Supervising Unethical Sales Force Behavior: How Strong is the Tendency to Treat Top Sales Performers Leniently?

Findings from prior research show that there is a general tendency to discipline top sales performers more leniently than poor sales performers for engaging in identical forms of unethical selling behavior. In this study, the authors attempt to uncover moderating factors that could override this general tendency and bring about more equal discipline for top sales performers and poor sales performers. Surprisingly, none were found. A company policy stating that the behavior in question was unacceptable nor a repeated pattern of unethical behavior offset the general tendency to treat top sales performers more leniently than poor sales performers. In an attempt to dig deeper to find a significant moderating effect, two follow-up experiments were conducted. In the first follow-up experiment, a specific training program designed to communicate top management's desire to treat ethical matters equally based on the severity of the act had no effect on equalizing the discipline between top sales performers and poor sales performers. In the second follow-up experiment, a stronger company policy that specified a prescribed level of punishment also failed to equalize the discipline. A superior sales performance record appears to induce more lenient forms of discipline, despite the presence of other factors and managerial actions that are specifically instituted to produce more equal forms of discipline. The answer to the question posed in the article title is, "apparently very strong!"     

Has the Byrd Amendment Affected US Imports?

The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA), also known as the Byrd Amendment, allows the US government to distribute revenues from antidumping duties to domestic firms alleging harm. Prior to the amendment these revenues were not distributed to firms. In this article, we formally test the hypothesis that the Byrd Amendment effectively provides double protection to US firms to the extent that it further restricts US imports, as argued by the EU and 11 other US trading partners. Using a rich panel of 362 US manufacturing industries for the period 1998 to 2003, we find that whether or not the Byrd Amendment restricted US imports depends crucially on the level of competitiveness in the import‐competing industry. Specifically, we find that the Byrd Amendment served to restrict imports only in industries where competition is relatively weak, while the amendment is associated with an increase in imports in more competitive industries.     

Are There Excellent Service Firms,and Do They Perform Well?

While the construct of business excellence, as defined in the very successful hook by Peters and Waterman, had a marked influence on managers in the 1980s, and in all likelihood in the 1990s, it met with some scepticism in academic circles. This was because the construct as conceptualised did not meet the more rigorous requirements of reliability and validity established by critical researchers, and also because many of the so-called excellent firms later showed themselves to be rather ordinary performers at best. Recently, an apparently successful instrument to measure the original Peters and Waterman excellence construct named EXCEL has been developed by Shama et al., in the United States. In this article the authors describe the use of EXCEL in a sample of large UK service firms and comment on its reliability and validity. Links are also established between excellence and overrall business performance in these firms.     

Marketing in the UK and US Not-for-Profit Sector: The Import Mirror View

This article explores the US and UK literature on not-for-profit (NFP) marketing. The emphasis is on journal articles that have appeared in the area. The purpose of the review is to discover if their are any lessons that can be learnt from the US situation in order to gain a greater understanding of the UK NFP marketing. This is in the tradition of the ‘import mirror’ view of comparative research. The environment within which NFP marketing takes place is discussed. This is followed by a review which looks at journal types, research areas, type and quality of research and issues arising from the application of NFP marketing in the US and UK The review reveals that there is considerably more literature on NFP marketing in the US. Popular subjects are segmentation and health care. The UK literature is still largely concerned with the appropriateness and applicability of marketing in the NFP sector: The lesson taking is that the UK should not go down the US path but rather a) develop suitable courses for NFP managers and b) explore the use of the newer service concepts of relationship, service quality and internal marketing.     

