Effects of Lightness‐Location Congruency on Consumers’ Purchase Decision‐Making

A considerable body of psychological and neuroscientific research has demonstrated the existence of robust sensory correspondences between various features, attributes, or dimensions of experience in different sensory modalities. Despite findings indicating the importance of sensory correspondences to human information processing, research on purchase decision‐making has not to date focused sufficiently on this phenomenon. The present study examines how the lightness of packaging colors, and the location of products on a display shelf interact to affect consumers’ purchase decision‐making via perceived visual heaviness. As predicted, a display with light (dark) colored products positioned in the upper (lower) shelf positions increases shoppers’ perceptual fluency and facilitates their visual search, thus leading to the suggestion that “light” (heavy) locations are most appropriate for light (dark) colored products. Moreover, the lightness‐location congruent display is shown to influence people's choice behavior positively as well. This research also demonstrates that when consumers consider the lightness (in terms of their weight) of the products, they are more likely to choose light (vs. dark) colored products located in the upper shelf positions. These results therefore demonstrate that consumers’ purchase decision‐making may be promoted by in‐store environments designed to be congruent with their sensory correspondences.     

Global Liquidity and Commodity Prices

While monetary easing and increasing participation of financial institutions in commodity trading have enhanced the financialization of commodity markets, this paper investigates empirically whether the impact of global liquidity on commodity prices has grown since the crisis. For each commodity group, this paper uses a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model to address the short‐run relationship between global liquidity and commodity prices. The key finding is that the effect of global liquidity on commodity prices becomes more salient since the global financial crisis. This paper also suggests a price‐based liquidity indicator has a greater explanatory power for the commodity price dynamics than monetary aggregates.     

The ethical profile of global marketing negotiators

As international trade and business opportunities grow globally, insight into trading partners’ strategies is essential. One of the major strategies that impact trading partners’ relationships is negotiation strategy employed by each partner. These strategies assume even greater importance when these strategies have ethical content. This study examines the effects of marketing executives’ preferred ethical ideologies (relativism and idealism), opportunism and Machiavellianism on their perceived appropriateness of unethical negotiation tactics. Utilizing a sample of 995 marketing executives from six countries, cluster analysis and multivariate analysis of variance revealed two types of marketing negotiators: principled and corrupt negotiators. Corrupt negotiators tend to be more Machiavellian, more relativist, more opportunistic and less idealistic than their principled counterparts. Principled negotiators tend to perceive unethical negotiation tactics less favorably than their corrupt counterparts. Implications of these results for practitioners and directions for future research are discussed.     

Individual Large Shareholders,Earnings Management,and Capital‐Market Consequences

Using a large hand‐collected sample of all blockholders (ownership ≥ 5%) of S&P 1500 firms for the years 2002–2009, we first document significant individual blockholder effects on earnings management (accrual‐based earnings management, real earnings management, and restatements). This association is driven primarily by these large shareholders influencing rather than selecting firms’ financial reporting practices. Second, the market's reaction to earnings announcements suggests that investors recognize the heterogeneity in blockholders’ influence on earnings management. The results highlight the highly individualized effects of blockholders and a mechanism through which shareholders impact reported earnings.     

CORRUPTION AND MICROCREDIT INTEREST RATES: DOES REGULATION HELP?

Misunderstandings about the structure of microcredit interest rates continue to generate rich criticism of the industry's high interest rates. Research has focused attention on the cost structure of interest rates and, more recently, on macroeconomic and macro‐institutional factors. While the cost structure is probably the most important determinant of interest rates, other factors also matter. In addition to other important results that usually validate the empirical literature, this paper finds that microcredit interest rates respond positively to corruption. The analysis shows that there is asymmetry between the effects of corruption, depending on whether or not the MFIs are regulated. While corruption has a positive and significant impact on interest rates of unregulated MFIs, it has a negligible impact on interest rates of regulated MFIs.     

The Influence of Plan Demographics on Contribution Behavior of 401(k) Participants

This article examines the influence of plan demographics, which is defined as the salary and tenure composition of a plan, on contribution behavior of 401(k) participants. Results using a large sample of 401(k) plans show that plan demographics influence participant contribution rates directly or through interaction with individual demographic characteristics. A participant's contribution rate can be varied by 1.6–3.0 percentage points for each age between 25 and 64, depending on what plan demographics she is exposed to. In addition, for the decision to contribute the maximum allowed amount, plan demographics significantly interact with individual demographic characteristics.     

To post or not to post: social media sharing and sporting event performance

Social networks are becoming increasingly important for consumers, especially in the context of sport, where the service experience is highly intense. Few studies have combined subjective event performance variables and social network variables to analyze social network content sharing by sports practitioners. This article investigates the use of social networks in relation to sporting events. An empirical study examined the role of social network variables and sporting event performance variables in social media use. The sample consisted of 410 triathletes (72.2% male) aged between 18 and 66 years (mean 37.03 ± 8.62). Four analyses were performed using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis to examine the causes of sharing comments through social media, sharing photos and videos on social media, participant satisfaction, and word‐of‐mouth (WOM). The event's general image was a necessary condition in all cases. The combination of participants’ satisfaction and positive event image and the combination of social network use and positive event image lead to social network content sharing by athletes. The combination of positive event image and participant satisfaction leads to a positive WOM.     

To blow or not to blow the whistle: the effects of potential harm,social pressure and organisational commitment on whistleblowing intention and behaviour

This study uses a rational ethical decision‐making framework to examine the influence of moral intensity (potential harm and social pressure) on whistleblowing intention and behaviour using organisational commitment as a moderator. A scenario was developed, and an online questionnaire was used to conduct an empirical analysis on the responses of 533 participants. The mean age and years of work experience of the respondents were 31 and 8.2 years, respectively. The results show, first, that while moral intensity is correlated with whistleblowing intention, only the potential harm is positively correlated with such intention. Second, potential harm and social pressure differentially affect whistleblower choice of using an internal or external channel. Third, organisational commitment has a moderated mediation effect among moral intensity, whistleblowing intention and behaviour. Fourth, whistleblowers may be grouped into four conceptual types: indifferent, rebel, mature and spoil. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

TRADE AND DIVERGENCE IN EDUCATION SYSTEMS

This article presents a theory on the endogenous choice of education policy and the two‐way causal relationship between trade and education systems. A country's education system determines its talent distribution and comparative advantage; the possibility of trade by raising the returns to the sector of comparative advantage in turn induces countries to further differentiate their education systems and reinforces the initial pattern of comparative advantage. Specifically, the Nash equilibrium choice of education systems by two countries interacting strategically are necessarily more divergent than their autarky choices, and yet less than what is socially optimal for the world.