Vision Zero--a road safety policy innovation

The aim of this paper is to examine Sweden's Vision Zero road safety policy. In particular, the paper focuses on how safety issues were framed, which decisions were made, and what are the distinctive features of Vision Zero. The analysis reveals that the decision by the Swedish Parliament to adopt Vision Zero as Sweden's road safety policy was a radical innovation. The policy is different in kind from traditional traffic safety policy with regard to problem formulation, its view on responsibility, its requirements for the safety of road users, and the ultimate objective of road safety work. The paper briefly examines the implications of these findings for national and global road safety efforts that aspire to achieving innovative road safety policies in line with the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, declared by the United Nations General Assembly in March 2010.     

Perverse Effects of Other-Referenced Performance Goals in an Information Exchange Context

We argue and demonstrate that an emphasis on outperforming others may lead to perverse effects. Four studies show that assigning other-referenced performance goals, relative to self-referenced mastery goals, may lead to more interpersonally harmful behavior in an information exchange context. Results of Study 1 indicate that assigned performance goals lead to stronger thwarting behavior and less accurate information giving to an exchange partner than assigned mastery goals. Similarly, in Study 2 performance goal individuals more subtly deceived highly competent opponents relative to lowly competent opponents, who received more blatant treatment. Finally, Studies 3 and 4 show in methodologically complementary ways that tactical deception considerations may account for the interpersonally harmful behavior of performance goal individuals.     

In search of marketing equilibrium: Relationship marketing versus hypercompetition

This paper is a discussion on work in progress concerning the development of relationship marketing (RM). It is particularly focused on the concept of marketing equilibrium which is a marketing management correspondence to market equilibrium, the traditional concept of neoclassical economics. The paper starts with a brief introduction to the author's approach to RM. It proceeds‐ with a summary of the concept of marketing equilibrium. The next section is a discourse on hypercompetition, a particularly intense type of competition that has been observed by several authors. RM offers a marketing theory based on collaboration with various stakeholders through long‐term relationships, customer retention and loyalty. In contrast, hypercompetition claims that customers will switch between suppliers at an increasingly faster rate and that competitors will become increasingly hostile to one another. Two basic questions are raised: do RM and hypercompetition represent two conflicting but coexisting trends that are both growing in intensity? and How can this coexistence or conflict be conceptually handled? The aim of this paper is not to be complete and provide an answer, only to draw the reader's attention to hypercompetition as an opposite trend to RM and to offer a platform for further analysis and constructive and reflective scholarly dialogue.     

Organizational Virtue and Stakeholder Interdependence: An Empirical Examination of Financial Intermediaries and IPO Firms

Organizational virtue orientation (OVO), an organizational-level construct, refers to the integrated set of beliefs and values that support ethical character traits and virtuous behaviors. To advance the study of organizational virtue, we examine OVO in firms making their initial public offerings (IPOs), with respect to key external stakeholders that serve as financial intermediaries (i.e., venture capital firms and underwriting banks). Drawing on stakeholder and resource dependence theories, we argue that mutual interdependencies occur between financial intermediaries and IPO firms such that venture capital firms’ ownership levels and underwriter reputation are positively associated with the selection of more virtuous IPO firms. We also argue for the moderating relationship of IPO firm age on these main relationships; since IPO firms have more history and information availability, less importance will be placed on OVO in the selection process. In support of our hypotheses, the results of this study suggest the organizational virtue of IPO firms influences the selection decisions of financial intermediaries by reflecting positively on these key stakeholders to improve legitimacy and reputation.     

Marketing cost concept in service firms

Marketing costs are usually not clearly defined. This depends partly on the fact that the marketing department is not identical with the marketing function of the firm. Marketing activities may also be carried out by the managing director, service engineers, and others. In fact, everybody with customer contact influences sales. This is especially evident in service firms where the same person may produce as well as market and administrate. In this article, marketing cost concepts for professional service firms are developed and their practical application is discussed. The purpose of these concepts is to help professional service firms evaluate their marketing efforts and determine marketing strategies.     

EVALUATING THE DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE*

This article evaluates the distribution of public expenditure on subsidized goods and services over income categories. It is argued that undifferentiated application of usual measures of dispersion must be rejected when judging the distribution of these expenditures, because there are hardly any subsidized goods and services for which the government aims at equal consumption. Such an application requires a normative distribution of expenditure. The normative distribution of expenditure is derived from a normative distribution of consumption and the distribution of normative charges. Central elements are needs of consumers and their financial capacity. The normative distribution of consumption is based on government intentions with respect to the goods and services under consideration.     

Marketing as Value Co-creation Through Network Interaction and Resource Integration

This is a theoretical discourse on contributions to the marketing discipline primarily from service-dominant (S-D) logic, relationship marketing, and the many-to-many network approach. The study combines a literature review with theoretical insights. Framed within a relational context it specifically addresses interaction and its role in the co-creation of value through resource integration. As a consequence, the article also deals with elevating midrange theory in the direction of more abstract and general theory, grand theory.     

U.S. and Japanese macroeconomic news and stock market volatility in Asia-Pacific

I use a new comprehensive dataset to analyze the impact of ten U.S. and six Japanese macroeconomic announcements on stock market volatility in Japan, Hong Kong, South-Korea and Australia. A GARCH model that allows for multiplicative announcement effects and asymmetries is employed. Overnight conditional variances are significantly higher on announcement days and significantly lower on days before and after announcements, especially for U.S. news. The impact of announcements on implied volatilities, in contrast, is much weaker. Out-of-sample trading strategies that systematically buy delta-neutral straddles on announcement days generate statistically significant profits, but these disappear after transaction costs are taken into account.