Market information: Selling intensity and the dynamics of international economic integration

Summary We may assume the more a firm has traded previously with a particular party, or a particular country, the lower the costs of market information will be. When a firm starts to trade with a new country, we may further assume that the greater the cultural distance is between this country and its own country, the larger the information costs will be.A statistical study of the Swedish imports of selected consumers goods after the establishment of EFTA indicates that these assumptions hold true for non-selling intensive commodities, but not for selling intensive commodities.The research on which this paper is based is a part of a more general study of how various knowledge factors influence international business decisions, which will be published in a forthcoming bookHow Foreign is Foreign Trade? A first draft of the paper was written during a stay at the International Institute of Management in Berlin, and I am grateful for the aid which I recieved from the Institute's staff during its preparation. I am also most grateful Michal Groniewitz at the Institute of Business Studies in Uppsala whose time-consuming and tedious task it has been to prepare the tables on Swedish imports, on which the statistical part of the study has been based.     

Patent pools,litigation, and innovation

This article analyzes patent pools and their effects on litigation incentives, overall royalty rates, and social welfare when patent rights are probabilistic and can be invalidated in court. With probabilistic patents, the license fees reflect the strength of the patents. We show that patent pools of complementary patents can be used to discourage infringement by depriving potential licensees of the ability to selectively challenge patents and making them committed to a proposition of all‐or‐nothing in patent litigation. If patents are sufficiently weak, patent pools with complementary patents reduce social welfare as they charge higher licensing fees and chill subsequent innovation incentives.     

Deception in Computer-Mediated Communication

An integrated model of interpersonal deception, focusing on the particular characteristics and impacts of computer-mediated modalities, is derived and presented. Although there is a wealth of research investigating both mediated communication and deception, there has been relatively little empirical work at the intersection. Our purpose is to provide a model that spans these areas, to summarize relevant literature, and to advance a set of empirically testable propositions to guide future work.     

Understanding communal and individual customer experiences in group-oriented event tourism: an activity theory perspective

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study, grounded in activity theory, is to empirically investigate the communal and individual mechanisms that simultaneously shape the customer experience in group-oriented event tourism. Based on a survey of 389 respondents with group travel experience to major events, the results confirm the research model, suggesting that the customer-experience construct constitutes a multidimensional structure comprising second-order components reflecting individual and communal experiences, with each containing first-order constructs. The results further confirm that the customer-experience construct predicts post-consumption evaluations of perceived value and satisfaction. Limitations of the study are outlined, and implications for research and managerial practice for the creation of customer experiences that are valuable and satisfying for group-travel consumers to events are discussed.     

Lessons Learned from Ethics in the Classroom: Exploring Student Growth in Flexibility, Complexity and Comprehension

This study shows the link between teaching ethics in a college setting and the evolution of student thinking about ethical dilemmas. At the beginning of the semester, students have a rigid "black and white" conception of ethics. By the end of the semester, they are thinking more flexibly about the responsibilities of leaders in corporate ethical dilemmas, and they are able to appreciate complex situations that influence ethical behavior. The study shows that education in ethics produces more "enlightened" consumers of ethics information who are able to make sound determinations about responsibility in ethical dilemmas.     

Evaluation of medical costs associated with use of new oral anticoagulants compared with standard therapy among venous thromboembolism patients

Objective:

This study evaluated differences in medical costs associated with clinical end-points from randomized clinical trials that compared the new oral anticoagulants (NOACs), dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban, and edoxaban, to standard therapy for treatment of patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE).

Research design and methods:

Event rates of efficacy and safety end-points from the clinical trials (RE-COVER, RE-COVER II, EINSTEIN-Pooled, AMPLIFY, Hokusai-VTE trial) were obtained from published literature. Incremental annual medical costs among patients with clinical events from a US payer perspective were obtained from the literature or healthcare claims databases and inflation adjusted to 2013 costs. Differences in total medical costs associated with clinical end-points for the NOACs vs standard therapy were then estimated. One-way and Monte Carlo sensitivity analyses were carried out.

Results:

A lower rate of major bleedings was associated with use of any of the NOACs vs standard therapy. Except for dabigatran, use of NOACs was also associated with a lower rate of recurrent VTE/death. As a result of the reduction in clinical event rates, the overall medical cost differences were ?$146, ?$482, ?$918, and ?$344 for VTE patients treated with dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban, and edoxaban, respectively, vs patients treated with standard therapy.

Conclusions:

When any of the four NOACs are used instead of standard therapy for acute VTE, treatment medical costs are reduced. Apixaban is associated with the greatest reduction in medical costs, which is driven by medical cost reductions associated with both efficacy and safety end-points. Further evaluation may be needed to validate these results in the real-world setting.     

Glass Houses? Market Reactions to Firms Joining the UN Global Compact

We examine market reactions to publicly held multinational firms announcing their affiliation with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). The UNGC is a voluntary initiative to support four areas of United Nations viz. Human Rights, Labor, Environmental, and Anti-Corruption. Because firms must file annual Communication on Progress (COP) reports toward these initiatives, we argue this creates a differentiating transparency of interest to stakeholders. Using a sample of 175 global firms, we find support to the theory for joining the UNGC. Returns differ markedly, however, between multinational firms headquartered in the United States (negative) and Europe (positive). We also find that failing to complete the annual COP generates a negative market reaction.