The Effect of Concept Formulation on Concept Test Scores

While concept testing is a mainstay of the new product development process, there is little empirical evidence on the variation in consumer responses due to alternative concept formulations, particularly for those tests undertaken early in the product development process. The present study addressed this gap in the literature by using a split sample mail survey to compare stripped, embellished, and visual concept formulations for five heterogeneous product concepts. It was found that respondents' answers to attitude and purchase intention questions showed only minor variation with different formulations of the concept test statement. It also was found that the ranking of the concepts showed no substantial changes across the different formulations. Therefore, the type of concept statement formulation may not be that important, at least for early ranking tasks performed before experiential prototypes are available. Early concept tests therefore may be carried out using stripped concept statements. This may reduce costs, allowing organizations to undertake early concept testing more frequently across a wider range of products.     

Designing Optimal Crop Revenue Insurance

When the indemnity schedule is contingent on the farmer's price and individual yield, an optimal crop revenue insurance contract depends only on the farmer's gross revenue. However, this design is not efficient if, as is the case with available contracts, the coverage function is based on imperfect estimators of individual yield and/or price. The producer's degree of prudence and the extent of basis risks have important influences on the optimal indemnity schedule. In this broader context, optimal protection is not provided by available U.S. crop insurance contracts and may include combinations of revenue insurance, yield insurance, futures, and options contracts.     

Soviet all-union enterprises as new multinationals of the CIS

This paper examines the restructuring of the former Soviet economy provoked by the break-up of the USSR and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Particular attention is devoted to the changes taking place in the former All-Union enterprises that have now essentially become new multinationals. The pressures influencing the two parallel developments of internalization and divestment are examined and illustrated using two case studies. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Human capital and the internationalisation of venture capital firms

We examine the neglected area of internationalisation by VCs. Using a representative sample of 195 VCs, we show that the decision of a European VC firm to invest internationally is driven by its human resources. Having more VC executives in general and more VC executives with previous international experience in specific, results in a higher probability of investing internationally. In contrast, more VC executives with experience in the VC industry or with an engineering background lead to a higher probability of remaining domestic.     

Strategic profiles and performance: An empirical test of select key propositions

Competing theories on internal orientation versus external orientation are examined. The relevant theories are amalgamated and condensed into a number of competing propositions that are empirically tested. The findings suggest that the internally oriented businesses as well as the externally oriented businesses underperform the efficient, marketing oriented businesses.     

A simple search model of money with heterogeneous agents and partial acceptability

Summary. Simple search models have equilibria where some agents accept money and others do not. We argue such equilibria should not be taken seriously. This is unfortunate if one wants a model with partial acceptability. We introduce heterogeneous agents and show partial acceptability arises naturally and robustly. There can be multiple equilibria with different degrees of acceptability. Given the type of heterogeneity we allow, the model is simple: equilibria reduce to fixed points in [0,1]. We show that with other forms of heterogeneity equilibria are fixed points in set space, and there is no method to reduce this to a problem in R¹.Received: 4 September 2002, Revised: 23 September 2002JEL Classification Numbers: C78, E40.A. Shevchenko, R. Wright: We thank seminar participants at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Indiana University, Purdue University, University of Toronto, the 2002 Midwest Macroeconomics Conference at Vanderbilt University, and the 2001 Conference on Economic Dynamics at the University of Essex. The National Science Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland provided financial support. Braz Ministerio de Camargo and Gabriel Camera provided some helpful suggestions. Correspondence to: R. Wright     

HIV and AIDS--employers grapple with difficult issues

HIV infection and AIDS pose special challenges to employers. Myriad laws affect how the employer must respond when an applicant or employee is infected with HIV or is ill due to AIDS. An overall compliance strategy should include thorough knowledge of those laws and a policy on HIV and AIDS, put in place before a crisis occurs.     

Obtaining global market access for GMPCS

Demand for wireless telephony is huge and the potential for GMPCS, in particular, is widely recognized. However, the most serious problems to the introduction of GMPCS are not technical, nor financial, but are rather the political and regulatory barriers—notably fear of bypass and security concerns. Inmarsat does not believe that there should be any a priori limit to the number of GMPCS operators offering satellite capacity to national service providers. The market can best determine which will be successful. However, before countries open their markets, they will need to be convinced that it is in their interest to do so.     

Crowding standards at Petra Archaeological Park: a comparative study of McKercher's five types of heritage tourists

To achieve sustainability in heritage tourism, tourists should be placed at the heart of the management and planning processes. Indicators and standards-based frameworks were developed in the field of outdoor recreation management to manage and measure crowding and other problematic issues in parks and related areas. Using normative theory and visual research methods, this article aims to examine crowding standards of tourists at Petra Archaeological Park, and compare these standards between the types of heritage tourists suggested by a model developed by Bob McKercher. Results showed that tourists’ acceptability levels go down with an increasing number of tourists, and tourists who are highly motivated to visit heritage sites (i.e. purposeful and sightseeing heritage tourists) had the most restrictive acceptable number of tourists at the park. The normative standards formulated in this article provided a guidance to manage crowding at Petra.     

The impact of prior working papers on auditor evidential planning judgments

There has been significant concern in auditing about the effects of relying on prior working papers in planning audit procedures (“anchoring”). This study employed an experiment with varying information sets: prior working papers, current year information and “scenario” (summarized prior year information). Practicing auditors were asked to design a substantive audit program for a case where changes in the client's environment dictated additional procedures. A consensus program from three partners was used as a bench-mark. Experimental groups were about equally adaptive to the changing environment. However, auditors provided with prior working papers demonstrated lower efficiency. The scenario group exhibited both high relative effectiveness and efficiency, while current information subjects displayed the lowest overall level of performance.