Putting industries into the Eaton–Kortum model

The article introduces the industry dimension into the Eaton-Kortum model of trade. Industries are linked with each other by domestic and international trade in intermediate goods. The model is parametrized using data for eight industries in 1989. It is used to perform several counterfactual simulations that are relevant to today's policy debates. First, the model is used to study the effects of the US–EU trade wars. It is found that trade wars have a greater negative effect on countries with large initial net export positions. It is also found that some trade war scenarios are more beneficial to the US while others to the EU. Second, the model is used to study the effects of trade barrier reductions between the high-income and middle-income countries. The results show that this trade liberalization tends to reinforce the pattern of trade according to technological comparative advantages. The results also show which industries should be targeted for barrier reductions depending on policy goals. The third set of simulations investigates spillovers from the technological growth in the US machinery industry. The results show how geography, technology, and industry links affect the propagation of this growth across countries and industries.     

Are US Exports Different from China’s Exports? Evidence from Japan’s Imports

Are US exports different from China’s exports? If so, how? This article attempts to answer this question, using product‐level manufacturing import data from Japan. To make the comparison clear, this article also examines exports from the EU. The results indicate that more than 85 per cent and 83 per cent of products exported by the US and the EU, respectively, to Japan are also commonly exported from China. Both the US and the EU export products are priced higher than China’s export products, regardless of industries. This result suggests that quality differences matter in explaining the high overlap of China’s export products with US and EU export products. In some industries, however, the price differences of US and EU exports relative to China’s exports are relatively small. This result implies that either Chinese firms are upgrading the quality of their products, or US and EU firms are improving their efficiencies such that they can compete with Chinese firms.     

Which manufacturing industries and sectors are most vulnerable to Brexit?

When the UK leaves the EU, trade arrangements between the UK and EU will change. Most of the options for future UK‐EU relationships currently under discussion imply increased trade barriers, which will reduce trade and also have effects on output and prices. In this paper, we use a multi‐market partial equilibrium model to analyse the vulnerability of 122 manufacturing industries to Brexit. In all five Brexit scenarios we model, there is an overall reduction in UK manufacturing output. Output grows in some industries but at the expense of higher consumer and intermediate goods prices. High tech and medium–high tech sectors are more at risk of a decline in domestic production than lower tech sectors. In most areas of the country, demand for high‐skilled workers falls more than for medium and low‐skilled workers.     

The Status of Marketing in the UK Service Industries

This article describes the status of marketing in the UK service industries based on a sample of 320 service companies. It draws comparisons between service marketing companies and product marketing companies in terms of marketing orientation and marketing practice. Some significant differences are found between the two types of companies and it is suggested that there is scope for increased marketing professionalism in many service industries; and a greater sensitivity to market needs is required as markets become more competitive.     

Performing the high-school prom in the UK: Locating authenticity through practice

Abstract

The purpose of this study was threefold: to develop an understanding of the appropriation of the US high-school prom in the UK and, more importantly, to generate an insight into the producers and consumers of such an event; to establish if the performance of the prom is hyper-real or if there is an awareness of the authentic or inauthentic elements of this ritual; and finally to ascertain local interpretation of authenticity and glocal practice. The method used here was a qualitative approach employing 24 in-depth interviews with young adults (18–20 years) who had attended a prom in the UK in the last three years. The findings illustrated that the role and the social network of the individual was key to engagement with the high-school prom and also indicated a possible symbiosis of the strands of theory associated with authenticity. Diverse localised meanings of the prom performance were also identified. As the school prom is a growth market in the UK, businesses should be aware of adolescents' desire for ownership of this event and should tailor their marketing accordingly.     

Rethinking the UK System of Doctoral Training in Marketing

There have been considerable changes in the system of doctoral education and training in the UK over the last decade. Despite the introduction of a range of ESRC initiatives, the UK marketing academy has been slow to actively debate this aspect of marketing education. This approach is different from that in the US where doctoral training practices in marketing have been widely debated by the AMA. The paper aims to fill this gap by critically assessing the UK system of doctoral training in marketing. The article begins with a brief overview of the historical development of postgraduate education and training in the UK in order to contextualise the subsequent discussion. Some of the most influential reports and policy documents over the last 40 years will be assessed, specifically in relation to how they have shaped, and continue to shape, ESRC policy and postgraduate education more generally in the UK. A critical evaluation of the existing research guidelines in marketing is undertaken and the need for more specific guidelines and a more wide-ranging and inclusive approach to the syllabus than is currently offered in many UK universities is proposed. The paper also explores the importance of staff expertise and critical mass in the context of delivering cost-effective, specialised provision. The article concludes by proposing new structures that marketing departments may wish to consider in delivering research training through the use of coalitions and the use of up-to-date developments in information technology.     

