Voluntary carbon offsetting and consumer choices for environmentally critical products—An experimental study

Purchases of voluntary carbon offsets (VCOs) are growing tremendously. At the same time, the number of activities and products for which VCOs are available is increasing. Experts discuss whether offering VCOs is exclusively associated with positive effects on the environment or if it instead may lead to increased consumption of environmentally critical products. To date, empirical evidence on such adverse effects is scarce. Therefore, this study uses a randomized controlled trial design to investigate how the availability of VCOs affects consumers' choices for environmentally critical products. The results suggest that when VCOs are available, the likelihood of environmentally critical consumption increases. From a mental accounting perspective, our findings support the theoretical rationale of VCOs as an instrument for moral licensing. Additionally, our results indicate that individuals tend to trivialize the harmfulness of the environmentally critical product and overestimate the effectiveness of VCOs for environmental protection, which we consider strategies for reducing cognitive dissonance and guilt.     

Do Investors Care if Steve Jobs is Healthy?

Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc., is one of the best known CEOs in the world, and some stock analysts have termed him “irreplaceable.” Using conventional event study methods, we test the magnitude of these announcements on Apple’s share price and its market capitalization. We focus upon nine “events” between 2004 and 2009 in which new information about Mr. Jobs’ health was flushed into the marketplace, on occasion by Apple itself, but more often by the commentary and speculations of media observers, stock analysts and bloggers. We find that the impact of these announcements upon Apple share prices is mixed, usually modest, and disappears over time. We conclude that Jobs’ health has an impact on Apple’s share price and market capitalization, but that impact is not always negative and not nearly as large as many observers apparently believe.     

Biased Tariff Choices: Exploring Role Effects in B to B Settings

Purpose: The authors examine whether motivational and cognitive causes that explain tariff choice biases in business-to-consumer (B2C) settings also hold in business-to-business (B2B) markets. Opposed to prior B2C research that is dominated by individual decision making, the study proposes role effects in buying centers influence the exploration of tariff choice and tariff choice biases in B2B settings.

Originality: A rich body of research into biased tariff choices, especially flat-rate biases, exists for B2C markets, yet a dearth of research marks tariff choice behavior in B2B settings. This study is the first one on tariff choice especially dedicated to B2B settings.

Methodology and Findings: The findings from transactional and survey data pertaining to a mobile phone service provider reveal that tariff choice biases also occur in B2B markets. Seventy-nine percent of all tariff choices among decision makers are biased; 73 percent are due to the flat-rate bias. The (mis-)judgment effect, the insurance effect, and the convenience effect significantly influence tariff choice and the flat-rate bias.

Research Implications: The authors provide a flowchart of strategies that structures the practical implications. Based on this flowchart, they propose that mobile phone service providers should undertake a flat-rate preference strategy, because B2B customers may accept the flat-rate bias to profit from the insurance effect. The authors argue that following a flat-rate preference strategy is advisable, because turnover can be protected entirely while the vulnerability of that strategy is low.     

The effects of age,experience and managers upon baseball performance

As workers age, they acquire valuable experience even while their physical abilities eventually decline. Bosses/managers have the potential to alter the complex relationships between experience and declining physical abilities for better, or for worse. We examine the performances of 39,698 Major League baseball players in the 20th century and find that: (1) hitting performance peaks at age 30, base stealing at 27, and pitching at 34; (2) except for pitching, even experienced managers usually have little influence on player performance, or that influence is negative. In general, managers and coaches play limited roles in occupations where natural ability trumps other factors.     

International perspectives on tourism‐led development: some lessons for the SDIs

The concept of tourism‐led socio‐economic development is neither new nor peculiar to South Africa. This study draws on the international experience of the Malindi‐Mombasa coastal development corridor in Kenya, the Goa Coast of India, the Kulu Valley and Bhutan in the Himalayas, the Gambia, Dominica, Belize and the Maldives. It assesses the results achieved in these tourism programmes against the strategic objectives of those South African SDIs that place a heavy emphasis on the country's tourism potential. The SDIs, as described elsewhere in this collection, represent a new paradigm adopted by the South African government, aimed at moving away from a protected and isolated approach to economic development, towards one in which international competitiveness, regional cooperation and a more diversified ownership base are paramount. The key objectives of the tourism‐led development corridors, including the Wild Coast and Lubombo SDIs, are to generate sustainable economic growth and development; generate sustainable long‐term employment creation; maximise the extent to which private sector investment and lending can be mobilised into the process; change the ownership base of the industry so that people previously excluded from the mainstream of the economy by discriminatory practices can play a meaningful role as workers, managers and owners of new tourism enterprises; and to exploit the opportunities that arise from new tourism and ecotourism developments for the creation of upstream and downstream business opportunities, especially small businesses owned by previously marginalised groups.     

The influence of domain knowledge and task complexity on tax professionals'' compliance recommendations

This study examined how procedural knowledge and outcome expectations interact with task complexity when tax professionals develop recommendations for clients. Practicing tax professionals participated in two experiments. Results suggest that outcome expectations about whether a position can be defended are positively associated with aggressive recommendations. As complexity increases, professionals with more procedural knowledge (a) favor less aggressive recommendations and (b) rely more heavily on their outcome expectations. These findings illustrate the importance of accounting for knowledge as a two-dimensional construct.     

Fashion opinion leadership among working and non-working women

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine fashion opinion leadership among working and non-working women. Data were collected by mail survey from 630 working and non-working women in the USA. Employment orientation (i.e. viewing work as either a job or a career) and satisfaction with career apparel were investigated among working women to determine whether there are differences in these dimensions between fashion leaders and fashion followers. Results contradict earlier studies by indicating that fashion opinion leadership among working and non-working women is independent of education and income. Fashion opinion leadership among working women is independent of occupational level. Whether one works in a managerial position or a service position, or one considers work to be a job or a career, has no significant effect on fashion opinion leadership. Fashion opinion leaders among working women demonstrated greater satisfaction with career apparel and were younger than their fashion follower counterparts. Fashion leadership, regardless of work status, was found to be a strong determinant of apparel satisfaction for all women. The results suggest that the effect of being a fashion opinion leader may be greater when considering apparel that is more salient to the wearer.     

From hub to tourist destination – An explorative study of Singapore and Dubai's aviation-based transformation

The growth of air transport networks and deregulation have allowed small, low-populated places like Singapore and Dubai to become major international tourism destinations. Both have used tightly combined airline, airport and tourism strategies to help achieve this. Here we analyse developments in Singapore and Dubai by examining interactions between their airlines, airports, governments and tourism authorities, and how integrated management strategies leveraged their aviation traffic hubs to develop tourism destinations.