Customer mind-set of employees throughout the organization

Previous research has provided strong evidence for the benefits of embracing a market orientation, an organizational focus highlighting the needs of customers, and the creation of customer value. This study extends this focus on the customer to the individual worker level. A construct, customer mind-set (CMS), is developed that reflects the extent to which an individual employee believes that understanding and satisfying customers, whether internal or external to the organization, is central to the proper execution of his or her job. In this exploratory study, the authors develop a parsimonious scale for measuring CMS. Relationships between CMS and significant organizational variables are examined to establish CMS's validity and provide some tentative insights into its value to researchers and practitioners. The authors believe the CMS construct will allow for operational-level analysis of the extent to which a customer orientation is embraced throughout an organization, permitting managers to implement targeted improvement strategies. Karen Norman Kennedy is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include customer orientation and cultural change in organizations, as well as the evolving role of customers and employees in today's marketplace. Her work has been published in theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, theJournal of Services Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Marketing Education. Felicia G. Lassk is an assistant professor in the Marketing Group of Northeastern University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include customer orientation, salesperson job involvement, and measurement issues. Her articles have appeared in the theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and theJournal of Marketing Education, among others. Jerry R. Goolsby is the Hilton/Baldridge Eminent Chair of Music Industry Studies at Loyola University New Orleans. He received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University. His research interests include issues related to market orientation and its implementation, customer and employee relationships, and sales interactions. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and other marketing journals.     

Principles of Dynamic Optimization in Resource Management

The type of resource problem amenable to static analysis is distinguished from that requiring dynamic analysis. Possibly due to the apparent complexity of optimal control theory methods, often dynamic models have not been applied where they would be appropriate. In this article dynamic programming arguments are used to derive optimality conditions directly and simply. They are derived for a renewable resource such as a fishery, but they have application to resource management in general. The approach is illustrated by examples to the extraction of a depletable resource, to feeding for weight gain, and to applying fertilizer when some fertilizer carriers over from one crop season to another. Conditions for the optimal replacement of biological units are also considered.     

Defence: Markets and Bureaucracy

How can defence fit into the market economy? Gavin Kennedy, of Heriot Watt University, outlines the tension between markets and bureaucracy in national defence.     

Household Composition, Equivalence Scales and the Reliability of Income Distributions: Some Evidence for Indigenous and Other Australians

Indigenous families experience substantial and multiple forms of economic burden arising from the size and structure of their families and households. Indigenous households are more likely to have more than one family in residence than other Australian households and are more likely to be multigenerational with older Indigenous people living with younger people in extended family households. This paper seeks to characterise the economies of household size in Indigenous and other Australian households using equivalence scales that cover the range of feasible values and 1995 National Health Survey data.     

Shaping of Strategic Behavior: How Macro-Environmental Effects Pattern the Country-Level Participation of Non-US Firms in US Equity Markets

This paper examines the effects of macro-environmental variables on country-level patterns of participation by firms on the US NASDAQ stock exchange. NASDAQ’s popularity can be linked to the strength of its technological system, as well as the high frequency of listings of technology-oriented firms. Using concepts from organization theory, strategy and international business, we consider the impact of political, legal, cultural, and colonial heritage status on the strategic capital-seeking behavior of non-US companies in US markets. We empirically demonstrate that similarity in legal systems and a shared colonial heritage will influence the probability of a non-US country having firm participation on the NASDAQ. The results also indicate that the effects of institutional forces are not static processes     

Combining Bond Rating Forecasts Using Logit

Companies sometimes use statistical analysis to anticipate their bond ratings or a change in the rating. However, different statistical models can yield different ratings forecasts, and there is no clear rule for which model is preferable. We use several forecasting methods to predict bond ratings in the transportation and industrial sectors listed by Moody's bond rating service. A variant of the ordered‐logit regression‐combining method of Kamstra and Kennedy 1998 yields statistically significant, quantitatively meaningful improvements over its competitors, with very little computational cost.