Shopping value in online auctions: Their antecedents and outcomes

Online auctions present unique characteristics in the consumer decision-making process that raise new issues related to consumer shopping behaviors in auction-based purchases. The present research examined the relationship between consumer characteristics (i.e., compulsive buying behavior, variety-seeking tendency, and price sensitivity) and shopping value (i.e., utilitarian and hedonic) in online auctions and found that both compulsive buying behavior and variety-seeking tendency are critical factors of shopping value in the online auction environment. There were no positive relationships between price sensitivity and shopping value. The results of this study also revealed that consumers’ shopping value positively influenced their preference, which, in turn, formed behavioral intentions in online auctions. While utilitarian value was found to be a significant predictor of behavioral intentions, hedonic value was not. However, hedonic value influenced intentions indirectly through preference.     

The Role of Fashion Brand Authenticity in Product Management: A Holistic Marketing Approach

This study explores the multidimensional construct of brand authenticity and the effect of each component on brand attachment, brand commitment, and brand loyalty by focusing on fashion brands in sporting goods. For this study, two global sports brands, Nike and Adidas, were selected, and brand stimuli (cartoons with scenarios) were designed based on a qualitative analysis of brand cases. A total of 207 usable responses were obtained from Korean consumers who had purchased the selected brands. The findings show that fashion brand authenticity consisted of seven factors: authority, fashionability, consistency, innovativeness, sustainability, origin, and heritage. Of these factors, authority, fashionability, innovativeness, and sustainability were significant predictors of brand attachment, and authority, consistency, and innovativeness were significant predictors of brand loyalty. There were differences in the effects of brand authenticity on brand attachment and brand commitment between Nike and Adidas. From a managerial and holistic marketing perspective, implications are suggested regarding the importance of managing brand authenticity in product innovation and management approaches.     

Investigating the advertising–sales relationship in the Lydia Pinkham data: a bootstrap approach

The dynamic relationship between advertising and sales in the annual Lydia Pinkham data is re-evaluated. Past studies have found a feedback system, although one-way causality from advertising to sales is expected. The bootstrap method is used in this paper as an alternative to the asymptotic method exclusively adopted by past studies. The impulse response analysis based on bivariate autoregressive (AR) model is conducted. Bootstrap-after-bootstrap confidence intervals on impulse responses provide evidence that sales do not cause advertising, contrary to the findings of past studies. Comparison of bootstrap-after-bootstrap prediction intervals calculated from univariate and bivariate AR models further supports this finding. Overall, this paper finds evidence of one-way causality from advertising to sales.     

Value versus Growth International Real Estate Investment

We use office and retail properties return data for the United States and some Asia Pacific cities to ascertain the relative performance of value and growth investment strategies. The results reveal that value portfolios outperform growth portfolios. Furthermore, while the results show that risk varies over time, time‐varying risk analyses generally do not support the risk‐based explanation for the value premium. Similarly, conditional market regressions do not explain the value premium anomaly as all the alphas are positive and significant. Moreover, the results imply that naïve extrapolation of past performance could be a credible explanation for the value premium.     

Permanence discounting for land-based carbon sequestration

One major concern regarding land-based carbon sequestration involves the issue of permanence. Sequestration may not last forever and may either be released in the future or require expenditures to maintain the practices that keep it sequestered. In this paper, we investigate the differential value of offsets in the face of impermanent characteristics by forming a price discount that equalizes the effective price per ton between a “perfect offset” and one possessing some with impermanent characteristics. We find this discount to be a function of the future needs to replace offsets (in the face of lease expiration quantity or volatilization upon activities such as timber harvest) and the magnitude of any needed maintenance costs. We investigate the magnitude of the discounts under alternative agricultural tillage and forest management cases. In those studies, we find that permanence discounts in the range of 50% are not uncommon. This means that in the market place an impermanent sequestration offset may only receive payments amounting to 50% of the market carbon price. Furthermore, we find that in the face of escalating carbon prices that offsets may prove to be worthless.     

