Corporate culture,environmental adaptation,and innovation adoption: A qualitative/quantitative approach

Deshpandé and Webster have identified the linkage between corporate culture and innovation adoption as an important industrial marketing topic. In the present study, this relationship is examined by both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The linear regression model, which depicts the corporate culture of adaptive companies attempting to survive in a competitive international environment, demonstrates that corporate culture is predictive of technology adoption. Qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews supplement quantitative results. The divergent cultures and survival modes for innovative and noninnovative companies are presented. Theoretical and methodological implications for marketing research are discussed, and management implications for industrial marketers are presented. Benefits of juxtaposing qualitative/quantitative methods are illustrated. She completed her doctorate at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her current research interest centers on innovation adoption, poststructuralism, and marketing ethics.     

Late entry,market shares and competitive survival: The case of synthetic fibers

This paper examines product policy in relation to the experience curve and product life cycle concepts in the context of the experience of the thirteen major firms in the Western European synthetic fibers industry. It examines the hypothesis based on Boston Consulting Group and the Profit Impact of Market Share (PIMS) evidence that late entrants to a market will be at a competitive disadvantage because they lack the accumulated experience of the pioneering firms. For each of the three main synthetic fibres, acrylic, nylon and polyester, it was found that the early entrants who established major market shares early in the growth phase of the product life cycle were able to maintain that leadership nearly twenty years later. In contrast not only did almost all the late entrants fail to achieve significant market shares but in the difficult market conditions between 1974 and 1981 they provided seven out of nine market withdrawals.     

Henry George and Europe

A bstract . In the eyes of European scholars, publicists and politicians who studied Henry George's work, he, as a social philosopher , had adopted the position of the natural law philosophers of the 18th century. The latter inspired the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, as well as the poiitical philosophy of Jeffersonian democracy , the ethos of the 18th and 19th century pioneer settlers. George rejected Social Darwinism. He saw natural law as the only true and reliable basis for a just social order. Like Karl Marx he mastered Ricardian economics ; unlike Marx, George made two factors the basis of his system, labor and land. George saw that each person had a natural right —and a natural imperative for survival —to apply his or her productive capacity to the earth –as living space and as storehouse of nutrients and raw materials. The person-land relationship , he discovered, lay at the basis of human culture. And so the land's rent , now monopolized by the few, had to be appropriated to meet the needs of society, most efficiently and justly by a land value tax.     

OPPORTUNISTIC MATCHING IN THE HOUSING MARKET*

We construct a model of the housing market in which agents differ in their flow values while searching. Agents enter the market relaxed (with high flow values) but move to a desperate state (low flow values) at a Poisson rate if they have not already transacted. We characterize the equilibrium steady‐state matching pattern and the joint distribution of price and time to sale (for sellers). The expected price conditional on time to sale falls with time spent on the market, whereas the conditional variance of price first rises and then falls with time on the market.     

Enhancing Governmentally Sponsored Export Promotions Through Better Segmentation of the Market of a State's Manufacturing Concerns

This article presents methodology for identifying product categories that, if they were made the subjects of a specified state's export promotions, would hold promise for satisfying relevant needs of members of three key “stakeholder” groups regarding the outcomes of the governmentally sponsored export promotions: the World Trade Organization (WTO), managements of non-exporting, small- and- medium-sized (SME) manufacturing concerns, and governmental entities who are responsible for raising funds to support such promotions. Methodology is applied in the context of a state in the United States (North Carolina).

The methodology is then applied in the context of a state in the United States (North Carolina). The presentations of the results of the application of the methodology at each of the 2-, 4- and 6-digit HS-coded product category levels are in each case followed by discussions of implications of the results.     

The 'Parent Shift' program: incentives for nurses, rewards for nursing teams

To create new opportunities for nurses to reenter the workforce, a RN p.r.n. program must meet the needs of nurses who wish to make dual commitments to home and work. The Parent Shift program provides an innovative model of attracting and retaining nurses in a hospital workforce. Many nurses who joined the program were away from the field of nursing for many years and were drawn to the program because of the promise of flexible shifts and minimal requirements for participation. In this study, flexible shifts not only encouraged program entry, they were also a powerful motivator for continued program participation over time. Parent Shift nurse presence was perceived by nurse managers to decrease stressors and improve time efficiency of full-shift staff.     

'The environment matters' and 'designing toward the whole'

A nurse/health care executive/architecture specialist and an artist/designer offer insights to creating environments that effectively support the delivery of care, the wellbeing of patients and their families, and the well-being of the health care workforce. The care environment is more than bricks, mortar, doors, windows, walls, and flooring. It is a sanctuary where healing can take place, where the spirit can be released, and where the provision of care, often fairly intimate, can happen through the connection between patient and care providers. Evidence-based design has brought forth the kind of inquiry and solutions that begin to address what an environment for healing requires. The interaction of built environment, staff, patients, families, and doctors is an overlapping ebb and flow that relies at its heart on the ability to hold all the parts as having equal priority.     

Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and research: A commentary essay

Cross-cultural research (CCR) is extremely important for advancing understanding of the range and limits of theoretical constructs and frameworks across different cultural contexts. CCR also provides an important understanding of the differences between countries and cultures. This commentary essay examines the review conducted by Engelen and Brettel (2010) and comments on shortcomings, as well as identifying areas where more needs to be done. A critical first step is to properly define the unit of analysis. This step is particularly critical as the concept of “national culture” is becoming increasingly less relevant and the appropriate culture unit for examination is often a smaller, more homogeneous grouping within a given geographic location. This view allows more meaningful inferences to be made and controls for possible contextual confounds, as well as providing a richer understanding of the limits of national culture in an increasingly global economy.     

Gender differences in executive compensation: Variation with board gender composition and time

This paper uses EXECUCOMP, COMPUSTAT and Investor's Responsibility Resource Center data to examine gender differences in executive salaries and total compensation from 1996 to 2004. We find that the salaries of female executives are about 5 percent lower than those of male executives, controlling for executive, firm, and board characteristics, and that the gap exists primarily in the lower officer ranks, where women are relatively highly concentrated. The gender difference in salary is larger in firms with more male-dominated boards; perhaps not coincidentally, such firms are also found to have fewer female executives in top managerial positions as well as lower probabilities of having any top female executives at all. The results of Oaxaca wage decompositions suggest that, although the magnitude of the gender difference decreases slightly over the sample period, the share of the gender difference that is due to unobserved factors remains basically steady or even increases. Thus, although women have become better represented in top executive jobs in recent decades, their relative salaries remain below those of men, possibly due in part to governance structures that remain male-dominated.     

Benefits and challenges of conducting multiple methods research in marketing

Using multiple methods to study a phenomenon is proposed to produce results that are more robust and compelling than single method studies. This research note investigates the implementation of multiple methods research in marketing. In the main study, we conducted a content analysis of articles published in five leading marketing journals from 1990 to 2008: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Marketing Science. To aid in interpretation of findings from the content analysis, we gathered verbal data from authors of recent multiple methods studies to gain further insight into the benefits and challenges of conducting and publishing multiple methods research.