An information-based adaptive strategy for resource exploitation in competitive scenarios

Given an exploitation problem, in which a number of agents compete for a limited renewable resource, the optimal harvesting strategy depends on the ratio between resource availability and exploitation effort. For scarce resource a purely competitive, greedy strategy outperforms a more collaborative approach based on the Collective Intelligence, while for more abundant resource the opposite holds. The rationale for this behaviour lies in the amount of information each strategy is able to provide and a combined strategy is possible according to which agents choose dynamically the most informative strategy according to a minimum entropy criterion. This approach, which provides best performance for both under and over-exploited scenarios, can be used to monitor the resource status for management purposes and is effective in both centralised and decentralised decision making.     

Permanent and transitory wages of British men, 1975–2001: year,age and cohort effects

We examine the mean and variance–covariance structure of log-wages over calendar time and the life cycle of British men, hereby controlling for birth cohort effects. We attribute the strong increase in mean log-wage during the 1980s and 1990s to a rise in mean log-wage with the year of birth. This rise is diminishing with the year of birth, which implies lower wage inequality between cohorts with the year of birth. Wage inequality has increased during the 1980s and early 1990s and remained fairly stable in the second half of the 1990s. The year effects, however, show increasing wage inequality up to 2001, mainly due to a strong rise in transitory wage inequality. Transitory wages are strongly correlated over time and an increase in transitory wage inequality therefore has highly persistent inequality consequences. The stable wage inequality in the second half of the 1990s is attributed to lower within-cohort wage inequality for the younger cohorts. The age effects show that permanent wage inequality increases with age, in particular up to age 30 and over age 50. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Economic development and resource degradation: Conflicts and policies

The paper develops a model that shares common features with computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. It is used to address two questions. First, what are the future prospects of a green gross domestic product (GDP); should we be concerned with resource degradation or not; and, to what extent, and under which conditions? Secondly, which policies are more effective than others? Model closures are simulated using different specifications of exogenous variables. Further, alternative policies are treated: human capital, price incentives, property rights and poverty reduction. In the African context, we show that while the prospects of environment-friendly economic development, i.e. a rising green GDP, are weak in the medium-run, under certain structural conditions there is a range of effective policies that resolves the conflict between economic growth and resource degradation, thus contributing to a rising green GDP.     

Category reviews as market-shaping events

This paper examines a series of category review meeting between manufacturers of fast-moving consumer goods and retailers as instances of market-shaping. Our point of departure is that markets are performed and shaped by multiple calculative agencies whose encounters are organized in routine fashion. Our empirical case focuses on the presentations of manufacturers of non-alcoholic beverages to one retailer during the annual cycle of reviews and negotiations that punctuate the implementation of exchange routines between these actors. Each presentation draws on a range of arguments, data, metrics, as well as ways of defining and segmenting the category to propose strategies that either reinforce the status quo or overturn well-established conventions. Category reviews illustrate both the negotiated and distributed character of market practices as well as their paradoxical character, at once dependent on stable institutional arrangements whilst continuously undermining the foundations of that stability.     

The effects of influence strategies on dealer satisfaction and performance in Taiwan's motor industry

The studies of influence strategies in channel relationships have focused on western, individualistic countries. This study seeks to extend the empirical findings in Taiwan's motor industry to elucidate differences among diverse context. The results reveal that the promise strategy must be separated from coercive strategies and the request strategy must be separated from noncoercive strategies under the context of Taiwan's motor industry. Moreover, discrimination between economic and social satisfaction helps relationships between influence strategies and satisfaction and the effects of satisfaction on performance to be understood. The dealer's satisfaction is positively related to his performance, and social satisfaction is more important than economic satisfaction.     

Measuring and managing customer relationship risk in business markets

There have been repeated calls from top management and marketing academics for greater accountability in marketing so that the financial returns of marketing investments can be more robustly evaluated. These are coalescing around the issue of whether or not marketing delivers shareholder value. One promising line of enquiry explores customer lifetime value and the profitable management of these relationships. Although helpful, this approach fails to make the final link with shareholder value since customer lifetime value is still essentially a profit or cash flow measure and does not fully account for customer risk. This paper describes empirical research which explores differing approaches to measuring customer risk and the creation of shareholder value through customer relationship management (CRM). We develop a customer relationship scorecard which proves an innovative tool for managers to use in determining the risks in their customer relationships and developing risk mitigation strategies. The scorecard is then used to forecast retention probabilities, from which a risk-adjusted customer lifetime value is calculated. Both the scorecard and the calculations have an impact on the CRM practices of the customer relationship managers. From a theoretical perspective, an enhanced consideration of customer risk and returns is an important additional step towards demonstrating that marketing creates shareholder value.     

Impeding insurgent attacks: The information management agenda

Recent confrontations in Iraq between coalition forces and insurgents have caused much havoc in the way of economic and political reforms. Insurgents use a wide range of tactics, from suicide bombings to kidnappings, to cause tension between the local factions and the Iraqi populace, and between the locals and the coalition forces. The strength of the insurgent strategy emerges from the nature of their attacks: highly erratic, yet potent. All-out-assault on these insurgents is impossible as they cloak themselves and exploit the advantages of guerrilla warfare tactics. In this paper, we will highlight the informational issues that the coalition forces must appreciate in order to curb and curtail these insurgent attacks. While we do not aim to propose any grand strategy to eradicate all insurgent attacks, we do believe that the true weapon that needs to used optimally (effectively and efficiently) against such attacks is information. Whether the insurgents or the coalition forces, the side that is more successful at managing and deploying information potently and with intent will ultimately prevail.     

Mature relationships: Why does relational orientation turn into transaction orientation?

One of the fundamental assumptions of relationship marketing is that the length of the relationship increases the relational orientation of the partners. Recently, however, researchers have suggested that the benefits of relationship marketing are not evident in a large number of industries [e.g., Journal of Marketing 64 (2000, October) 17]. In this paper, we examine these contradictory results and, using extant research in this area, we model the antecedents of mature relationships that lead to relational versus transactional orientation. Most buyer seller associations follow an s-shaped curve between partners' length of association and the relational orientation of the buyer. However, for some buyer-seller associations, we suggest that there is an inverted u-shaped relationship between relational orientation and length of association. We examine relational attributes and propose variables that are the antecedents of transactional orientation in mature relationships. Implications for theory and managerial practice are highlighted.     

The relationship between technology adoption and strategy in business-to-business markets : The case of e-commerce

Firms have been traditionally advised to adopt information and communication technologies (ICT) to support the achievement of existing business objectives. However, entry into business-to-business e-commerce may require the concurrent adoption of new business strategies. This paper argues, therefore, that ICT analysis needs to be considered at the same time and at the same strategic level, as internal, competitor and market analysis. This is because the source of the competitive advantage brought by ICT has changed, to be largely obtained through increase in customers' perceived value. The literature presents a confused picture of the likely consequences to a firm of its adoption of e-commerce. This paper concludes that any such adoption must be evaluated in the environment of the individual firm. A multidimensional analytical framework, taking a combined informational and marketing perspective, is presented to assist with such evaluations.