Framing risks in a safety‐critical and hazardous job: risk‐taking as responsibility in railway maintenance

In risk management research, risk‐taking is mostly treated as deviation that calls for improved risk communication. I argue, however, that risk‐taking should be seen as expressing a rationale of its own; thus, improving safety requires that this rationale be adequately understood and that the conditions that reproduce risk‐taking be changed. This argument is supported by an ethnography of railway maintenance in Sweden. Railway technicians are charged with maintaining the railway infrastructure to support safe and punctual trains, an assignment that exposes them to occupational hazards. The technicians' claim of occupational responsibility for transportation safety risks is framed by two notions in occupational discourse: first, the safety‐critical nature of their tasks, and second, the notion of service to the general public. Technician interdependence in achieving occupational safety requires mutual responsibility in the team. Technicians justify occupational risk‐taking, claiming it is sometimes needed to achieve production goals given the available time and resources and the manageability of the risks taken. Finally, I stress the need for technicians to change their frames of reference and for employers to assume responsibility for reducing the need for risk‐taking.     

Targeted advertising,platform competition,and privacy

Targeted advertising can benefit consumers through lower prices for access to web sites. Yet, if consumers dislike that web sites collect their personal information, their welfare may go down. We study competition for consumers between web sites that can show targeted advertisements. We find that more targeting increases competition and reduces the web sites' profits, but yet in equilibrium web sites choose maximum targeting as they cannot credibly commit to low targeting. A privacy protection policy can be beneficial for both consumers and web sites. If consumers are heterogeneous in their concerns for privacy, a policy that allows choice between two levels of privacy will be better. Optimal privacy protection takes into account that the more intense competition on the high‐targeting market segment also benefits consumers on the less competitive segment. Consumer surplus is maximized by allowing them a choice between a high‐targeting regime and a low‐targeting regime which affords more privacy.     

MARKETING AGENCIES AND THE ECONOMICS OF MARKET SEGMENTATION*

Increasing importance is being attached to market segmentation strategies as a means of increasing producer returns. In this paper, a generalised model of price discrimination without supply control is developed to analyse the implications of optimal segmentation strategies for non-homogeneous products. It is shown that the magnitude of producer returns is dependent on demand and supply conditions, with increases in returns falling as price elasticities of demand and supply increase. The model is applied to the New Zealand sheep meats industry to reveal that returns to producers from market segmentation strategies could be quite low in the long run.     

Transaction Costs and standardisation in professional services to small business

In the market of business services the easier segment of large business is being saturated. Therefore, suppliers of business services must seek to cater to the growing but more difficult segment of small business, if their growth is to be maintained. With appropriate extensions, Transaction Cost Economics can facilitate understanding of the nature of the difficulty involved. Due to effects of scale in transaction costs it is relatively more expensive to provide services tailored to the individual smaller firm. Standardisation of services may be required to make access to this market viable. The question arises whether such standardised methods should be stimulated by the government. To see how this issue is perceived by suppliers of various business services, a survey was conducted on a sample of 1,000 firms, with a response of 30%. The issue of economies of scale in transaction costs did emerge, but was not universally perceived as a problem. Many respondents confirmed the need for standardised modules. Opinions were sharply divided on the issue whether the government should step in to promote standardisation across suppliers.Cluster analysis shows that respondents fall neatly into a number of classes that conceptually and statistically are highly distinct. Just over half of the respondents were clearly against government intervention, and about one third of these (radical market proponents) were of that opinion even though they granted that the scale issue constituted a problem of access to the small business market. Just under half of the respondents clearly favoured government intervention, and about half of those (radical interventionists) were of that opinion even though they saw no great problem of access due to problems of scale, or were hesitant about that problem. Accountancy firms tended to be in favour of intervention, and business consultants tended to be against. The government might explore the matter further with accountants, while leaving the business consultants alone.