Empathetic responses to advertising: Testing a network of antecedents and consequences

It has been proposed conceptually that viewers respond to certain advertisements via Empathetic Responses; that is, by feeling with depicted characters. Such deep viewer engagement is especially valued in today’s media environment and is central to dramatic advertising strategies. Nevertheless, Empathetic Responses remain relatively understudied. We situate Empathetic Responses within a model comprising high-level personality domains (within the “Big Five”), lower-level personality facets (multidimensional Trait Empathy), and Perceived Ad Vividness, all as antecedents, as well as consequent Ad-Evoked Feelings. Our findings clarify the composition and function of Empathetic Responses, adding to both basic and applied understandings.

Towards a better understanding of the financial donor: an examination of donor behaviour in terms of value structure and demographics

While marketing academics have long advocated the application of marketing principles by not-for-profit organisations, a review of the literature suggests that attempts to segment financial donors have primarily concentrated on demographic variables. Recently, there have been moves to gain a better understanding of more psychographic influences on individuals' propensity to contribute to charities. It is proposed that the concept of values offers potential for enhancing this understanding. Findings confirm some earlier studies in that demographics such as age, education and household income significantly discriminate between heavy and light donors. Additionally, ten of the initial 56 values tested contribute to the overall discriminant model obtained. The profiles obtained suggest that distinct promotional strategies, with emphasis on different reasons for donating, may appeal to the two groups. Copyright © 1999 Henry Stewart Publications     

Buchanan clubs

This article evaluates the contribution of James M. Buchanan’s theory of clubs. At the outset, the article distinguishes club goods from pure public goods. Next, the article distills the basic mathematical structure of Buchanan’s treatment of clubs. This is followed by some key variants of Buchanan clubs. More general formulations of club theory are also addressed. To demonstrate the wide-ranging importance of Buchanan clubs, the article indicates varied applications of club theory. The article’s message is that club theory remains highly relevant today.     

Linking employee development activity,social exchange and organizational citizenship behavior

The authors examined ‘perceived beneficiary’ of employee development (self, organization) for relationships with employee development activity. Perceived organizational support served as a moderator. The authors conclude that employees may engage in development activities to partly benefit their organization to the extent that a positive exchange relationship exists. Correlational data also show that development behavior is related to organizational citizenship behavior, and this is particularly true for work‐related development activity. This research links employee development with social exchange and organizational citizenship, providing implications for both research and practice.     

On the consistency of conjectures with public goods

This note addresses Sugden's criticisms, levelled against our Non-Nash theory for public goods. In particular, we argue that our previous exercise was not to present a theory of public goods that could escape the voluntary contribution problem by relaxing Nash conjectures. Rather, our non-Nash model was merely an analytical exercise, meant to encompass a widevariety of behaviour. This note also indicates when positive conjectures might be realistic and, therefore, potentially consistent. Finally, we extend our specific example to include negative, zero, and positive conjectures.     

Equilibrium Underdiversification and the Preference for Skewness

We develop a one-period model of investor asset holdings whereinvestors have heterogeneous preference for skewness. Introducingheterogeneous preference for skewness allows the model's investors,in equilibrium, to underdiversify. We find support for our model'sthree key implications using a dataset of 60,000 individualinvestor accounts. First, we document that the portfolio returnsof underdiversified investors are substantially more positivelyskewed than those of diversified investors. Second, we showthat the apparent mean-variance inefficiency of underdiversifiedinvestors can be largely explained by the fact that investorssacrifice mean-variance efficiency for higher skewness exposure.Furthermore, we show that idiosyncratic skewness, and not justcoskewness, can impact equilibrium prices. Third, the underdiversificationof investors does not appear to be coincidentally related toskewness. Stocks most often selected by underdiversified investorshave substantially higher average skewness—especiallyidiosyncratic skewness—than stocks most often selectedby diversified investors.     

Managerial ownership and corporate diversification: a longitudinal view

Strategy and finance research suggests that managerial ownership results in increased incentive alignment and therefore is negatively related to corporate diversification. Using a longitudinal approach, we develop arguments to examine whether managerial ownership is associated with subsequent changes in diversification and/or if diversification is associated with subsequent changes in ownership. The results indicate that levels of managerial ownership in one time period are not associated with subsequent changes in corporate diversification, which raises incentive alignment questions. We also find that higher levels of corporate diversification are associated with changes in managerial ownership, which suggests support for the employment risk‐reduction perspective. This study provides important reasons to reassess the longitudinal implications of the managerial ownership‐corporate diversification link from both theoretical and managerial perspectives. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

EVA AND TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Both TQM and EVA can be viewed as organizational innovations designed to reduce “agency costs”—that is, reductions in firm value that stem from conflicts of interest between various corporate constituencies. This article views TQM programs as corporate investments designed to increase value by reducing potential conflicts among non-investor stakeholders such as managers, employees, customers, and suppliers. EVA, by contrast, focuses on reducing conflicts between managers and shareholders by aligning the incentives of the two groups. Besides encouraging managers to make the most efficient possible use of investor capital, EVA reinforces the goal of shareholder value maximization in two other ways: (1) by eliminating the incentive for corporate overinvestment provided by more conventional accounting measures such as EPS and earnings growth; and (2) by reducing the incentive for corporate underinvestment provided by ROE and other rate-of-return measures. At a superficial level, EVA and TQM seem to be in direct conflict with each other. Because of its focus on multiple, non-investor stakeholders, TQM does not address the issue of how to make value-maximizing trade-offs among different stakeholder groups. It fails to provide answers to questions such as: What is the value to shareholders of the increase in employees' human capital created by corporate investments in quality-training programs? And, given that a higherquality product generally costs more to produce, what is the value-maximizing quality-cost combination for the company? The failure of TQM to address such questions may be one of the main reasons why the adoption of TQM does not necessarily lead to improvements in EVA. Because a financial management tool like EVA has the ability to guide managers in making trade-offs among different corporate stakeholders, it can be used to complement and reinforce a TQM program. By subjecting TQM to the discipline of EVA, management is in a better position to ensure that its investment in TQM is translating into increased shareholder value. At the same time, a TQM program tempered by EVA can help managers ensure that they are not under investing in their non-shareholder stakeholders.