Are family firms really superior performers?

Although international evidence suggests that families may be unhelpful to firm performance, recent analyses of U.S. public companies indicate that family firms outperform. This study probes these contrasting findings by investigating more fine-grained measures of family business in the U.S. Specifically, it makes a fundamental but neglected distinction between lone founder businesses in which no relatives of a founder are involved, and true family businesses that do include multiple family members as major owners or managers. The research also seeks to overcome issues of endogeneity and selection bias by examining both Fortune 1000 firms and a random sample of 100 much smaller public companies. The results show that findings are indeed highly sensitive both to the way in which family businesses are defined and to the nature of the sample. Fortune 1000 firms that include relatives as owners or managers never outperform in market valuation, even during the first generation. Only businesses with a lone founder outperform. Moreover neither lone founder nor family firms exhibited superior valuations within a randomly drawn sample of companies. Our results confirm the difficulty of attributing superior performance to a particular governance variable.     

Consumption dynamics and demographics of Canadian wine consumers: Retailing insights from the tasting room channel

This study facilitates a better understanding of the socio-demographics and consumption dynamics of wine consumers using the retailing ‘platform’ of the winery tasting room with them as visitors to it in a wine region environment. The overall aim was to gain some insights on gender and age generation-related consumer behaviour, wine type preferences, and their link to retail channel behaviour. Systematic random sampling yielded a total of 659 useable surveys collected at various tasting rooms in the Niagara Peninsula Wine Region in Ontario, Canada. Specific differences exist in the wine consumption behaviour and wine type preferences of males and females and between generational cohorts, specifically Millennial and older consumers. Whereas females and males do not differ much in quantity consumed and spend on wine, they do differ greatly in wine type consumption with females drinking significantly more white and males more red wine. Wine type consumption was shown to be moderated by not only classical demographic variables, but also by the retail outlets preferred for wine purchase. Females buy more of their wine from foodservice on-trade retail outlets such as restaurants, while Millennials frequent the tasting room channel much less than older consumers. There are strong indications that the higher the wine tourism activity level, the higher the wine consumption (usage) level of the consumers. It is possible to direct marketing strategies at wine consumers in accordance with their gender and lifecycle stage as far as certain behavioural and sensory aspects of the product is concerned. The winery tasting room is the most obvious retail channel vehicle to reach people with high tourism activity factor levels who also happen to be the high usage consumers in the wine market.     

Advertising and older consumers: image and ageism

Despite a growing population of older people, traditional prejudices against age continue to flourish in society. The media in particular are often guilty of ageism, persistently focusing upon the 'youth market', and advertisers are particular offenders. By ignoring older people, or using them as caricatures, the advertising industry not only violates its ethical responsibilities to this group within the community, but also overlooks the commercial opportunity presented by the new generation of older consumers. The article presents research into UK print media which shows that older people tend not to be featured in advertisements in mainstream publications, but are prominent in advertisements in publications for the over-fifties. The issues this raises in terms of the duty of advertisers to respect the rights of older people are discussed, along with the commercial imperative to provide more appropriate images of older people in UK advertising.     

农村金融与公共物品和服务:什么对小农户最重要

在发展中国家,对小农户最重要的是有一个稳定和有利的经济环境,这使他们能够将农业固有的不确定性转化为可以衡量的风险,减少和分散这些风险,降低经济活动的交易成本,进而通过提高获利能力来扩大其经营。政府持续地投资并提供公共物品及服务,对创造这样一种环境是至关重要的。因此,农村金融的重要性是显而易见的,因为它帮助小农户战胜贫苦的有效性很大程度上取决于小农户的经营是否是在这样的环境下进行。在中国农业经济和非农业经济快速转型的过程中,小农户大大地受益于政府持续地投资并提供公共物品及服务,以及增进的刺激。然而,尽管有这些重大成就,中国仍然存在着数百万的农村贫困人口,特别是在中西部地区。因此,中国政府面临的挑战是,要以一种穷人易于获得的方式,以及使他们更好地融入获利性的供应链,把他们与不断扩大的国内外市场联系在一起,持续投资并提供公共物品及服务。     

Adolescent consumption autonomy: A cross-cultural examination

Adolescents are an important market segment globally not only for their spending power as adolescents but also for their future spending power as adults. One variable that impacts current and future spending power is the degree to which adolescents are autonomous consumers. This study reports on depth interviews conducted with adolescent girls in France and the United States for the purpose of identifying dimensions of adolescent consumption autonomy based on adolescents' perceptions. Four dimensions of adolescent consumption autonomy are identified, including attitudinal, emotional, functional and financial. Similarities and differences between the two cultures are discussed, and implications for marketing and future research are identified.     

