This ad’s for you: the indirect effect of advertising perceptions on salesperson effort and performance

Considerable research explores advertising’s role in influencing consumer perceptions and behavior. However, advertising’s impact on another key audience—the sales force—has been largely overlooked. Drawing from social identity and expectancy theories, and using survey and objective performance data across multiple wholesalers, the authors demonstrate that a salesperson’s perception of brand advertising has a significant effect on salesperson effort and performance by positively influencing the extent to which the salesperson identifies with the brand and his or her expectancy that such effort will generate results. These effects are moderated by internal communications and brand size. Model results suggest that advertising’s role may extend beyond “pull” to “push” by motivating salespeople to exert more effort on behalf of a brand. As a result, firms should take steps to proactively manage salesperson perceptions of brand advertising while also considering this dual role when assessing advertising effectiveness and efficiency.     

Subjective evaluations of n-person games

Using an axiomatization of subjective expected utility due to Fishburn, we characterize a class of utility functions over a set of n-person games in characteristic-function form. A probabilistic value is defined as the expectation of some player's marginal contribution with respect to some probability measure on the set of coalitions of other players. We decribe conditions under which a utility function on the set of n-person games is a probabilistic value; we prove as well an analogous result for simple games. We present additional axioms that characterize the semivalues and, in turn, the Shapley and Banzhaf values.     

Industrial cogeneration and regulatory policy

The 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) fostered decentralized generation of electricity, particularly in the form of cogeneration. A model of a firms' decision to cogenerate is developed that illustrates both the interface between the firm and an electric utility, and the firm's internal interface between its primary product and cogeneration technologies. The model is used to show that the firm may operate inefficiently in both the short run and long run owing to the fixed-proportions technology of cogeneration and PURPA mandated operating procedures, respectively. Cogenerating firms that dump heat into the atmosphere may signal inefficient behavior; therefore, monitoring heat dumping may be important in measuring the success of cogeneration.     

Macro effects of interest-sensitive aggregate supply

This paper investigates the implications of the negative effect of the real interest rate on aggregate supply. The micro foundations of this effect are first explained. The effect is then incorporated into a dynamic macro model with inflation and rational expectations. If the wealth effect on consumption is large, an increased interest sensitivity of aggregate supply enhances stability. If the wealth effect is small, increased interest sensitivity of supply is stabilizing up to a point, and destabilizing beyond that. Furthermore, an increased interest sensitivity of aggregate supply enhances the positive effect of the monetary growth rate upon steady-state output, and it enhances the negative effect of government spending upon steady-state output.     

Social learning in networks: a Quantal Response Equilibrium analysis of experimental data

Individuals living in society are bound together by a social network and, in many social and economic situations, individuals learn by observing the behavior of others in their local environment. This process is called social learning. Learning in incomplete networks, where different individuals have different information, is especially challenging: because of the lack of common knowledge individuals must draw inferences about the actions others have observed, as well as about their private information. This paper reports an experimental investigation of learning in three-person networks and uses the theoretical framework of Gale and Kariv (Games Econ Behav 45:329–346, 2003) to interpret the data generated by the experiments. The family of three-person networks includes several non-trivial architectures, each of which gives rise to its own distinctive learning patterns. To test the usefulness of the theory in interpreting the data, we adapt the Quantal Response Equilibrium (QRE) model of Mckelvey and Palfrey (Games Econ Behav 10:6–38, 1995; Exp Econ 1:9–41, 1998). We find that the theory can account for the behavior observed in the laboratory in a variety of networks and informational settings. This provides important support for the use of QRE to interpret experimental data.     

What every nurse executive should know about staffing and scheduling technology initiatives

Staffing in hospitals has a history of being based in opinion and tradition, not evidence. In recent years, for many, staffing practices have spun out of control creating chaos in overtime, the use of incentives, entitlement behaviors, dissatisfaction and frustration among nurses, and has opened doors for such things as staffing ratio legislation. Unprecedented pressures around budgets and financial performance have no doubt compounded this situation. We are in a new day, where technology can help us more than ever in a move towards staffing excellence and staffing practices based on evidence. Highly successful implementations of new technologies are the result of good leadership. The effectiveness of staffing and scheduling has significant business, safety, and quality implications that sit at the heart of the nurse executive's role.     

'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.     

Experimental Methods for the General Economist: Five Lessons from the Lab

I review five primary results from experimental economics that impact the economics profession as a whole. These results regard the relative (un)importance of subject sophistication in laboratory markets, the importance of gender on economic outcomes, the propensity for humans to behave in less than fully rational ways, the importance of trading institutions on economic performance, and the behavioral relevance of economic theory. I find that economics as a profession has benefited from the use of experimental methods by fostering a dialogue between theorists and empiricists, better informing policy and improving data collection techniques.     

A Transaction Cost Primer on Farm Organization

Agricultural economists, with their knowledge of farming, are well positioned to take advantage of the fertile ground of economic organization. The transaction cost paradigm is particularly useful in addressing such questions and is outlined in this paper. The overriding theme in the transaction cost approach is that patterns of ownership and contracts are chosen to mitigate transaction costs, which result from attempts to establish and maintain property rights. In agriculture, transaction costs are heavily influenced by Mother Nature. Nature's uncertainty, via weather and pests, leads to moral hazard and seasonal forces impose constraints on production cycles that are not often found in the production of most other commodities. Applications in land contracts, asset control, and business organization are discussed.     

Innovation, competition and the structure of local production networks: Initial findings from the Hertfordshire project

This paper reports the initial findings of an ESRC-funded study in Hertfordshire into how award-winning innovative firms organise their production arrangements. The study is a pilot project which was based on three initial operational assumptions: first, that innovation is not entirely an aspatial phenomenon; second, that modern production structures are taking new forms — variously described as post-Fordist, or flexible specialisation (flex-spec) — particularly in areas which are rich in commercial research and development (R&D) activities; and, finally, that as a consequence innovative firms in these areas commonly form production linkages with each other to create local production networks (LPNs).

The research was carried out in the county of Hertfordshire just to the north of Greater London. Hertfordshire was selected because, according to a number of measures, it is one of the key areas for R&D in the UK. On the basis of our initial, limited empirical sample of firms in Hertfordshire, a key finding of the research was that a significant majority of the innovative firms sampled — both large and small — were not actually organised in LPNs in any recognisable way and that local post-Fordist production was either extremely limited in its operation or, more commonly for most firms, was non-existent — instead, these firms normally acted as local, relatively free-standing entities which were much more likely to be in competition with other local firms, than form production linkages with them.