Communication and authority with a partially informed expert

A sender‐receiver game a la Crawford‐Sobel is analyzed where the sender has expertise on some but not all the payoff‐relevant factors. This residual uncertainty can either improve (even allow full revelation) or worsen the quality of transmitted information depending on a statistic called the effective bias. For symmetrically distributed residual uncertainty or quadratic loss functions, (i) the quality of information transmission is independent of the riskiness of residual uncertainty, (ii) it may be suboptimal to allocate authority to the informed player, (iii) despite players' preferences being arbitrarily close, it is impossible to assert that the receiver prefers delegation over authority or vice versa.     

Use of tobacco retailer inspections to reduce tobacco sales to youth: do inspections increase retailer compliance?

Public health efforts to prevent tobacco use among young people have typically attempted to change individual behaviour. More recently, it has become evident that macro‐level behaviour change strategies which impact on the wider social environment are more effective in changing behaviour. In most states, retailer compliance laws restrict the sale and distribution of tobacco products to minor consumers. Indiana's Tobacco Retailer Inspection Program (TRIP), a state government programme, was established to put environmental controls in place by restricting youth access to tobacco products. TRIP involved conducting random, unannounced tobacco retailer outlet inspections, with violators being fined, and compliant retailers rewarded. This study examines the associations among retailer inspections, retailer compliance and access to tobacco by youthful consumers. Inspection data from 2001 to 2003 were analysed using chi‐square statistics and analysis of variance. Findings indicate that randomly selected retail outlet inspections are associated with increased sales restrictions to youth. The researchers conclude that strong tobacco sales regulations and enforcement will reduce illegal sales of tobacco products to minors.     

Assessing sales contest effectiveness: the role of salesperson and sales district characteristics

Sales contests are widely employed to improve short-term sales performance, but knowledge about their effectiveness at the individual salesperson level remains sparse. Proponents argue that contests increase sales by stimulating salespeople, while critics say that contests merely encourage strategic timing of sales efforts. The authors draw on the strategic sales timing literature and goal theory to hypothesize that in a consultative selling scenario, sales will dip below the baseline before the contest but increase above the baseline during and after the contest. They posit that sales district potential and salesperson ability moderate the pre-contest sales dip, contest sales boost, and post-contest sales. Results from a model based on individual-level data on 1180 salespeople in 78 sales districts are largely supportive of the hypotheses. They highlight the need for researchers to integrate the role of strategic timing, salesperson, and sales district characteristics to assess sales contest outcomes. For practitioners, the findings show that in consultative selling situations, contests can generate a net sales increase despite the occurrence of timing games, and the sales gain is higher in districts with lower sales potential and among salespeople with higher sales ability.     

Sustaining superior performance in an emerging economy: an empirical test in the Indian context

We demonstrate a negative relationship between pro‐market reforms and the sustainability of superior profits in an emerging economy. The decline in sustainability of superior profits shows that pro‐market reforms bring significant threats in addition to the various opportunities such as greater availability of production factors and greater freedom to enter and operate businesses highlighted in the extant literature. Our study thus contributes to a more complete conceptual understanding of the performance consequences of pro‐market reforms in emerging economies. We also show that investment in research and development and greater investments in marketing and advertising are firm‐level resources that provide a measure of protection against the erosion in sustainability of superior profits associated with pro‐market reforms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sales force modeling: State of the field and research agenda

Inspired by Erin Anderson’s contributions to sales force research, this paper focuses on research that utilizes quantitative models to investigate important questions in sales force management. The purpose is to summarize several significant developments in knowledge over the last 40 years and identify major opportunities for impactful theoretical, empirical, and decision model-based research in the future.     

Understanding the Role of Consumer Heterogeneity in the Formation of Satisfaction Uncertainty

Prior empirical research has focused on the antecedents and consequences of attitude uncertainty. Drawing on regulatory focus theory and need for closure theory, this research examines the role of individual difference variables in shaping satisfaction uncertainty. This empirical work seeks to explore the interplay of individual difference variables, cognition and affect, in shaping satisfaction uncertainty. The proposed model maintains that need for closure and regulatory focus shape satisfaction uncertainty through their influence on cognitive and affective processes. The model was tested on 192 participants in an experiment using a restaurant scenario. Satisfaction uncertainty is estimated, rather than measured, using the Judgment Uncertainty and Magnitude Parameters (JUMP) model. The results show that prior expectation, pleasure, and arousal have positive effects on satisfaction uncertainty, while perceived performance has a negative impact. Furthermore, regulatory focus is found to moderate the effects of cognition and affect on satisfaction uncertainty, while need for closure moderates the impact of affect on satisfaction uncertainty.     

Estimating Contagion on the Internet: Evidence from the Diffusion of Digital/Information Products

Even as the Internet continues to grow as a global platform for communication and commerce, the success of new value offerings on the Internet hinges on acquisition of new customers and retention of existing customers. Central to the flow of customers in and out of trial and repeat behavior in this burgeoning and dynamic environment, characterized by diversity among both producers and consumers of value offerings, is the process of social contagion—active word of mouth that flows among customers or passive observation of others. To estimate contagion on the Internet, the authors develop a trial-repeat purchase diffusion model for successive innovations in value offerings on the Internet. The model extends the state-of-the-art diffusion modeling by incorporating (i) dynamic market potential, (ii) heterogeneity among first-time triers, (iii) heterogeneity in word of mouth due to repeat buyers and non-repeaters (i.e., positive and negative word of mouth), and (iv) dynamic repeat purchase rate. The model also incorporates the influence of product characteristics, specifically source of innovation (i.e., whether the innovation is driven by environmental needs or competitive pressures) and product bundling, and competition. The authors test the model with weekly adoption data for 11 computer software products available on the shareware system, involving over 100 new versions in the period 1991–1994, and in a market whose size grows by a factor of fifty from early 1991 to late 1994. The findings clarify the role of word of mouth effects, competition, and product characteristics in fostering the diffusion process for digital information goods.     

Antecedents and outcomes of flight attendants’ job satisfaction

This paper develops and tests a comprehensive model for job satisfaction amongst flight attendants with antecedents and outcomes that are germane in the context of airlines. The antecedents are: jetlag, role overload, emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization, and the outcomes are; job performance and service recovery performance. A framework was tested using structural equation modelling. A survey was conducted of flight attendants working in Malaysia found exhaustion and personal accomplishment have a direct effect on job satisfaction; emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment affect the level of depersonalization; and role overload has a positive relationship.     

Stochastic stability in a double auction

In a k-double auction, a buyer and a seller must simultaneously announce a bid and an ask price respectively. Exchange of the indivisible good takes place if and only if the bid is at least as high as the ask, the trading price being the bid price with probability k and the ask price with probability (1−k). We show that the stable equilibria of a complete information k-double approximate an asymmetric Nash bargaining solution with the seller's bargaining power decreasing in k.Note that ceteris paribus, the payoffs of the seller of the one-shot game increase in k. Nevertheless, as the stochastically stable equilibrium price decreases in k, choosing the seller's favorite price with a relatively higher probability in individual encounters makes him worse off in the long run.