Choice in Interactive Environments

In the early 21st century, firms are thinking seriously and practically about an interactive marketing paradigm—one that integrates mass scale with individual responsiveness. The focus of this paper is on how this interactive environment is changing the customer decision-making process. With the increased amount of information available, the existence of sophisticated decision aids such as intelligent agents, and more latitude in how to interact beyond the basic desktop and laptop computers (e.g., personal digital assistants, cellular phones, tablet computers), customers have more choices than ever about how, when, and how much to interact with companies and each other. In this paper, we attempt to cover a few of the major areas of research on how customers make decisions in these environments.     

Livestock Pricing in the Northern Kenyan Rangelands

This paper uses detailed, transactions-level data and an innovative,structural-heteroskedasticity-in-mean estimation method to identifythe determinants of livestock producer prices for pastoralistsin the drylands of northern Kenya. The empirical results confirmthe importance of animal characteristics, periodic events thatpredictably shift local demand or supply and, especially, rainfallon the prices pastoralists receive for animals. Price risk premiaare consistently negative in these livestock markets. The impositionof quarantines has a sharp negative effect on expected producerprices in the pastoral areas, revealing that Kenya's approachto animal disease control favours wealthier highlands ranchersand consumers at the expense of poorer drylands herders.     

Towards a paradigm shift in marketing? An examination of current marketing practices

In recent years, the traditional Transaction approach to marketing has been challenged to the point where a number of authors have suggested that a “paradigm shift” is occurring. The “newparadigm” is commonly referred to as Relationship Marketing, and has been used to reflect a number of different types of relational marketing activity, including Database, Interaction and Network marketing. This paper investigates current marketing practice to clarify the relevance of these alternative approaches using four case studies and a survey of 134 firms. The results do not support the notion of a complete “paradigm shift”. Rather, the findings show that for many firms, transactional marketing is relevant and practised concurrently with various types of relational marketing. It is concluded that while relational marketing issues are currently receiving attention from academics and practitioners alike, the role of transactional marketing should not be ignored or underestimated.     

Issues for Management Thought and Research

One of the tenets of the editors of The Journal of Product Innovation Management is the principle, probably first enunciated by social scientist Kurt Lewin, that there is nothing more practical than a good theory. That principle is one that draws together academics and practicing managers to the journal's task of advancing the management of product innovation. It is a principle that says to academics that their theories must meet the test of utility, and to managers that it can be useful to develop a theoretical perspective.
Questions of practice and theory emerged in the first two issues of the journal when members of the Editorial Board presented a series of viewpoints on the issues they thought would be significant for the future of product innovation management. These were viewpoints that questioned our current practices and suggested     

Inducing private wildfire risk mitigation: Experimental investigation of measures on adjacent public lands

Increasing private wildfire risk mitigation is an important part of the larger forest restoration policy challenge. Data from an economic experiment are used to evaluate the effectiveness of providing fuel reductions on public land adjacent to private land to induce private wildfire risk mitigation. Results show evidence of “crowding out” where public spending can decrease the level of private risk mitigation. Findings also indicate that spending on private mitigation efforts increase when information about individual expenditures are made available and spending on public land fuel reductions are conditional upon a threshold level of private mitigation effort being achieved.     

Producer–Consumer Misalignment as a Possible Cause for New Food Failure: Empirical Evidence From Chile

Literature on new food products development agrees on the importance of gaining knowledge about consumer tastes and preferences as a way to increase new product success. However, the failure rate of new food introductions continues to be high. In economies with a highly developed retail system, retailers and other market players create an information and communication barrier between the producer and the consumer. Consequently, the development of new products becomes difficult in such conditions, since misalignments between producers and consumers are more likely to occur. To investigate the issue, we interviewed producers of Chilean companies in the blueberry, plum, and wine industries and concluded that their product design was based on assumptions about consumers’ preferences and on the observed market response to competitors’ products. To test if these assumptions were correct, we compared them to consumer preferences. Results showed that producers’ assumptions about consumer preferences differ significantly from actual consumers’ preferences.     

Health Among Leaders: Positive and Negative Affect, Engagement and Burnout, Forgiveness and Revenge

abstract    The health of an organization's leader has profound implications not only for the leader, but also for the organization itself and for its members. This study focused on three indicators (positive affect, engagement, forgiveness behaviours) of eustress, the positive stress response, and three indicators (negative affect, burnout, revenge behaviour) of distress, the negative stress response, in relation to the health of pastors, whose jobs closely parallel those of leaders in all types of organizations. Results indicated that both positive affect and revenge behaviour were significantly related to health. A post-hoc analysis indicated that work–family conflict was negatively related to revenge behaviour, while family–work conflict was positively related to revenge behaviour, and that engagement was negatively related to revenge behaviour. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for future studies of leader health, and their practical applications for promoting leader health while preventing distress.