Customer experience management: toward implementing an evolving marketing concept

Although research continues to debate the future of the marketing concept, practitioners have taken the lead, appraising customer experience management (CEM) as one of the most promising marketing approaches in consumer industries. In research, however, the notion of CEM is not well understood, is fragmented across a variety of contexts, and is insufficiently demarcated from other marketing management concepts. By integrating field-based insights of 52 managers engaging in CEM with supplementary literature, this study provides an empirically and theoretically solid conceptualization. Specifically, it introduces CEM as a higher-order resource of cultural mindsets toward customer experiences (CEs), strategic directions for designing CEs, and firm capabilities for continually renewing CEs, with the goals of achieving and sustaining long-term customer loyalty. We disclose a typology of four distinct CEM patterns, with firm size and exchange continuity delineating the pertinent contingency factors of this generalized understanding. Finally, we discuss the findings in relation to recent theoretical research, proposing that CEM can comprehensively systemize and serve the implementation of an evolving marketing concept.     

The Home Bias in Equities and Distribution Costs

We show that incorporating distribution costs into a general equilibrium model of international portfolio choice helps to explain the home bias in international equity investment. Our model is able to replicate observed investment positions for a wide range of parameter values, even if agents have an incentive to hedge labor income risk by purchasing foreign equity. This is because the existence of a retail sector affects both the correlation of domestic returns with the domestic price level and the correlation between financial and non‐financial income.     

The Complementarity between Tax Avoidance and Manager Diversion: Evidence from Tax Haven Firms

We investigate whether tax avoidance and manager diversion are complementary when the costs of diversion are low by comparing dividend payouts, performance, and overinvestments of tax haven firms versus other multinational firms based in countries with weak and strong investor protections. Desai and Dharmapala (2006, 2009a, b) and Desai et al. (2007) set forth a theory of tax avoidance within an agency framework (the D&D theory) based on the assumption that tax avoidance and manager diversion are complementary when the corporate governance system is “ineffective” (i.e., the manager's expected costs of diversion are low). Tax haven firms are corporate groups whose parent firms are incorporated in tax haven countries that are not the countries where the groups’ headquarters or primary operations are located (i.e., their “base” countries). We argue that tax haven incorporation potentially lowers the costs of diversion for managers of firms based in countries with weak investor protections. Using a sample from 28 base countries, we provide evidence that manager diversion and tax avoidance are complementary for tax haven firms based in countries with weak investor protections but not for tax haven firms based in countries with strong investor protections. Our results are consistent with the complementarity assumption underlying the D&D model and provide additional insights into the potential impact of the decentralization of the global firm.     

Insights into Franchising: A Review of Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives

Business format franchising has expanded rapidly, over the past 40 years as an alternative method of distribution and business development. This literature review analyses the major issues which have been the subject of in-depth research and/or significant debate. These include: the determinants of franchising in theory and practice; why franchisors normally operate both franchised and company-owned outlets, and the factors which influence the balance between them; the role and position of franchisees within the franchisor/franchisee relationship and, finally, the continuing debate surrounding the kind of regulatory framework in which it should operate. These findings are evaluated and aspects of franchising which warrant further investigation are outlined.     

Mind the gap��German motherhood risks in figures and game theory issues

After childbirth, while parents are delighted at public cash transfers like the German ‘Elterngeld’ (parental leave benefit), the decline in mothers’ earnings capacity is an awkward issue that tends to hover in the background. This paper aims firstly to make a contribution to quantifying West German mothers’ foregone gross earnings that stem from intermittent labor market participation, due to the birth of their first child. Secondly, it discusses behavioral outcomes of the resulting implicit child costs in a dynamic bargaining model of household decisions. The regression results of a Mincer-type wage equation, with German Socio-Economic Panel Data (West) for the period 1984–2005 and correcting for sample selection (Two-step Heckman), indicate considerable wage penalties due to birth-related employment withdrawal. On the closure of the fecund window, mothers suffer gross hourly wage cuts of up to 25%, compared to their equally educated, non-stop full-time employed counterparts, and the total of annualized losses amounts to as much as 201,000 Euros. Although foregone earnings do not matter as much in stable partnerships, they turn out to be a veritable asymmetric specialization risk that can prevent women from having children, if divorce seems sufficiently probable.     

Trust as a mediator of the relationship between leader/member behavior and leader-member-exchange quality

We examined how and why trust between a subordinate and supervisor develops over time from the separate perspectives and experiences of both dyad partners. Integrating the literatures on trust, leader-member-exchange (LMX) and promotion regulatory focus (PRF), we test our model using longitudinal data from a Malaysian subsidiary of a U.S. headquartered corporation. Subordinate's trust in supervisor mediated between supervisor's PRF and subordinate's experience of LMX quality; supervisor's trust in subordinate mediated between subordinate's job performance and leader's experience of LMX quality. Findings are interpreted within the high power-distance, high collectivist, and high performance orientation of Malaysian culture.     

Tariff rate quotas and the economic impact of agricultural trade liberalization in the world trade organization

Since their implementation at the Uruguay Round, tariff rate quotas (TRQs) have become a widely used instrument of trade policy in agricultural trade. With almost 1,300 TRQs scheduled at the World Trade Organization, this paper will examine their economic effects more closely. First, the theoretical background of TRQs is examined. Then, a short overview of the Uruguay Round and their institutional background is given. We demonstrate that official statistics, which do not count TRQs as nontariff barriers, are at least highly misleading. Very often, their effects are the same as those of regular quotas, including redistributive effects. The prominent example of the European banana regime is used to illustrate all of these points.A first draft of this paper was presented at the International Atlantic Economic Conference, March 14–21, 2000, Munich, Germany. The results are part of the research project "The Influence of the Institutional Design on the Actual Impacts of Agricultural Trade Liberalization after GATT." Financial support by Volkswagen Stiftung is gratefully acknowledged.