The Link Between Ethical Climates and Managerial Success: A Study in a Polish Context

This study examines perceptions of ethical climate and ethical practices in a sample of Polish organizations and the relationship between ethical climate and behaviors believed to be associated with successful managers. A survey of Polish managerial employees (N = 200) indicated that “efficiency” was the most reported, and “professionalism” was the least reported ethical climate type. A majority of the respondents (61.5 %) perceived successful managers as being ethical, and in particular, those that believed that their organization had a “professionalism” and “independence” climate perceived a strong positive link between success and ethical behavior. Implications of these findings are then discussed.     

Forecast information and traditional retailer performance in a dual-channel competitive market

Independent firms in a dual-channel competitive market are expected to have their own information about the nature of the market. In this research, we develop a game-theoretic model to examine the value of forecast information about consumers' willingness to pay. The model is based on a simultaneously played Bertrand game. Our results indicate that the profits of online as well as traditional retailers always increase with forecast accuracy, and that forecast accuracy has a greater effect on the performance of the traditional retailer than on that of the online retailer. Our results also show that the difference in profit between that of the traditional retailer and the online retailer increases with forecast accuracy. In addition we find that forecast accuracy is much more valuable to the traditional retailer when there is an increasing volatility in the market, an increasing level of consumer valuation of the product, and an increasing intensity in market competition. Based on our results, we derive optimal market strategies and identify directions of future research.     

The Effect of Sales Assistance on Purchase Decisions: An analysis using retail video data

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - We investigate the role of sales assistance in driving customer’s purchase decision using unique observational video data from a cosmetics retail chain....     

How do firms make money selling digital goods online?

We review research on revenue models used by online firms who offer digital goods. Such goods are non-rival, have near zero marginal cost of production and distribution, low marginal cost of consumer search, and low transaction costs. Additionally, firms can easily observe and measure consumer behavior. We start by asking what consumers can offer in exchange for digital goods. We suggest that consumers can offer their money, personal information, or time. Firms, in turn, can generate revenue by selling digital content, brokering consumer information, or showing advertising. We discuss the firm’s trade-off in choosing between the different revenue streams, such as offering paid content or free content while relying on advertising revenues. We then turn to specific challenges firms face when choosing a revenue model based on either content, information, or advertising. Additionally, we discuss nascent revenue models that combine different revenue streams such as crowdfunding (content and information) or blogs (information and advertising). We conclude with a discussion of opportunities for future research including implications for firms’ revenue models from the increasing importance of the mobile Internet.