Exports in the strategy of multinational enterprises

Using data from a sample of 329 multinational firms, this paper analyses the impact of increases in foreign production on exports from the parent firm. The relationship between internal exports and foreign production is positive at all feasible levels of foreign production, although the impact on extra-group exports may be negative. These effects may be swamped by changes in relative international competitiveness between firms of the same nationality and industry group. The importance of these findings for multinational firms is that anticipation of these effects can reduce costs of reallocation of resources for the parent, firm and the results illustrate the wide remaining scope for further internationalization even among the world's largest firms. The impact of foreign production on home country employment is likely to remain positive so long as the firm's international competiveness can be improved.     

Marketing strategies,financial structure,and innovation in U.K. retailing

This study examines the pattern by which retailers have adapted to recent changes in consumer markets. Information was obtained on the marketing strategies and financial structures of 88 of the leading U.K. retailers. The first section identifies the key environmental developments of the later 1970's and appraises their impact on retailers. In the second section, the methods by which retailers have sought to adapt to these changes are outlined. Finally, a model is developed which distinguishes successful from unsuccessful retailing strategies and provides a methodology for evaluating alternative approaches to market positioning.     

The application of probit,logit, and tobit in marketing: A review

Recent work on the analysis of qualitative dependent variables having considerable potential in marketing research are reviewed and illustrated. In particular, three related models, probit, logit, and tobit, are discussed in a nontechnical manner. In the last few years, there has been a resurgence of interest among biologists, economists, and other social scientists in developing and generalizing these three models. Yet, despite their apparent utility in marketing research, there have been only one or two rather limited applications to date. The object of this review is to enable researchers to evaluate these models and to relate them to their existing statistical procedures. The models are defined and related to the multivariate methods commonly used in marketing research. Second, the theoretical problems associated with using regression analysis and similar procedures on qualitative data are noted and the assumptions needed to resolve such problems are presented. Third, marketing applications are reviewed and an illustration of a general form of the probit model is evaluated and compared.     

A note on evaluating the representivity of samples taken in less developed countries

The representivity of many samples taken in less developed countries is left open to question because researchers have no dependable tools for evaluating samples taken from imperfectly known parent populations. In this paper a method designed to perform that function is explained. It is based on comparisons of proportions estimated from two independent samples, focusing on situations where the larger sample size is unknown. This method is also demonstrated via illustrative examples.     

Expectancy-value attitude models an analysis of critical measurement issues

Criteria for scaling beliefs and evaluations in the Fishbein model are considered, and a procedure is developed and illustrated for the proper test of multiplicative models. Hierarchical regression is shown to be a valid method for testing interaction hypotheses even when measures are only interval or ordinal scaled.     

Fully nonmetric estimation of a continuous nonlinear conjoint utility function

The special conjoint-analysis problem of estimating the parameters of a continuous nonlinear utility function from ordinal rank order data is investigated. A special purpose estimation method, called NONCON, is proposed that offers two advantages: First, it is capable of directly maximizing Kendall's rank order correlation coefficient T as the appropriate measure of goodness of fit. Second, it requires less computational effort than competing procedures using general purpose conjointanalysis programs. The superiority of NONCON is demonstrated for the estimation of a continuous nonlinear two-parameter utility function the parameters of which serve as input for the optimization of sales force compensation schemes.     

A method for detecting nonlinear effects in cross-sectional survey data

This paper describes a little-used method which allows marketing research to move beyond estimating linear relations in exploratory research. Initially developed by Fisher and extended by the author, this decomposition method is systematic, flexible and answers directly questions relating to the shape of the relationship among a hypothesized set of variables. Two examples are provided to illustrate the usefulness of the method to marketing researchers.     

A comparison of Japanese and American business negotiations

The determinants of the outcomes of business negotiations in two cultures are investigated in a laboratory experiment. The most important causal factor in Japanese negotiations was found to be the role (i.e., buyer or seller) of the negotiator. Japanese buyers consistently achieved higher bargaining solutions than Japanese sellers. The primary causal factor in negotiations between Americans was the information content of bargaining strategies. Americans to whom bargaining partners gave information more freely achieved higher bargaining solutions.     

Expectancy-value attitude models: An analysis of critical theoretical issues

Expectancy-value models are analyzed in terms of their level of abstraction and the rules governing how beliefs and evaluations combine to produce an attitude. In addition, suggestions are made as to modes of operationalization and methods for assessing the reliability and validity of any representation.     

Demographics,job satisfaction,and propensity to leave of industrial salesmen

An extremely important and expensive promotional tool used by industrial marketers is personal selling. One of the major costs of personal selling is the cost associated with sales personnel turnover. Past studies in the sales management area have focused on the effect of organizational and psychological factors on the satisfaction of salespeople and their propensity to leave their organizations. However, no study has examined the interrelationships among salespeople's demographic variables, job satisfaction, and propensity to leave, even though such relationships have been studied for nonselling occupations. An empirical study done to at least partly fill this research void is described. The results provide new insights for researchers and practitioners with an interest in the sales management area.     

The impact of the composition of government spending on private consumption and investment: some impirical evidence

Government spending is disaggregated into investment and consumption components to investigate both theoretically and empirically whether public sector consumption and investment spending crowd out private sector expenditures in the same categories. The hypothesis is that the composition of public sector expenditures may also be important in influencing the composition of private expenditures, rather than just the total level of public expenditure. The empirical results do not indicate that public expenditures in these two categories significantly influence their private sector counterparts.