Does subnational region matter? Foreign affiliate performance in the United states and China

This study examines the extent to which subnational regions can explain foreign affiliate performance in two host country settings, the United States and China, the world's two largest economies at polar ends of the economic spectrum (i.e., an advanced versus an emerging economy). Our results suggest that the subnational region is significant in explaining foreign affiliate performance, thus confirming its importance as an additional unit of analysis for firm performance. This study also shows that the effects of subnational region are far stronger in China than they are in the United States, thus suggesting that regional differences are more critical in their explanatory power for firm performance in emerging economies than they are in advanced economies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relative efficiency of commodity futures markets

The ability of futures markets to predict subsequent spot prices has been a controversial topic for a number of years. Empirical evidence to date is mixed; for any given market, some studies find evidence of efficiency, others of inefficiency. In part, these apparently conflicting findings reflect differences in the time periods analyzed and the methods chosen for testing. A limitation of existing tests is the classification of markets as either efficient or inefficient with no assessment of the degree to which efficiency is present. This article presents tests for unbiasedness and efficiency across a range of commodity and financial futures markets, using a cointegration methodology, and develops a measure of relative efficiency. In general, the findings suggest that spot and futures prices are cointegrated with a slope coefficient that is close to unity, so that the postulated long-run relationship is accepted. However, there is evidence that the long-run relationship does not hold in the short run; specifically, changes in the spot price are explained by lagged differences in spot and futures prices as well as by the basis. This suggests that market inefficiencies exist in the sense that past information can be used by agents to predict spot price movements. A measure of the relative degree of inefficiency (based on forecast error variances) is then used to compare the performance of different markets. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 413–432, 1999     

Retaining the visitor,enhancing the experience: identifying attributes of choice in repeat museum visitation

• How people make choices in relation to cultural and leisure consumption has been explored from the viewpoint of motivation, lifestyle segmentation, and lifecycle. Little is known about the specific characteristics associated with choices to visit, re‐visit, or not to visit a museum. Understanding characteristics of choice, developing incentives, bundled packages, and levels of pricing is an essential element in marketing strategies for museums operating in a competitive leisure marketplace. However, determining what really matters to cultural consumers is complex and methodologies to assist in unraveling such complexities are not easily identified. This study aimed to address ways in which people respond to specific incentives as influences in choosing museum visitation. The study was conducted in two major museums in Australia to determine how useful choice modeling is in identifying features that matter to cultural consumers. The results suggest that choice modeling has much to offer in relation to understanding the benefits people are seeking from a museum experience as well as offering strategic insight into potential collaborative ventures and re‐combinations of existing museum products and services.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coda

Technology and globalization have the potential to make higher education more affordable and accessible. In practice, however, rising costs limit educational access, and competition threatens the sustainability of many colleges and universities (Grummon, 2009). With the relevance of traditional curricula in question and the demand for alternate delivery methods expanding, many higher learning institutions face a challenge to reinvent themselves (Barnatt, 2008; Grummon, 2009; Lee, Brennan, & Green, 2009). We asked four higher education leaders from demographically and structurally diverse institutions to address the question, “How will colleges and universities serve the global knowledge economy in the coming decades?” Our respondents represent perspectives from multiple educational paradigms—public and private, local and international, for‐profit and nonprofit, brick‐and‐mortar and online. George Mihel, president of Sauk Valley Community College in Illinois, offers a position paper on the need to transform some of higher education’s deep‐rooted institutional traditions. George Miller, chancellor of American InterContinental University, teams with Caroline Molina‐Ray, a University of Phoenix faculty member, to address how higher education can foster both technological competency and critically reflexive thinking. Naana J. S. Opoku‐Agyemang, vice chancellor of the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, offers insight into the unique challenges and accomplishments of higher education in Africa. Finally, Vicki T. Purslow, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Southern Oregon University, and Christine Cook Florence, a higher education marketing consultant, present a commentary synthesizing the symposium contributions and issuing a call to action for higher education leaders. Together, these diverse perspectives offer a glimpse into the higher education of the future.</     