Labor market institutions and firms’ location choices

The paper evaluates the empirical effects of labor market institutions (LMI) on foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions using an individual dataset describing French firms’ expansion strategies in OECD countries over 1992–2002. First, we provide evidence that labor market institutions do matter in location decisions. Precisely, we show that labor market rigidity significantly reduces the country’s attractiveness for foreign investors. Yet, the effect is of limited magnitude compared to FDI determinants related to the country’s market potential or supply access. Second, we go deeper in the precise role of various LMI dimensions. In line with the literature, we find that stringent employment protection laws have a dampening effect on the location probability. Besides, we show that this is not the only dimension that matters. In particular, we find that the generosity of the unemployment benefit system plays a significant negative role on the country’s attractiveness, even once the role of employment protection is controlled for.     

Why bad projects are so hard to kill

Even at the prototype stage, experts were saying the technology was obsolete. Yet, in the face of tepid consumer response, the company stubbornly kept increasing production capacity and developing new models. By the time it was finally killed, the initiative had cost the company an astounding $580 million and had tied up resources for 14 years. The product was RCA's SelectaVision videodisc recorder, and its story is hardly unique. Companies make similar mistakes--if on a somewhat smaller scale--all the time. But why? No one comes to work saying, "I'm going to pursue a project that will waste my company millions of dollars." Quite the opposite. They come to work full of excitement about a project they believe in. And that, surprisingly, can be the root of all the trouble--a fervent belief in the inevitability of a project's ultimate success. Starting, naturally enough, with a project's champion, this faith can spread throughout the organization, leading everyone to believe collectively in the product's viability and to view any signs of impending doom merely as temporary setbacks. This phenomenon is documented here in two chillingly detailed case studied, one involving Essilor, the world's largest maker of corrective lenses for eyeglasses, and the other involving Lafarge, the largest producer of building materials. By counterexample, they point the way toward avoiding such morasses: assembling project teams not entirely composed of like-minded people and putting in place--and sticking to--well-defined review processes. Both cases also show that if it takes a project champion to get a project up and running, it may take a new kind of organizational player--an "exit champion"--to push an irrationally exuberant organization to admit when enough is enough.     

International projects'' changing patterns: Sales engineers'' changing roles

Dealing with international projects, a reflexion on recent changes of international environment as well as client expectations suggests to emphasize the importance of two additional types of business relationships which tend to complete the “traditional” big international bi-/multi-laterally supported projects scheme: — (a) big international “self-supporting” projects requiring partnership with client or, even, direct provider's involvement (if not investment), — (b) big multi-national clients developing a huge range of projects of all size worldwide, with a more or less developed need of integration of sourcing.The key issue for the providers lies, in fact, in the organisation of relationships with existing and potential clients in those two developing types of complex international operations. Hence, it suggests to re-define the company contacts systems with the client and, above all, the role and profile of the sales engineers, traditionally in charge of these responsabilities.The purpose of this article is to evaluate the environmental changes as well as their impact on international project features and to make a first attempt to evaluate the consequences of these changes on coordinators'/managers' profiles.     

性别失衡与人口流动视角下的男男性行为:来自中国城市地区的证据

利用"城市地区流动大龄男性生殖健康和家庭生活调查"数据,通过与同年龄段已婚男性的对比,探究了性别失衡背景下流动大龄未婚男性的男男性行为。同性性行为发生率受到相关态度、婚姻状况等的显著影响。性别失衡所带来的"婚姻挤压"迫使流动大龄未婚男性"被动失婚",缺乏正常稳定的性伴侣,从而导致男男性行为发生率有增加的可能性;流动大龄未婚男性的男男性行为具有高风险特征,而对于艾滋病、性病知识的缺乏是高风险性行为发生的重要影响因素。     

Regulated Firms with Transboundary Pollution: Does International Competition Improve Efficiency?

We consider a model of strategic trade and environmental policies with transboundary pollution. A regulated monopoly produces in each country and emits pollution. Under complete information, opening borders leads to a reallocation of the production from the large country to the small one. Total production increases, leading to an increase in the total level of pollution. The creation of a common market sometimes leads to a deterioration of total welfare. Under asymmetric information, the international competition generated by the common market decreases the informational rents of the firms, thereby reinforcing the potential gain to open markets to international competition.