Communication and Promotion Decisions in Retailing: A Review and Directions for Future Research

Communication and promotion decisions are a fundamental part of retailer customer experience management strategy. In this review paper, we address two key questions from a retailer's perspective: (1) what have we learned from prior research about promotion, advertising, and other forms of communication and (2) what major issues should future research in this area address. In addressing these questions, we propose and follow a framework that captures the interrelationships among manufacturer and retailer communication and promotion decisions and retailer performance. We examine these questions under four major topics: determination and allocation of promotion budget, trade promotions, consumer promotions and communication and promotion through the new media. Our review offers several useful insights and identifies many fruitful topics and questions for future research.     

Medical travellers’ perspectives in selecting in-patient services at selected private hospitals in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan government has clear plans to develop medical tourism as an industry. Availability of high-quality medical professionals and accredited hospitals has encouraged medical travellers to come to Sri Lanka and to expand the medical tourism industry in the country. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to describe medical travellers’ perspectives in seeking in-patient services at selected four private hospitals in Sri Lanka. Foreign national in-patients (n?=?252) were interviewed using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. The response rate was 93.25%. The majority (68.1%) were Maldivians followed by Indians (20.4%) and 51.1% sought surgical care. Availability of high-quality medical professionals (94.2%) and accredited hospitals (81.3%), easy visa (90.2%) were top reasons to select Sri Lanka. Medical travellers faced difficulties in communication (37.4%), transport (31.9%), accommodation (57%) and finding quality food (41.7%). The study recommends improvement of infrastructure and support services for medical travellers and that private hospitals obtain international accreditation to improve medical tourism potentials.     

Hybrid Choice Models: Progress and Challenges

We discuss the development of predictive choice models that go beyond the random utility model in its narrowest formulation. Such approaches incorporate several elements of cognitive process that have been identified as important to the choice process, including strong dependence on history and context, perception formation, and latent constraints. A flexible and practical hybrid choice model is presented that integrates many types of discrete choice modeling methods, draws on different types of data, and allows for flexible disturbances and explicit modeling of latent psychological explanatory variables, heterogeneity, and latent segmentation. Both progress and challenges related to the development of the hybrid choice model are presented.     

Geo-Logics of Power: Disaster Capitalism,Himalayan Materialities,and the Geopolitical Economy of Reconstruction in Post-Earthquake Nepal

ABSTRACT

The 2015 earthquakes in Nepal killed more than 9,000 people, displaced millions of people and deeply affected the economy. The earthquakes and reconstructions processes also transformed Nepal into a complex terrain of geoeconomic accumulation and geopolitical manoeuvring, including major international capital flows, the promulgation of a new constitution, an economic blockade by India and the expansion of trade corridors with China. Building on critiques of ‘disaster capitalism’, we propose and mobilize the concept of ‘geo-logics of power’ to draw further attention to the materialities of geopolitical and geoeconomic processes shaping reconstruction in post-earthquake Nepal. Focusing on two trans-Himalayan corridors connecting Nepal and China, we argue that the Nepal experienced a particular form of disaster capitalism: one in which the geo-logics of power – including trans-Himalayan discourses, practices, and materialities – came to shape political and economic transformations of a country long portrayed as a ‘buffer’ state between Indian and China. More broadly, we suggest that geo-logics of power result from a combination of geopolitical and geoeconomic power dynamics informed by geological formations and associated socio-natural processes.     

Injury care in low- and middle-income countries: identifying potential for change

The epidemiologic, demographic, and socio-political transitions underway in many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are associated with a substantial burden of disease due to injuries. LMIC have devoted relatively little attention to the injury problem. This paper argues that whereas prevention remains paramount, improving health care services for injuries will also contribute to reducing the burden. It examines the reasons for the relative inaction in LMIC to date, and contrasts this to high-income countries (HIC) which have seen substantial falls in mortality from improved trauma care systems. Mortality data, although readily available, are the tip of the clinical iceberg and there is a need for better-quality hospital data that can be used to monitor any future improvements. Models of trauma care from HIC are reviewed. It is suggested that the greatest potential for improvement can be achieved if entire trauma systems are improved, including pre-hospital, hospital and rehabilitation care. LMIC may not be able to afford the whole system and improving the most sensitive components of the system may be a better option. Models of trauma care developed in HIC need careful consideration to determine their effectiveness, appropriateness, affordability and equity implications for LMIC. Imports of blueprints from elsewhere are likely to fail; context sensitive and appropriate policies need to be developed locally through a consultative process. Effective working needs to be across disciplines, involving consultation with stakeholders, and requires investment in education, training and equipment. The evidence base for trauma services in LMIC is almost non-existent, highlighting the urgent need for research in these settings.     

