The changing corporate-social contract in the 1980s: Creative opportunities for consumer affairs professionals

In an address to members of the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals, Hazel Henderson congratulated them on their stated purpose: “to foster the integrity of business in its dealings with consumers,” but added the whether they can also simultaneously “promote harmonious relationships between business, government and consumers” is another matter—one for honest differences of opinion.     

Decision making in the solar age: Ecological criteria for the post-economic era

Note to industrial societies: traditional value systems worked in an Age of Petroleum but that age is ending. What changes do we need to make for the new Solar Age?     

The issue of translation during thematic analysis in a tourism research context

This research note discusses issues with translation of non-English text during qualitative analysis in tourism research using examples from the newly emergent phenomenon of Chinese working holidaymakers in New Zealand. In particular, this note highlights an additional translation step in the thematic analysis process with non-English interview quotes and excerpts. This note argues the merit of researchers’ dual role as researcher/translator and discusses how researchers can undertake translation in cross-language research to maintain the rigour of qualitative tourism research.     

THE RISK OF FIRE SALES IN THE TRI‐PARTY REPO MARKET

This paper studies the risk of “fire sales” in the tri‐party repo market, a large and important market where securities dealers find short‐term funding for a substantial portion of their own and their clients' assets. We distinguish between fire sales of assets by a dealer who, facing a run that could lead to default, sells securities to generate liquidity, and fire sales of assets by repo investors after a dealer's default has occurred. While fire sales do cause damage no matter how they arise, the tools available to lessen the harm from the two types of fire sales are different. We find that limited tools are available to mitigate the risk of predefault fire sales and that no established tools currently exist to mitigate the risk of postdefault sales. (JEL G01, G18)     

Mapping EORTC-QLQ-C30 to EQ-5D-3L in patients with colorectal cancer

Aims: The primary aim of this study was to perform a mapping of the EORTC-QLQ-C30 scores to EQ-5D-3L for the SIRFLOX study; a large dataset of patients with previously untreated liver-only or liver-dominant metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). A secondary aim was to compare the predictive validity of existing mappings from EORTC-QLQ-C30 to EQ-5D-3L conducted in other cancers.

Methods and materials: Questionnaires (completed within 529 patients) were used in a linear mixed regression to model EQ-5D-3L utility values (scored using the UK tariff) as a function of the five function scores, nine symptom scores, and the global score from the EORTC-QLQ-C30 questionnaire. A Tobit regression was also performed. The mean EQ-5D-3L values for the SIRFLOX trial were calculated and compared with predicted EQ-5D-3L values derived using published mapping algorithms.

Results: The linear mixed regression model provided a satisfactory mapping between the EORTC-QLQ-C30 and the EQ-5D-3L, whilst the Tobit model did not perform as well. When utilities from the SIRFLOX data were calculated with previously published mapping studies, three out of five studies performed well (< 10% mean difference).

Limitations: The main limitation of the study was the lack of meaningful observations post-progression (67 paired observations). For this reason, this study was unable to test whether the mapping holds by disease stage. Additionally, although the study adds to the literature of mappings to the EQ-5D-3L, it is not known how results would differ using the EQ-5D-5L.

Conclusion: This study is the first of its kind in liver-only or liver-dominant mCRC, and mCRC in general. The mapping constructed showed a good fit to the data and provides practitioners with an additional mapping between EORTC-QLQ-C30 to EQ-5D-3L using a large dataset (529 patients, 707 paired observations). The study also confirmed the generalizability of mappings published by Proskorovsky, Kontodimopoulos, and Longworth to liver-only or liver-dominant mCRC.     

React to the future: political visualization,emotional reactions and political behavior

Abstract

This study explores the mediating role political visualization – the process of imagining future political scenarios – plays in determining how political advertising affects voting behaviour. Specifically, we theorize that when partisans are exposed to political ads that are narrative (compared to non-narrative) in nature, they will engage in more political visualization. Partisans will then experience emotional reactions to these imagined futures – specifically, enthusiasm for the in-group candidate and anger towards the out-group candidate. These emotional reactions, in turn, will make a partisan more likely to vote for the in-group candidate and less likely to vote for the out-group candidate. We test this model by employing an experimental design where American partisans were presented a political ad (in the form of an email) that is either narrative or non-narrative. Results provide support for most of our expectations and suggest that visualization may play an important role in determining the influence of a political ad.     

Product—Market Choices and Growth of New Businesses

The relationship between product–market strategies and the growth of new firms is incompletely understood. The lack of understanding reflects the absence of a conceptual framework that would explain why certain product–market strategies achieve specified goals more effectively than do others. Prior research links product and market strategy to business growth, but does not clearly separate product line choices from market choices, and provides little guidance with respect to the sequence in which product and market changes should be made. Richard Cardozo, Karen McLaughlin, Brian Harmon, Paul Reynolds, and Brenda Miller propose a "wave" model of product–market choice, which yields hypotheses they evaluate with data from a subsample of 120 firms drawn from a representative sample of new businesses. Results yield preliminary guidelines for product–market strategy for managers of fledgling businesses.     

Corporate environmental marketing: An environmental marketing action model

A model of environmental marketing action and success is proposed, which includes a range of variables and examines the relationship between them. Environmental success is partly determined by the level of Environmental Marketing Action which varies between level 0 and level 8 and which directly determines the extent of environmental marketing success. Perceptions of environmental consciousness, the subjective norm and net total risk determine the level of environmental marketing action. Beliefs with regard to stakeholders and events and the motivation to comply with these beliefs combine to form the subjective norm.