“Top 10” reasons: When adding persuasive arguments reduces persuasion

Across four studies, we show that experts’ efforts to strengthen the persuasiveness of health and civic duty-related appeals actually weakened them. When designing “Top 10” reasons lists to get people to quit smoking, encourage young people to vote, and persuade individuals to engage in fitness, governmental (studies 1–2) and non-profit (study 3) agencies chose to include mildly strong reasons alongside strong ones in their effort to be as persuasive as possible. However, from the target audience’s perspective, those mildly favorable reasons actually decreased the persuasiveness of the message compared to a condition in which fewer but only highly persuasive reasons were used. Building upon the Presenter’s Paradox by Weaver, Garcia & Schwarz (Journal of Consumer Research 39 (3):445–460, 2012), these results demonstrate that averaging in impression formation occurs not only in targets commonly thought of as unified entities such as consumer products and people but also occurs in persuasion contexts where the individual arguments comprising a message are independent of each other.     

An Empirical Examination of Institutional Investor Preferences for Corporate Social Performance

This study investigates the pattern of institutional shareholding in the U.K. and its relationship with socially responsible behavior by companies within a sample of over 500 UK companies. We estimate a set of ownership models that distinguish between long- and short-term investors and their largest components and which incorporate both aggregated and disaggregated measures of corporate social performance (CSP). The results suggest that long-term institutional investment is positively related to CSP providing further support for earlier studies by Johnson and Greening (1999, Academy of Management Journal 42, 564–576) and Graves and Waddock (1994, Academy of Management Journal 37, 1034–1046). Disaggregation of CSP into its constituent components suggests that the pattern of institutional investment is also related to the form which CSP takes. Investigation of the impact of investment screens on the selection of stocks suggests that long-term institutional investors select primarily through exclusion, rejecting those firms which have the worst CSP.     

Catalytic finance: When does it work?

In a model of debt crisis caused partly by creditor coordination failure, we show that bailouts that reduce ex post inefficiency will sometimes enhance the incentives for governments to take costly adjustment effort. This model helps us understand a debate about the role of the IMF in catalyzing lending to developing countries.     

An empirical test of the rent-shifting hypothesis: the case of state trading enterprises

A central result in the theoretical literature on strategic trade is the ‘rent-shifting hypothesis’, the idea that government’s can employ trade policy as a precommitment device to transfer profit from foreign to domestic firms. To our knowledge, however, the rent-shifting hypothesis remains untested empirically. This paper constructs a theory-based empirical test of rent-shifting behavior that relies on observations of government precommitment variables employed through State Trading Enterprises (STEs). The analysis applies data on the delayed producer payment structure of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and examines its merits as a rent-shifting mechanism in the international durum market. The model fails to reject the hypothesis that the CWB utilizes a pre-commitment mechanism in the international durum market and several nonparametric tests confirm that the observed transfer payments set by the CWB are consistent with rent-shifting behavior in the 1972-95 pre-WTO period.     

Informality,Size and Regulation: Theory and an Application to Egypt

The paper shows how, when the enforceability of regulationsis size-sensitive, price competition can lock firms into informality and,thus, smallness, depending on the form of the production function. In thatcontext, exogenous "help" packages targeted to informal firms "promote"micro and small enterprises (i.e., increase their numbers) but do not"develop" them (i.e., foster their growth). The "help" only generates ashort-term span of abnormal profits for existing informal firms, and a long-term income transfer toward informal-market consumers. The model istested in the context of Egypt's micro and small enterprise sector.     

Corporate Community Contributions in the United Kingdom and the United States

We address the issue of UK firms relatively poor record of corporate community contributions (CCCs) by subjecting them to formal comparison with those of US firms. To this end, we employ data on the top 100 UK, and top 100 US, contributors in 2001. Cross-country differences are described and discussed with reference to a stakeholder perspective on corporate social responsibility, and CCCs in particular. In this connection, we evaluate the role played by the sectoral composition of activities, as well as national, cultural and institutional factors. Our findings highlight a number of significant cross-country differences in the pattern of CCCs and suggest that UK and US firms operate within significantly different stakeholder environments.JEL Classification: M14Stephen Brammer is a Lecturer in Business Economics at University of Bath, with research interests in the area of corporate social responsibility. Much of his recent research has examined the stimuli for corporate socially responsive behaviour, the management of business social responsibilities, and the relationships between firm social performance and other dimensions of corporate performance. Recent publications include articles in the Journal of Management Studies, the European Management Journal and Business Ethics: A European Review.Stephen Pavelin is a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Reading, with research interests in foreign direct investment and corporate social responsibility. His current research agenda seeks to address: the effect of corporate social performance on the reputations and financial performance of firms; the incidence and quality of social and environmental reporting; demographic diversity (regarding gender and ethnicity) among corporate boards; and the effect of firms geographical diversification on their social performance. Recent publications include articles in the International Journal of Industrial Organisation, the Open Economies Review, the European Management Journal and Business Ethics: A European Review.     

The Effect of Stakeholder Preferences, Organizational Structure and Industry Type on Corporate Community Involvement

This paper analyses the relationships between corporate community involvement activities, the organizational structures within which they are managed, the firm's industry and evolving stakeholder attitudes and preferences in a sample of 148 U.K. based firms who have demonstrated a clear desire to be socially responsible. The research highlights significant associations between the allocation of responsibility for community involvement within the firm, its industry and the extent of its community involvement activities. Consistent with the view that managerial structures may play a significant role in the implementation of community initiatives, the results identify significant variations in community involvement policies across alternative organizational forms. However, important similarities in corporate community policies across alternative structures are also shown to exist suggesting that corporate community involvement activities may be influenced by the preferences of societal stakeholders.     

Fail better! Samuel Beckett's secrets of business and branding success

Samuel Beckett, the peerless Irish playwright, is widely regarded as the epitome of art for art's sake aestheticism. He hated salesmanship of any kind, famously describing it as “mercantile gehenna.” Yet, despite his anti-business reputation, Samuel Beckett is a perfect role model for our paradoxical times. His “fail better” philosophy is very much in keeping with today's creativity-driven, hyper-competitive, warp-speed world of fads, fashions, and here-today-gone-tomorrow consumer crazes. This article argues that, in a world where every organization is customer oriented and every executive is au fait with best textbook practice, Beckett's idiosyncratic esthetic encapsulates several salient secrets of business and branding success.