Evolution of global airline strategic alliance and consolidation in the twenty-first century

Global airline strategic alliances have emerged since the late 1980s, and their number has slowly risen through the years. Will the number of such alliances continue to proliferate? Or will airlines consolidate with one another to form mega-carriers? In this paper, the likelihood of various airline consolidation and alliance development possibilities was examined based on a number of high-level trends and forces. The most probable near-term industry alliance and consolidation structure is described, accompanied with a probable path of evolution. These predictions have important implications for managers of strategic alliances, carriers who are currently in an alliance as well as carriers who are planning to join one.     

Organizing and integrating marketing and purchasing in business markets: An introduction to the special issue, issues and implications

The article is the introductory paper to the special issue on “Organizing and Integrating Marketing and Purchasing in Business markets”. It analyses the different organizational issues in the marketing and purchasing interfaces by an extensive analysis of the literature. It introduces the different contributions to the special issue and draw some reflections on further research steps.     

Framing the field of international human resource management research

This article presents an overarching framework of the international human resource management field. The framework has four different levels: Macro (encompassing countries, regions and industries), the Multinational Corporation, Unit (typically subsidiary) and Individual (including teams, employees and their family members). At each level, we make a distinction between Influencing Factors, the HRM Function (encompassing both the HR department and HR policies and practices), Proximal Outcomes and Distant Outcomes of HRM. The framework allows us to examine existing research and suggest avenues for future work.     

The performance of model based option trading strategies

This paper analyzes returns to trading strategies in options markets that exploit information given by a theoretical asset pricing model. We examine trading strategies in which a positive portfolio weight is assigned to assets which market prices exceed the price of a theoretical asset pricing model. We investigate portfolio rules which mimic standard mean-variance analysis is used to construct optimal model based portfolio weights. In essence, these portfolio rules allow estimation risk, as well as price risk to be approximately hedged. An empirical exercise shows that the portfolio rules give out-of-sample Sharpe ratios exceeding unity for S&P 500 options. Portfolio returns have no discernible correlation with systematic risk factors, which is troubling for traditional risk based asset pricing explanations.     

Estimating SUR system with random coefficients: the unbalanced panel data case

A system of regression equations for analyzing panel data with random heterogeneity in intercepts and coefficients, and unbalanced panel data is considered. A maximum likelihood (ML) procedure for joint estimation of all parameters is described. Since its implementation for numerical computation is complicated, simplified procedures are presented. The simplifications essentially concern the estimation of the covariance matrices of the random coefficients. The application and ‘anatomy’ of the proposed algorithm for modified ML estimation are illustrated by using panel data for output, inputs and costs for 111 manufacturing firms observed up to 22 years.     

Insurance markets and unisex tariffs: is the European Court of Justice improving or destroying welfare?

We analyze the effects of mandatory unisex tariffs in insurance contracts, such as those required by a recent ruling of the European Court of Justice, on equilibrium insurance premia and equilibrium welfare. In a unified framework, we provide a quantitative analysis of the associated insurance market equilibria in both monopolistic and competitive insurance markets. We investigate the welfare loss caused by regulatory adverse selection and show that unisex tariffs may cause market distortions that significantly reduce overall social welfare.     

How do the success factors driving repurchase intent differ between male and female customers?

As customers’ repurchase behavior leads to long-term corporate profitability, managers should know the success factors influencing repurchase intent. Knowledge of gender differences in these success factors would enable managers to separately optimize repurchase intent for men and women. This research thus develops original hypotheses on gender differences in the formation of repurchase intent. Based on hierarchical linear modeling of data from five countries and ten industries, this research finds that public brand image more strongly influences customer satisfaction and repurchase intent for women than for men. Perceived value has a weaker effect on repurchase intent for women than for men. The analyses do not detect any gender difference in the influence of customer satisfaction on repurchase intent. Contrary to conventional wisdom, relational switching costs more strongly influence repurchase intent for men than for women. Further analyses illustrate moderating effects of country differences in gender egalitarianism and of contextual differences between products and services.     

Zipf's Law for Cities and Beyond: The Case of Denmark

Zipf's law for cities is one of the most conspicuous and robust empirical facts in the social sciences. It says that for most countries, the size distribution of cities must fit the power law: the number of cities with populations greater than S is inversely proportional to S. The present paper answers three questions related to Zipf's law: (1) does the Danish case refute Zipf's law for cities?, (2) what are the implications of Zipf's law for models of local growth?, and (3) do we have a Zipf's law for firms? Based on empirical data on the 61 largest Danish cities for year 2000, the answer to (1) is NO—the Danish case is not the exception which refutes Zipf's law. The consideration of (2) then leads to an empirical test of (3). The question of the existence of Zipf's law for firms is tested on a sample of 14,541 Danish production companies (the total population for 1997 with 10 employees or more). Based on the empirical evidence, the answer to (3) is YES in the sense that the growth pattern of Danish production companies follows a clean rank‐size distribution consistent with Zipf's law.