The Ethical Attribute Stigma: Understanding When Ethical Attributes Improve Consumer Responses to Product Evaluations

Although several articles have investigated ethical product attributes, earlier research has not empirically examined different benefits offered by ethical attributes (i.e., symbolic or utilitarian benefits). This study demonstrates that ethical attributes have functional benefits as well as symbolic benefits. More importantly, when the ethical attribute benefit is congruent with the product category benefit, ethical attributes improve product evaluations. In addition, products with a higher degree of physical contact with consumers are affected more positively by benefit congruity of ethical attributes. For products with lower degree of physical contact, benefit congruity of ethical attributes still has a positive impact, but not for consumers who have strong price–quality beliefs.     

The Effect of Brand Gender on Brand Equity

Brand personality has been suggested as an important source of consumer‐based brand equity, yet empirical research on the relation between brand personality perceptions and brand equity is scarce. This article examines the link between masculine and feminine brand personality and brand equity as well as the underlying process of this relationship. Study 1 reported herein involves 140 existing brands and demonstrates that high levels of brand masculinity and femininity relate positively to brand equity, and that this relation is not moderated by participants’ sex. Study 2 demonstrates that brand gender accounts for brand equity ratings above and beyond other brand personality dimensions. Study 3 identifies ease of categorization as the underlying mechanism for the relationship between brand gender and brand equity.     

Stretching the Border: Shopping,Petty Trade and Everyday Life Experiences in the Polish–Ukrainian Borderland

This article examines the practices and experiences of Ukrainian border crossers who are engaged in informal small-scale economic practices, namely shopping and petty trade, at the Medyka border crossing in Poland. By examining the societal, network and territorial embeddedness of the economic activities of these border crossers, we aim to shed light on the practices and experiences that form part of their daily lives. For many, the presence of the state border has become a resource for shopping and petty trade. People share a common purpose of making the most of their border crossing; they work together to plan and coordinate, or improvise and semi-plan, in the borderland and beyond, to supplement their income or to make a living. As a result, daily life for these border crossers occurs on both sides of the state border, ‘stretching’ the border in both a mental and a physical sense, despite the controlled institutional demarcation between Poland and Ukraine.     

Cost-benefit analysis of alien vegetation clearing for water yield and tourism in a mountain catchment in the Western Cape of South Africa

Economic analysis is used to assess the costs and benefits of restoration following clearing of invasive alien trees in the floristically rich Fynbos mountainous area near Franschhoek, Western Cape of South Africa. The Groot Drakenstein, Franschhoek and Jonkershoek mountains receives more rainfall than the surrounding areas and is an important source of water for the city of Cape Town. The costs of alien invasive plant removal, gully-erosion repair and reseeding with indigenous plants are considered in a case-study cost-benefit analysis of restoration, in terms of the water and tourism benefits derived. Three different options of restoration (comprehensive, moderate, basic) were analysed under three different economic scenarios (optimistic, realistic, pessimistic) and the costs of which have been weighted up against the income derived from the supply of water and tourism. The results have shown that despite the high costs of restoration, the basic restoration option costs were out-weighed by the water and tourism benefits derived. This was also true of the moderate restoration option, when evaluated under the optimistic scenario and using an 8% discount rate, or a 3% discount rate under any scenario. However, this was not the case in the moderate restoration option when using an 8% discount rate in conjunction with the realistic and pessimistic scenarios. Neither was it the case when using a 12% discount rate, irrespective of the scenario. Under no scenario was the cost of a comprehensive restoration option outweighed by the benefits quantified, irrespective of the discount rate used. It was concluded that further restoration, in addition to the mere clearing of alien invasive plants, would be economically viable under certain assumptions and conditions.     

Creating a healthy working environment with leadership: the concept of health-promoting leadership

In this paper, a concept of health-promoting leadership is presented that focuses on the interaction between working environment and leadership behavior. Seven key aspects define health-promoting leadership: health awareness, low workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. The self-assessment version of the questionnaire was used in this study for the first time. Analyzing the data of 299 leaders, the results showed satisfactory reliability and validity coefficients for all dimensions. Structural equation modeling indicates that all dimensions can be assigned on a main factor of health-promoting leadership. The questionnaire offers two main advantages: first, it is possible to measure health-promoting behavior strategies of leaders and thus show their leadership potential. Second, the instrument allows analyzing critical aspects in the working environment and further helps establish basic conditions in the workplace, where a health-promoting workplace can be created.     

The influence of tactile input on the evaluation of retail product offerings

Retailers can benefit from allowing customers to touch their products. The influence of tactile input on evaluation, however, remains undemonstrated in the literature. In four experiments, effects of tactile input were observed for product categories wherein tactile input was diagnostic, and depended on product quality. While this effect was moderated by individual differences in need for touch when there was no opportunity for multiple product comparisons, there was no support for a mediating role of affect. Implications for retailing theory and practice are discussed.     

Diffusion and adoption of advanced emission abatement technology induced by permit trading

This paper analyzes firm incentives to diffuse and adopt advanced abatement technology for three different regimes of tradeable emission permits (auctioning, benchmarking, and grandfathering). We particularly consider technical change that decreases marginal abatement costs (MACs) only at high emission levels, whereas it increases them at low firm emissions. We establish that the desirability of the different regimes of allocating permits to firms is critically influenced by how MACs are changed by technological improvements.     

Escalating penalties: a supergame approach

The paper provides an economic rationale for punishing repeat offenders with increasing sanctions. We analyze the optimal intertemporal punishment scheme within a supergame framework, in which the legal authority is assumed to minimize the social costs of punishment under the constraint of keeping delinquency at an exogenously given maximal tolerable level.