Perceptions of the Environment and Wholesaler Structure in a Channel of Distribution in a Developing Country

Abstract

This study explores relationships between perceptions of the technological environment and selected structural variables of wholesalers in the channel of distribution for petroleum products in a developing country from a systems theory perspective. Survey research was used to collect primary data related to technolgical environment factors and size, assortment structure, and market coverage of wholesalers of petroleum products in Nigeria. Canonical correlation analysis was used to assess the relationships between constructs. From a theory development perspective, the study explores the applicability of systems theory concepts to an important marketing area. From a managerial standpoint, the study has implications for international marketing managers concerned about the nature of specific aspects of the business environment in newly emerging third world markets.     

Developing an Integrative International Human Resource Model: The contribution of Chinese Multinational Enterprises

This study develops an integrative international human resource IHRM framework in Chinese MNEs mainly by examining the relationship between the intervening factors and IHRM policies and practices. It confirms that IHRM is associated with a variety of contextual and firm-specific factors, including political, legal, economic, socio-cultural factors, international strategy, organizational structure, organizational culture, stage and mode of internationalization, type and niche of industry, international experience, size of international operation, the reliance on international markets and top management perceptions of home HRM systems. These factors have differentiated impact and are changing over time. It also explores the impact of IHRM policy and practice on each other, arguing that there is interplay between IHRM policies and practices.     

The effect of local food consumption of domestic tourists on sustainable tourism

This research aims to determine the effect of local food consumption of domestic tourists on sustainable tourism. In addition, the study also aims to: reveal the impact of local foods on economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability. In this context, data were collected from 394 domestic tourists visiting the provinces of the Eastern Black Sea region (Artvin, Bayburt, Gumushane, Trabzon and Rize). This research was designed in accordance with the correlational research method, one of the quantitative research designs. The research data were tested using structural equation modeling, which is commonly used in the social and behavioral sciences. As a result, it was found that local food has a statistically significant and positive effect on sustainable tourism. In addition, local food was found to have a positive effect on the subscales (economic, socio-cultural and environmental) of sustainable tourism.     

Exports and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: New insights from innovative econometric methods

This study examined the relationship between exports and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. It employed innovative econometric methods, including the Fourier ADF with structural break test, a comparative analysis of three causality tests and a rolling causality test procedure. The findings suggested that there was a statistically significant relationship between exports and economic growth in several Sub-Saharan countries. However, the causal linkages between exports and economic growth in these countries were found to be weak and unstable. These empirical results have some notable policy implications.     

‘Information and Communication Technologies’ and entrepreneurial activity: drivers of economic growth in Europe

Innovation and entrepreneurial activities have become increasingly important elements for economic growth and are also decisive factors in a country's level of development. As regards the scope of this work, the European region as a whole occupies the top positions in most of the technological indicators. Entrepreneurial activity plays a significant role for the economy of a country owing, among other matters, to its effects on the labour market and economic growth. Apart from fomenting job creation, the presence of entrepreneurs may be related to the structure and performance of a country's economy. The main purpose of this work is to analyse what relationship exists between technological availability and the presence of entrepreneurs in European countries.     

Exploring the determinants of E-loyalty among travel agencies

This study aims to explore and empirically build up an e-loyalty model for the burgeoning e-service of Taiwan's travel agencies. Mailed data and data collected in personal from multiple sources is used for helping to identify the determinants of e-loyalty between Taiwan's wholesaler and retailer travel agencies. Several statistical techniques, including confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and a linear structural relationship (LISREL) are used, and a structural equation is implemented to test the e-loyalty model. The results indicate that Taiwan's wholesaler travel agencies might consider e-quality as well as trust as the most important antecedents to e-loyalty, whereas loyalty results in the increased transaction intentions of retailers. No related studies so far have analysed or tried to discern the cause-and-effect relationship between e-loyalty and transaction intention for travel agencies. This paper also proposes an optimal e-loyalty model that matches the essential development needs of B2B commerce transaction. Finally, the model herein illustrates how wholesalers can realise e-commerce strategic goals by acquiring the e-loyalty of retailer travel agencies.     

