GOVERNMENT VERSUS PRIVATE QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR AUSTRALIAN FOOD EXPORTS

Most foodstuffs have quality attributes that are difficult to determine prior to purchase. Thus quality assurance is an inherent problem in food exporting. Private quality assurance can succeed if exporters can credibly signal that they have much to lose from cessation of purchases. If exporters do not provide credible quality signals, and foreign importers judge food quality according to country of origin, honest exporters can suffer negative spillovers from others' cheating under either government or private quality assurance. For both economic and political reasons, the best choice between government and private quality assurance will differ between foods and importing countries.     

Private equity, ‘union recognition’ and value extraction at the Automobile Association: The GMB as an emergency service?

This article evaluates union recognition and ‘value extraction’ in a private equity buy‐out. The article reviews private equity, investor value and ownership interests, details union recognition at the Automobile Association (AA) before and after its acquisition by private equity, and reviews the GMB's wider campaign of opposition to private equity ownership.     

Creative marketing and the art organisation: what can the artist offer?

The poem ‘My Paintings’, written in a deliberate, uncorrected dyslexic style offers an insight into the mind of a present day avant garde bad boy of British art, Billy Childish. Constantly challenging the art establishment through public demonstrations of distaste against the annual Turner Prize,[Button, V. (1999) ‘The Turner Prize’, Tate Gallery Publishing, London.] Childish and his cohorts launched an alternative, Stuck‐ist, art manifesto,[Alberge, D. (1999) ‘Rebels Get Stuck into the Brit Artists’, The Times, Thursday 26th August, p. 7.] in the belief that it would assist in a shift in public perception of what good art is, as well as influence the creative practice of those artists concerned with more traditional, authentic forms of art. Childish's ex‐girlfriend Tracey Emin, however, has had other ideas. She has revelled in mass media exposure and now dismisses the concept of traditional painting as a valid art from.[Brown, N. (1998) ‘Tracey Emin’, Art Data, UK.] These are two examples of contrasting creative, artistic behaviour. Their creativity has resulted in varying levels of commercial success. By examining the role that creativity plays in determining how the idea for a creative product is first identified, through to its commercial exploitation, there are valuable lessons contained in such a process for both profit‐oriented and nonprofit art organisations alike. Instead of constantly fighting the conflicting philosophies of art for art's sake versus art for business sake, following the market and consumer demand, there is a much more effective method for establishing longer‐term success, which mirrors the creative practice of the artist. The existing literature on arts marketing is examined. A critique of the usefulness of current thinking is presented, with the recommendation that the formal models of marketing offered in arts marketing literatures can only ever hope to offer general advice on marketing. What is called for is a much more in‐depth analysis of how creative entrepreneurial marketers as artists can offer alternative visualisations of more appropriate models of marketing for the industry. This in turn should result in the stimulation of creative research methodologies that can inform both theory and practice within arts marketing in particular, and the wider remit of marketing in general. The use of the metaphor and the examination of published biographies of creative individuals are used to construct a manifesto of marketing artistry. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

Farmers’ Preferences for New Environmental Policy Instruments: Determining the Acceptability of Cross Compliance for Biodiversity Benefits

This paper addresses the issue of farmers’ views concerning the perceived legitimacy of environmental cross compliance as a governance mechanism. Recent work on the theory of regulation emphasises the importance of the legitimacy ascribed to a regulation in determining the effectiveness with which it can be implemented. The current study outlines a rationale for why this motivational question should receive attention in economic studies of policy design and reports the results of a survey of 102 arable farmers in East Anglia, UK, which investigated the level of support for the principle of cross compliance for biodiversity objectives. It was found that two attitudinal factors, referred to as ‘Stewardship Orientation’ and ‘Technological Beliefs’, were by far the most significant in determining the acceptability of cross compliance in the sample, and that structural and socio‐demographic factors were considerably less important. The study also identified clusters of farmers according to their overall attitudinal orientation. Of the five groups thus categorised, four appeared on average likely to reject cross compliance as a general principle, leaving only the most ‘Environmental’ cluster in support. The policy implications are discussed and some conclusions drawn.     

CORRUPTION, THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PRIVATESECTOR : WHY IT MATTERS AND WHAT CAN BE DONE

The author proposes a definition of corruption which requires five conditions to be satisfied simultaneously. The definition is applicable to both the state and private sectors. Empirical work shows that corrupt countries receive less inward investment, pay higher interest on borrowings and achieve lower rates of investment overall. Ways of combating corruption are suggested.     

An exploratory investigation of user involvement in new service development

Due to major structural changes in the service sector, many service managers are recognizing the need to continually develop new services that are timely and responsive to user needs. Thus, user input and involvement in new service development are an important area of inquiry. Although there has been a resurgence of academic and practitioner interest in new service development, there is a dearth of research on how users are involved in new service development. This study first combines insights from extant literature and exploratory interviews with practitioners to identify four key elements of user involvement, including objectives, stages, intensity, and modes of involvement, and then investigates these four elements in 12 service firms. Based on the findings, the author develops an inventory of activities that needs to be carried out in involving users in a new service development project. Intekhab (Ian) Alam is an assistant professor of marketing in the Jones School of Business, State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern Queensland in Australia and a master's of business in marketing (by research) from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He conducts research in the area of new product and service development and international marketing. His research has been published (or is forthcoming) in theJournal of International Marketing and Exporting, Journal of Services Marketing, American Marketing Association— Marketing Educator's Conference Proceedings, and several other international conference proceedings. He also has extensive consulting experience in the areas of new product/service development.     

RESIDUAL WAGE DISPARITY AND COORDINATION UNEMPLOYMENT*

How much of residual wage dispersion can be explained by an absence of coordination among firms? To answer, we construct a dynamic directed search model with identical workers where firms can create high‐ or low‐productivity jobs and are uncoordinated in their offers to workers, calibrated to the U.S. economy. Workers can exploit ex post opportunities once approached by firms, and can conduct on‐the‐job search. The stationary equilibrium wage distribution is hump‐shaped, skewed significantly to the right, and, with baseline parameters, generates residual dispersion statistics 75–90% of those found empirically. However, the model underestimates the average duration of unemployment.