Glyphosate—A love story. Ordinary thoughtlessness and response‐ability in industrial farming

More than 8.6 billion kilograms of glyphosate have been used worldwide since the 1970s. Herbicide tolerant crops became the lynchpin of the technological revolution for large‐scale farming first in the United States and Canada, and now in Europe. Zero‐till farming, as a production scheme and a world view, is based on simplifications promoted by a handful of transnational corporations with the complicity of politicians looking for easy solutions for problems, such as climate change, erosion and the hunger in the world. At the same time, the massive use of glyphosate is branded as an endocrine disrupter, causing cancer, male sterility and infertility. It interferes with soil bacteria and acts on the equilibrium of soil fungi. Glyphosate resistant crops connect farmers to far away consumers ingesting the food they grow together with the traces of chemicals. Farmers intra‐act with the myriads of life‐forms of the soil eco‐system. How do they perceive the life in the soil, when they spray chemicals? The article explores the political dimensions of the agency of both humans and non‐humans to understand the effects of the modernizing project of zero‐till, as well as to identify spaces and scales of possibility from where alternatives can emerge.     

Profit maximization mitigates competition

Summary We consider oligopolistic markets in which the notion of shareholders' utility is well-defined and compare the Bertrand-Nash equilibria in case of utility maximization with those under the usual profit maximization hypothesis. Our main result states that profit maximization leads to less price competition than utility maximization. Since profit maximization tends to raise prices, it may be regarded as beneficial for the owners as a whole. Moreover, if profit maximization is a good proxy for utility maximization, then there is no need for a general equilibrium analysis that takes the distribution of profits among consumers fully into account and partial equilibrium analysis suffices.We wish to thank Hildegard Dierker and Nina Maderner for many helpful comments. This research was partially supported by the Danish Social Science Research Council. E. Dierker is grateful to the Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, for its outstanding hospitality. B. Grodal appreciates the support from the Department of Economics, University of Vienna.     

Innovation networks in eastern germany — a still under-utilised potential for human capital formation in the region

Conclusion In regard to easing the shortage of skilled labour the networking of protagonists in the InnoRegios is not, as yet, sufficient on the whole. In particular, companies are not sufficiently involved. The potential for networking to close the human capital gap is apparently still not being fully utilised in the innovation networks. One explanation could be the low implementation rate of the planned basic and advanced training projects so far. It must also be borne in mind that companies could assess the risks of cooperation as greater than the possible advantages, as they are competing on the labour market. Another explanation is that the participants in the networks expect technological projects to offer greater success.     

Justice obtained? How disabled claimants fare at Employment Tribunals

This article explores disability discrimination cases at British Employment Tribunals. Analysing over 750 judgments, it examines the characteristics of claimants and the factors associated with the failure of cases: restrictive judicial decisions, complex legal tests, inequality of arms between claimant and employer and the stigma attached to claimants with mental impairments, providing some evidence for a hierarchy of impairments.     

Applying the door-in-the-face compliance technique to retailing

The door-in-the-face (DITF) approach, a sequential compliance technique in which a large request is followed by a more moderate request, has been shown to increase compliance in a variety of non-business situations. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the DITF technique could also be used to increase sales in a retailing context. A field experiment outside an alpine hut was conducted. A total of 375 consumers participated in the experiment. As they passed by the entrance to the mountain hut, they were approached by an experimenter who invited them to buy some home-made cheese. In the experimental groups the DITF technique was used by the salesperson. The results show that the DITF technique can lead to a significant increase in the number of consumers making a purchase. Furthermore, it was found that this compliance technique is even more effective when it is used by a highly credible seller and when the seller points out that the more moderate request constitutes a concession. The large effect of the DITF intervention (the number of consumers making a purchase increased 15 to 40 percentage points over the control group) suggests that this technique could be used successfully in retailing.     

The Divergent “Loyalty” Behaviors of a Captive Consumer

This research investigates situations where consumers display divergent loyalty behaviors. Study I qualitatively identifies and classifies word-of-mouth spreading behaviors of captive loyalists. The results reveal that, despite repurchase behaviors, captive loyalists spread mostly negative word-of-mouth. Study II quantitatively investigates four separate loyalty behaviors of captive loyalists. The results confirm that these consumers are likely to stay when dissatisfied, and allocate a significant share of their wallet to the provider whilst spreading negative word-of-mouth. The simultaneous existence of opposing loyalty behaviors has significant implications for erecting switching barriers and for applying customer loyalty metrics.     

Creating consumer satisfaction in maternity care: the neglected needs of migrants,asylum seekers and refugees

An estimated 190 million people are now living outside their countries of birth or citizenship, and the rate of this migration is expected to remain high. The resulting growing cultural and ethnic diversity in societies adds specific challenges to the requirement of delivering public services such as health care to consumers. Globally, about half of the migrant population are women. Migrants’ outcomes of pregnancy are known to be poor, showing significant disparities when compared with those of native populations. Although these disparities have been noted, knowledge is limited regarding the availability and accessibility of healthcare services, as well as the acceptability of maternity care for women with experiences of free and forced migration. Healthcare research in general, and maternity care research specifically, have often neglected this population. This paper examines the existing international guidelines intended to address inequities in health outcomes, policies which have been introduced at national levels, and the widely used concepts of ‘patient‐centred’ and ‘woman‐centred’ health services. The ideals implicit in those guidelines and concepts are contrasted with the available evidence of many overseas nationals’ experiences with healthcare provisions in general, and maternity care in particular. This is followed by reflections on deficiencies in current studies and on those methodological problems which make research on maternity care for migrant women particularly challenging. The conclusion considers the appropriateness and relevance of guidelines currently promoting equity in maternity care and suggests a future agenda for priority research.     

Cross‐cutting organizational and demographic divides and the performance of research and development teams: two wrongs can make a right

In interorganizational research and development (R&D) teams, diverse skills and insights may be combined productively, but the team members' differing organizational backgrounds may also inhibit team performance. In this paper, it is argued that interorganizational R&D teams are more likely to perform with a certain demographic composition. In particular, the problems of an organizational divide can be overcome by a second, demographic divide that cuts across organizational boundaries. With a cross‐cutting demographic divide – or faultline – interorganizational R&D teams may perform; without it, they tend to perform poorly. Supportive evidence is provided in a fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis on 51 projects conducted in a single R&D partnership. As this implies, interorganizational R&D teams should deliberately be composed to show a cross‐cutting demographic divide.