A Representative Committee by Approval Balloting

A new voting rule for electing committees is described. Specifically, we use approval balloting and propose a new voting procedure that guarantees that if there is a committee that represents (with a given proportion of representatives) all of the existing voters, then the selected committee has to represent all of voters in at least the same proportion. This property is a way of selecting a committee that represents completely all of voters when such a committee exists. The usual voting rules in this context do not satisfy this condition.     

A tale of two civilizations in the era of Facebook and blockchain

Five billion people in the world do not have the kind of ledgers that provide the documented information that allows them to transfer, partition, and aggregate assets and talents in such a way that they can be scaled up, secure investment, guarantee credit, certify reputation, and capture abstract surplus value. The difficulty that most people have in making combinations is a major cause of global inequality and unnecessary poverty.     

When do unethical brand perceptions spill over to competitors?

We examine whether the unethical actions of marketplace brands (e.g., the Volkswagen emissions scandal) hurt the ethical perceptions of competing brands (e.g., Ford, BMW). Across two studies, we find evidence for this unethical spillover effect and show that it can negatively affect consumers’ liking and purchase intentions for a competing brand. The results show that the spillover effect (1) only occurs for similar competitors and (2) is moderated by construal level (CL). Specifically, the spillover effect is more likely to occur when consumers focus on the finer details of the unethical brand’s transgression (i.e., low CL) but not when they focus on the bigger picture of the transgression (i.e., high CL). Thus, while it is intuitively appealing to assume that brands may benefit from a competitor’s foible, this research indicates that competitors may be hurt by a similar brand’s wrongdoing.     

Branding strategies,marketing communication,and perceived brand meaning: The transfer of purposive,goal-oriented brand meaning to brand extensions

This article develops and tests a conceptual model of the transfer process whereby perceived similarity organized around shared goals facilitates the transfer of knowledge and affect from a parent brand to an extension of that brand. Empirical results, based on two well-known brands and two hypothetical product extensions for each brand, demonstrate that the availability of well-formed, goal-derived categories associated with a parent brand establishes an organizing framework for consumers' assessments of similarity thatfacilitates the transfer of consumer knowledge and attitude from the parent brand to a brand extension in another product category. This facilitating effect of similarity does not occur in the absence of goal-derived categories. The results also reveal how marketing communication can be used to facilitate the transfer process by framing similarity in terms of common goals. Implications are discussed for the organization of consumer knowledge and affect across product categories and for understanding prior research findings on brand extension. Ingrid M. Martin (imartin@csulb.edu) is an associate professor of marketing at California State University at Long Beach. Her research has examined issues in the area of consumer goals as they guide structuring and processing marketing information, product choice and usage. Her research has been published in theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Public Policy & Research, and five book chapters. David W. Stewart (david.stewart@marshall.usc.edu) is the Robert E. Brooker Professor of Marketing in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He is the immediate past editor of theJournal of Marketing. Dr. Stewart has authored or co-authored more than 200 publications and seven books. Shashi Matta (matta@marshall.usc.edu) is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the Marshal School of Business, University of Southern California. His research interests include branding, and services marketing. Shashi’s research has been published in theJournal of Consumer Research.     

The quality and effectiveness of marketing strategy: Effects of functional and dysfunctional conflict in intraorganizational relationships

By examining only dysfunctional conflict and ignoring functional conflict, empirical research in marketing has presented only part of the story. This research offers the first systematic look at the antecedents and consequences of both functionaland dysfunctional conflict in intraorganiational relationships. The authors develop and empirically test a causal model for key organizational antecedents of new product strategy quality and market performance. They find that dysfunctional conflict in the decision-making process has deleterious consequences for quality of strategy and market performance, whereas functional conflict improves both quality of strategy and performance. Specifically, organizational design characteristics such as formalization, interdepartmental interconnectedness, low communication barriers, and team spirit improve new product performance by enhancing functional conflict, whereas centralization and high communication barriers lower new product performance by increasing dysfunctional conflict. A post hoc test for common method bias or variance suggests that bias or variance alone cannot explain these findings. His general research interests focus on strategic issues relating to internal relationships, market learning, and organizational context of marketing strategy. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Advertising, andJournal of Services Marketing, among others. His general research interests focus on strategic issues relating to relationship marketing, firm performance, sustainable competitive advantage, timing of market entry, and information technology. His past research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Services Marketing, andMarketing Education Review, among others. His research interests are in the areas of marketing research methods, structural equations modeling, cellular automata theories and methods, and Taoist methodologies for marketing strategy. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, andJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among others.     