The Uses of Business History: A Contribution to the Discussion

This article relates the managerial enterprise (a firm in which decisions as to current production and distribution and allocation of resources for future production and distribution are made by salaried managers with little or no equity in the firms they operate in) to competitive success in the new capital-intensive industries that began to appear in the United States and Western Europe after the completion of modern transportation and communication networks. It begins by examining the reasons for the rapid rise of managerial firms in these industries, the global oligopolistic competition that ensued, and the organisational capabilities such competition engendered. It then reviews the competitive performance of such firms in global markets in chemicals, metals, electrical equipment, and heavy and light machinery in the early years of the century, motor vehicles in the inter-war years, and computers and semiconductors after World War II. These managerial firms grew by moving into foreign or related product markets. World War I, the Great Depression and World War II held back the full competitive impact of such growth until the 1960s. The response of US industrial firms to this intensive international, inter-industry competition of the 1960s brought unprecedented changes on the competitive capabilities of US managerial enterprises in such capital-intensive industries.     

The mediating role of communication satisfaction in relational demography – a study in Macao,SAR context

Challenges in the global market and sensitive cross-Straits relations negatively influence Taiwanese industries. Continuous learning is the way to respond to the challenges posed by the rise of China in the world economy. Learning is the process by which knowledge is refreshed. A learning organization is a more competitive organization. Many researchers have discussed the relationship between organizational learning and business performance, but few of them have explored the issue in practice. This article provides a more thorough assessment of the link between organizational learning and organizational performance for industry comparisons. It also aims to determine the status of Taiwan's industries with regard to organizational learning. The findings of the study demonstrate that applying organizational learning influences corporate performance; however, only high-tech and financial firms have consistently applied the organizational learning concept throughout their organizations. Our investigation may offer new insights into organizational learning, and enable leaders and scholars alike to develop strategies to enhance competitiveness.     

WTO dispute settlement proceedings: European support for airbus in the spotlight

The bilateral WTO Agreement on Trade in Large Civil Aircraft (TLCA) of 1992 regulated the permitted levels of support for the European and American aviation industries. In October 2004, the US unilaterally withdrew from the TLCA, right as Boeing was about to lose its market leader status. Together with the termination of the TLCA, the US requested the initiation of WTO dispute settlement proceedings against the EU as well as against the governments of Germany, France, the UK and Spain regarding alleged direct and indirect subsidisation of Airbus. In response, the EC requested, on that same day, the initiation of dispute settlement proceedings regarding certain US federal, state and local subsidies granted to the American aircraft producer Boeing, which the EC regarded as incompatible with WTO rules. What European subsidies exist for Airbus, and how extensive are they?     

Using performance management to win the talent war

The talent war is a 21^st-century reality whereby organizations of all sizes, across all industries, compete to hire and retain scarce human capital. The talent war is fierce because there are few individuals within each industry who are considered top human capital such that there is not enough to go around, and these top performers generate a great deal of revenues, profit, and overall success for their organizations. In this installment of Human Performance, we describe the nature of the talent war and reasons why winning it is crucial for organizational competitiveness, sustainability, and survival. We discuss how implementing a performance management system can help organizations win the talent war by retaining these coveted top performers. Specifically, we offer the following research-based recommendations for using performance management to (1) create and maintain individualized developmental plans; (2) ensure that work is challenging, interesting, and meaningful; (3) provide clear advancement opportunities, and (4) implement contingent rewards. Implementing these recommendations can turn performance management into an effective tool to retain top talent and prevent competitors from stealing a firm's crucial source of competitive advantage.     

