Corporate redemption and the seven deadly sins

Competitive purgatory is the sorry state of too many formerly proud U.S. corporations. They are languishing from the devastating effects of seven familiar sins: inconsistent product quality; slow response to the marketplace; lack of innovative, competitive products; uncompetitive cost structure; inadequate employee involvement; unresponsive customer service; and inefficient resource allocation. To make matters worse, the maladies are mostly management-induced, and the remedies most managers are employing-shifting strategy, reallocating resources, focusing on operations--are proving ineffective. The cures don't address the cause of the disease: negative, risk-averse, bureaucratic work environments that flourished in decades of easy growth but today are undermining competitive performance. What's needed is a total reinvention of the soft side of the organization to produce a work environment that stresses speed, Spartanism, innovation, and marketplace focus. First, top managers must decide what their company stands for and convince their employees of this uniqueness. Second, they must set standards that drive their business to worldclass levels and be tough about enforcing and raising them. Third, they must push constantly to ensure that enough innovations take place to change the company's future significantly. Three other factors are crucial: the right talent, an effective reward system, and CEOs who can drive the desired changes personally. Creating a dynamic work environment is not easy: it takes perseverance, flexibility, and commitment. But these efforts will pay off: how people tackle problems, work together, and think about their jobs are the activities that make a company great.     

Towards more disorganised decentralisation? Collective bargaining in the public sector under pay restraint

While sector‐level collective bargaining can provide the institutional leverage to sustain and improve employment standards, a proliferation of disorganised local settlements may reduce its effectiveness. This article examines this proposition for local government in the UK, highlights the risks of a ‘destructive’ disorganisation of employment relations and calls for a renewal of articulation mechanisms between sector and local levels of collective bargaining.     

Work–life policies and female faculty representation in US doctoral‐granting economics departments

This article examines the relationships between work–life policies and female faculty representation and promotion at US doctoral‐granting economics departments. The data were collected in 2012 on tenure‐track and tenured full‐time faculty from 125 departments and updated in 2018 to include promotion status. Variables include individuals and their educational backgrounds, professional experience and publications. Only publications and experience are statistically significant for predicting academic rank for the female subsample, and the impact of publications is much larger for women compared with men. Work–life policies differ in explaining the representation of women across academic ranks. Dual‐career policies have a positive effect on female representation at the assistant and associate levels but do not have a statistically significant impact at the full professor level. National Science Foundation ADVANCE grantee universities have increased female representation across all ranks, but the effect is the smallest at the full professor level. Work–life policies are insignificant in predicting promotion.     

RV Traveler’s Pull Factors to Campgrounds in Leisure Tourism

The purpose of this study was to identify the underlying structures of RV traveler’s pull factors to campgrounds and confirm the results by using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis with multiple data sets. The results identified the following five dimensions of the campground traveler’s key attributes: Activity, Amenity, Essentials, Price, and Store. The “Essentials” factor had a grand mean of 4.47, which was the highest among the five factors. Therefore, campground owners and managers should pay extra attention to maintaining a high quality on those essential attributes first, before considering adding or promoting any other items.     

Making Markets Work: Modeling Agri-food Systems in Transition

Despite a decade of transition, the agri-food sectors of the former command economies consistently underperform relative to their potential. Underproduction and underinvestment are generally observed. This paper develops a model of bilateral monopoly linkages between firms along an agri-food supply chain. In the absence of competitive market forces and an efficient system of commercial law, deficient production and investment should be expected. If the agri-food sectors of the former command economies are to realize their potential, more resources will have to be devoted to reducing the transaction costs associated with broadening markets and enforcing contracts.
Bien que dix années aient passé, le secteur agroalimentaire des anciennes économies dirigées ne cesse d'enregistrer un rendement inférieur à celui auquel on pourrait s'attendre. La sous-production et le sous-investissement sont monnaie courante. Les auteurs proposent un modèle reproduisant le monopole bilatéral qui existe entre les entreprises du circuit d'approvisionnement agroalimentaire. En l'absence de concurrence sur le marché et d'un régime efficace de droit commercial, une production et des investissements insuffisants sont inévitables. Pour que le secteur agroalimentaire des anciennes économies centralisées réalise son potentiel, on devra investir plus de ressources afin de réduire les frais de transaction associés à l'élargissement des marchés et de garantir le respect des contrats.     