Ethical Transparency and Economic Medicalization

This article introduces the concept of economic medicalization where non-medical problems are transformed into medical problems in order to achieve the objective of corporate shareholder wealth maximization. Following an overview of the differences in ethical norms applicable to medical ethics and business ethics, the economic medicalization of medical research practice and publication is examined in some detail. This motivates a general discussion of the problems involved in the ethical approval process for medical research that balances the interests of both business and government in the market for medical products and services.     

Price Run-up in Housing Markets,Access to Bank Lending and House Prices in Korea

This paper studies the causal relationship between house prices and the access to bank lending in Kangnam, the hottest submarket in Seoul and four ‘cold’ markets which have shown relatively modest price increases. In response to the rapid escalation of house prices in Seoul, primarily in Kangnam in recent years, the Korean government implemented a number of policies to stabilize house prices. In particular, it introduced more strict limits on loan-to-value ratio and debt-to-income ratio as part of the mortgage loan qualification process in order to restrict the availability of bank lending for the housing market. The short-run influence of the bank lending on the apartment prices is clearly present in ‘cold’ markets, while it is not in Kangnam, the ‘hot’ market, even though the long-run influence is stronger in Kangnam than in the other markets. This result holds for the entire sample period (1999–2006) as well as for the subperiods before and after the introduction of lending restrictions in August, 2005. It also holds for Kangnam and Kangbuk for an extended period of 1988 to 2006. Our results suggest that in the short run the lending restriction may cause a disruption in untargeted housing markets while it has little influence on the apartment prices in the targeted market. We also find that banks have adjusted the bank lending in response to changes in the house prices in Kangnam as well as in the other markets.     

Natural Resources and Internal Conflict

We present a model of conflict in which each group decides to claim the country’s income and invest in arms or to accept a group neutral allocation of income and not invest in arms. Apart from the usual cooperative or conflictual societies, their strategic choice can result in hierarchically stratified societies in which one group is dominant. We show how the presence and exploitation of certain types of resources matters for the occurrence of conflict or social hierarchical stratification and for the possible effects of trust manipulation. In particular we find that, first, robust (encompassing point and lootable) resource rich economies tend to be conflictual, plantation economies hierarchically stratified and diversified economies cooperative. Second, foreign intervention, aimed at changing the balance of power in the case of conflict, is most effective in robust and diffuse resource rich economies. Third, trust manipulation (as a means to counter conflict) is most effective in subsistence and diffuse resource rich economies. Throughout the article, we cite ample case study and econometric evidence to support our model.     

Co-Evolution: Law and Institutions in International Ethics Research

Despite the importance of the co-evolution approach in various branches of research, such as strategy, organisation theory, complexity, population ecology, technology and innovation (Lewin et al., 1999; March, 1991), co-evolution has been relatively neglected in international business and ethics research (Madhok and Phene, 2001). The purpose of this article is to show how co-evolution theory provides a theoretical framework within which some issues of ethics research are addressed. Our analysis is in the context of the contrasts between business systems (North, 1990), and in particular the distinction between informal systems and those systems where institutions are formalised in law. This complements the growing research on comparative corporate governance and capitalisms (Chandler and Hikino, 1990; Choi et al., 1999; Whitley, 1994). The synthesis of co-evolution and analysis of divergent institutional environments in ethics research can also complement the globalisation and MNE approaches to international business research.