Integrating consumers’ motives with suppliers’ solutions to combat Shanzhai: A phenomenon beyond counterfeit

Imitation goods are widely spread throughout the global business world. Shanzhai imitation (

) represents a type of imitation that mimics the original brand through surface or functional similarities but often provides enhanced or innovative features adapted to local market needs. Although both practitioners and academics have studied and provided solutions to combat counterfeits, solutions for original brand manufacturers to address threats from Shanzhai products are lacking. In this article, we first differentiate Shanzhai products from counterfeits. Using a mixed-method approach that combines interviews and laboratory experiment results, we then identify social, individual, functional, and financial (SIFF) factors as driving forces behind consumers’ purchasing of Shanzhai products. Shanzhai buyers place more weight on functional value and price/quality ratio than do counterfeit buyers, who in turn favor social value and materialism more than Shanzhai buyers. Finally, we provide several recommendations to original manufacturers from both the demand and supply sides.     

LA GOUVERNANCE PAR L’EVALUATION. LES QUASI‐MARCHES DANS LES SERVICES A DOMICILE

RESUME 1 : Cet article propose une étude du rôle croissant que joue l’évaluation dans la gouvernance des services à domicile en Europe. L’introduction de quasi‐marchés dans plusieurs pays européens va de pair avec un processus d’autonomisation de la fonction d’évaluation qui devient un véritable outil de régulation de la concurrence. Une analyse comparée des situations en Belgique, France et Royaume‐Uni, tant de la demande que de l’offre de services, met en évidence les tensions récurrentes dans les objectifs de l’évaluation (qualité des services, maîtrise des budgets sociaux, création d’emploi), la faible prise en compte de la qualité de l’emploi ainsi que les limites des dispositifs standardisés d’évaluation au regard de la rhétorique du libre choix de l’usager (consommateur).     

DOES THE MISSION OF PROVIDERS MATTER ON A QUASI‐MARKET? THE CASE OF THE BELGIAN ‘SERVICE VOUCHER’ SCHEME

ABSTRACT 1 : In 2001, the Belgian government introduced a ‘service voucher’ scheme in the field of domestic (housework) services, following a quasi‐market mechanism which fosters competition between providers of different types as regards sector (for‐profit, public, third sector) and mission (seeking profits, home care provision to vulnerable groups and work integration of the unemployed). Empirical evidence suggests that third sector organizations focusing on a social mission recognized by a tutelary regulation are the best performing with regards to the quality of jobs and service organization, leading to a better ‘triangulation’ of the service relationship. On the other hand, for‐profit providers, especially temporary work agencies, seem to favour their capacity of adaptation to the desiderata of their clients and costs’ minimization to the detriment of the quality of jobs which are made as flexible as possible.     

Capital Market Development,Competition, Property Rights,and the Value of Insurer Product‐Line Diversification: A Cross‐Country Analysis

In this article, we show that the effect of product diversification on performance is not homogeneous across countries. Diversified insurance companies perform significantly worse than their focused competitors in countries with well‐developed capital markets, high levels of property rights protection, and high levels of competition. In addition, we find that the diversification–performance relationship for insurance companies depends on company size. For large insurers operating in countries with less developed capital markets, diversification significantly increases performance. Our results suggest that the optimal organizational structure may be different for insurers operating in emerging economies than for insurers operating in developed countries.     

Endogenous market structure and foreign market entry

Models dealing with cross-border acquisitions versus greenfield investment usually assume that the entry of a foreign firm into a market has effects on the outputs of all domestic firms in that market, but exit or entry of local firms is not considered. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the acquisition versus greenfield versus exporting question under fixed versus free entry assumptions for local firms. Our finding is that greenfield entry and exporting options are more attractive relative to acquisition when the local market structure adjusts to foreign entry through local entry or exit than when it is fixed. With respect to welfare in the host economy, existing theory models and policy discussions maintain that the effects of greenfield versus acquisition entry differ substantially. We show that under free entry and exit, there is no difference between the two for consumer surplus, but acquisition improves welfare a little through rent extraction by the local acquired firm. Thus the existing conventional wisdom may be leading to inappropriate policy choices by host governments.     

On the existence of a regulated production function

This paper examines the generalization of the regulated production function. It characterizes the set of admissible regulatory constraints that are compatible with the existence of a regulated production function in a sufficiently weak framework to encompass the usual rate-of-return constraints à la Averch and Johnson and value constraints.     

A General Procedure to Recover the Marginal Products of a Cost Minimizing Firm

Inthis paper we develop a new method, based on generalized inverse,to recover the first derivatives of the production function.This allows us to retrieve returns to scale, technological progressand, in a dynamic setting, a measure of the adjustment cost.The method is general and systematic and it applies in caseswhere the traditional method does not. It is especially relevantwhen examining dynamic models or regulated firms.     

Product-harm science communication: The halo effect and its moderators

Science communication on a product-harm situation aims to create awareness on the product's potential impacts for consumers. However, consumers tend to overestimate the information provided, due to possible halo effects. Here we designed a contextual model of halo development including individual and message characteristics detected in the literature as potential moderators. Our experimental study, based on a sample of 3,766 European respondents, evaluates these halo moderators in the context of a product-harm science communication. The results reveal a stronger halo effect on consumers' beliefs when the focal topic is considered as more important (health vs. ethics) and simultaneously when the source of information is more credible (official vs. non-official). Highly involved consumers are also subject to greater halo effects. Suggested implications mainly focus on the need to consider potential amplifying halo effects and on the importance of responding to a product-harm communication via a very accurate communication approach.     

The ABC-LCA method for the integration of activity-based costing and life cycle assessment

This article presents an approach to integrating life cycle assessment (LCA) into an activity-based costing (ABC) model to develop a steering system that takes into account both financial costs and associated environmental impacts. By combining the formalism of LCA and ABC matrix calculations, we show how impact assessment results can be affiliated with costs to jointly and simultaneously compute the costs and environmental impacts of products and activities. The conditions of integration are developed following the four-step structure of LCA. The proposal is applied to a simplified case study of the ‘Classic Pen Company.’ The developed ABC-LCA approach paves the way for further test applications, which are considered useful in the context of environmental indicators for strategic steering, communication with customers and forecasting or simulation.     

GOVERNMENT BOND YIELDS AT THE EFFECTIVE LOWER BOUND: INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE

Empirical evidence on the potential impact of central bank policies on government bond yields at the effective lower bound (ELB) is presented for nine economies. We quantify the content of central bank communications and consider international policy spillovers. Yields at the medium‐to‐longer end of the yield curve remain responsive to news for a few years after the ELB is reached. Yields become more sensitive to the content central bank communication at the ELB. Our results provide further evidence that central bank communication is an important element of monetary policy making when the interest rate tool loses efficacy. (JEL E52, E58, G12, F42)