket UK supermarket chain. It was concluded that no product attributes could be described as truly innovative, unique, or difficult to imitate. Implications are highlighted and discussed.     

Standardization Versus Adaptation in Global Markets: Is Channel Strategy Different?

The argument over standardization versus adaptation of marketing strategy in international markets has raged for several decades. This argument has generally taken place at the aggregate level to include all four strategic areas of the marketing mix (product, price, promotion, and place) taken together. This article disaggregates the standardization-versus-adaptation argument by focusing on just one strategic area of the marketing mix—channel strategy. We argue that three underlying phenomena or forces in global markets (culturally distant distribution behavior, distributive institution rigidity, and international functional fragmentation) inhibit a firm's ability to standardize channel strategy in global markets to a greater degree than is the case for product, price, and promotional strategies.     

The Fed's New Communication Strategy: Is It Stealth Inflation Targeting?

Business Economics - Along with the minutes of the October 30-31, 2007, meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee released a summary of its members' forecasts of key economic variables, a...     

Is It Ethical to Use Ethics as Strategy?

Increasingly research in the field of business and society suggests that ethics and corporate social responsibility can be profitable. Yet this work raises a troubling question: Is it ethical to use ethics and social responsibility in a strategic way? Is it possible to be ethical or socially responsible for the wrong reason? In this article, we define a strategy concept in order to situate the different approaches to the strategic use of ethics and social responsibility found in the current literature. We then analyze the ethics of such approaches using both utilitarianism and deontology and end by defining limits to the strategic use of ethics.     

Arts Sponsorship Versus Sports Sponsorship: Which Is Better for Marketing Strategy?

This paper identifies the distinctive features of nonprofit arts sponsorship relative to profit driven sports sponsorship and shows that although arts sponsorship has been little researched, it is a potentially important means of marketing. The methodology employed was a literature review on sponsorship that attempted to distinguish arts sponsorship from sports sponsorship. Then, we present the findings from 23 in-depth interviews with arts sponsee managers, to reveal how they see themselves (as sponsees) being differentiated from sports sponsees. The literature and interview findings are brought together in a discussion that highlights the differences between arts sponsorship and sports sponsorship in terms of target audience, the relationship cost/benefit, range of emotions elicited, awareness, marketing metrics, goodwill, and learning potential. Finally, suggestions are made for future research.     

How Does the Largest Shareholder Affect Dividends?

Focusing on the legal protection of minority shareholders in Japan, which suggests that manager‐owned firms are better governed than corporation‐owned firms, this study presents a new test of two dividend models: the substitute model and the outcome model. In support of the latter, I find that manager‐owned firms pay higher dividends than corporation‐owned firms. The paper also examines the association between ownership by the largest shareholder and dividend payments. I find an inverted U‐shaped relationship for manager‐owned firms and a U‐shaped relationship for corporation‐owned firms between them. These results can be explained by the benefits and drawbacks of concentrated ownership.     

The Ethics of Slotting: Is this Bribery, Facilitation Marketing or Just Plain Competition?

The practice of manufacturers' payments of fees to retailers for the display and sale of their products has become a common practice. In the grocery retail business, the fees paid by manufacturers are called slotting fees, or a payment made for a slot on the shelf. The same practice is used now in the retail book industry. Large book chains command high fees from publishers for the prominent display of books. Entrepreneur's products are often precluded from stores and markets because slotting fees are prohibitive. The fees are non-uniform and often paid in cash, creating an atmosphere that has already spawned illegal activity on the part of retail executives. This article examines the ethics of slotting fees.     

Is Petrobras Options Market Efficient? A Study Using the Delta-Gamma Neutral Strategy

This study aims to verify if the Petrobras options market is efficient in its weak form. For this purpose, this work tries to make profits on a systematic basis through delta-gamma neutral strategies using the firm’s stocks and options. In order to simulate the strategy as it would be used in the real world, we built order books every five minutes considering all buy and sell orders sent for both the underlying asset and its options. We apply the strategy when we observe distortions between implied volatilities extracted from the options. The results show evidence that the Petrobras options market is not efficient, since in 371 day-trade transactions (with an average investment of R$81,000 and an average holding time of one hour and thirteen minutes), 85% of the options strategies were profitable and the average return was 0.49%, which corresponds to more than 1600% of the highest interbank interest rate for the period.     

Siemens:Far-Sighted Strategy

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of Siemens, and the 125th anniversary of its cooperation with China.On the occasion of the celebrations, Mr.Hermann Koelle, President of Siemens Ltd.,China, accepted an interview. Long-term Strategy—Siemens' Magic for Development "Its 125 years of business cooperation with China shows that Siemens has always taken a long-term view in supporting the local economy", said Mr. Koelle. Back in 1862, the founder of the company, Von Siemens, set a rule, "We won't sacrifice our future for short-term profits?" For more than a century, this rule     

The EU Industrial Strategy: Towards a Post-Growth Agenda?

Intereconomics - Along with the Green Deal, the von der Leyen Commission immediately started to look at how to adopt an industrial strategy that would promote EU competitiveness and support the...     