Carbon Subsidies,Taxes and Optimal Forest Management

We consider the effect of carbon credit payment schemes on forest owners’ land use and harvest decisions. We study two possible credit allocation regimes: one where credits are allocated according to the actual amount of carbon sequestered by the trees on a piece of land and another where credits are allocated according to the long-run potential to sequester carbon on the land. Using a real options model with uncertain future timber prices, we examine the effect on the timing of harvests and the replanting-abandonment decision. We show that both schemes discourage deforestation. Compensating growers for actual carbon sequestration leads to longer rotation periods between harvests, while basing compensation only on the long-run potential level of sequestration induces shorter rotation periods. The former scheme leads to greater benefits of carbon sequestration at lower cost than the latter scheme. Although inducing moderate levels of sequestration is expensive under both schemes, the cost falls dramatically when the level of payments climbs above some threshold. Indeed, providing the payments are sufficiently generous, carbon credit payment schemes offer an effective means of increasing carbon sequestration. The views expressed in this paper are strictly those of the authors and do not represent the views of the New Zealand Commerce Commission. We thank Lewis Evans and two anonymous referees for many very helpful comments. Kevin Counsell, Steen Videbeck, and participants at an ISCR seminar also provided useful suggestions. Fletcher Forests Ltd and the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry generously provided data.     

Technologies for the people: a future in the making

India’s post-independence policy of using science and technology for national development, and investment in research and development infrastructure resulted in success in space, atomic energy, missile development and supercomputing. Use of space technology has impacted directly or indirectly the vast majority of India’s billion plus population. Developments in a number of emerging technologies in recent years hold the promise of impacting the future of ordinary Indians in significant ways, if a proper policy and enabling environment are provided. New telecom technologies—a digital rural exchange and a wireless access system—are beginning to touch the lives of common people. Development of a low-cost handheld computing device, use of hybrid telemedicine systems to extend modern healthcare to the unreached, and other innovative uses of IT at the grassroots also hold promise for the future. Biotechnology too has the potential to deliver cost-effective vaccines and drugs, but the future of GM crops is uncertain due to growing opposition. Some of these emerging technologies hold promise for future, provided a positive policy and enabling environment.     

Innovations in Retail Pricing and Promotions

Retailers confront a seemingly impossible dual competitive challenge: grow the top line while also preserving their bottom line. Innovations in pricing and promotion provide considerable opportunities to target customers effectively both offline and online. Retailers also have gained enhanced abilities to measure and improve the effectiveness of their promotions. This article synthesizes recent advances in pricing and promotions findings as they pertain to enhanced targeting, new price and promotion models, and improved effectiveness. It also highlights the role of new enabling technologies and suggests important avenues for further research.     

A combined approach using AHP and DEMATEL for evaluating success factors in implementation of green supply chain management in Indian manufacturing industries

The present work aims to evaluate the success factors (SFs) associated with the implementation of green supply chain management (GSCM) from the Indian manufacturing industry perspective. Initially, 24 SFs relevant to GSCM adoption and implementation were identified from the literature and inputs received from relevant experts. Subsequently, a structural model was proposed by means of combining the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach to evaluate these SFs at the tactical, operational and strategic levels in GSCM adoption. The AHP method helps in determining the relative importance/priorities of the SFs to GSCM adoption. In addition, the DEMATEL method captures the interactive relationships among the SFs, and analyses them on the basis of causal effect mapping. The model proposed can help industrial managers/practitioners to formulate short-term as well as long-term flexible decision strategies in efficiently managing a green supply chain.