A conceptual framework of contemporary luxury consumption

Defining “luxury” as expensive and exclusive products and brands that are differentiated from other offers based on their exquisite design and craftmanship, sensory appeal, and distinct socio-cultural narratives, this conceptual paper integrates the established view of wealth-based luxury with an alternative perspective focused on luxury competencies. These competencies include expertise, aesthetic taste, and sensitivity to luxury symbolism and are developed by learning and enjoying the unique luxury features relating to design and craftmanship, sensory appeal, and socio-cultural narratives. The relationship between the wealth-based and competencies-based perspectives is examined for consumption goals; considerations, choice and usage; and consumption outcomes. After identifying individual and societal moderating factors (socio-economic status and self-related factors as well as the effectiveness of social status symbols and the power structure of society), future research issues and research propositions are presented. This paper concludes by advising luxury managers to develop competencies-based strategies to address contemporary luxury challenges.     

产业转型背景下农村经济结构调整的方向研究——农产品品质结构调整

农村地区的资源相对集中,与城市地区的经济差距也越来越大,所以产业转型是产业发展的必然趋势。如何在产业转型下,实现农村经济结构的调整和优化是现阶段必须要考虑的问题。在市场经济不断发展的过程中,我国农产品供求关系也发生了根本性的变化,由原来的数量需求问题,转变为农产品品质与市场需求不符从而导致的农业结构问题。鉴于上述情况,本文以农产品品质结构调整为根本出发点,以此来分析农村经济结构调整的方向,首先从农产品品质结构调整与农业结构的内在联系作了简要阐述,其次提出了产业转型下农产品品质结构调整的成效以及现存问题,最后从四个方面提出了农村经济结构调整中农产品品质结构调整策略:以市场需求为根本、实施品牌战略、搭建农产品销售平台、强化法规政策,以不断推进我国农村经济结构改革进程。     

环境约束下的内生经济增长分析

由于工业化的不断发展,经济增长过程中伴随着出现了愈发严重的环境污染问题。本文通过建立环境约束下的将经济系统划分为物质生产部门和新技术研发部门的两部门内生经济增长模型,考察了环境污染、人力资本、技术创新和经济增长的关系,并运用稳态增长解来分析它们之间的理论意义以及实际意义。     

Leaders and Laggards: The Influence of Competing Logics on Corporate Environmental Action

We study the sources of resistance to change among firms in the Canadian petroleum industry in response to a shift in societal level logics related to corporate environmental performance. Despite challenges to its legitimacy as a result of poor environmental performance, the Canadian petroleum industry was divided as to how to respond, with some members ignoring the concerns and resisting change (i.e., laggards) while others took action to ensure continued legitimacy (i.e., leaders). We examine why organizations within the same institutional field responded differently, delaying the industry response. We found that one population of firms was aligned with increasing pressures from its stakeholders for improved environmental performance, and the other was influenced by local cultural, political, and economic ideals less demanding of environmental actions. Our results reveal that several factors both at the institutional field level and the organizational level affected how these two populations reacted to a changing societal logic. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.     

Ethics and Law: Guiding the Invisible Hand to Correct Corporate Social Responsibility Externalities

Tokenistic short-term economic success is not good indicia of long-term success. Sustainable business success requires sustained existence in a corporation’s political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental contexts. Far beyond the traditional economic focus, consumers, governments and public interest groups alike increasingly expect the business sector to take on more social and environmental responsibilities. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the model in which economic, social and environmental responsibilities are fulfilled simultaneously. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence that demonstrates genuine widespread adoption of CSR in practice, and its underlying reasons. Though research in CSR has been rapidly growing, its commercial reality and implications need to be further improved if it is to inspire corporations to voluntarily adopt CSR. In the literature, Carroll’s four-dimensional (economic, legal, ethical and discretionary) CSR framework offers a theoretical basis for developing an empirically based model to explain why and how profit-motivated managers take up CSR voluntarily. Our study has developed a structural equation model to identify the key factors and their interactions that influence economically motivated managers to take on voluntary CSR, and validate Carroll’s four-dimensional construct. The results support Carroll’s four-dimensional CSR framework, with the exception of the link pertaining to the relationship between economic and discretionary/voluntary responsibility. This characterises the economic reality that financial market-driven economic responsibility does not automatically translate into social responsibility. Nevertheless, the empirical results demonstrate that corporations can be led to engage in more voluntary CSR activities to achieve social good when appropriate legal and ethical controls are in place.     

