Estimating Coaching Efficiency in Professional Team Sports: Evidence from English Association Football

This study provides a review of the literature on sporting production functions with an emphasis on different input‐output specifications and alternative estimation procedures. Empirical evidence is reported for English association football on the robustness of estimates of coaching efficiency to changes in estimation methods and the definition of team performance and playing talent inputs. A measure of player quality based on predicted start‐of‐season transfer values is developed. It is found that the estimation of coaching efficiency is sensitive to the choice of time‐invariant efficiency models versus time‐varying and inefficiency effects models. It is also found that the results are little affected by different measures of team performance but are highly sensitive to the use of an ex post financial expenditure input measure. Ex ante input measures based on start‐of‐season player characteristics or predicted transfer values are recommended as more appropriate on both theoretical and empirical grounds.     

亚洲通胀的真正威胁在于资本的大规模流入

【美国《市场观察》5月16日】在未来几年之中，通胀问题以及应对之策都将是亚洲面临的中心政策议题。今后几个季度，外需对亚洲经济增长的推动作用将逐渐减弱。在这种情况下，迅速攀升的通胀率势必会加剧政治压力，并影响亚洲向内需导向型经济增长的平稳转变。进入2008年之时，注重经济增长的亚洲决策者曾希望通过降息来刺激内需，以便弥补外需的损失。而今，他们非但不能降息，而且还可能要被迫加息。     

A promotion mix budgeting model for retailing

Our two-equation model of retail promotion provides a well-balanced explanation of both retailers' perceptions of promotion tools and their budget allocation across the promotion mix. While previous studies have examined each of these two components separately, few have integrated both in the one study. Factor analysis was used to simplify the choices of promotion tools. This reduced the number of promotion tools to four, namely mass media, in-store promotion, sales promotion/direct mail and personal selling. We support earlier studies which link budget promotion mix spending (behaviour) to perceptions about the effectiveness of each medium (attitude). The range of determinants of perceptions has been extended by incorporating the roles of retail strategy, store ownership, culture and promotion intensity. We have estimated the budget promotion mix equation using a production function theoretical framework. Although this makes little difference to the strong relationship between retailers' perceptions of promotion tools and budget allocations, the theoretical framework does enable formal estimation of cross-media substitution. We find that the two short-term oriented promotion media are substitutes. Our model has been applied to apparel retailing in Australia, with considerable scope for applications to other retail categories and to other countries.     

Book review

Sales Management Concepts and Cases (4th Edition) by Douglas J. Dalrymple and William L. Cron. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York, 1992). 758 pages. £18.95. ISBN 0 471 57258 6.     

Strategic and organisational determinants of sophistication in deployed sales force automation systems within three industry sectors in the UK

Abstract

This paper investigates strategic and organisational context determinants of the sophistication of adopted sales force automation (SFA) systems in three UK industries: financial services, pharmaceuticals, and building/construction. Sophistication of adopted systems is associated with the organisation placing greater emphasis on information orientation, which is itself driven by an increased integration of IT and sales coupled with increased organisational slack. Increased integration of IT and sales is itself driven by increased strategic importance of sales coupled with increased use of internal communication networks. Importantly, a firm's marketing orientation, although also driven by the strategic importance of sales, has no impact on either information orientation or SFA sophistication. We discuss the implications of our findings to aid understanding of SFA implementation failure.     

‘Gone to Gowings’ - An Analysis of Success Factors in Retail Longevity: Gowings of Sydney

Low productivity within service industries has been a major concern, but this situation is unlikely to improve without a general change in the way productivity is measured and managed. This paper aims to illustrate the value of stepwise data envelopment analysis (DEA) for measuring and benchmarking productivity. The issues and problems regarding productivity measurement as well as the advantages of using DEA in productivity measurement are analysed. The article extends current DEA applications by developing a stepwise approach to DEA. The latter technique combines correlation and DEA analysis for developing robust models and sound productivity measurement. The advantages of the proposed methodology are illustrated by applying it to a dataset of three-star hotels in the UK. Six inputs and three outputs are identified as the factors affecting rooms division efficiency in three star hotels.     

Female franchisees; a lost opportunity for franchising sector growth?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate why female franchisees are under-represented in franchise ownership. A qualitative approach was adopted using a collective, instrumental case study of 30 female franchisees. A number of different types of influences were identified in the literature and then elucidated and assessed. It was found that push and pull factors, work–family life balance, franchising sector characteristics and external influences act as variable incentives and disincentives among female franchisees’ selection of the franchise business model with different levels of risk-taking propensity. The marketing efforts of franchises would be more effective if the way in which the identified influences that impinge on the selection of the franchise business model informed the prospecting of potential female franchisees. A further need is identified for franchises to adjust their recruitment programmes to reflect the variable effect of incentives and disincentives at different levels of capital investment. Limited research specifically examines the selection of the franchise business model by female franchisees with various levels of risk-taking propensity and identifies the nature of influences that act as incentives and/or disincentives on that selection decision.     

Business @ the Speed of Thought

Bill Gates' first book, The Road Ahead, focused on the broad impact of technology. His new book, Business @ the Speed of Thought, asks what this means for business. How should firms organize themselves differently? In what new ways should information flow? What metrics can managers use to judge how far down the path they are to what he calls the digital nervous system approach? In this article, Mr Gates comments on some of the themes of the book, including issues within Microsoft itself.