Political Marketing Strategies in Africa: Expert Opinions of Recent Political Elections in Ghana

This study focuses on expert views of the importance of political marketing and electoral victory in African nations with an emphasis on Ghana. There is a particular focus in this article on understanding political marketing communication issues pertaining to the 2008 Ghanaian presidential elections. Following Peng and Hackley (2007 Peng , N. , & Hackley , C. ( 2007 ). Political marketing communications planning in the UK and Taiwan: Comparative insights from leading practitioners . Marketing Intelligence and Planning , 25 ( 5 ), 483 – 498 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), we used “elite interviews,” dyadic depth interviews with highly regarded marketing and communication practitioners who were also MBA students at Ghana's premier business school. We also employed Butter and Collins' (1994 Butler , P. , & Collins , N. ( 1994 ). Political marketing: Structure and process . European Journal of Marketing , 28 ( 1 ), 19 – 34 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) political marketing structure model in eliciting and analyzing the study findings. We found that all four of the themes discussed by Butler and Collins (1994) played a role in the defeat of the incumbent party—New Patriotic Party (NPP). Product factors was the key theme followed by organizational, process, and market factors, respectively. This paper is an important initial step in highlighting the significance of political marketing to the fortunes of political parties in Africa.     

Assessing Customer Satisfaction in a V-commerce Environment

This article describes the design and implementation of a non-intrusive method of assessing customer satisfaction in a voice-enabled electronic commerce environment. After recording a customer's speech voice during his or her interaction with a voice-enabled Web system (VWS), a subsequent questionnaire survey was immediately administered to identify the satisfaction level of the customer. Afterward, a collection of recorded customer voice files and the corresponding values of customer satisfaction were used to construct an artificial neural network-based expert system, the satisfaction level assessment system (SLAS), which was thereafter integrated into VWS for automatically detecting the satisfaction level of VWS users. Experiments were performed to test the feasibility and applicability of the proposed method, and good preliminary results were derived. Instead of using the conventional questionnaire-based approach, SLAS is non-intrusive because it does not require users to fill out any questionnaire. The proposed method can be used by various voice-based business applications, such as call centers and customer relationship management, to achieve the business objective of improving customer satisfaction, enforcing customer loyalty, increasing re-purchase rate, and enhancing enterprise's benefits. The proposed SLAS (including method and system) that was filed for patent application was recently approved by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office under Patent No. I268478.     

Using Inside Job to Teach Business Ethics

This article recommends the film Inside Job as an effective teaching tool for illustrating the ethical issues that surrounded the global financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent economic downturn. The study discusses issues such as the revolving door, conflicts of interest, fiduciary duty, executive compensation, and financial regulation. The presentation of each ethical issue comprises suggested questions, background information, and guides to specific sections of the film. An overview of the film is provided as well.     

The Development of Hybrid East and West Organizations in Malaysia

The current research investigates how successful Chinese business groups in Malaysia integrate Chinese management ideas with selected techniques from the West to form a hybrid model of management. The case research methodology was a rigorous, in-depth analysis of large successful Chinese family organizations in Malaysia. We find that management techniques from different cultures are combined in efficient Malaysian organizations, so East and West cross cultural boundaries around a continuing core of flexibility, networks, and family control. From our findings, entrepreneurs will be able to gain an understanding of how to enhance competitiveness in East Asia in general and Malaysia in particular.     

Modeling Newspaper Advertising

Mathematical modeling is recognized as a powerful tool for planning business operations. The purpose of this paper is to present a mathematical model for simulating a newspaper financial system. The model was developed from actual newspaper industry data and includes the effects of advertising and circulation. The use of the model to predict advertising linage as a function of population, income and advertising rate is included in the discussion.     

Outsourcing and efficiency: the case of Spanish citrus farming

Outsourcing in agriculture has traditionally been seen as a managerial strategy of smaller farms to achieve higher levels of efficiency. In this article, we provide empirical evidence supporting the existence of a positive relationship between outsourcing and efficiency in Spanish citrus farming. Outsourcing is measured by the proportion of outsourced labor and capital in farms' total use of these production factors, i.e., the higher the proportion of outsourced inputs, the higher the degree of outsourcing. Making use of data envelopment analysis techniques, we compute input‐specific reductions required to achieve technical efficiency at the farm level. Our results show that attainment of technical efficiency leads to a reduction in the use of both farms' own and outsourced production factors. Furthermore, the degree of outsourcing increases as farms move to their technically efficient productive plans. In addition, outsourcing labor and capital allows farms to achieve efficiency regardless of their size. In our view, this result has a clear implication for policy makers. Instead of trying to improve Spanish citrus farms' competitiveness by pursuing an increase of their average size, policy measures should be adopted to enhance farmers' managerial skills and the efficiency of those external service firms and co‐operatives that are effectively performing basic cultivation tasks.     

DATA REVISIONS AND FORECASTING ACCURACY: AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS BASED ON PRELIMINARY AND REVISED NATIONAL ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES*

This paper entails an investigation of the effects of data revisions on forecasting accuracy, through use of preliminary and revised national accounting data compiled by the United Nations. A small model was estimated for each of fourteen countries and ex post“forecasts” generated for each country and each year of the period 1957–1964, using first preliminary and then revised data. A prior analysis of the data revisions indicated a strong and widespread tendency for the preliminary estimates to understate both levels and year-to-year changes. This is consistent with the findings of other studies. Two sets of forecasts obtained from the reduced form of the model were considered in relation to “actual” levels and changes, obtained from the revised data, and also in relation to each other. A strong downward bias was observed in the forecasts of levels based on preliminary data, and a weaker one in the forecasts of changes. The forecast discrepancies for different variables were found to be significantly correlated. The results suggest that a tendency toward understatement in preliminary data may account in part for the general tendency toward understatement in forecasts noted in other studies.     

Money donations intentions among Muslim donors: an extended theory of planned behavior model

• The investigation into determinants of money donation intentions while employing an extended theory of planned behavior model is limited to developed country contexts. However, given the challenges facing charitable organizations and scant theoretical evidence from developing world, such an examination can contribute pragmatically. The current study establishes the impact of subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, past behavior, and attitude on respondents' money donation intentions to charities in Pakistan. The respondents (N = 223), a non‐student population living in the city of Gujranwala, completed a survey. The collected data are analyzed by means of a multivariate analysis, which was comprised of regression and correlation. The results reveal a strong support to the extended theory of planned behavior model in establishing the relationship between identified independent and dependent variables in a developing country context of Pakistan. The study contributes to the establishment of a few strategies, which are useful for managers working in charitable organizations to attract and retain donors to support several causes.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mathematical analysis applied to school attendance areas

The objective of this paper is to develop a generalized mathematical model of pupil assignment within school districts. This model can then be used to examine various policies of student integration. Proposed bussing schemes, school location policies, educational parks, attendance boundaries, etc., can be tested for cost, travel time or other measures of efficiency. Extension to other areas of educational planning is feasible.

Mathematical programming techniques are used to assign resources (say school children) to facilities (say schools) subject to restrictions on facilities (say capacity limits) and resources (say a maximum travel time or a desirable range of school “mixtures”) so that a measure of performance, the “objective function” (say total cost or total time of travel) is optimized. The model is intended to allow examination of a wide range of objective functions and system constraints.