When caring stops, staffing doesn't matter: part II

Response to a column on caring and staffing struck a cord with Nursing Economic$ readers worldwide. Measuring caring is complicated and a healthy debate exists over how exactly to do it. The extraordinary work of Dr. Jean Watson is an excellent resource for understanding how to measure and monitor caring. Beneath the instruments for measuring caring sits foundational work that can help us clarify and understand the topic of caring and just where it sits in our philosophies, intentions, patient care models, and care delivery systems.     

Leveraging firm-level marketing capabilities with marketing employee development

Using the theoretical foundations of the resource-based view of the firm, this study develops and measures marketing employee development capabilities and investigates how it moderates the relationships between brand and customer relationship management capabilities and firm performance outcomes. Based on a random sample survey of chief marketing executives from selected industries, combined with objective firm performance indicators and controls, results demonstrate that marketing employee development capabilities can leverage the relationships between firm-level marketing capabilities and customer satisfaction, market effectiveness, and objective financial performance. Further, these results show that such capabilities can be complementary and, in some cases, even substitute for each other, which improves organizational performance. Implications for researchers and marketing managers are discussed.     

Shadow pricing diversity in U. S. national forests

Tobit estimation of the market value of timber sales in national forests of North Carolina demonstrates the important effect of stand diversity on the formulation of bid prices for mixed-species timber tracts. The hedonic model generates a shadow price for diversity according to changes in bid prices, an effective shift in the demand curve for auctioned tracts due to stand diversity attributes. This approach contrasts with traditional shadow price analyses that focus on the supply effects of environmental constraints. Results are corrected for the effects of bidder participation, market conditions, production costs, and other stand attributes. Econometric results demonstrate that stand heterogeneity is a highly significant factor influencing the market value of timber sales from national forests of the Appalachian region. Greater heterogeneity results in lower bid prices for timber sales, indicating a positive shadow price for maintenance of stand diversity.     

Social marketing with challenging target groups: smoking cessation in prisons in England and Wales

• Smoking levels among prisoners are much higher than amongst the UK population as a whole. Our research focuses on the development and implementation of a pilot smoking cessation project:
  • Using a social marketing process combined with the Health Behaviour Model, 159 participants, drawn from four prisons, undertook a smoking cessation programme.
  • Data was collected using a case study approach, with a variety of research methods: primarily depth individual and mini‐group qualitative interviews, but also document analysis and observation.
  • The findings draw on prisoners' perspectives in the context of the marketing mix in elements of the strategy design, implementation and evaluation.
  • The discussion identifies the need to maintain a consumer perspective, feeding into the marketing mix, and to identify and promote aspects of mutually beneficial exchange over and above basic health and monetary costs.
• The positive outcomes and insights gained show that using a social marketing strategy, as part of a smoking cessation programme, has important policy and practice implications. Lessons could be applied to other health issues and in similar settings such as forensic mental health.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ramsey Pricing: A Method for Setting Fees in Social Service Organizations

Abstract . In non-profit social services, there is a tendency to avoid setting prices because of the distributional concerns and incompetence on the part of some consumers. Arguments for prices and cash transfers versus in-kind subsidies are reviewed. The appropriateness is examined of “Ramsey pricing” in achieving efficient resource allocation in a zero-profit firm when marginal cost pricing would lead to a profit. A survey of social service agencies in Ontario, Canada, found none was using the principles of “Ramsey pricing” and most were using no fees or prices at all. Some agencies had set prices but then waived them while others set fees equivalent to services provided by nonsocial service agencies. Most view fees as supplemental additions to the budget and consequently do not consider resource allocation. “Ramsey pricing,” it is believed, could be beneficially tried by social service agencies.     

A CONTINGENT VALUATION STUDY OF UNCERTAIN ENVIRONMENTAL GAINS

Acid deposition in a present and future cause of biodiversity losses in vulnerable upland areas of Scotland important for nature conservation. However, the exact nature of damages under the status quo, and both the timing and extent of recovery of upland ecosystems if deposition is reduced, are subject to uncertainty. this uncertainty complicates damages cost estimation. In this paper, we have explored the use of CVM to measure the willingness to pay (WTP) of the Scottish population for uncertain recovery/damage scenarios from reduced acid rain deposition. An optimally-designed referendum format was used utilising the distribution of open-ended bids from a pilot study to determine bid amounts and sampling size for each bid amount. Eight explanatory variables, including future damage level were selected in a non-linear step-wise regression analysis. Average household WTP for abatement of acid rain was £247 and £351 per year when faced with low and high future damage levels respectively. Recovery level and recovery time did not significantly influence WTP. When faced with risky outcomes regarding future damage and recovery level, respondent were found to be risk averse to both environmental gains and losses.     

<Emphasis Type="Bold">The Nature of the Farm: Contracts,Risk, and Organization in Agriculture</Emphasis>

Book Review

The Nature of the Farm: Contracts, Risk, and Organization in Agriculture     

Decentralization and international tax competition

This paper models tax competition between two countries that are divided into regions. In the first stage of the game, the strategy variable for each country is the division of a continuum of public goods between central and regional government provision. In the second stage, the central and regional governments choose their tax rates on capital. A country's decentralization level serves as a strategic tool through its influence on the mix of horizontal and vertical externalities that exists under tax competition. In contrast to standard tax competition models, decentralizing the provision of public goods may improve welfare.     

Biogeography and long-run economic development

The article models the transition from a hunter-gatherer economy to agricultural production, a crucial event in history which made possible the endogenous technological progress that ultimately led to the Industrial Revolution. We further present evidence showing that geographic and initial biogeographic conditions exerted decisive influence on the location and timing of transitions to sedentary agriculture, to complex social organization and, eventually, to modern industrial production. Evidence from a large cross-section of countries indicates that the effects of geography and biogeography on contemporary levels of economic development are remarkably strong, a result that contrasts with several recent studies where the effect runs solely through institutions.