贸易与环境质量:基于面板数据的分析

贸易与环境问题一直是学术界广泛研究和争论的热点问题,目前国内现有相关文献多是将贸易的环境效应进行分析,测算我国部分经济要素对环境质量的影响,缺乏对主要经济要素的环境效应的系统分析。根据我国1990-2009年间(除西藏以外29个省及直辖市)的面板数据进行回归分析,试图揭示开放经济条件下我国主要经济要素与环境污染的关系。结果表明:对外贸易对不同污染物排放的影响效应不同;对外贸易对环境质量影响的规模-技术效应和结构效应均为正;由对外贸易而引致的经济结构有双重环境效应,即污染天堂动因的积极环境影响和要素禀赋动因的消极环境影响;技术进步和经济结构优化升级有利于我国环境质量的改善。     

The International Marketing Environment

Abstract

The article analyzes the content of 18 international marketing academic textbooks with regard to factors comprising the global marketing environment. Three broad categories of factors are identified, the macro (i.e., physical, demographic, and socio-cultural), meso (i.e., economic, political-legal, and technological), andmicro (i.e., intermediaries, competitors, market, and customers). In each of the subcategories, 10 different factors affecting global marketing were extracted. By measuring the extent of coverage given to each factor in each textbook, the relative emphasis placed collectively was established. These results were subsequently compared and contrasted to the views of 71 academics teaching international marketing; revealing the existence of gaps between the importance attached to most of the elements comprising the international marketing environment, and the coverage provided in academic textbooks.     

科技进步与经济增长相关性的实证研究——以黑龙江省为例

科技进步为经济增长创造条件,而经济增长又反过来对科技进步起到拉动作用。形成科技进步与经济增长的良性循环。通过对黑龙江省1983—2006年的样本数据进行平稳性和协整检验,发现黑龙江省的科学事业费支出、企业挖潜改造支出占财政支出的比重与黑龙江省的全要素增长率之间存在协整关系,这意味着黑龙江省的经济增长与黑龙江省财政的科学事业费支出、企业挖潜改造支出之间存在着长期的稳定关系。     

Foreign direct investment,technological advancement,and absorptive capacity: A network analysis

Technological advancement is an important instrument for economic and technological development, but most countries receive the benefits of innovation and new technologies through technology transfer. Previous studies typically consider direct linkages in order to understand technological advancement without paying much attention to indirect linkages, such as the inter-connectivity of the recipients of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). To understand the relationship between FDI and technological advancement and whether recipients’ absorptive capacity matters, we model global FDI networks for the period 2009–2016. We find empirical evidence that the global FDI network has a core-periphery structure, and that core countries are more technologically developed than peripheral countries. We also find empirical evidence that a country’s centrality of position in the global FDI network is positively associated with the technological advancement of a country, and that the absorptive capacity of a country can moderate this relationship. Regression analyses using instrumental variable estimators confirm the robustness of our findings. The most striking finding of our research is the strong moderation effect of knowledge intensity, a constituent of absorptive capacity. This finding provides a nuanced understanding of absorptive capacity, demonstrating the ways a country can benefit from FDI by reshaping the factors related to absorptive capacity.     

科技进步与经济增长相关性的实证研究——以黑龙江省为例

科技进步为经济增长创造条件,而经济增长又反过来对科技进步起到拉动作用,形成科技进步与经济增长的良性循环。通过对黑龙江省1983-2006年的样本数据进行平稳性和协整检验,发现黑龙江省的科学事业费支出、企业挖潜改造支出占财政支出的比重与黑龙江省的全要素增长率之间存在协整关系,这意味着黑龙江省的经济增长与黑龙江省财政的科学事业费支出、企业挖潜改造支出之间存在着长期的稳定关系。     

Satisfaction with current commuting expense as related to the relative fuel efficiency of a desired car purchase

Although projecting the demand for cars in North America has been the subject of research for almost half a century,^1–6 increases in the price of petroleum and petroleum products during the 1970s prompted an interest in projecting the demand for fuel-efficient cars. The purpose of this paper is to assess factors affecting the relative fuel efficiency of a desired car purchase among households with at least one individual employed outside the home. In addition to socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the household, sex of the worker, distance to work and satisfaction with the expense involved in the journey to work are used to predict relative efficiency of a potential car purchase. The analysis is not intended to follow the lines of a traditional economic analysis. Rather, its purpose is to add other dimensions to such analyses.     

