Consumer transactions with SMEs: implications for consumer scholars

Historically, the consumer movement has defined business as big business. This paper proposes that we shift the focus to consumer transactions with small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). After SMEs are defined, facts about the realities of SMEs are used as stepping stones to develop the idea that consumer interactions with SMEs are different than those with large firms and merit the attention of consumer scholars. Thirteen recommendations are tendered for future research including rethinking our traditional approach to consumer behaviour theory, consumer policy, and consumer movement theory.     

Applying sales promotion competitions to nonprofit contexts

This paper discusses the applicability of sales promotions within not‐for‐profit (NFP) marketing, and argues that some of the widely held prejudices about sales promotions have acted to obscure their potential contribution to a range of NFP markets. Understanding this potential requires a clearer understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of specific sales promotion techniques. The paper presents frameworks for classifying both sales promotions and marketing contexts, which can help an understanding of which sales promotions might work in particular NFP contexts. The paper then focuses on a specific type of sales promotion, which represents a potentially valuable and versatile tool for NFP marketers, the sales promotion competition. It details the benefits that sales promotion competitions can offer NFP marketers, and also contributes some guidelines to aid in running them effectively. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Feminist praxis in a trade union gender project

Research as political feminist engagement is explored through analysis of a collaborative west–east European gender equality project with trade union women. Similarities with and differences between forms of labourist and feminist research praxis are discussed. These are brought together through the Freirian concept of conscientizacao or conscientisation, a dialogic pedagogy which has at its core the dialectic of reflection and action. It is proposed that such a framework can be usefully deployed for gendering analysis of ‘engaged’ industrial relations.     

Work-Related Stress: An Ethical Perspective

Work-related stress is too often neglected by employers and rarely seen as an ethical issue by them. Its moral implications are explored here by the Senior Corporate Policy Manager at City and Inner London North Training and Enterprise Council, 80 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3DP. Sue Bryan, M.A., A.M.I.P.D., is also completing an Executive MBA degree at London Business School.     

Impact analysis of September 11 on air travel demand in the USA

This study uses an intervention model to look at the impact of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on air transport passenger demand in the US. The result showed that both domestic and international air traffic was significantly impacted for 1 and 2 months, respectively. The impact pattern was thus abrupt and temporary, instead of gradual and permanent. The approach also provides better forecasts than the seasonal ARIMA benchmark.     

The CEO and the external environment

This study confirms other studies and public choice microeconomic theory: CEOs spend more time on issues external to their firms in today's volatile business environment.     

Living Decently

One of the reasons why poverty lines became popular at the turn of the century was their promise of a scientific technique that would dispense with moralising about poverty. We argue that a price paid in this quest has been an impoverishment of the richness of the notion of 'a decent life', the moral concept underlying poverty. In addition, poverty lines have in practice been more to do with inequality at the bottom end of the income distribution than with poverty. The purpose of this article is to rehabilitate the measurement of poverty, and to make it credible. We set out our preferred method of poverty measurement, and illustrate it using data from the Australian Standard of Living Study. A feature of our approach is to distinguish clearly between issues of inequality and issues of poverty. Questions such as who is on the bottom of the income distribution, whether this has changed over time, and how income levels of the worst off compare with the mean, are questions of inequality. As such, the answers tell us nothing at all about how the worst off are actually living. To answer that question, we require direct measures of consumption and of social participation. These measures are not as simple, but they provide us with knowledge about poverty that poverty lines have promised, but have not delivered in a credible fashion.