Clothing,chips and competitive advantage: The impact of microelectronics on trade and production in the garment industry

This paper presents the results of a research project which examined the impact of microelectronics on the nature of production and the patterns of international trade in the clothing industry. Empirical evidence is given on the effects of microelectronics-related innovations currently being used by clothing manufacturers in the developed countries. Radical innovations have been introduced in the ‘pre-assembly’ stage which have revolutionized this phase of production. In contrast, the introduction of microelectronics into assembly technology is still limited. As a result, the clothing industry remains reliant on labor-intensive techniques that place it at a competitive disadvantage compared to low-wage developing countries. Hence, the determinants of international competitive advantage in the industry remain largely unaltered. However, due to increasing concentration and major new R&D efforts in the public and private sector, it is argued that the preconditions are being laid for a fundamental structural and technological transformation of the industry in the North, which could have very important implications for the competitive position of Third World clothing exporters. Emphasis is also placed upon the continued restraining effects of protectionist barriers imposed by the main importing nations and on the differential impact of this on the ability of newer entrants to achieve rapid and sustained export growth.     

Alleged instability of the Okun's law relationship in Australia: an empirical analysis

The determinants of the long run equilibrium unemployment rate are modelled through a cointegrating regression. The residual term, which represents the error correction mechanism, is used in the testing of a general dynamic model to obtain a simplified representation of the data generation process over the period 1968(2)–1989(2). The long period equilibrium unemployment rate, which is I(1), is shown to be related to the rate of capacity utilization, a structural change variable and the rate of capacity growth. Steady state rates of unemployment are calculated which are based on different assumptions about the magnitudes of the independent variables. In contrast to the other two variables, changes in the rate of capacity utilization are shown to have only modest effects on the steady state unemployment rate. The Okun coefficient is inversely related to the steady state unemployment rate, which accords with intuition. The statistically significant decline in the trend growth rate of non-farm GDP in the 1970s explains, in part, the apparent instability of the Okun's law relationship which is revealed in recent studies. These studies can be criticised for their conometric methodologies.     

Local Economic Performance and Election Outcomes

This paper uses a logit model to test whether voters will alter their support for incumbents in state level elections, specifically gubernatorial and state house and senate elections, when local (i.e., county) economic conditions are observed. The results signify that voters do hold the incumbent party responsible for economic conditions. Furthermore, voters tend to place more emphasis on unemployment levels than on real personal income indicating that incumbent politicians might want to engage in policies that put people to work rather than on policies that raise income. The results also suggest that voters did not hold their state house and senate representative as responsible for local economic conditions as they did the governor.     

Mobile diaries – Benchmark against metered measurements: An empirical investigation

Researchers seeking to study the relationships between consumers' communications, attitudes, and behaviors could benefit from monitoring consumers over time, across multiple locations and channels, and in a way that reflects consumers' subjective perceptions. Diaries on smartphones (mobile diaries) can be used as a research tool for such purposes. A mobile diary is a self-report instrument whereby people use their mobile handset to repeatedly report experiences of interest. Mobile diaries are increasingly used in psychology, geography, medicine, and commercial marketing. Yet they have rarely been used for quantitative marketing research, and were not benchmarked against best-practice metrics in marketing.In this study, we aim to set the ground for using mobile diaries in quantitative marketing research. We first lay out the theoretical infrastructure for the usage of mobile diaries, and describe possible respondent reporting concerns, including concerns related to non-reporting, reporting over time, and concerns stemming from individual-level heterogeneity.We demonstrate the potential of mobile diaries, as well as the importance of the various concerns, using a benchmark test case in the context of primetime TV viewing. Our benchmark uses a sample of respondents with both mobile diary viewing reports and Nielsen People Meter (NPM) records. Our analysis reveals that averaging across all conditions, 47.4%–64.7% of the NPM records are reported by the diary. The major sources for mismatch are random time periods without alarms, short viewings, and periodic reporting inactivity (pulsing). Concerns such as a decrease in reporting rates over time (e.g., fatigue), smartphone ownership, and demographic variation across individuals have relatively small effects on reporting likelihood. Analyzing the cases in which diary reports do not have a matching NPM record, we find many of them can be attributed to out-of-home viewing and viewing on non-metered devices. This finding demonstrates how mobile diaries can complement metered measurements. Overall, aggregate diary-based ratings have a 0.90 correlation with NPM ratings.We discuss implications for designing and using mobile diary studies in marketing.     

On voluntarism and the role of governments in CSR: towards a contingency approach

In the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, the principle of voluntarism is predominant and implies that responsible business activities are discretionary and reach beyond the rule of law. This principle fails to explain that governments have a great interest in CSR and exercise influence on firms’ CSR activities. Therefore, we argue in favour of a contingency approach on voluntarism in CSR. To this end, we analyse the academic literature to demonstrate how governments are part of the CSR debate. We selected 703 papers where the impact of governments is mentioned from five journals in our field (BEER, BEQ, BSE, BAS, JBE) in the period 1982–2011. We studied the titles and abstracts of these papers and provide an overview of: (i) the geographical orientation of the reviewed studies; (ii) the variety of government levels involved; and (iii) the various subjects where governments appear to be involved. In addition, an in‐depth reading of a subsample of 39 articles offers more details on the role of governments in the CSR literature. Hence, we offer a structured overview on the discussion of CSR and governments while stimulating a contingent understanding of the voluntarism concept in CSR.     

Does Consumer Well‐Being Affect Hedonic Consumption?

This article presents a theoretical model that reveals how consumers’ long‐term subjective well‐being (SWB) influences their spending on hedonic products. Using the longitudinal data from a large national panel survey, the study found that consumers’ SWB influences spending on hedonic products via the mediating effects of their positive interpretation of life circumstances and broadened set of activities resulting from positive emotions. The results are explained using cognitive tuning theory and broaden‐and‐build theory and have implications for hedonic products providers in terms of who their target audience is and how demand for their products is generated.     

Modeling Ethical Business Culture: Development of the Ethical Business Culture Survey and Its Use to Validate the CEBC Model of Ethical Business Culture

This article reports the results of research to develop a survey instrument and its use to validate an ethical business culture construct (CEBC Model). The reported three-stage quantitative study builds on our previous qualitative work, aimed at identifying dimensions of ethical business cultures. The research resulted in a parsimonious construct, covering five dimensions of ethical business cultures, and a ten-question instrument, measuring this construct. In this article, we report results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and convergent construct validity testing, discuss the potential applications of the construct and instrument in assessment and development of ethical business cultures, and provide recommendations for industry practitioners and for further research.