A Bibliometric Review of the Special Issues of Psychology & Marketing: 1984-2020

Psychology & Marketing (P&M), an internationally reputed journal, publishes original, peer-reviewed, empirical research on the application of psychological theories and techniques to marketing. The aim of this essay is to provide a bibliometric overview of the leading trends in the special issues of P&M over its history (1984–2020). Using bibliometric techniques, we analyze the impact of the special issues via their most cited papers, most productive authors, affiliated institutions and countries, as well as the best guest editors who contributed to the selection of the most cited special issue articles. Using network analysis VOSviewer software, we also group the special issues into four clusters to identify common themes. Further, we develop graphical visualization of coauthorships, bibliographic coupling, and cocitations. Results show that the most productive contributors are from American institutions and that P&M remains well connected to other leading journals in the marketing and psychology discipline, such as the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Business Research.     

Virtual Instant Global Entrepreneurship

International entrepreneurship must be hard, because so few firms attempt it. If true, perhaps it is hard because it requires knowledge about people and places far away. It is hard because it requires mastering processes to handle business across borders. And it is hard because it requires trust in the processes and eventually in the customers elsewhere. These three elements, knowledge, mastery and trust in international business are essential to the success of international entrepreneurship for SMEs.     

Group Decision Support Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps for Causal Reasoning

Cognitive maps have been used for analysing and aiding decision-making by investigating causal links among relevant domain concepts. A fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) is an extension of a cognitive map with the additional capability of representing feedback through weighted causal links. FCMs can be used as tools for both static as well as dynamic analysis of scenarios evolving with time. An FCM represents an expert's domain knowledge in a form that lends itself to relatively easy integration into a collective knowledge base for a group involved in a decision process. The resulting group FCM has the potential to serve as a useful tool in a group decision support environment. An appropriate methodology for the development and analysis of group FCMs is required. A framework for such a methodology consisting of the development and application phases is presented.     

Managerial attitudes to social responsibility: A comparative study in India and Britain

Changes in the understanding of the relationship between business and society have led to increased interest in and discussion of the notion of corporate social responsibility.This paper offers an empirical analysis of the perceptions of top executives in the West Midlands, U.K., and in Delhi, District Ghaziabad, India, of the notion of corporate social responsibility. Organisational changes and involvement in social action programmes, and problems of implementing and monitoring Social Responsibility in two cultures, India and Britain, were explored.The results of this study are compared with results obtained from studies on American companies and some significant similarities and differences are noted.Finally, some of the implications of the acceptance of the relevance of social responsibility to industry and the social involvement of industry are discussed. A. Farooq Khan is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Commerce of the Aligarh Muslim University. He has been awarded the Common-Wealth Scholarship (1975–1978) and he visited Hungary under the Indo-Hungarian Cultural Exchange Programme (1984–1985). He has published over thirty papers and two books: Business and Society, S. Chand & Co. Ramnagar, New Delhi, 1985; and Social Responsibility and Management, Faculty of Commerce Publication, Aligarh, 1983.Adrian Atkinson is Managing Director of Human Factor Consultants (UK) Ltd.     

Why is trait scepticism not consistently reflected in state scepticism? An exploratory study into the role of aesthetic engagement

Where an auditor's sceptical disposition (trait scepticism) is directed toward non-diagnostic information, there is a risk that a sceptical consideration of diagnostic information could be diluted. This may be one reason why trait scepticism is not consistently reflected in sceptical judgments and actions (state scepticism). We develop a scale to measure an individual's predisposition toward engaging with visual elements of the environment (aesthetic engagement) and test, in two experiments employing students and practicing auditors, whether aesthetic engagement moderates the trait – state scepticism relationship. We find that aesthetic engagement attenuates the positive relationship between trait and state scepticism.     

Understanding the institutional challenges and impacts of higher education reforms in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the academic literature on policy-making at the global level by empirically showing the nature and institutional challenges of higher education reforms under NPM principles. The authors explain the key strategies adopted by Indonesia’s government and the problems it faced in reforming its higher education system. The overall result was negative. The Indonesian reforms will not bring about meaningful outcomes unless the existing institutions, and the environment in which they operate, are also reformed.     

Shrinkage estimation of the exponentiated Weibull regression model for time-to-event data

The exponentiated Weibull distribution is a convenient alternative to the generalized gamma distribution to model time-to-event data. It accommodates both monotone and nonmonotone hazard shapes, and flexible enough to describe data with wide ranging characteristics. It can also be used for regression analysis of time-to-event data. The maximum likelihood method is thus far the most widely used technique for inference, though there is a considerable body of research of improving the maximum likelihood estimators in terms of asymptotic efficiency. For example, there has recently been considerable attention on applying James–Stein shrinkage ideas to parameter estimation in regression models. We propose nonpenalty shrinkage estimation for the exponentiated Weibull regression model for time-to-event data. Comparative studies suggest that the shrinkage estimators outperform the maximum likelihood estimators in terms of statistical efficiency. Overall, the shrinkage method leads to more accurate statistical inference, a fundamental and desirable component of statistical theory.     

Is Trade Liberalisation Pro-Poor in Pakistan? Evidence from Large-Scale Manufacturing

This article aims to analyse the impact of industry-level trade liberalisation (measured through industry-specific tariff rates) on poverty in Pakistan. Combining data for tariff rates with the Labour Force Survey of Pakistan, we use quantile regression analysis to estimate the impact of changes in tariff rates on workers’ wages (associated with the manufacturing sector of Pakistan) that are at different points of the income distribution. Our findings meaningfully signal that trade liberalisation helps to reduce poverty in the economy. Based on these results, this study provides policy recommendations to reap maximum benefits from trade liberalisation.     

The Role of the Real Estate Sector in the Structural Dynamics of the Chinese Economy: An Input–Output Analysis

Market‐oriented housing reforms and the rapid urbanization process have led to spectacular growth in the Chinese real estate sector (RES). However, the changes in the role played by this sector in the structural dynamics of the Chinese economy have not been examined sufficiently. Accordingly, we analyze the intersectoral structural changes to the Chinese RES, its linkages with the rest of the economy, and its growth sources, using four Chinese input–output tables from 2002 to 2017. We depart from existing work on the RES by using the causative matrix approach and structural decomposition analysis, and obtain three main results. First, the RES, which received little non‐RES feedback during the 2002–2007 period, has subsequently received much more substantial feedback. Second, the impact of the RES on China's economic growth stems mainly from its forward linkages. Third, the growth in the RES has been driven mainly by domestic demand expansion. Our results highlight that the Chinese RES, which plays a key role in value chains, is highly dependent on its own final demand and a fall in its demand would impede economic development. An important implication of these results is that developing the national economy by stimulating the RES would not be as effective as developing the RES through stimulating the national economy.