Nonlinear prices and welfare

The paper constructs a general equilibrium model of education which is distinguished by a ‘job ladder’ or sticky wages, combined with the assumption that educated labor is preferred over uneducated labor, i.e. per a ‘fairness-in-hiring’ rule, when there is excess demand for jobs at given wages. This theory of education, considered to be relevant to liberal arts education in underdeveloped countries, is contrasted with the human capital doctrine and the Arrow-Spence screening theories. The analysis is mainly focused on examining the social inefficiency properties of the educational process captured in the model constructed.     

A Dream Experiment in Development Economics

In this article, the authors discuss a unique project carried out by 13 teams of four students each in the undergraduate Development Economics class during the 2012 spring semester at a private liberal arts college. The goal of the “Dream Experiment” was to think of an idea that promotes development, employs concepts from development economics, uses a real-world situation from a developing country, and has implications for policy if the experiment goes ahead. The authors present details of the project's modus operandi, provide a case study as an example, and highlight lessons for economics pedagogy.     

Omni-channel retailing: propositions,examples and solutions

Customers are not passive agents, but intrinsic to the value creation process. Because retailers are the customer’s link to the marketplace they are uniquely placed to develop value co-creation opportunities that give themselves a strategic advantage. Omni-channel retailing is a means to create an advantage by forging deeper customer relationships and potentially developing new markets. Omni-channel retailing can appeal to the heterogeneity in customers’ shopping orientations with the aim of providing a seamless cross-channel experience. However, without a clear strategic purpose, omni-channel initiatives can easily result in unbeneficial – or worse, counterproductive – investments. To address this, the purpose of this paper is to formulate guiding principles to facilitate decision-making with respect to developing an omni-channel marketing strategy. Consequently, two complementary research streams are presented. The first pertains to strategic considerations regarding omni-channel retailing; the second pertains to value co-creation as seen through a service-dominant logic lens. These research streams are then linked to derive five propositions– along with examples and solutions – to assist retailing decision-makers when developing an omni-channel marketing strategy. These propositions underline the importance of viewing channels as value-facilitating resources that should be aligned with the customer’s decision journey.     

Brand frequency and product involvement: The application of a pc-based perceptual learning routine to psychology and marketing

This article describes a set of procedures that were developed for implementing perceptual learning studies on IBM PCs. The routines permit the display of pictorial and alphanumeric graphic images in 320 × 200 graphics mode, using 4 colors from a 16-color palette. One of the perceptual learning routines—a dot clarification routine—is applied in a study of brand frequency and product involvement as a demonstration of the usefulness of the procedure to issues in psychology and marketing. Perceptual identification was significantly faster for studied items than for nonstudied ones, for high-frequency brands than for low-frequency ones, and for high-involvement products than for low-involvement ones. None of the interactions were significant. We also discuss other potential applications of the perceptual learning procedures to issues in psychology and marketing.     

Using empowerment to build trust and respect in the workplace: a strategy for addressing the nursing shortage

In this study of 273 staff nurses, higher levels of structural empowerment were found to positively influence perceptions of interactional justice, respect, and trust in management, which, ultimately, increased perceptions of job satisfaction and organizational commitment.     

Eat,drink, and create content: a multi-method exploration of visual social media marketing content

As visual social media marketing (VSMM) content continues to increase in popularity, it is imperative for marketers to understand the elements of such marketing efforts that capture consumers attention. Across three empirical studies, the researchers use eye tracking technology and a scenario-based experimental design to explore the impacts of the use of figurative language (i.e., antithesis and alliteration) and Snapchat’s drawing feature on consumers attention to the verbal element (i.e., caption) of company-generated and consumer-generated VSMM content (i.e., snap), specifically, on Snapchat. Results demonstrate the positive impact of the use of figurative language on consumers attention to the caption in VSMM content. Furthermore, consumers attention to the caption in company-generated (consumer-generated) VSMM content is greater when the caption uses antithesis (alliteration). Finally, the presence of pictorial information (i.e., drawings) in VSMM content may impact the relationship between the use of figurative language (i.e., alliteration) and consumers attention to the caption in consumer-generated VSMM content. Implications for marketing and advertising theory and practice are discussed.     

Governmentality in accounting and accountability: A case study of embedding sustainability in a supply chain

This paper examines how the introduction of sustainability accounting has been used by an organization as a means to seek to govern social, economic and environmental issues relating to suppliers. The concept of governmentality and four analytics of government are proposed as a means to examine systematic ways of exercising power and authority. This theoretical framework illuminates the specific rationales and practices of government that enable particular aspirations of reform – such as sustainability – to be constituted. The analysis is informed by the discussion of the implementation of sustainability-orientated regimes of practice in the context of a single supply chain within a major supermarket chain in the UK against the theoretical analytics of government. The paper provides novel empirical insights into how sustainability accounting shaped forms of power, rationales and practices in a supply chain. It explores the extent to which senior decision-takers frame and use sustainability accounting to foster disciplinary effects based ostensibly upon social and environmental goals. These are found in practice to be reformulated primarily according to an economic (rather than social or environmental) regime of practice.     

The spatial context of transport disadvantage, social exclusion and well-being

Equity has been a major concern of public transport provision and is required by legislation in many countries. Several approaches measure equity in transit supply however none produce a simple system-wide measure of equity performance. A new approach is presented using Lorenz curves to measure the relative supply of transit to the population. Gini coefficients provide a single measure of overall equity using this method. A system-wide assessment of overall transit supply to the population in Melbourne, Australia shows that 70% of the population shares only 19% of the supply (Gini coefficient = .68). When employment is also taken into account, the situation is not much different; 70% of jobs and population share 23% of service (G = .62). In order to gain some understanding of vertical equity, the transit supply was compared between different age, income and vehicle ownership groups. There is some evidence of higher supply for youth and low-income groups in inner Melbourne, and in all parts of Melbourne no-vehicle households lived in areas of higher transit supply. Overall it is unclear how “fair” these distributions are compared to equity in other cities since this is the first time this method has been undertaken. Projects using similar approaches should provide a good basis for establishing comparative equity between cities.     

Dealing with celebrity and accountability in the top job

Today, human resource executives assume prominent leadership roles in their firms and play important roles in the strategy process. Along with the expansion and evolution of the HR function, the responsibilities of coordination, control, and accountability for organizations and their leaders, particularly the CEO, remain. Forming strong relationships with CEOs thus is viewed as one way to encourage HR's prominence in the firm's overall success, particularly its financial health. In recent years, CEOs' presence in the mass media has surged as well, with some CEOs achieving celebrity status. Celebrity status has the potential to increase CEO discretion, decrease CEO accountability, and expand firm resources. As such, achieving celebrity status can affect the relationship between CEOs and HR executives in regard to accountability. In this article, we discuss accountability as a key job demand and address some of the complexities and dynamics of CEO accountability. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Evaluating Export Promotion Programmes: U.K. Overseas Trade Missions and Export Performance

This paper examines the extent to which firms' knowledge and structural characteristics as well as firms' behaviour in foreign markets following trade mission participation impacts upon trade mission success and export performance. The findings suggest that: 1) A diversification strategy in terms of export markets benefits future expansion into new foreign markets; 2) Specific knowledge about the targeted markets should be acquired prior to participating in the trade missions; 3) Communication with potential business partners should be established prior to participating in the trade missions; and 4) The business relationships established before and during the trade missions should be cultivated through regular contacts using not only communication technology, but also regular visits. In summary, overseas trade missions contribute to the generation of incremental sales in foreign markets by enhancing the relationship-building process between business partners.