Store environment and consumer purchase behavior: Mediating role of consumer emotions

This article presents a large-scale cross-sectional field study of the effect of store environment on consumer emotions and the resulting influence on aspects of consumer behavior with actual shopping behavior used as an example. Cast into a stimulus–organism–response framework, the results suggest that a consumer's emotions can be a mediating factor in the purchase process. In this study, we identify and explore how store environment and emotional states may influence various dimensions of purchase behavior. This research confirms that although cognitive factors may largely account for store selection and for most planned purchases within the store, the environment in the store and the emotional state of consumers may be important determinants of purchase behavior. This research has many pragmatic applications, because pleasure was associated with the amount of money spent and affinity for the store, whereas arousal was associated with money spent in the store, time spent in the store, and the number of items purchased in the store. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Founding Family Firms,CEO Incentive Pay,and Dual Agency Problems

This paper contributes to the literature on agency theory by examining relations between family involvement and CEO compensation. Using a panel of 362 small U.S. listed firms, we analyze how founding families influence firm performance through option portfolio price sensitivity. Consistent with the dual agency framework, we find that family firms have lower CEO incentive pay, which is further reduced by higher executive ownership. Interestingly, such incentive pay offsets the positive impact that families have on firm valuation. Collectively, our results show that, compared with nonfamily firms, lower incentive pay adopted by family firms due to lower agency costs mitigates the direct effect of family involvement on firm performance. Once accounting for CEO incentive pay, we do not observe performance differences between family and nonfamily firms.     

Self-selection and variations in the laboratory measurement of other-regarding preferences across subject pools: evidence from one college student and two adult samples

We measure the other-regarding behavior in samples from three related populations in the upper Midwest of the United States: college students, non-student adults from the community surrounding the college, and adult trainee truckers in a residential training program. The use of typical experimental economics recruitment procedures made the first two groups substantially self-selected. Because the context reduced the opportunity cost of participating dramatically, 91 % of the adult trainees solicited participated, leaving little scope for self-selection in this sample. We find no differences in the elicited other-regarding preferences between the self-selected adults and the adult trainees, suggesting that selection is unlikely to bias inferences about the prevalence of other-regarding preferences among non-student adult subjects. Our data also reject the more specific hypothesis that approval-seeking subjects are the ones most likely to select into experiments. Finally, we observe a large difference between self-selected college students and self-selected adults: the students appear considerably less pro-social.     

Monetary disequilibria and the euro/dollar exchange rate

Although stable money demand functions are crucial for the monetary model of the exchange rate, empirical research on exchange rates and money demand is more or less disconnected. This paper tries to fill the gap for the euro/dollar exchange rate. We investigate whether monetary disequilibria provided by the empirical literature on US and European money demand functions contain useful information about exchange rate movements. Our results suggest that the empirical performance of the monetary exchange rate model improves when insights from the money demand literature are explicitly taken into account.     

Biosecurity risk and peri‐urban landholders – using a stakeholder consultative approach to build a risk communication strategy

This article presents a straightforward and highly participatory methodology for addressing government agencies’ concerns with effective communication strategies for biosecurity when stakeholders are diverse and there is uncertainty about their levels of knowledge. The case study was among peri‐urban landholders in an area where serious animal disease infestation has occurred within the last 10 years. Initially we engaged stakeholders in a consultative process that included establishing a stakeholder influence and interest map for both weeds and animal diseases. This was followed with a mental model approach involving surveys and in‐depth interviews. We elicited information about landholders’ knowledge, practices, values and beliefs regarding biosecurity risk. Our consultative process generated examples that indicate that effective risk communication relies on establishing and affirming mutual levels of trust and credibility between landholders and agencies. While this finding is not surprising, we argue that attention to stakeholder consultative processes is central to overcoming barriers to changing practices and building awareness. Secondly, our data confirmed that while smaller landholders were the initial target for the communication, all landholders represented a similar level of biosecurity risk. Therefore, our approach was critical in overcoming external assumptions about particular actors. Finally, our data pointed to the need to develop a whole of landscape approach to biosecurity risk communication strategy in consultation with local stakeholders.     

Adoption of weather‐index insurance: learning from willingness to pay among a panel of households in rural Ethiopia

In this article we examine which farmers would be early entrants into weather‐index insurance markets in Ethiopia, were such markets to develop on a large scale. We do this by examining the determinants of willingness to pay for weather insurance among 1,400 Ethiopian households that have been tracked for 15 years as part of the Ethiopian Rural household Survey. This provides both historical and current information with which to assess the determinants of demand. We find that educated, wealthier individuals are more likely to purchase insurance. Risk aversion is associated with low insurance take‐up suggesting that models of technology adoption can inform the purchase and spread of weather index insurance. We also assess how willingness to pay varied as two key characteristics of the contract were varied and found that basis risk reduces demand for insurance particularly when the price of the contract is high, and that provision of insurance through groups is preferred by female headed households and individuals with lower levels of education.     

Wage and hour violations in urban labour markets: a comparison of Los Angeles,New York and Chicago

This article compares violations of minimum wage laws and other labour standards in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. Los Angeles has the highest violation rates, due to such factors as its industrial composition and disproportionately large number of small establishments, as well as its vast unauthorised immigrant population. In addition, Los Angeles’ higher rates reflect the stricter legal standards in California. We conclude that, although stronger workplace laws and regulations are crucial, in the absence of effective enforcement, they may fail to prevent workplace violations.     

The Evolution of Enterprise Unionism in Japan: A Socio‐Political Perspective

This article proposes an alternative framework for understanding enterprise unionism by emphasizing political dynamics and the role of the state in labour relations. Our framework delineates the strategic behaviour patterns of each of the tripartite IR actors under collective bargaining. It maintains that the initial period of the collective bargaining era constituted a critical juncture for state labour policy that occurred in distinctive ways in different countries and that these differences played a central role in shaping the different union structures in the following decades. Our historical analysis shows that unlike its Western counterparts, the Japanese state was able to eradicate the horizontal union movement at the onset of the collective bargaining era because of its advantages as a late developer and Cold War politics, which resulted in enterprise unionism in Japan.     

Getting the word out: Enforcement information dissemination and compliance behavior

The question for the tax authority is how individuals become aware of enforcement effort. To be an effective tool in reducing tax evasion taxpayers must be aware of the current audit and penalty regime. We use laboratory experiments to examine the compliance impact of types of information dissemination regarding audit frequency and results. The information includes “official” information disseminated by the tax authority, and “unofficial”, or informal, communications among taxpayers. Our results indicate that the effect of the type of post-audit information is conditional on whether the taxpayer is well informed of the audit rate prior to filing. We find that the tax authority would be served by pre-announcing audit rates credibly and by emphasizing the previous period audit frequency in annual reporting of enforcement effort.