trends in Internet-based business-to-business marketing

The Internet is changing the transactional paradigms under which businesses-to-business marketers operate. Business-to-business marketers that take advantage of the operational efficiencies and effectiveness that emerge from utilizing the Internet in transactions are outperforming firms that utilize traditional transactional processes. As an example, Dell computers, by utilizing business-to-business processes that take advantage of the Internet, has gained the largest market share in the PC business when compared to traditional manufacturers such as Compaq. This paper first examines the genesis of the Internet movement in business-to-business markets. The long-term impact of the increase of business-to-business utilization of the Internet on the marketing theory and marketing process is then discussed. Finally, managerial implications and directions for future research are highlighted.     

Unfinished Business: The Persistence of Child Labor in the US

Among historians it has become customary to acknowledge that children have always worked. That is, before industrialization children worked, but their work was not deemed a social problem. With industrialization, however, child labor came to be condemned as morally repugnant, economically foolhardy, and socially destructive. Reform efforts were mobilized and, after protracted struggle, children were effectively dispelled from the mines, mills, and factories. Problem solved-or at least we wished to think so. Unfortunately, the US accommodation with child labor was incomplete, and so, child labor persists in pockets of American society. In recent years there has been a growing recognition that many children work, and do so at very young ages. Not only have children always worked, but they continue to do so today.This essay assesses residual child labor problems in the US today. It asks why, when the US made its accommodation to child labor in mines, mills, and factories, we failed to adequately address child labor in other sectors, thus paving the way for continued problems in agriculture, street trades, sweatshops, and elsewhere in our economy.     

Collecting conjoint data through telephone interviews

Data collection for conjoint analysis is relatively new. The current study examines the reliability and convergent validity for selected user segments vs. the mail questionnaire alternative. The results attest the telephone collection procedure is both reliable and valid relative to collecting data with mail questionnaires.     

Valuing New Varieties: Trade-Offs between Growers and End-Users in Wheat

Variety release decisions usually involve trade-offs between growers and end-users as well as substantial uncertainties about agronomic, quality, and economic variables. In this paper, methodologies were developed to value grower and end-user characteristics for individual wheat varieties and to evaluate trade-offs. The models capture effects of variability in agronomic, quality, and economic variables and were applied to experimental and hypothetical varieties. Results indicate two experimental varieties provide improvements in grower and end-use value over most of the incumbents. Though applied to a specific grain and region, the approach is applicable to other grains and oilseeds that have multiple agronomic and quality attributes.     

Firm-like behavior in markets: The administered channel

Partially cooperative behavior of member firms of the same channel of distribution, normally under the leadership of a dominant firm, is often very firm-like, giving rise to the concept of the administered channel. Analysis suggests that it is information creation and control, and their associated costs, rather than the contract which determines the extent of firm-like behavior. Administered channels are frequent alternatives to vertical integration or entirely market directed allocation, but do not emerge unless the benefits from cooperation exceed the costs of maintaining that cooperation and also can be appropriated by those firms bearing the costs.     

The use of co-nomination to identify expert participants for Technology Foresight

The United Kingdom has been carrying out a major exercise in the field of Technology Foresight, involving fifteen panels engaged in wide consultation about the future of their areas. The objectives of the Programme are to help set priorities for publicly funded science and technology and to create new working partnerships between science and industry. The paper describes the process by which members of the panels, and those whom they subsequently consulted, were identified. A survey-based technique known as co-nomination was employed, whereby respondents were asked to identify suitable participants and at the same time to profile their own expertise. The process was repeated with those nominated. The patterns of expertise thus revealed are themselves of interest and are used to construct a map of the inter-relationship between the fields covered by the panels.     

Comparing mean efficiency and productivity scores from small samples: A bootstrap methodology

This paper provides a bootstrap methodology for constructing confidence intervals for means of DEA and econometrically estimated efficiency scores, Malmquist productivity indices, and other similar measures in small samples. The procedure is nonparametric since no distributional assumptions are required. An empirical example is provided.This research was performed while Wilson was under contract with the Management Science Group, US Department of Veterans Affairs, Bedford, MA 01730.