Stochastic Volatility: Likelihood Inference and Comparison with ARCH Models

In this paper, Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling methods are exploited to provide a unified, practical likelihood-based framework for the analysis of stochastic volatility models. A highly effective method is developed that samples all the unobserved volatilities at once using an approximating offset mixture model, followed by an importance reweighting procedure. This approach is compared with several alternative methods using real data. The paper also develops simulation-based methods for filtering, likelihood evaluation and model failure diagnostics. The issue of model choice using non-nested likelihood ratios and Bayes factors is also investigated. These methods are used to compare the fit of stochastic volatility and GARCH models. All the procedures are illustrated in detail.     

Behavioral Commitment Among the Automobile Workers in South Korea

The research reported in this article evaluates the extent to which the theoretical constructs established as determinants of behavioral commitment in the U.S. have cross-cultural validity in South Korea. A causal model developed and validated in the U.S. is estimated among automobile workers in Korea and the results indicate 18 prominent determinants: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job search, met expectations, legitimacy, transfer costs, positive and negative affectivity, opportunity, role conflict and ambiguity, spouse and supervisor support, routinization, autonomy, job hazards, involvement, and distributive justice. These are fundamental explanatory constructs that have long been affirmed in the U.S., and, as such, this study suggests evidence to support their cross-cultural validity. In spite of several Korean cultural characteristics that are relevant to employee behavioral commitment, the theoretical constructs explaining behavioral commitment are generally the same between the U.S. and Korea. The findings are interpreted with discussions of the implications.     

Cultural resistance to fast‐food consumption? A study of youth in North Eastern Thailand

Increased intake of saturated fat and refined sugars underlies much of the problem of emerging obesity all over the world. This includes middle-income countries like Thailand, which are subject to successful marketing of Western fast foods especially targeted at adolescents. In this study we explore the socio-cultural influences on fast-food intake for non-metropolitan (rural and urban) adolescents in North East Thailand (Isan). Our questionnaire sample included 634 persons aged 15-19 years who are in and out of formal schooling and who are randomly representing upper, central and lower Isan. All were asked about their knowledge of fast-food health risks and their attitudes towards, and consumption of, fast food and traditional food. As well, we used several focus groups to obtain qualitative data to complement the information derived from the questionnaire. Some three quarters of sampled youth were aware that fast food causes obesity and half knew of the link to heart disease. About half consumed fast food regularly, induced by the appeal of 'modern' lifestyles, social events and marketing, as well as by the convenience, speed and taste. Nearly two-thirds thought that local foods should be more popular and these beliefs were more likely to be found among children from educated and urban families. Local foods already constitute a cultural resistance to fast-food uptake. We propose several methods to boost this resistance and protect the youth of Thailand against fast food and its many adverse health consequences.     

Intangible Assets and the Network Structure of MNCs

This paper examines the nature of the relationship between corporate intangible assets and the multinational network structure of the firm. Specifically, the question addressed in this paper is whether the nature of corporate intangible assets determines the mode of geographic expansion of the MNC. The interactive effects between the level and type of corporate intangibles and the foreign expansion path of MNCs are also examined. Based on the analysis of 362 MNCs, representing 88 three-digit SIC industries, the results of this study show that R&D-intensive MNCs maintain substantially more geographically diversified and less geographically focused operating networks than advertising-intensive MNCs. Furthermore, R&D-intensive MNCs' foreign investments create more value through geographic diversification, while non-R&D-intensive MNCs benefit the most by increasing the geographic focus of their foreign investment activities. We also document that MNCs without significant levels of technology know-how and marketing based intangible assets can benefit the most from geographic-focused rather than geographic-diversified foreign business operations.     

John Patrick Diggins. Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and Making of History

More words have been written about Ronald Reagan than most otherpresidents combined, but few of these volumes are serious historicaltreatments—the history has been too fresh and the archivalmaterial too difficult to access. As a result, while the literatureon Reagan is vast, the scholarship has been scanty. But, overthe past few years several books on Reagan have appeared (includingRichard Reeves' President Reagan and Gil Troy's Morning