‘The Impact of Personal and Organizational Moral Philosophies on Marketing Exchange Relationships: A Simulation Using the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game’

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of individual and firm moral philosophies on marketing exchange relationships. Personal moral philosophies range from the extreme forms of true altruists and true egoists, along with three hybrids that represent middle ground (i.e., realistic altruists, tit-for-tats, and realistic egoists). Organizational postures are defined as Ethical Paradigm, Unethical Paradigm, and Neutral Paradigm, which result in changes to personal moral philosophies and company and industry performance. The study context is a simulation of an exchange environment using a variation of the prisoners’ dilemma game. A literature review is provided in the opening section, followed by details on the simulation, discussion of the results, and the implications for theory and practice.     

Measuring low skills in Europe: how useful is the ISCED framework?

This paper aims to find a suitable definition of a low skilledworker, that can be applied in a consistent way across the variouscountries of the European Union. The International StandardClassification of Education (ISCED) is identified as the mostsuitable means of measuring skills over time and space, as thoseindividuals categorised as less than ISCED 3 are labelled ‘low-skilled’.The paper then uses three international surveys of educationalperformance to justify this choice. It is shown that those inthe <ISCED 3 group are likely to have a limited grasp ofthe skills needed in the modern workplace, and that this definitionalgroup captures most individuals who are categorised as low-skilledby more objective means. Thus this definition of low-skilledworkers appears to be useful and appropriate.     

A qualitative response analysis of UK firms' employment and output decisions

This paper investigates firms' employment and output decisions and presents some empirical evidence concerning the rationality of firms' expectations. The dymanic model is based on the assumptions of convex adjustment costs and monopolistic competition in the product market. The results are obtained using categorical information on individual firms contained in business surveys collected by the Confederation of British Industry. Ordered probit models are used to estimate the employment and output equations. We find that expected demand is a critical determinant of firms' decisions, the effect of changes in cost conditions is not as well determined, and the data are not consistent with the rational expectations hypothesis.     

Household decision-making for everyday travel: a case study of walking and cycling in Lancaster (UK)

Increased walking and cycling for short journeys in urban areas has many obvious advantages yet so far gains from the promotion of more sustainable travel of this type are mostly small. This paper reports on a large research project which uses a mixed method approach to explore attitudes to and perceptions of walking and cycling, and which examines the process of household decision-making for everyday travel and the constraints that this imposes. Using survey, interview and ethnographic data it is argued that many people hold ambiguous and sometimes contradictory views of walking and cycling as effective means of everyday travel, that what they do rarely matches precisely what they believe, and that the complexity and contingency associated with everyday travel for many households is a major barrier to the use of more sustainable travel modes. It is suggested that better understanding of these processes could help to inform both future transport policy and the promotion of walking and cycling for short trips in urban areas.     

Training and Labour Market Flexibility: Is There a Trade-off?

This paper explores the nexus between work-related training and labour market 'flexibility' (which we proxy by contract type, part-time employment and lack of union coverage), using the first five waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) conducted over the period 1991–5. Our results show that workers on short-term employment contracts, who are working part-time or are not covered by a union collective agreement, are significantly less likely to be involved in any work-related training to improve or increase their skills. These findings suggest that there is a trade-off between expanding the more marginal forms of employment and expanding the proportion of the work-force getting work-related training.     

Winning the battle for customers

A financial organisation's ability to retain its customer franchise faces ever-greater challenges from new competitors in the market-place, both locally and globally. Retention is not just a function of keeping customers happy. More than ever, organisations need to know what risks they run of losing customers: which customers, how many and why. Additionally, both the new players in the market and the traditional players need to know how and where they can win new customers. This paper focuses on a new approach to these issues based on global findings. The focus is on the UK banking industry, comparing the new players in the market using direct channels with the traditional high street banks.     

Homogeneity and heterogeneity in information technology private standard settings – the institutional account

The IT (information technology) standardisation landscape is characterised by the increasing importance of private standard setting consortia, a greater convergence between the structural features of formal and private standard organisations, and greater diversity in standard organisations. Institutional theory has been applied to explain the convergence of standard setting bodies. This paper applies institutional theory to four studies of standards organisations, showing that there are indeed homogenising mimetic, coercive and normative forces in standard setting that lead to the convergence of emergent organisations with the institutional features, but that there are also forces promoting heterogeneity, in particular the multiplicity of institutional fields within which standards consortia operate, leading to a complex, and often conflicting, matrix of institutional norms to be accommodated.