Stakeholder Perceptions of Offshoring and Outsourcing: The Role of Embedded Issues

We contribute to the study of offshoring and outsourcing by examining how stakeholders’ ethical evaluations of these decisions are influenced by both their roles and the issues embedded within the decisions. Although offshoring and outsourcing have been studied from a transactional perspective, the moral issues embedded within these decisions can profoundly affect how the organization is perceived by outside stakeholders. First, we contend that investors use different moral paradigms compared with consumer stakeholders, as a result the stakeholder role an individual occupies significantly influences their ethical evaluation of offshoring and outsourcing decisions. Next, we examine whether embedded issues of product quality and information security increase the moral intensity of offshoring and outsourcing decisions, thereby negatively influencing ethical evaluations. Using vignettes, we find that respon- dents viewed either offshoring or outsourcing less favorably than relocation. Surprisingly, respondents viewed offshoring with data security risks more negatively than offshore outsourcing with quality risks, suggesting that the issue of information security has a greater moral intensity than the issue of product or service quality for both consumer and investor stakeholders. Thus, we show that that embedded issues play a significant role in stakeholders’ ethical judgments of business decisions, such as offshoring and outsourcing.     

Is productivity diverging in the EU? Evidence from 11 Member States

An argument that received a lot of attention in the political and economic discussion surrounding the recent crisis in the EU is that diverging trends in productivity across member countries will undermine the viability of the common currency. This article examines the issue of convergence in multifactor productivity using sector-level data from 11 EU Member States. A state-space model is developed, and formal Bayesian model comparisons are performed to infer whether productivity is diverging, both at the aggregate level and at a sector-by-sector basis. The data point toward diverging productivity at the aggregate level, but suggest the opposite for many individual sectors.     

Productivity Growth in German Dairy Farming using a Flexible Modelling Approach

A random‐coefficients specification of an output distance function is used to measure and decompose productivity growth in German dairy farming. This specification can accommodate heterogeneity with respect to the technology employed by dairy farms, allowing for specialised and non‐specialised farms to be included in the analysis. The proposed modelling approach is favoured by the data when compared with the conventional translog specification of distance functions. The average total factor productivity growth rate for German dairy farms is estimated at 1.1%, with the technical progress component contributing most of this growth.     

Adjustment and unobserved heterogeneity in dynamic stochastic frontier models

Stochastic frontier models with autocorrelated inefficiency have been proposed in the past as a way of addressing the issue of temporal variation in firm-level efficiency scores. They are justified using an underlying model of dynamic firm behavior. In this paper we argue that these models could have radically different implications for the expected long-run efficiency scores in the presence of unobserved heterogeneity. The possibility of accounting for unobserved heterogeneity is explored. Random- and correlated random-effects dynamic stochastic frontier models are proposed and applied to a panel of US electric utilities.     

Industrial concentration and price-cost margin of the Indonesian food and beverages sector

This article investigates trends in industrial concentration and its relationship with the price-cost margin in 54 subsectors of the Indonesian food and beverages sector in the period 1995 to 2006. This study uses firm-level survey data provided by the Indonesian Bureau of Central Statistics (BPS), classified at the five-digit International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) Level. The results show a significant increase in industrial concentration in 1995 to 1999, which coincided with the period of the economic crisis in Indonesia. After 1999, the industrial concentration exhibits a slightly decreasing long-term trend. Furthermore, the industrial concentration for all subsectors tends to converge to the same value in the long run. Additionally, results show that higher industrial concentration yields a higher price-cost margin. Finally, the introduction of the competition law in 1999 has slightly lowered industrial concentration and the price-cost margin.     

The Impact of Psychological Distance and Construal Level on Consumers' Responses to Taboos in Advertising

To date, the use of taboos in advertising has produced mixed results. Such discrepancies require explanation. Relying on construal-level theory and the concept of psychological distance, this research focuses on taboo ads' effects on consumers' responses. The findings from three studies show that for different product categories (Study 1: perfume; Studies 2 and 3: alcohol) and across different taboo types (sex, violence, and a mixture of sex and violence), different distance dimensions (Study 1: spatial; Study 2: social), and different construal-level manipulations (low, high), an increase in the psychological distance (or construal) level attenuates consumers' unfavorable attitudinal and behavioral reactions while a decrease in the psychological distance (or construal) level intensifies consumers' responses. Furthermore, response intensity varies depending on the taboo type used, such that both violent and mixed taboo types produce more negative responses. Finally, gender has an impact, such that women react more negatively than men to different taboos, both across distance dimensions and across distance (construal) levels. A discussion of these findings and their implications, as well as suggestions for future research, concludes the article.     

Structure, conduct, and performance: evidence from the Indonesian food and beverages industry

This article employs the Structure–Conduct–Performance (SCP) paradigm to investigate the simultaneous relationship between industrial concentration, price rigidity, technical efficiency, and price-cost margin in the Indonesian food and beverages industry. This research extends the SCP framework by including price rigidity and technical efficiency as additional key variables. The results suggest that there is a simultaneous relationship between industrial concentration, price rigidity, technical efficiency, and price-cost margin with a positive bi-directional relationship between industrial concentration and price-cost margin. These findings imply that an appropriate course of action for the regulator in this highly concentrated industry is to reduce industrial concentration in order to increase competition, reduce upward price flexibility, and increase technical efficiency in the long run.     

Estimating farmers’ productive and marketing inefficiency: an application to vegetable producers in Benin

This paper estimates the technical and marketing inefficiency of a sample of urban vegetable producers in Benin. Marketing inefficiency is defined as the failure of farmers to achieve better marketing output and is reflected in lower output price indices. The study proposes a Russell-type measure of inefficiency using a directional distance function that accounts simultaneously for the expansion of outputs and price indices and the contraction of variable inputs. A truncated bootstrap regression is used in the second stage to consistently analyze factors that underlie differences in inefficiency. The first-stage results suggest that vegetable producers are more inefficient with respect to marketing than production. The second-stage results indicate that technical inefficiency is affected by the production environment and private extension services. Marketing inefficiency is affected by the type of marketing arrangements.     

U.S. hegemony and international business research: Further considerations

The commentaries in this issue raise many insightful questions and considerations regarding the Livanis and Geringer (Thunderbird International Business Review, 2023, 64) study and we address a few of these. In particular, we focus on the following five areas: (i) the relationship of international business (IB) publications with the English language, (ii) resource constraints and IB research, (iii) institutional rewards and IB research, (iv) methodological considerations in evaluating IB research productivity, and (v) opportunity costs of pursuing a Ph.D. and IB research and publication.