Media richness and internet exploration

Previous research found that media richness is associated with positive evaluation of a web site. An experiment was carried out where participants were instructed to explore a web site presenting a popular town: Venice. According to a random distribution, participants were exposed (or not) to street‐sounds when exploring the web site and had the possibility to control (or not) the photography (using a 360° navigation with their mouse) displayed on the web site. Results shown that higher evaluation were associated with sounds and mouse‐control. Theory of media richness was used to explain our results and the managerial application for tourism was discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Falling of the Veils: Turning Points and Momentous Turning Points in Leadership and the Creation of CSR

Contemporary organizations often reciprocate to society for using resources and for affecting stakeholders by engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR). It has been shown that CSR has a positive impact on employee attitudes. However, not all employees may react equally strongly to CSR practices. Based on socio-emotional selectivity theory (Carstensen in Science 312:1913–1915, 2006), we contend that the effect of CSR on employee satisfaction will be more pronounced for older than for younger employees, because CSR practices address those emotional needs and goals that are prioritized when people’s future time perspective decreases. In one multi-source field study (N = 143) and one experimental study (N = 500), we demonstrate that CSR indeed has a stronger positive effect on employee satisfaction for older relative to younger employees. Accordingly, engaging in CSR can be an attractive tool for organizations that aim to keep their aging workforce satisfied with their job.     

Employee brand engagement on social media: Managing optimism and commonality

This article considers how employees engage with B2B firms on social media, a topic that is largely overlooked in the extant brand engagement literature. Using the results from a large-scale study of employee brand engagement on social media, we identify two key drivers of employee brand engagement using the content analysis tool DICTION—namely, optimism and commonality. Employees of top-ranked and -rated firms express higher levels of optimism and commonality in their reviews of their employers on social media than do their counterparts in bottom-ranked and -rated firms. This permits the construction of a 2 × 2 matrix that allows managers to diagnose strategies for increasing or improving employee brand engagement. This creates four different kinds of employee brand engagement situations, and offers human resources and marketing managers different strategies in each case. We demonstrate how practitioners and scholars can shed new light on the way stakeholders engage with brands.     

Domestic technology,consumption economies of scale and poverty: evidence from Sri Lanka

While it is well known that new technologies enhance consumer welfare, the manner in which these technologies impact the ability to realize economies of scale in consumption is not well understood. We use Sri Lankan household data to examine how the adoption of new technologies by households positively impacts their ability to achieve household economies of scale. This suggests that new technologies not only deliver a greater variety of consumption goods to consumers, but they may also play an important role in enabling large households to escape poverty by lowering the per-capita costs of maintaining a given standard of living. Given the importance of consumption economies of scale in the measurement of poverty, this study provides some insights on the extent to which the number of poor households changes when food consumption scale economies due to technology adoption in the domestic sphere are incorporated.     

Cost estimate of platelet transfusion in the United States for patients with chronic liver disease and associated thrombocytopenia undergoing elective procedures

Aims: This study aimed to estimate the cost of platelet transfusion in patients with chronic liver disease (CLD)-associated thrombocytopenia undergoing an elective procedure in the United States.

Materials and methods: The study was conducted in two parts: development of a conceptual framework identifying direct, indirect and intangible costs of platelet transfusion, followed by the estimation of the total cost of platelet transfusion in patients with CLD-associated thrombocytopenia before an elective procedure in the United States using the conceptual framework and cost data obtained from a literature search. The cost of the entire care required to raise a patient’s platelet count before the procedure was considered.

Results: The final conceptual framework included the costs of generating the supply of platelets, the platelet transfusion itself, adverse events associated with platelet transfusion and refractoriness to platelet transfusion. When costs were accounted for in all the framework cost categories, the total direct cost of a platelet transfusion in a patient with CLD and associated thrombocytopenia was estimated to be in the range of $5258 to $13,117 (2017?US dollars) in the United States. The largest portion of costs was incurred by the transfusion event itself ($3723 to $4436) and the cost of refractoriness ($874 to $7578), which included the opportunity cost of a delayed procedure and subsequent platelet transfusions with human leukocyte antigen-matched platelets.

Limitations and conclusions: Although we were unable to include all cost components identified in the conceptual framework in our total cost estimate, thus likely underestimating the true total cost, and despite the data gaps and challenges limiting our estimate of the full cost of a platelet transfusion in patients with CLD-associated thrombocytopenia undergoing an elective procedure in the United States, this study outlines a comprehensive conceptual framework for estimating the cost elements of a platelet transfusion in these patients.