Branding Food Culture: UNESCO Creative Cities of Gastronomy

ABSTRACT

Although branding is a well-established practice in consumer goods marketing its application to intangibles is a relatively new activity. This article analyzes the co-branding between the United Nations and urban centers that are successful in becoming UNESCO Creative Cities of Gastronomy. Cities with this status have the potential to generate benefits from enhanced brand image, with associated economic and social rewards. However, it requires ongoing investment to create awareness among potential tourists and investors and in the development of enhanced pride and coordination among city residents and businesses. Numerous cities are likely to join the existing five UNESCO Creative Cities of Gastronomy over coming years as a result of efforts from UNESCO to raise its profile, alongside individual cities prioritizing food tourism in their economic development plans and increasing global importance of food security as evidenced by it being the theme for World Exposition being hosted by Italy in 2015.     

Consumer Willingness to Pay for Dairy Products With the 100% Canadian Milk Label: A Discrete Choice Experiment

ABSTRACT

A component of the supply management policy governing the Canadian dairy sector is a requirement that all milk and cream sold in Canada be sourced from Canadian producers. Cheese, yogurt, and ice cream, however, can be made using imported milk components. Recently, the Dairy Farmers of Canada launched a 100% Canadian Milk label for products that contain only milk and milk ingredients produced in Canada. Featuring a discrete choice experiment, a Canada-wide survey of dairy consumers is used to elicit their willingness-to-pay for milk and ice cream carrying the 100% Canadian Milk label. The results show that Canadian consumers are willing to pay more for milk and ice cream products that carry the label. Consumer knowledge of the dairy sector affects their willingness to pay for this labeling information. Implications for the use of the Canadian origin label and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

A socio-technical framework for assessing the viability of carbon capture and storage technology

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is seen as a key technology to tackle climate change. The principal idea of CCS is to remove carbon from the flue gases arising from burning fuels for electricity generation or industrial applications and to store the carbon in geological formations to prevent it from entering the atmosphere. Policy makers in several countries are supportive of the technology, but a number of uncertainties hamper its further development and deployment. The paper makes three related contributions to the literatures on socio-technical systems and technology assessment: 1) It systematically develops an interdisciplinary framework to assess the main uncertainties of CCS innovation. These include technical, economic, financial, political and societal issues. 2) It identifies important linkages between these uncertainties. 3) It develops qualitative and quantitative indicators for assessing these uncertainties. This framework aims to help decision making on CCS by private and public actors and is designed to be applicable to a wider range of low carbon technologies. The paper is based on a systematic review of the social science literature on CCS and on insights from innovation studies, as well as on interviews about assessment of new technologies with experts from a range of organisations and sectors.     

Determining the reasons for the failure of British aircraft manufacturers to invest in Australia's industry, 1934–1941

The aim of the article is to identify the factors that prevented British aircraft manufacturers from investing in Australia in the second half of the 1930s, a period when rearmament was creating demand for aircraft. The article looks at several unsuccessful proposals by British manufacturers to establish factories in Australia to build aircraft in the late 1930s, with additional attention being given to one proposal in particular. There is evidence that the Australian Government favoured the creation of an Australian-owned industry building aircraft under licence to foreign manufacturers, and it was this factor that largely deterred British investors.     

Making profits and sweet music

This paper seeks to provide a practical theoretical setting for ethics in business. The perspective is that of the strategic practitioner rather than the moral philosopher. It seeks to take account of the currently dominant business influences of rapid technological development and globalisation and the resultant new form of stakeholder organisation.
From this perspective it is clear that being perceived as trustworthy is seen as vital to long term business success. There are various corporate actions that are taken to ensure that organisations are perceived in this way and this paper reports those which were identified during interviews with executives in leading UK companies.
The research found little support for corporate philanthropy involving firms investing in 'good works' unrelated to their business activities. The main focus was on setting standards of behaviour and achieving a high degree of openness and transparency between stakeholders made subject to independent audit and report. These practical initiatives do not rest on any knowledge and understanding of moral philosophy.