Extraordinary Pricing of Orphan Drugs: Is it a Socially Responsible Strategy for the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry?

The PRIME Institute of the College of Pharmacy, University of Minnesota, recently released preliminary research findings indicating a trend of extraordinary pharmaceutical industry pricing of drug products in the United States (U.S.). According to researchers at the PRIME Institute, such extraordinary price increases are defined as any price increase that is equal to, or greater than, 100% at a single point in time. In some instances, PRIME Institute researchers found that drugs exhibiting extraordinary price increases are categorized as “orphan drugs” (or blood-related biologic treatments) and often life-saving or life-sustaining for treating the cause or symptoms of diseases affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S., or where there is prevalence of less than 5 per 10,000 people afflicted with a disease or symptoms in the community. Because of extraordinary price increases for orphan drugs – some exceeding 1000% at a single point in time – this article addresses two interrelated questions: Are extraordinary orphan drug price increases socially responsible behavior? If so, are the pharmaceutical industry's policies providing orphan drug access to American consumers in dire need of available life-sustaining and life-enhancing pharmaceuticals considered “socially responsible” behavior? The author concludes, after an interdisciplinary analysis of the legal, economic, sociopolitical, and ethical dimensions of orphan drug pricing, that they are not socially responsible – unless justified by cost and availability of health care marketplace/patient options. Furthermore, the author recommends a socially responsible industry strategic approach to insure that patients ultimately receive – regardless of cost – timely access to life-saving and life-sustaining orphan drugs.     

Corporate Charitable Contributions: A Corporate Social Performance or Legitimacy Strategy?

This study examines the relation between firms’ corporate philanthropic giving and their performance in three other social domains – employee relations, environmental issues, and product safety. Based on a sample of 384 U.S. companies and using data pooled from 1998 through 2000, we find that worse performers in the other social areas are both more likely to make charitable contributions and that the extent of their giving is larger than for better performers. Analyses of each separate area of social performance, however, indicate that the relation between giving and negative social performance (cited concerns) only holds for the environmental issues and product safety areas. We find no significant association between corporate philanthropy and employee relations concerns. In general, these findings suggest that corporate philanthropy may be more a tool of legitimization than a measure of corporate social responsibility.     

Will the DSM Strategy Spur Innovation?

In summary, the DSM strategy appears laudable and overall very comprehensive. However, its impact will depend on whether the Commission manages to create a more suitable environment for innovation and entrepreneurship by upgrading skills, promoting more adaptive rulemaking, empowering end user choice, and avoiding rules that are hostile to innovation, such as excessive restrictions to text and data mining and the extension of obsolete rules to OTTs.     

Excluded Women: How can this Happen in the Hotel World?

This study is concerned with the possible processes that occur in organisations which appear to work against women fulfulling their managerial potential. Hotel managers' attitudes and perceptions were the focus of study in an attempt to understand the informal influences and pressures that may be-deliberately or inadvertently communicated to women. Interviews held with the hotel managers revealed a marked consistency in the way that the hotel industry was viewed.     

Team challenges: Is artificial intelligence the solution?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a potential growth area for facilitating the improvement and development of teams in the workplace. AI, as used in the team context, is currently underdeveloped and limited, thus reducing the wide-scale adoption and implementation of AI to improve team effectiveness. The use of AI to provide team diagnostics and improvements represents a significant shift in the approach organizations currently use to facilitate and strengthen effective teamwork. We describe the challenges involved in developing team effectiveness in organizations and the potential application of AI to improve teamwork. Further, we report on our experiences using AI in business school student project teams, the important advantages and disadvantages that emerged from this, and insights for future consideration when adopting and implementing AI in the workplace. Based on our use of AI and our experience training high-performing teams, we propose a multistep process for analyzing and improving teams in organizations.     

E-commerce sellers' ratings: Is user feedback adequate?

The literature on the theory of public procurement points out two well-known informational problems arising out of information asymmetry: (i) adverse selection and (ii) moral hazard. To reduce these issues and foster credibility and trust in the procurement process while maintaining quality and efficiency in public procurement, e-procurement platforms have turned to reputation or rating systems. Therefore, the research and design of such rating systems are crucial. In this study, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of procurement and employ the information-theoretic, regression analysis, artificial neural network and principal component analysis (PCA) approaches to estimate the weights of the variables entering the rating system. Using real data from Government e-Marketplace, a business-to-business public e-commerce portal, we empirically determine the weights of the rating variables derived from the transaction-level and user feedback data for sellers. The weights obtained from the PCA are the most applicable compared with the other three methods. We compare the old rating system with the newly proposed design using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. This results in a statistically significant difference between the two ratings. The canonical correlation and Wilks' trial reveal that the ratings derived from transaction-level data and user feedback are uncorrelated to a great extent. Hence, considering only transaction-level data or user feedback is unlikely to divulge sellers' intrinsic worth. E-commerce platforms can use this approach to quickly implement methods to obtain rating scores on a real-time basis for sellers on online platforms.