The impossibility of a weakly path independent Paretian liberal

This paper shows that the conflict between two well cherished values related to moral and political philosophy, namely the Pareto optimality and the libertarian principle, cannot be resolved as long as a social choice function is required to satisfy a rationality-consistency condition which ensures some kind of path independence, however, weak.     

Three‐period,two‐treatment crossover design under long‐term carryover effect

The paper describes non‐parametric approach for analysis of a three‐period, two‐treatment, four‐sequence crossover design in which test procedure for interchangeability of the treatment effects is obtained. The proposed procedure is based on a non‐parametric model, which incorporates, along with the direct treatment effects and the usual carryover effects, the long‐term carryover effects. Relevant competitors are obtained. Related asymptotic results are given. By performing simulation study, we compared the procedures with respect to type I error rate and power. Furthermore, confidence intervals for treatment differences are studied. The procedures are illustrated with a data study.     

Investigating Quality Perceptions of International Services by Chinese Consumers

Consumers are known to use the country of origin (COO) of a product to infer the quality of products. Products of technologically advanced countries such as the United States and Germany are known to enjoy positive country‐of‐origin effects. Conversely, products made in the developing countries typically suffer from negative COO effect. While this influence of COO is widely recognized for products, the same cannot be said about services. Only a handful of studies have empirically investigated the relationship between COO and perceived service quality. Additionally, most of these studies in this research paradigm are undertaken in developed markets; hence, their findings cannot be extrapolated to the newly industrialized countries (NICs) that offer tremendous market potential for global services. It has, therefore, become imperative for multinational companies to understand if and how consumers in the major NICs use COO and other cues to infer service quality. This insight is critical in developing effective pricing and promotion strategies for these markets. Using data collected from consumers in Beijing in the People's Republic of China, we demonstrate significant COO effect on two service categories: hotels and restaurants. We also highlight how these research findings will help managerial decisions about pricing and promotion. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Outcome effect, controllability and performance evaluation of managers: some field evidence from multi-outlet businesses

This field study provides evidence of the outcome effect in performance evaluations of managers in an organization. Specifically, in a retail chain, subjective evaluations of store managers by their supervisors were negatively impacted by unfavorable outcome knowledge. As expected, outcome determinants over which the managers have control influence their performance evaluations and environmental determinants of outcome over which they have no control do not influence their evaluations. However, unexpectedly, central management determinants of outcome over which the managers have no control also influence their evaluations. After these outcome determinants are considered, we find evidence of an outcome effect since failure of the store to meet its target outcome results in a more negative performance evaluation of the managers. Also, the extent to which store managers' evaluations are prone to the outcome effect is not contingent on the measure of the outcome used.     

Unionized Bertrand Duopoly and Strategic Export Policy

The paper reports that an export subsidy is optimal for a unionized Bertrand duopoly. Following results published by Brander and Spencer ( Journal of International Economics , 1988, pp. 217–34), this establishes the robustness of export subsidization to the mode of competition (Cournot or Bertrand), and contrasts with nonunion results in the literature. If both firms are unionized and both governments pursue active trade policies, a subsidy remains optimal except for a narrow range of extreme substitutability between products. Nations with a lower opportunity cost of labor employ more aggressive policies in equilibrium.     

Volunteer tourism and “The White Man’s Burden”: globalization of suffering,white savior complex,religion and modernity

While many volunteer tourism studies have acknowledged the significance of volunteer tourism and challenged conventional understandings of socio-economic change in the Global South, the ways in which ideas about globalization of suffering and religion and modernity flow through volunteer tourism and development discourses are rarely spoken about. Utilizing postcolonialism and whiteness studies theoretical framework, this study intends to take volunteer tourism research into a different trajectory by arguing that much like imperialism is operationalized through different kinds of institutional power (agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank), similarly volunteer tourism exerts power and exploits the Orient as the West’s pleasure periphery. Taking the case of Mother Teresa, this study also argues that Christian ideologies, which were so dominant during the colonial days, continue to pervade the structures and institutions in society with similar hegemonic connotations of privilege based on religion and race. Future tourism scholars should investigate these remarkable yet somewhat ignored issues in contemporary volunteer tourism practices.     

Monitoring process quality in off-shore outsourcing: A model and findings from multi-country survey

We investigate how recent advances in information technology and telecommunications have led to real-time monitoring of processes at the site of the provider by a buyer located across the globe. We construct a game-theoretic model of the dynamics of the buyer–supplier interaction in the presence of moral hazard and incomplete contracting. We derive the Minimum Quality Threshold (MQT) below which the provider's output will certainly be inspected. Our findings show that the buyer can pick a level of monitoring and thereby force the provider to exceed the quality level of the MQT in output quality and avoid costly and wasteful inspection. Finally, our model explains why the production of processes that are complex and more prone to errors are actually monitored less by the buyers. We furnish the results of a comprehensive, multi-year, multi-country survey of the efficacy of monitoring in off-shore outsourcing projects and demonstrate strong empirical support for the findings of the model.     

A firm's external environment and the hiring of a non‐standard workforce: implications for organisations

This article empirically investigates organisations' strategic decision to hire non‐standard employees. Using US firm‐level data and a matched pair design, the study shows that firms operating in a more competitive environment and a less uncertain environment have a higher proportion of non‐standard workers. Further, firms with a greater proportion of non‐standard workers show higher financial growth. And finally, in a highly competitive environment, those firms that hire more non‐standard workers achieve significantly higher financial growth. Similar growth is experienced by those firms in the low uncertainty environment hiring more non‐standard workers. These results are all consistent with the research hypotheses.