On the geography of the new economy: perspectives from the United States

The phrase ‘new economy’ has recently become embraced by the federal statistical establishment in the United States. The rise in productivity levels in the US economy in the 1990s has been increasingly associated with particular industries and types of capital goods, which have been found to enhance the overall productivity of the national economy. This paper documents the regional distribution of industries considered to be critical in this new phase in US economic history. The federal statistical agencies have identified key sectors associated with this change in the national trajectory of production, and information-technology-related sectors are at the core of these definitions. In particular, IT-producing and IT-using industries are viewed as critical to the development of the new economy. This analysis finds the IT-producing industries are more unevenly distributed than the IT-using industries. Over the 1990–1997 time period, the IT-producing industries became more unevenly distributed, while IT-using industries exhibited a pattern of in-fill, growing more rapidly in regions with weak concentration of these industries in 1990.     

Credit Union Legislative Frameworks in the United States of America and the United Kingdom – A Flexible Friend or a Step Towards the Dark Side?

This article questions the findings of several studies which have concluded that the Credit Unions Act 1979 was a factor limiting the growth of credit unions in the United Kingdom (UK). The author’s conclusions are based upon an analysis of the amendments to the Credit Unions Act 1979 introduced by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). As a result, the 1979 Act now reciprocates the controversial, yet flexible United States (US) legislative framework. In particular, the article examines the interpretation of the common bond, the provision of financial services and the regulation of credit unions. The article concludes that these three statutory provisions have assisted the growth of credit unions in both countries and not limited their development. However, the growth of credit unions has come, at the expense of their unique status and philosophy. It has made US credit unions, in particular, indistinguishable from banks. This is a problem which may affect credit unions in the UK. The article concludes that the Credit Unions Act 1979 did not limit their development, but acted as a galvanising factor for credit union expansion.     

A new perspective on the third-country effect: The case of Malaysia–US industry-level trade

Cushman suggested that impact of exchange rate volatility declines after the inclusion of the third-country effect. Like Cushman, when we use a linear analysis, we confirm his results. However, when we engage in asymmetric effects of exchange rate volatility which requires including nonlinear adjustment of volatility measures, the findings show more support to both exchange rate volatility influence and the third-country effect. Therefore, we propose that in examining exchange rate volatility effect on trade, consideration must be given to not just asymmetric effects of exchange rate volatility but also asymmetric effects of the third-country effect. We demonstrate these findings using monthly data from 54 Malaysian industries that export to the US and 63 Malaysian industries that import from the US.     

Televised Consumption: Women,Advertisers and the Early Daytime Television Industry

This article looks at ways in which the US broadcasting and advertising industries conceptualized the female consumer in the immediate Post War period. It explores the emergence of daytime television and discusses broadcasters' views of their predominantly female audience. The article argues that by grasping the underlying principles that were developed in the early daytime television industry, one can gain a better understanding, not only of the manner in which female audience members were addressed in the 1950s, but also, to some extent, of the ways mass media address women today.     

英美内部控制监管制度差异探缘及其启示

文章对英美两国内部控制监管制度存在差异的原因进行探究,并分析为何英国内部控制监管政策越来越受到上市公司接受,接着结合我国内部控制监管政策的现状,分析指出其存在的不足,最后就进一步完善我国内部控制监管政策提出改进建议.     

The performance implications of strategic capital for public leisure providers

Strategic capital has emerged as a key source of competitive heterogeneity in the private sector. Despite this, little is known about the performance implications of strategic capital in public organisations. Adopting a resource-advantage perspective, we examine the performance implications of strategic capital for public leisure providers. Analysing data generated from public leisure providers, we find that effective strategy implementation enables leisure providers to exploit comparative advantages, which is itself a source of sustained advantage. Furthermore, high performers are endowed with significantly greater levels of strategic capital – which include ‘strategy commitment’, ‘implementation support’, ‘implementation effectiveness’, and ‘learning’ – in contrast with low performers. Important differences between internal and external approaches to provision are also identified and discussed, along with the implications of this study for researchers and public policy.