Detecting Market Competition in the Japanese Beer Industry

We investigate various characteristics, including firm-level panel data, of the Japanese beer market over time (over 30 years) to determine the level and nature of competition. Next, we conduct two sets of regressions using market share and firm-level accounting data in a variation of Boone’s (Econ J 118:1245–1261, 2008a; J Inst Theor Econ 164:587–611, 2008b) measure of competition. While traditional indicators (very high market concentration, little or no overt price competition) suggest that Japanese beer firms do not compete, Boone-style regressions yield strong evidence of competitive behavior.     

Social Media Marketing Management: A Conceptual Framework

Managers today face many challenges when using social media in their marketing strategies. Drawing from social media literature, this study introduces a new framework to assist managers in developing and using social media as a marketing tool. This framework has four dimensions related to the actions managers perform when implementing and engaging with social media: messaging/projecting, monitoring, assessing, and responding. Each dimension of the framework may be applied differently based on the firm’s strategic direction or focus. The framework provides an opportunity for a firm to examine the entire scope of social media marketing from a broad strategic perspective as well as a more tactical perspective. Propositions formulated by the authors suggest how organizations with different strategic characteristics may manage social media differently. The study provides an understanding for managers of the variety of issues related to the specific aspects of maintaining a firm’s online presence based on a firm’s scope, culture, structure, and governance.     

Friends with money

When banks and firms are connected through interpersonal linkages - such as their respective management having attended college or previously worked together - interest rates are markedly reduced, comparable with single shifts in credit ratings. These rate concessions do not appear to reflect sweetheart deals. Subsequent firm performance, such as future credit ratings or stock returns, improves following a connected deal, suggesting that social networks lead to either better information flow or better monitoring.     

Trends in rural healthcare delivery in the United States, 1990-1999

This article describes the results of a literature search of pertinent professional literature written on issues important to rural healthcare delivery in the United States. The purpose of the literature review was to provide journal articles to practicing rural healthcare leaders who, because of time and economic constraints, claimed they were unable to research their own relevant journal articles. The authoring team is composed of individuals who work as full-time faculty members at institutions that offer courses in health administration. Because the nature of their professional work and research dictates that they focus on areas of rural health, the authoring team offered to share their findings with rural administrators as a means to assist them. The intent was to form a working collaboration between health services management professionals in academia, representatives of the state's healthcare organizational affiliate associations, and professionals practicing in the industry. This ten-year collaboration resulted in a unique wedding of resources that helped both in the delivery of rural healthcare services in a western state and in the advancement of the field of health services administration through original research. Thus, the product of this literature search is a comprehensive study of the trends in rural healthcare delivery. The variety of topics discussed were gleaned from over 500 articles found in and summarized from 70 professional healthcare journals published between 1990 and 1999.     

Evaluating the sustainability of the gray-whale-watching industry along the pacific coast of North America

This paper reports on the first study to critically examine the sustainability of whale-watching practices along the entire migratory range of a pelagic baleen whale species, the gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus). Commercial boat-based whale-watching operations along the west coast of North America were observed for sustainable practices. Data recorded aboard whale-watching vessels and collected via an online survey were integrated into the Lean Six Sigma quality-improvement tool, in order to review business processes and identify where inefficiency or ineffectiveness exists in specific phases within a process. Whale-watching practices were analyzed using this method for 24 whale-watching companies operating in Canada, the United States and Mexico. The results show a high level of variation in management regimes, and operator non-compliance with guidelines, and highlight avenues to eliminate, revise or reduce inefficiency, and improve practices in the interests of high-quality and sustainable operations. We recommend more specific and operational guidelines that allow operators to focus on high compliance with the most critical aspects of their business operation in order to build the sustainability of commercial tourist interactions with gray whales in their migratory range.     

The Japanese Automobile Tyre Industry under Scrutiny

This paper investigates the evolution of competition in the Japanese tyre market from 1976 to 2010 (35 years). An innovative measure of competition developed by Jan Boone is employed, as well as traditional competition indices and price–cost margin regressions, using accounting data at the firm level. Traditional indicators such as the concentration ratio and Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) suggest a very high market concentration. However, regressions using the two Boone measures and price–cost margin suggest that some competitive behavior in the Japanese tyre industry exists. By introducing dummy variables for the Sumitomo–Ohtsu merger and antimonopoly action by the Japan Fair Trade Commission, the Boone-style regressions also suggest that the merger had no impact, but the cartel breakup did have a statistically significant (p < 0.1) impact on firm’s profitability in this oligopolistic market.     

Willingness to pay for electric vehicles and their attributes

This article presents a stated preference study of electric vehicle choice using data from a national survey. We used a choice experiment wherein 3029 respondents were asked to choose between their preferred gasoline vehicle and two electric versions of that preferred vehicle. We estimated a latent class random utility model and used the results to estimate the willingness to pay for five electric vehicle attributes: driving range, charging time, fuel cost saving, pollution reduction, and performance. Driving range, fuel cost savings, and charging time led in importance to respondents. Individuals were willing to pay (wtp) from $35 to $75 for a mile of added driving range, with incremental wtp per mile decreasing at higher distances. They were willing to pay from $425 to $3250 per hour reduction in charging time (for a 50 mile charge). Respondents capitalized about 5 years of fuel saving into the purchase price of an electric vehicle. We simulated our model over a range of electric vehicle configurations and found that people with the highest values for electric vehicles were willing to pay a premium above their wtp for a gasoline vehicle that ranged from $6000 to $16,000 for electric vehicles with the most desirable attributes. At the same time, our results suggest that battery cost must drop significantly before electric vehicles will find a mass market without subsidy.