The Impact of Environmental Labelling on Consumer Preference: Negative vs. Positive Labels

Eco-labels in use today signify environmentally benign outcomes: "Choose this product, it is better for the environment than the average product." Another strategy would be to indicate negative outcomes with the purpose of trying to persuade consumers to avoid a product: "Do not choose this product, it is worse for the environment than the average product." In a computer-based experiment, it was investigated how these two types of labels affected preference for some everyday products. Individuals who had a weak or no interest in environmental issues were unaffected by either kind of label. Individuals with an intermediate interest in environmental issues were more affected by a negative label than by a positive label. Individuals with a strong interest in environmental protection were equally affected by the two kinds of labels.     

贸易自由化背景下战略性环境政策理论研究脉络——基于模型构建视角的文献综述

作为战略性贸易政策受自由贸易协定约束在环境领域的新变异形式,战略性环境政策是国际贸易理论与环境经济学学科交叉的产物。本文在即时更新与丰富文献基础上基于理论模型构建视角,以理论背景、理论基础、基本理论框架及其拓展为线索,逐步呈现战略性环境政策的理论研究脉络。尤其剖析了理论模型赖以建立的各基本假设条件由严格到逐步放松的拓展中,战略性环境政策得以刻画出日益丰满的现实世界,由此展现其延续且旺盛的理论和现实生命力。     

Theoretical Perspectives on Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure: Evidence From China

Using a data set of top 56 corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) disclosing firms with 112 observations on the H-share and Red-chip lists of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, results suggest that charitable donations, firm size, and the Songhua River incident response are positively related to the CSER disclosure, whereas debt–equity ratio, profit margin, and firm age revealed counterdirectional relationships. Other variables including media attention and market risk were found to have no impact. Findings imply that the Chinese government and its agencies need to prescribe CSER guidelines and make them mandatory for listed firms.     

The Lean vs. Anorexic Marketer:

No abstract available for this article.     

Informational vs. Persuasive Advertising: An Appraisal

Most of the current research in the area of television advertising to children deal entirely with white populations. This exclusion of black subjects exists in spite of an abundance of research in education, sociology and psychology which suggests differences in the socialization of black and white children. The present article reviews major studies of television and children and black versus white child development. The authors conclude with several suggestions for further research.     

环境经济政策对贸易影响的理论分析

环境经济政策之所以会对贸易产生影响,其直接原因是环境经济政策的实施使企业为了保护环境而增加了成本,而这些环境保护成本会全部或部分地进入产品的最终定价中.价格的升高,使产品的国际竞争力出现了一定程度上的降低,从而影响到产品的贸易量.从更深层次来分析,环境经济政策之所以会对贸易产生影响,是因为一国环境经济政策的实施会影响到一国的比较优势及专业化生产,进而影响到与贸易有关的贸易模式、贸易条件等领域,最终这种影响会反映在贸易量的变化上.     

Foreign vs. domestic listing: An entrepreneurial decision

In this paper, we use a unique hand-collected dataset to analyze stock listing as an entrepreneurial decision. By comparing mainland Chinese entrepreneurial firms listed in Hong Kong with the same type of firms opting for a domestic listing on the Shenzhen second board market, we argue that the decision to list on a particular stock exchange is a question of entrepreneurial signaling, and often a trade-off between short-term financial considerations and the entrepreneur's pursuit of long-term benefits.     

Nutrition and Food Choice: Home vs. Restaurants

Using the USDA Healthy Eating Index, a nutrition index based on nutrient profiling, and a measure of calorie density, we compare the healthiness of food choices at home and away from home by two samples of consumers. Along with simple statistical procedures, we use a method employed by financial economists to evaluate mutual fund performance. Data are from the 2009–2010 and 2013–2014 NHANES food surveys. We find that consumers with healthier home diets tend to show less attention to nutrition when away from home. While this may reflect a lack of nutrition knowledge, we suggest they are also a reflection of deliberate choice, of regarding restaurant eating as a “treat,” as at least one survey has shown.     

SME internationalization and performance: Growth vs. profitability

Lu and Beamish (2001) examined the effect of two internationalization strategies, exporting and foreign direct investment (FDI), on SME performance (ROA). We extend this research by examining the differential effects of these strategies on two other dimensions of SME performance: growth and ROS. We develop and test four sets of hypotheses using a sample of 164 Japanese SMEs. We find that exporting activity has a positive impact on growth, but negative impact on profitability. FDI activity has a positive relationship with growth, but a U curve relationship with profitability. Exporting activity has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between an SME’s FDI activity and firm growth, a negative moderating effect on the relationship between an SME’s FDI activity and firm profitability. An SME’s age when it starts to make FDIs has a negative moderating impact on the relationship between FDI and firm growth and profitability.     

Formative vs. reflective measures: Facets of variation

Research that treats observed measures of a business construct as a function of a latent true score plus random error is making two strong assumptions. The first, the assumed direction of causality, has generated the burgeoning formative measurement literature to which Cadogan and Lee (2013) contribute. The second is overlooked. Classical test theory assumes there is only one legitimate source of variance. Academics validating measures of business constructs invariably assume that this source is their respondents, who can be managers, employees, or customers, depending on the context (i.e. business discipline). The invoked causality accounts for covariance at the respondent level, ignoring whether it also applies to other sources of variance—such facets as brands, companies, departments, locations, service providers or work groups. Researchers need to be clear about a business construct's conceptual domain, about the sources of variance that are focal to the theoretical relationships being investigated, and whether the construct's relationship with its indicators is formative or reflective for each facet.     

Christmas on the Web: 1998 vs. 1999

The 1998 Christmas season established the Internet as a viable consumer sales channel; a year later, the holiday season brought increasing numbers of shoppers to the Web. By relating the insights of the Diffusion of Innovation model and of Expectancy-Disconfirmation theory to the results of a number of surveys of Web shoppers, the present paper considers why 1999 online shoppers may have been harder to satisfy than were their cyber counterparts in 1998. The paper also discusses the efforts e-tailers made to deal with the more mainstream consumers of 1999, and how the appearance of the sites evolved during the period between the two holidays.     

Perceptions of business ethics: Students vs. business people

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of business students and of business practitioners regarding ethics in business. A survey consisting of a series of brief ethical situations was completed by 537 senior business majors and 158 experienced business people. They responded to the situations, first, as they believed the typical business person would respond and, second, as they believed the ethical response would be.The results indicate that both students and business people perceived a significant gap between the ethical response to the given situations and the typical business person's response. Students were significantly more accepting than business people of questionable ethical responses, and they also had a more negative view of the ethics of business people than did the experienced business people.The male students were more accepting of questionable ethical responses and saw less difference between typical and ethical responses than did the female students. However, male and female business people appeared to think alike with regard to both typical and ethical responses.Some suggested implications included the idea that businesses need to increase their efforts to promote ethical conduct and to make ethics a well-known priority in all actions and policies. Barbara C. Cole teaches Business Education classes at Foothills Technical Institute in Searcy, Arkansas. Her research is in the areas of business ethics and cooperative learning. She has published in Journal of Education for Business.Dennie L. Smith is Professor of Education at the University of Memphis, formerly Memphis State University. His writing on creativity, teaching strategies, and simulation systems has appeared in numerous journals and books. He has been a consultant to businesses for over 15 years in the areas of organizational development and decision making.