Social dialogues—the state of the art a decade after Maastricht

The article asks whether social dialogues, according the procedures of the Social Protocol and the Amsterdam Treaty, have proved to be valuable instruments able to make major contributions to the development of social integration. More recent developments at the inter‐professional as well as at the sectoral level are evaluated. Furthermore, major trajectories for likely future trends at both levels are highlighted. The final part discusses the problem of whether social dialogues will profit from the introduction of new modes of governance, especially the more recently preferred open method of co‐ordination.     

Gendered giving: the influence of social norms on the donation behavior of men and women

• We study if men and women are subject to different influences when determining their level of charitable giving. In particular, we examine differential sensitivities to social norms among donors to a public radio station. Our survey of 975 donors finds that male donors are more likely than female donors to use social norms to inform their own behavior. We conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate the influence of social information on social norm formation and giving. Our results suggest that temporarily created social norms influence giving by men significantly more than by women. This result replicates and establishes the causal relationship between social norms and donations suggested by our field findings. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications of these results.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating FOMC forecasts

Monetary policy outcomes have improved since the early 1980s. One factor contributing to the improvement is that Federal Reserve policymakers began reporting economic forecasts to Congress in 1979. These forecasts indicate what the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members think will be the likely consequence of their policies. We evaluate the accuracy of the FOMC forecasts relative to private sector forecasts, the forecasts of the Research Staff at the Board of Governors, and a naïve alternative. We find that the FOMC output forecasts were better than the naïve model and at least as good as those of the private sector and the Fed staff. The FOMC inflation forecasts were more accurate than the private sector forecasts and the naïve model; for the period ending in 1996, however, they were not as accurate as Fed staff inflation forecasts.     

How entrenched managers beat earnings expectations before and after SOX

This study investigates the relationship between managerial entrenchment and how firms meet or beat earnings forecasts. It further examines whether this relationship changes before and after the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX). We find that, in the pre-SOX era, entrenched managers meet or exceed analyst forecasts more often than their unentrenched counterparts when analysts’ initial forecasts are high. This is mainly due to the drop in analysts’ consensus rather than earnings management. These results nearly disappear in the post-SOX era.     

NPO branding: preliminary lessons from major players

• Are nonprofits (NPOs) exhibiting the brand orientation believed to be critical to successful outcomes? To answer this question, we investigate the brand orientation and brand management of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), American Red Cross (ARC), and The Salvation Army to assess the implementation of brand concepts in two different locations within the USA compared to each agency's central body. Despite the support of some propositions, there exists inconsistent evidence of strong brand management in the organizations studied. The variation of brand visuals, missions, and taglines indicates that good structure, policy, and guidelines are not enough. There must be true brand orientation, which includes oversight of consistent application of all brand constructs to achieve organizational goals. This study provides a framework upon which future in‐depth empirical research may be based. The authors outline these next steps as a foundation for enhancing the study and practice of brand management in NPOs.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Product Market Reform and Innovation in the EU*

European Union countries have implemented widespread reforms to product markets to stimulate competition, innovation, and economic growth. We provide empirical evidence that the reforms carried out under the EU Single Market Programme (SMP) were associated with increased product market competition, as measured by a reduction in average profitability, and with a subsequent increase in innovation intensity and productivity growth for manufacturing sectors. Our analysis exploits exogenous variation in the expected impact of the SMP across countries and industries to identify the effects of reforms on average profitability, and the effects of profitability on innovation and productivity growth.     

Optimal Experimentation in a Changing Environment

This paper studies optimal experimentation by a monopolist who faces an unknown demand curve subject to random changes, and who maximizes profits over an infinite horizon in continuous time. We show that there are two qualitatively very different regimes, determined by the discount rate and the intensities of demand curve switching, and the dependence of the optimal policy on these parameters is discontinuous. One regime is characterized by extreme experimentation and good tracking of the prevailing demand curve, the other by moderate experimentation and poor tracking. Moreover, in the latter regime the agent eventually becomes "trapped" into taking actions in a strict subset of the feasible set.     

DRIVER RELATIONSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS AND DRIVER TURNOVER: KEY MEDIATING VARIABLES AFFECTING DRIVER PERFORMANCE IN THE FIELD

To reduce cost and improve service, logistics managers must give attention to the critical interaction between customers and the carriers who deliver products. This research tests the premise that internal marketing with truck drivers is associated with improved relationships with customers, retention of customer‐conscious drivers, and higher driver performance.     

LOGISTICS MANAGERS' LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AND FIRM PERFORMANCE

Dynamic changes in the business environment are significantly impacting supply chain logistics, resulting in unprecedented personnel demands. Organizational theorists suggest that personnel management is associated with better performance. However, relatively little is known about effective human resource practices within the logistics industry. The learning organization concept offers logistics organizations a theoretical rationale for promoting learning environments to better leverage employees' knowledge, skills, and abilities and improve performance. This research examines logistics managers' perceptions of individual level learning behavior within their organizations and its relationship to firm performance.