Retail fairness: Exploring consumer perceptions of fairness towards retailers’ marketing tactics

The concept of fairness has received great attention in consumer behavior research lately. However, the focus of these studies has mainly been the understanding of fairness in terms of pricing rather than exploring the consumers’ perceptions of fairness itself. This study explores the consumers’ perceptions of fairness as an outcome of a retailer’s marketing tactics. Based on 36 in-depth interviews this study submits a conceptualization of retail fairness from the consumers’ point-of-view. The concept of retail fairness constitutes of three dimensions and nine sub-dimensions, expanding our knowledge of the construct. The study posits a crucial link between increased honesty, ethical, and moral behavior and the understanding of retail fairness. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Adjustment costs and theory of investment under uncertainty

It is shown that the stochastic investment rule for the price-setting monopolist facing random demand differs from the deterministic rule, due to the presence of the covariance of the marginal utility of profits and the MRTS between capital and labor. For the risk-neutral quantity-setting monopolist, the optimal current investment under random demand is shown to be greater than that under deterministic conditions, given that production technology is of the Cobb-Douglas type with constant returns to scale. When random wages and prices follow first-order autoregressive schemes, the risk-neutral competitive firm's current investment level is shown to be at least equal to that under certainty.     

ALTERNATIVE WEIGHTING APPROACHES TO COMPUTING INDEXES OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

This paper compares the weighting schemes in the traditional, principal component and dynamic factor approaches to summarizing information from a number of component variables. To facilitate the comparison, we propose a framework to discuss the approaches with respect to their implied loadings in a latent variable model. We also propose a way to transform the dynamic factor index into an analogous index which is a weighted average of the components. The framework shows the strengths and weakness of the alternative weighting schemes and the sense in which the dynamic factor approach has the advantage of capturing both the significance and the variability of the components.     

Research collaboration model in academic social networks

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a hybrid collaboration recommendation method that accounts for research similarities and the previous research cooperation network. Research cooperation is measured by combining the collaboration time and the number of co-authors who already collaborated with at least one scientist. Research similarity is based on authors’ previous publications and academic events they attended. A weighted directed graph is built to discover new collaborators by using direct and indirect connections between scientists. Moreover, a consensus-based system is built to integrate bibliography data from different sources. The experimental results show that our method improves the recommendation performances over other methods.     

Drivers of firm formalization in Vietnam: an attention theory explanation

Informal enterprises are widely viewed as a mechanism to engage unemployed people in the economy and thereby alleviate poverty in developing economies. However, over-representation in an economy may lead to both economic growth and broader employment opportunities being sacrificed. This paper presents a process model to investigate three potential drivers for firms to formalize: the first from a desire to grow and develop the firm through innovation, the second from the wish to access government financial support and the third stimulated by the payment of unofficial payments or bribes. We use data from surveys of Vietnamese firms in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011 to investigate these drivers of formalization. Although we find support for all three of these drivers, the results differ in significance across years and firm types. We explain these differences using attention theory to show how different situations and events can make the formalization decision more likely over time.     

Modeling technical progress and total factor productivity: A plant level example

Shifts in the production frontier occur because of changes in technology. A model of how a firm learns to use the new technology, or how it adapts from the first production frontier to the second, is suggested. Two different adaptation paths are embodied in a translog cost function and its attendant cost share equations. The paths are the traditional linear time trend and a learning curve. The model is estimated using establishment level data from a non-regulated industry that underwent a technological shift in the time period covered by the data. The learning curve resulted in more plausible estimates of technical progress and total factor productivity growth patterns. A significant finding is that, at the establishment level, all inputs appear to be substitutes.This paper was processed by N.R. Adam.     

Psychological safety climate and workplace bullying in Vietnam’s public sector

The bureaucratic and impersonal nature of public management can fertilize workplace bullying and risks for psychological health and safety. Psychological safety climate (PSC) is an important indicator to reduce psychological hazards. Yet, there have been few studies conducted to examine the existence of PSC in the public sector in non-Western economies. This study examined the implementation of PSC and its effects on 274 employees from six branches of a Vietnamese public sector organization. The results suggest that senior management in organizations should consider positive work conditions and an effective system of policies, procedures, and practices for the prevention of psychosocial hazards.     

The effects of listing changes between NASDAQ market segments

This study analyzes the effects of listing changes within NASDAQ market segments during the period of 1998 to 2005. We find that firms phased up from the NASDAQ Small Capital Market (SmallCap) to the NASDAQ National Market (NNM) experienced significant declines in bid-ask spreads, the volatility of returns, and the probability of informed trading, and firms that phased down from NNM to the SmallCap experienced decreases in bid-ask spreads, but insignificant changes in the volatility of returns and the probability of informed trading. We also estimate simultaneous equations models of bid-ask spreads, return volatility, and trading volume for both groups of firms. The results confirm that improved liquidity is associated with the listing changes for the phase-up firms. However, the simultaneous equations model suggests that the decreases in bid-ask spreads for the phase-down firms are caused by the changes in share prices.     

Inter-market competition for exchange traded funds

We examine how the different mix of informed and liquidity trading in the market for ETFs affects the nature of inter-market competition. We find that both the characteristics of the securities and the structures of the competing markets jointly determine the nature of inter-market competition. Given the superior execution quality on the ECNs and the low adverse selection costs in the ETF market, anonymous market such as the ECNs, attract both liquidity and informed traders. We also find that markets compete in a subset of ETFs. In addition, we find that quotebased competition is prevalent in the market for ETFs.