Capital structure decision making: A model for family business

Most theoretical and empirical studies of capital structure focus on public corporations. Only a limited number of studies on capital structure have been conducted on small-to-medium size enterprises (SMEs), and this deficiency is particularly evident in investigations into factors that influence funding decisions of family business owners.Theory indicates that there is a complex array of factors that influence SME owner-managers' financing decisions. Recent family business literature suggests that these processes are influenced by firm owners' attitudes toward the utility of debt as a form of funding as moderated by external environmental conditions (e.g., financial and market considerations).A number of other factors have been shown to influence financing decisions including culture; entrepreneurial characteristics; entrepreneurs' prior experiences in capital structure; business goals; business life-cycle issues; preferred ownership structures; views regarding control, debt–equity ratios, and short- vs. long-term debt; age and size of the firm; sources of funding for growth; attitudes toward debt financing; issues relating to independence and control; and perceived risk and attitudes toward personal risk.Although these factors have been identified, until now there does not appear to have been any attempts to develop empirically-based models that show relationships between these factors and family business owners' financing decisions. Utilizing theories derived from divergent disciplines, this study develops an empirically tested structural equation model of financing antecedents of family businesses. Participants of our study involved a random sample of 5000 business owners who were mailed a 250-item Australian Family and Private Business questionnaire developed specifically for this investigation.Notably, our findings reveal that firm size, family control, business planning, and business objectives are significantly associated with debt. Small family businesses and owners who do not have formal planning processes in place tend to rely on family loans as a source of finance. However, family businesses in the service industry (e.g., retailers and wholesalers) are less likely to use family loans as are those owners who are planning to achieve growth through new products or process development. Use of capital and retained profits is likely for family businesses planning to achieve growth through an increase in sales but less is likely for family businesses in the manufacturing sector and lifestyle firms. In addition, debt and family loans are negatively related to capital and retained profits. Equity is a consideration for owners of large businesses, young firms, and owners who plan to achieve growth through increasing profit margins. However, equity is less likely to be a consideration for older family business owners and owners who have a preference for retaining family control.Our findings suggest that the interplay between multiple social, family, and financial factors is complex. In addition, our findings indicate the importance of utilizing theories that also help to explain behavioral factors (e.g., owners' needs to be in control) that affect financial structure decision-making processes. Practitioners and researchers should consider the dynamic interplay among business characteristics (e.g., size or industry), behavioral aspects of business financing (e.g., business objectives), and financial factors (e.g., gearing levels) when working with and researching family enterprises.     

The role of newly emergent wholesalers in the food and drink industry in Japan,c.1880 to 1940: Focusing on the case of Kokubu

Abstract

This article explores the historical development of Japanese wholesalers in the food and drink industry in modern Japan. Despite many criticisms of Japanese wholesalers as being “multi-layered,” “old-fashioned,” and “outmoded,” there were historical reasons for the existence of wholesalers. While the traditional wholesalers remained even after the Meiji Restoration, the new wholesalers emerged by dealing with new products that appeared for the first time in modern Japan. Utilizing the historical conditions of both producers and retailers, the newcomers such as Kokubu boosted their development by innovative activities and gradually superseded the traditional wholesale market, firmly establishing their position as general wholesalers before the Second World War.     

河南省物流需求影响因素实证分析

本文基于区域物流需求理论,通过多元线性回归分析分别从河南省经济增长、技术进步、产业结构升级、区位优势等影响因素对河南省物流的需求量进行定量分析。研究结果表明,GDP产值、社会消费品零售总额、第三产业产值、第二产业占GDP的比重、3种主要专利授权数、公路里程与物流需求有显著的关系。