Fairtrade Facts and Fancies: What Kenyan Fairtrade Tea Tells us About Business’ Role as Development Agent

Various promising claims have been made that business can help alleviate poverty, and can do so in ways that add value to the bottom line. This article begins by highlighting that the evidence for such claims is not especially strong, particularly if business is thought of as a development agent, i.e. an organization that consciously and accountably contributes towards pro-poor outcomes. It goes on to ask whether, if we did know more about either the business case or the poverty alleviation case, would this give cause for greater optimism that business could make a significant contribution to development. By exploring the experiences of producers of Fairtrade tea in Kenya, we reveal the complex nature of what constitutes a beneficial outcome for the poor and marginalized, and the gap that can exist between ethical intentions and the experience of their intended beneficiaries. The lessons of these experiences are relevant for Fairtrade and any commercial initiative that seeks to achieve outcomes beneficial and recognizable to the poor, and raise questions about the integration of social and instrumental outcomes that a future generation of ethical entrepreneurship will need to address.     

Meanings of Food among Polish and American Young Women

Food carries different meanings across cultures and times. This study aimed to explore the meanings of food among young women in Poland and the United States using a qualitative approach. The findings show that, in both countries, women associate food with health, pleasure, and socializing, but overall Polish women are less emotional about food. More specifically, in the United States, women associate food with love, their identities, and have more conflictual feelings about food, whereas in Poland women associate food with creativity. The study discusses marketing implications of the results.     

Indigenous livelihoods, slash-and-burn agriculture, and carbon stocks in Eastern Panama

Improved crop–fallow systems in the humid tropics can simultaneously sequester atmospheric carbon emissions and contribute to sustainable livelihoods of rural populations. A study with an indigenous community in eastern Panama revealed a considerable biophysical potential for carbon offsets in small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture through longer fallow periods, improved fallow management, secondary forest development, and agricultural intensification. Based on soil and biomass carbon measurements, estimated annual sequestration rates amount to 0.3−3.7 t C ha^− 1 yr^− 1. Despite such potential, the economic benefits of initiatives aimed at sequestration of carbon in the community are likely to be rather unequally distributed within the community. Heterogeneity in livelihood strategies and uneven asset endowments among households – factors often overlooked in the ongoing carbon and sustainable development debate – are expected to strongly affect household participation. Indeed, only the better-endowed households that have also managed to diversify into more lucrative farm and non-farm activities are likely to be able to participate in and thus benefit from improved crop–fallow systems that capture carbon. Economic, ethical, institutional, and technical concerns need to be taken into account when designing community carbon management and investment plans.     

Relational selling strategy and key account managers' relational behaviors: An exploratory study

Many companies see key account management as a potentially successful way to implement a relational strategy. Nevertheless, the literature suggests that strategy implementation at the sales force level is difficult to achieve, mainly because salespeople may not understand - nor accept - what they are requested to do. Despite their relevance, behaviors of key account managers have poorly been investigated. This article defines and tests a model of relational selling behaviors from the part of key account managers. Results show that the perception of the adoption of a relational selling strategy is associated with some specific key account managers' behaviors (customer-oriented selling, adaptive selling and team selling), but not with others (organizational citizenship behaviors). These findings suggest that potential discrepancies can exist between a relational selling strategy and its implementation at the key account manager level. Based on these results, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Subnational home market bias in Vietnam: Evidence from enterprise‐level data

This paper contributes to the home (market) bias literature where administrative or political borders limit trade across borders. Home bias is well documented at the national and subnational level. To sort out macro (e.g., location characteristics) and micro (e.g., enterprise characteristics) factors behind home bias, we use small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) data from Vietnam. Using the fractional multinomial logit model, we find that the proportion of SME sales outside of their home markets is positively associated with enterprise size, age, number of business association memberships and the distance of SMEs' most important supplier. In contrast, the proportion of SME sales to neighbouring provinces is negatively associated with the share of SME production for final consumption. Besides enterprise‐level frictions, market characteristics matter too. The proportion of SME sales to customers in their home markets is negatively associated with home or neighbouring provinces' governance quality, while the proportion of sales to customers in neighbouring provinces is positively associated with these areas' governance quality. These suggest that good governance frees SME resources for use in selling to less familiar markets.     

