Consumer behaviour in the credit card market: a banking case study

This paper analysed the demographic, socio‐economic and banking‐specific determinants that influence the choice of credit cards. A multinomial logit model was run on a recent portfolio of banking customers based in Italy. The model incorporates the type of credit cards as the dependent variable and a set of explanatory variables. The empirical results provided useful insight into the structural characteristics of the card payment system and offered a microeconomics perspective to analyse consumers' behaviour and preferences. Overall, women, older people, residents in the centre of Italy and secondary card owners are more likely to acquire a classic card. Gold cards are preferred by older customers, whereas younger clients have a higher probability to choose a revolving card, which is also preferred by the residents in the North‐east. The analysis on the continuous variables highlighted that Italy can be regarded as a ‘conservative’ market with room for credit card upgrading and expansion into more sophisticated products.     

Initial Impressions Determine Behaviours: Morality Predicts the Willingness to Help Newcomers

Prior research has demonstrated the impact of morality (vs. competence) information for impression formation. This study examines behavioral implications of people’s initial impressions based on information about their morality vs. competence in a workplace. School teachers and employees (N = 79) were asked to form an impression of a new school manager (i.e. a prospective boss), who was presented as High vs. Low in Morality and High vs. Low in Competence. Results showed that morality information rather than competence information determined initial emotional responses to the new manager, which mediated willingness to help the newcomer adjust in task and social contexts. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications and future research directions are outlined.     

Channel Management and Differentiation Strategies in the Supply Chain for Fresh Produce

The article analyses the current differentiation strategies in the market for fresh produce. The article is arranged into three parts. First a short review of the literature on channel structure and product differentiation is presented in order to identify, on a theoretical grounding, the incentives for differentiation strategies. Second, the fresh produce sector is reviewed and analysed. Finally, an empirical investigation is made of a UK channel intermediary organisation carrying out differentiation policies in the fresh produce category (on behalf of UK multiple retailer customers') supplied by a dedicated Italian grower.

Results show that in the fresh produce industry there is room for product differentiation, but with contradictory welfare effects.     

Risk perceptions,preferences and management strategies: evidence from a case study using German livestock farmers

We analyze the factors affecting farmers’ choice accounting for farm, farmer, and household characteristics as well as elicited risk perception and risk preferences. We consider three alternative hypothetical methods for assessing risk preferences to test the stability and behavioral validity of them. Our case study focuses on livestock farmers in the German region North Rhine-Westphalia. We find that risk preferences are context depending, i.e. differ across different fields of farm-level decision-making. Furthermore, our analysis shows that risk-averse farmers are more likely to prioritize on-farm risk management strategies over off-farm strategies. Moreover, higher risk perception, age, subjective numeracy, farm succession, farm size, and the proportion of rented land show a significant impact on farmers’ risk behavior     

A Flexible Tool for Model Building: the Relevant Transformation of the Inputs Network Approach (RETINA)*

A new method, called Relevant Transformation of the Inputs Network Approach is proposed as a tool for model building. It is designed around flexibility (with nonlinear transformations of the predictors of interest), selective search within the range of possible models, out‐of‐sample forecasting ability and computational simplicity. In tests on simulated data, it shows both a high rate of successful retrieval of the data generating process, which increases with the sample size and a good performance relative to other alternative procedures. A telephone service demand model is built to show how the procedure applies on real data.     

Differentiating CREF Performance

We examine factors underlying the differences in commingled real estate fund (CREF) performance using a sample of 65 CREFs during 1985–2002. More than half of the individual CREFs underperformed the employed benchmark. However, portfolios of CREFs performed well in both up and down markets, smaller CREFs outperformed larger CREFs, and top performing CREFs continued to outperform. Differential CREF performance appears to be attributable to property selection, rather than allocation across real estate sectors. Liquidity-constrained CREFs exhibited lower risk. CREFs with large benchmark tracking error experienced inferior performance. These findings indicate important cross-sectional differences among CREFs and diversification opportunities for pensions employing multiple CREF investment strategies.     

The determinants of firm–bank relationships in Italy: bank ownership type,diversification and multiple banking relationships

This paper investigates the main features of the relationships between banks and non-financial firms in Italy. Based on detailed firm-level data, we analyse the role of firm-level characteristics, decision-making factors and local credit market indicators in shaping various aspects of corporate banking choices. Empirical results show that young and small firms have a higher probability of relationships with local banks, confirming the advantage of local credit institutions in dealing with informationally opaque firms. Large and internationally active firms tend to establish relationships with national and foreign banks, as they are able to provide more complex banking services that are crucial to access foreign markets. Moreover, firms that are more dependent on external financing are more likely to use multiple and differentiated banking relationships, as a way to diversify external financing sources and alleviate credit constraints.     

Analysing Social Capital and Product Innovativeness in the Relationship Evolution of Born-Global Companies the Mediating Role of Knowledge Acquisition

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Relatively little is known about how born-global companies (BGs) innovate abroad during their lifecycle or about how the international...     

Boundary Spanning in Local Public Service Partnerships: Coaches,advocates or enforcers?

This paper analyses the role of senior civil servants who work directly with local public service partnerships in the UK. It finds that their activities are welcomed by local actors and can have a positive impact on partnership working. They add value by acting as coaches who bring new ideas and help to build trust among local agencies and as advocates through being an important channel of communication between partnerships and national government. However, they struggle to facilitate more joined up working among national government departments whose differentiated regulatory and funding procedures impede attempts to collaborate at a local level.