Pay dispersion among the top management team and outside directors: Its impact on firm risk and firm performance

Two key groups central to improving firm performance are the top management team (TMT) and the board of directors. Executives undertake strategic actions, whereas board members fulfill their resource provision and monitoring roles. Drawing on tournament theory and equity theory, we propose that high pay dispersion among outside directors and the TMT is positively associated with strategic risk, whereas high (low) TMT pay dispersion and low (high) outside director pay dispersion are positively associated with firm performance. Our predictor is the unexplained component of horizontal pay dispersion, or the residual of pay dispersion resulting from regressing pay on observable firm, industry, period, and individual characteristics. Our results highlight the importance of unexplained pay dispersion for TMTs, but not for boards of directors, in improving firm performance.     

The Marketing Concept and New High-Tech Products: Is There a Fit?

This article defines the marketing concept in a traditional way, but extends its application to high-technology products. Dennis Cahill, Sharon Thach, and Robert Warshawsky present two case studies of high-technology products. Both products were ultimately market failures; however, the analysis presents one as a successful application of the marketing concept, contrasting sharply with the other.     

Not part of the family? The limits to managing the corporate way in international hotel chains

Companies increasingly seek solutions to the corporate/local dichotomies perceived to be a feature of more traditional approaches to managing across national boundaries. At the human resource level, the rhetoric of transnationalism emphasizes integration being achieved through 'soft' mechanisms, such as corporate culture devices, which encourage all managers to develop an international (for this read corporate) perspective on what they do. In theory, managerial staff are recruited and promoted on a 'best person for the job' basis and national identities are played down. Drawing upon evidence from three international hotel chains (one American, one French and one Swedish), this paper argues that there is a disjuncture between corporate culture devices which assume that they can transcend national origins and the issues of interest and identity which inform the activities and experiences of managers at unit level. The paper suggests that companies need to be aware of the danger of assuming that one can be trained to be 'one of the family'. Rather, we argue that local managers are potentially disadvantaged in terms of career progression as managers from the parent country utilize criteria of acceptability informed by processes of socialization which are more institutionally embedded and derived than has been assumed.     

Signaling Quality and Credibility in Yellow Pages Advertising: The Influence of Color and Graphics on Choice

Abstract

This research investigates the ability of color and graphics to convey information about quality and credibility and their influence on choice in Yellow Pages advertising. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to Yellow Pages ads across three product categories had more favorable attitudes toward the advertisement, advertiser, and quality for ads in color than for noncolored ads. Attitudes about the advertisement, advertiser, quality, and credibility were more favorable for ads with photos than for ads with line art. In both cases, results varied by product category. Experiment 2 tested the effect of color and graphics on selection of a Yellow Pages advertiser across eight product categories. Selection from a 32-page, simulated Yellow Pages booklet was made by 384 subjects. A significant effect for process (full) color and photographic-quality graphics on choice of an advertiser from Yellow Pages was found and varied across product categories. The results also highlight the impact of other variables that are controlled by the advertiser.     

Married couples’ involvement with family vacations

Abstract

The involvement construct has received a great deal of attention in recent years. However, the majority of research on this topic has focused on the individual and has ignored spouses’ shared leisure involvement. In addition, little work has been done on involvement in the product‐class context of family vacations. This study examined the underlying dimensions of married couples’ involvement with family vacations and how these dimensions relate to selected personal variables. Factor analysis revealed two underlying dimensions. Stepwise multiple regression revealed that pleasure‐importance was positively related to gender role ideology and education and negatively related to presence of children in the home. A positive relation existed between the second dimension, sign value, and age. The study provides insight into both the nature of the involvement construct and how it might be used in future research.     

The mediating effects of perception and emotion: Digital signage in mall atmospherics

Digital signage (DS), public screens showing video, is an important, little-researched topic. The “direct” route in the elaboration likelihood model suggests that DS influences cognition, which then influences emotions whereas the “peripheral” route is emotion→cognition. We predict that these operate in parallel and report a survey of mall consumers (n=315). DS has a significant, positive, total effect on approach behaviors, mediated by positive affect and (arguably) perception of mall environment. Results extend the limited capacity model of mediated message processing from television to DS, which predicts the effectiveness of vivid moving visual images as atmospheric stimuli.     

Voluntary association membership of outdoor recreationists: An exploratory study

Abstract

Research on the political activity of outdoor recreationists has focused primarily on their associational affiliations and concern for the environment. This article reviews literature on theories of collective behavior, recreation motivations, and environmental concern. The study considers outdoor recreation as a social movement and investigates relationships between incentives for voluntary membership in environmental and outdoor recreation associations, motivations for participation in outdoor recreation activities, and environmental concern. Members of associations were found to be significantly different than nonmembers on several variables including value for outdoor recreation, incentives for association membership, intellectual motivations for outdoor recreation, environmental concern, education level, and age. Results suggest that association efforts to obtain instrumental benefits, or public goods that accrue to all of society, are a primary incentive for outdoor recreationists to join voluntary associations. A common thread of intellectual pursuit distinguished members from nonmembers, suggesting that intellectual benefits may help define the relationship between outdoor recreation and associational affiliation behaviors.     

Challenges for land system science

While considerable progress has been made in understanding land use change, land system science continues to face a number of grand challenges. This paper discusses these challenges with a focus on empirical land system studies, land system modelling and the analysis of future visions of land system change. Contemporary landscapes are contingent outcomes of past and present patterns, processes and decisions. Thus, empirical analysis of past and present land-use change has an important role in providing insights into the socio-economic and ecological processes that shape land use transitions. This is especially important with respect to gradual versus rapid land system dynamics and in understanding changes in land use intensity. Combining the strengths of empirical analysis with multi-scale modelling will lead to new insights into the processes driving land system change. New modelling methods that combine complex systems thinking at a local level with macro-level economic analysis of the land system would reconcile the multi-scale dynamics currently encapsulated in bottom-up and top-down modelling approaches. Developments in land use futures analysis could focus on integrating explorative scenarios that reflect possible outcomes with normative visions that identify desired outcomes. Such an approach would benefit from the broad and in-depth involvement of stakeholders in order to link scientific findings to political and societal decision-making culminating in a set of key choices and consequences. Land system models have an important role in supporting future land use policy, but model outputs require scientific interpretation rather than being presented as predictions. The future of land system science is strongly dependent on the research community's capacity to bring together the elements of research discussed in the paper, via empirical data collection and analysis of observed processes, computer simulation across scale levels and futures analysis of alternative, normative visions through stakeholder engagement.