Green Demarketing in Advertisements: Comparing “Buy Green” and “Buy Less” Appeals in Product and Institutional Advertising Contexts

This research compares consumer response to traditional green advertising appeals to that of less conventional, “green demarketing” (GD) appeals—messages by for-profit companies encouraging reduced category consumption for the sake of the environment. Rather than encouraging greener consumption, modern environmentalism calls for decreased consumption overall, a trend reflected in recent advertising campaigns (e.g., Patagonia's “Don't Buy This Jacket”). Despite its potential impact and unconventionality, research on GD in general is sparse, and no empirical research has examined consumer response to GD appeals relative to traditional green appeals. In three experiments, we find that, in the context of product advertising, consumers' attitudes for green ads are more favorable than those for GD ads, mediated by greater inferences of genuine environmental concern. However, we find the reverse pattern in the context of institutional ads. Further, an “anti-consumption amplifier” message embedded in the ad—espousing the potential harm of overconsumption—further boosts favorable consumer attitudes for the GD institutional ad relative to its traditional green counterpart. Importantly, we assess all effects while controlling for consumers' individual levels of green consumerism, such that implications may be applied more generally rather than to a specific segment of green consumers.     

(Not So) Easy Come, (Still) Easy Go? Footloose Multinationals Revisited

The central question of this paper is to test whether multinational firms (MNFs) are more likely to exit the local market than domestic firms. Using firm‐level data for Belgium, we estimate a random effects probit model taking into account the endogeneity of firm size, total factor productivity (TFP) and sunk costs in firm exit. Our results highlight two features of the ‘footloose’ nature of MNFs. First, controlling for firm and sector characteristics, the exit probability of MNFs is larger than that of domestic firms. Second, MNFs have a lower sensitivity to TFP and size than do domestic firms. This means that an improvement in economic performance on the local market will not prevent a multinational from closing its local plant as much as it would for a domestic firm.     

Employee Motivation and Organizational Commitment: A Comparison of Tipped and Nontipped Restaurant Employees

This study explores motivational and organizational commitment factors of tipped and nontipped restaurant employees when differentiated by gender. The data collected from employees of a nationally-known, branded restaurant chain was analyzed using the ANOVA procedure in an effort to determine if significant differences existed between the tipped and nontipped employees relative to their level of motivation and organizational commitment. The results show that limited differences do exist for certain motivational factors and organizational commitment factors when employees were differentiated by tipped versus nontipped employee status and by gender. The study concludes by offering management implications and suggestions for future research relative to implementing operational systems, policies, and procedures that attend to restaurant employee classification difference as well as gender preference.     

Do tourists disperse weed seed? A global review of unintentional human-mediated terrestrial seed dispersal on clothing,vehicles and horses

Human-mediated seed dispersal is recognised as an important, but under-researched, issue. To assess the potential for tourists to act as unintentional seed dispersal agents, we reviewed published and unpublished data on seed dispersal via clothing, vehicles (cars) and in/on horses and donkeys, all of which can be used by tourists. Seeds from 754 species of terrestrial plants have been collected from these vectors, 15% of which are internationally recognised environmental weeds. Seeds were collected from personal clothing and equipment (228 species), the fur of donkeys and horses (42 species), horse dung (216 species) and vehicles (505 species). Most were herbs (429 species) or graminoids (237 species) and native to Europe. Annual Poa, White Clover, Kentucky Bluegrass and Yorkshire Fog were the most frequent species. There have been eight studies specifically on tourists, which identified 12 species on clothing, 26 on vehicles and 133 from horse dung. Methods that minimise the risk of tourists as human-mediated dispersal agents may therefore be appropriate for some tourism activities/destinations: suggestions are made. Further sampling using standardised experimental techniques is required to assess the relative risk associated with specific tourist activities and locations and determine which, and how much, seed is transported.