Go west!

Zusammenfasung  Pflegekarriere in den USA — Die M?glichkeit, im amerikanischen Pflegesystem Karriere zu machen, ist für Pflegende aus Deutschland immer eine Option. Doch welche Ausbildungsm?glichkeiten gibt es dort und wie kommt man von Deutschland aus an einen Arbeitsplatz?     

It's no longer mine: the role of brand ownership and advertising in cross-border brand acquisitions

Although cross-border brand acquisitions are increasingly common in the global marketplace, research on how consumers respond to them is limited. Building on social identity and psychological ownership theories, we introduce the concept of brand ownership to the advertising literature, and show its negative effects on consumer reactions to a brand acquisition. Furthermore, we demonstrate that consumers’ disidentification (i.e., an oppositional motivation) with an acquiring country moderates the negative effect of consumers’ brand ownership on consumer attitudes after a brand acquisition. The results reveal that consumers with high levels of brand ownership develop more negative post-acquisition brand attitudes when a brand is acquired by a country with which consumers strongly disidentify (i.e. dissociative vs. out-group). Furthermore, our research introduces the concept of a brand ownership appeal in advertising, and demonstrates that it is an effective advertising strategy in enhancing post-acquisition brand attitudes for consumers with high levels of brand ownership. Important theoretical and managerial advertising implications conclude this research.     

Seasoned Equity Offerings: Stock Market Liquidity and the Rights Offer Paradox

This paper examines the impact of market liquidity on seasoned equity offerings (SEO) characteristics in France. We find that, besides blockholders’ takeup, liquidity is an important determinant of SEO flotation method choice. We document higher direct equity offering flotation costs, but also improved stock market liquidity after public offerings and standby rights relative to uninsured rights. After controlling for endogeneity in the choice of SEO flotation method, we find that pure public offerings and standby rights are comparable in terms of direct costs and liquidity improvement. Our results provide new insights as to why firms choose public offerings despite apparently higher costs.     

Effects of television brand placement on brand image

A survey as well as an experiment was conducted to study the effects of television brand placement on brand image. The studies showed that the integration of a brand into the editorial content of a program had a significant effect on brand image: As people watched more episodes, the brand image became more in agreement with the program image. These results confirm the applicability of learning and human associative memory theories to brand placement. Another important finding is that brand memory and brand image were not related. Thus, brand image became more positive regardless of viewers' memory of the brand placements, which implies that brand image was implicitly affected. This has important theoretical implications for the understanding of the working of brand placement. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Most-Favoured-Customer Pricing Policy and Competitive Advantage

The paper investigates the effects on competition of the unilateral most-favoured-customer pricing policy. A model is considered in which a multimarket incumbent firm faces a threat of entry in one of its two markets. It is shown that contemporaneous most-favoured-customer clauses may change competition to the advantage of the incumbent both under strategic substitutes and strategic complements. If the duopolistic market is strong, the most-favoured-customer policy makes the incumbent 'tough' and may be used for entry deterrence purposes.     

New Phillips curve under alternative production technologies for Canada, the United States, and the Euro area

This paper shows that alternative production technologies imply two modifications to the New Phillips Curve (NPC): A specific ‘strategic complementarity parameter’ that affects the relationship between real marginal cost and inflation and a specific modification to the labour share measure of real marginal cost. Estimates of average duration of nominal price stickiness obtained conditional on the strategic complementarity parameter are substantially smaller, and therefore more plausible, relative to when this parameter is ignored. Modifications to the marginal cost measure alone have little effect on the NPC estimates. The empirical fit of the NPC under alternative production technologies is similar.     

Auctions in bankruptcy

This paper examines whether mandatory auctions promote the efficient restructuring of distressed firms relative to a reorganization-based bankruptcy system such as Chapter 11. Under a mandatory auction system, aggressive bidding by a coalition of incumbent management and pre-bankruptcy creditors may deter outside bidders, may result in the coalition paying more than its valuation to acquire the firm, and may result in assets remaining in a lower value use. In a reorganization-based bankruptcy system, management's voluntary choice to seek an auction conveys information about the coalition's valuation, which facilitates competition. Our model shows that a reorganization-based bankruptcy system that encourages, but does not mandate auctions, can actually increase the likelihood that an outside bidder enters and the assets of the bankrupt firm are redeployed.     

A symposium on Understanding Society,the UK Household Longitudinal Study: introduction

Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study began in 2009, and built on and incorporated its predecessor the British Household Panel Survey. It is the largest survey of its kind in the world and provides rich opportunities for economic research and policy analysis. In this introduction to a symposium on Understanding Society, we review the main features of the study, how it is conducted, and evidence on data quality. We also discuss past and potential uses in economic research.     

Linking Processes and Dynamic Capabilities of International SMEs: The Mediating Effect of International Entrepreneurial Orientation

Previous research on the internationalization of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) has highlighted the role of knowledge and learning about foreign markets. However, empirical results on the performance implications of foreign market scanning and planning have been mixed. Following the dynamic capability perspective, we argue that SMEs can capitalize on scanning and planning processes because of their international entrepreneurial orientation. We test our hypotheses with a sample of 604 established SMEs and find that entrepreneurial orientation completely mediates the relationship between scanning and planning and international performance. Moreover, the results implicate a bidirectional relationship between processes and international entrepreneurial orientation.     

The Underlying Mechanisms of Multiscreening Effects

Multiscreening, a relatively new form of media multitasking in which people use multiple screens simultaneously, has implications for the effects of persuasive messages due to limited cognitive capacities of people and concurrent modalities of the screens (i.e., both visual). The aim of the study is to examine underlying mechanisms (i.e., recognition, counterarguing, and enjoyment) of the effect of multiscreening on evaluative outcomes (i.e., brand attitude, message attitude, and purchase intention). The experiment (N = 182) showed that both recognition and counterarguing are underlying mechanisms of the effect of multiscreening on evaluative outcomes. Multiscreening has a negative effect on evaluative outcomes by recognition and a positive effect on evaluative outcomes by counterarguing.