Decision Process for Adoption of Innovative Products in the European Seafood Market: The Importance of Supply and Demand Factors

This study proposes a new approach with two-dimensional point of view to test predicting factors that are influencing European trader decisions for the adoption of innovative seafood products in the distributor channels. A combination of two main predicting factors for adoption is investigated in the “supply factors” (4Ps: product, promotion, place, and price) and the “five innovation demand factors” (5IDs: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability). The findings indicate that 4Ps and 5IDs have a significant effect as controlling variables in the decision-making process for innovation adoption. This fact shows a strategic function and illustrates that supply–demand factors have a pressure effect on the innovation adoption process in the market. The results are important both for satisfying consumer expectations and for industrial innovation strategies.     

Using vignettes to study family consumption processes

The use of vignettes for qualitative consumer research is discussed in this article. More specifically, vignettes are proposed as a useful research technique for conducting systematic and rigorous studies of consumer interaction processes, in particular as these relate to family consumption issues. Following an overview of methodological and practical problems of studying consumption interaction processes in families, a discussion of how vignettes may be used to enhance knowledge of family decision‐making processes in real‐life contexts is presented. Design implications are discussed and strategies for applying the vignette method are outlined and illustrated by two recent studies of pro‐environmental consumer behavior in a family context. The paper concludes with a discussion of the benefits and the possible pitfalls of using vignettes. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Capturing institutional home country conditions for exporting SMEs

In line with recent developments in institutional theory that indicate institutional settings can explain cross-national differences, this article proposes a measure of the institutional country profile relevant to exporting small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Combined emic and etic research approaches suggest a scale, derived through in-depth interviews with French and Romanian managers in SMEs and tested with 107 French export managers. The scale is psychometrically sound and supports a three-dimensional country institutional profile of exporting SMEs that comprises regulative, cognitive, and normative dimensions. The institutional profile of a country can complement, if not substitute for, culture as an explanation of export behavior. Furthermore, the proposed instrument can help researchers and managers diagnose countries' exporting strengths and weaknesses, according to their institutional conditions.     

Labour market institutions,learning and self-employment

We develop a dynamic partial-equilibrium model to analyse how labour market institutions (wage compression, minimum wages, unemployment benefits, mobility costs and fixed-costs of self-employment) and learning affect who and when people become self-employed. We find that certain ability groups of workers become self-employed for both “carrot” and “stick” reasons: Some prefer self-employment to the low institutionalised wage, while others are not productive enough to qualify for a job at the institutionalised wage. Furthermore, wage compression and learning may give rise to a class of switchers who start in wage employment and later switch to self-employment. Several predictions of the model are consistent with observed empirical regularities, such as the existence of a group of low-skilled self-employed workers, the increasing propensity for self-employment over age groups and the larger spread in earnings among self-employed.     

Animal Welfare and Eggs – Cheap Talk or Money on the Counter?

Our estimate revealed willingness to pay for animal welfare using a panel mixed logit model. We utilise a unique household level panel, combining real purchases with survey data on perceived public and private good attributes of different types of eggs. We estimate willingness to pay for organic eggs controlling for trust in a positive connection between the public good animal welfare and the organic label and the private good food safety also connected to the label. Our results suggest that in the real world, animal welfare plays a minor role in the demand for agricultural products.     

Resident Attitudes Towards Mountain Second-Home Tourism Development in Norway: The Effects of Environmental Attitudes

Rural tourism, especially through second-home development is increasing rapidly in much of Europe, the USA and Canada offering new economic opportunities for local communities, but also challenges related to environmental impacts and differing perceptions within communities about appropriate development paths. This study examines associations between the environmental attitudes of residents and attitudes towards second-home development in two regions in Southern Norway, with community attachment and economic dependency as additional predictors. Ecocentrism was found to have a strong negative effect on attitudes towards tourism development, while, in contrast to previous findings, community attachment did not have significant effects. Economic dependency is significantly related to attitudes towards development; both ecocentrism and economic dependency are mediated by other variables, such as expected impacts and benefits. The findings are important in planning to reduce potential conflicts.     

Cardinality versus q-norm constraints for index tracking

Index tracking aims at replicating a given benchmark with a smaller number of its constituents. Different quantitative models can be set up to determine the optimal index replicating portfolio. In this paper, we propose an alternative based on imposing a constraint on the q-norm (0?<?q?<?1) of the replicating portfolios’ asset weights: the q-norm constraint regularises the problem and identifies a sparse model. Both approaches are challenging from an optimization viewpoint due to either the presence of the cardinality constraint or a non-convex constraint on the q-norm. The problem can become even more complex when non-convex distance measures or other real-world constraints are considered. We employ a hybrid heuristic as a flexible tool to tackle both optimization problems. The empirical analysis of real-world financial data allows us to compare the two index tracking approaches. Moreover, we propose a strategy to determine the optimal number of constituents and the corresponding optimal portfolio asset weights.     

How Formal Control Influences Decision‐Making Clarity and Innovation Performance

Implementing formal planning instruments such as the stage‐and‐gate‐type system (SGS) and project management (PM) have long been seen as the key to new product development (NPD) success. They create the structure needed for managing NPD activities, supporting coordination among functional groups, reducing uncertainty and error, and assuring time and cost efficiency. But recent research presents ambiguous results, suggesting that SGS and PM as formal controls can also have a negative effect. Integrating ideas from three literatures—i.e., NPD management, organization control theory, and technical control theory—the present study assesses NPD programs in terms of three perspectives: (1) the formal control mechanisms used for managing NPD programs—specifically SGS, which is mainly seen as a higher organizational level approach used for guiding and implementing a portfolio of NPD projects, and PM, which is a precise formal control mechanism relevant for managing specific problems at a single project level; (2) the immediate outcome of the application of formal controls, i.e. decision‐making clarity (DMC); and (3) degree of NPD innovativeness, a key contingency hypothesized to impact the efficacy of formal controls. For the empirical analysis, data are collected through a survey of 162 corporate NPD programs (Austria and Denmark, manufactured goods and services) where a total of 1274 respondents provide information relevant to their position. Hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the relationships. Results indicate that the performance effect of NPD formal control is fully mediated by DMC. Further, of the six hypothesized outcome relationships, four are fully supported. Both SGS and PM are effective systems for managing NPD when degree of innovativeness is not taken into account. PM, however, loses its efficacy at higher degrees of NPD program innovativeness while SGS continues to work at achieving positive DMC at the radical end of the innovativeness spectrum. Analysis of interaction effects indicates that for more innovative NPD programs, best results are achieved when companies implement an interactive system of both SGS and PM, where the two systems complement each other.     

A note on ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Marketing Channel Coordination’

Goering (2012) works on a bilateral monopoly with perfect marketing channel coordination to analyze the effects of corporate social responsibility. He starts the analysis of a bilateral monopoly with socially concerned firms where either the manufacturer or the retailer is additionally to its profit interested in a share of consumer surplus. In this short note, we extend this analysis and study the case where both firms are socially concerned. As a result, we enlarge the analysis started by Goering (2012) and get further interesting insights into a bilateral monopoly with corporate social responsibility. First, we are able to summarize ‘Proposition 1’ and ‘Proposition 4’ into a common one and figure out the circumstances when the wholesale price fixed by the manufacturer is below marginal costs. Second, we explain analytically the findings from ‘Proposition 3’ and ‘Proposition 6’. We point out the model's key assumption – the perfectly coordinated marketing channel – as the driver of the results and the reason for the equilibrium results' independence from retailer's social concern.