Less of a puzzle: a new look at the forward forex market

The two-country monetary model is extended to include a consumption externality with habit persistence. The model is simulated using the artificial economy methodology. The ‘puzzles’ in the forward market are re-examined. The model is able to account for: (a) the low volatility of the forward discount; (b) the higher volatility of expected forward speculative profit; (c) the even higher volatility of the spot return; (d) the persistence in the forward discount; (e) the martingale behavior of spot exchange rates; and (f) the negative covariance between the expected spot return and expected forward speculative profit. It is unable to account for the forward market bias because the volatility of the expected spot return is too large relative to the volatility of the expected forward speculative profit.     

Transition Ethics: A Comparison of Ukrainian and United States Business Professionals

This article compares the ethical attitudes of Ukrainian business professionals with those of United States business professionals. A widely used survey instrument consisting of 16 hypothetical situations involving ethical dilemmas was employed to gather information on ethical attitudes in the two countries. On 13 of 16 vignettes, Ukrainian respondents demonstrated less stringent ethical attitudes than did their United States counterparts. Possible reasons for these differences are discussed, with primary emphasis on the transition from one economic system to another that is underway in Ukraine. Comments from Ukrainian respondents are presented so as to give an indication of the thought processes behind the questionnaire responses. Olena Vynoslavska is Head of Psychology and Pedagogics Chair at the National Technical University of Ukraine, Kyiv. She has been a research scholar under the sponsorship of the International Research and Educational Exchange program of the United States Department of State at Baylor University. Her research has included international comparative studies of entrepreneurship and management techniques. Joseph A. McKinney is Ben H. Williams Professor of International Economics at Baylor University. He was previously on the faculty of the University of Virginia, and has served as visiting professor or research scholar to universities in Japan, France, the United Kingdom and Canada. His research interests include business ethics, international trade policy, and regional economic integration. Carlos W. Moore is the Edwin W. Streetman Professor of Marketing at Baylor University, where he has been on the faculty for more than 30 years. His research interests include business ethics, marketing and advertising evaluation, and small business strategies. He has done consulting on bank marketing and new product development. Justin G. Longenecker is Emeritus Professor of Management at Baylor University. His research interests include business ethics, entrepreneurship, and family business. He is co-author of the leading text on small business management, and is the author of scholarly articles on various aspects of business management.     

Using Conjoint Analysis to Help Design Product Platforms

This article illustrates how one can combine different conjoint analysis studies, each containing a core of common attributes, to help design product platforms that serve as the foundation for multiple derivative products. The illustration is based on actual, but disguised, data from a small company that makes electronic test equipment.
This article demonstrates that decisions that consider products individually are likely to be suboptimal and can be significantly different than those based on product platforms. Suboptimality can occur either when preferences for product features differ across markets or when a technology is more important to the overall company than it is to an individual product. Additionally, we show the importance of considering both fixed and variable costs when performing this type of analysis as sales, contribution, and profit-maximizing products are quite different. Finally, sensitivity analyses show that these results are robust with respect to assumptions about price sensitivity, fixed costs, and timing of entry. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc.     

Marketing insights from text analysis

Language is an integral part of marketing. Consumers share word of mouth, salespeople pitch services, and advertisements try to persuade. Further, small differences in wording can have a big impact. But while it is clear that language is both frequent and important, how can we extract insight from this new form of data? This paper provides an introduction to the main approaches to automated textual analysis and how researchers can use them to extract marketing insight. We provide a brief summary of dictionaries, topic modeling, and embeddings, some examples of how each approach can be used, and some advantages and limitations inherent to each method. Further, we outline how these approaches can be used both in empirical analysis of field data as well as experiments. Finally, an appendix provides links to relevant tools and readings to help interested readers learn more. By introducing more researchers to these valuable and accessible tools, we hope to encourage their adoption in a wide variety of areas of research.

     

Going green in Thailand: Upgrading in global organic value chains

Under what conditions are some small-scale agricultural producers able to overcome challenges associated with shifting to organic production, whereas most are not? The answers are vital for the global effort to encourage more sustainable, pro-poor forms of agriculture—more organic farming, more sustainable production; more smallholders engaged in green production, more income and better livelihoods. Yet, answering this question is challenging in part because previous analyses of global production networks, such as those associated with organic agriculture, focus more on broad governance patterns than the specific factors and actors that help smallholders shift to organic production and link to far-flung markets. To fill in these gaps, we conducted fieldwork in Isan, Thailand, a major rice-producing area in which many groups of smallholders have attempted to shift into organic production. Doing so allows us to identify the critical challenges associated with upgrading into organic production and analyse how specific actors enabled some groups to overcome these challenges. Our findings provide a generalizable theoretical approach to understanding how to link small-scale farmers to global value chains in ways that can potentially enhance smallholders' livelihoods, spark rural development and encourage more sustainable practices in agriculture.     

Design practice for extinguishing barrier systems

An extinguishing barrier comprises an optical flame sensor and a HRD-Suppressor located downstream of the detected flame front. The effectiveness of an extinguishing barrier is based on its ability to detect an explosion in a pipeline by means of an optical flame detector whose tripping signal is amplified and then very quickly actuates the detonator-actuated valves of the pressurized HRD-Suppressors. Extensive practice-related tests in pipelines, having different cross sections and length, in pipelines connected with different vessels, have shown that extinguishing barriers can be used without reservation to halt or stop an explosion in practice. The amount of suppressant agent required depends on the nature of the combustible dusts, the nominal diameter of the protected pipeline, the explosion velocity and the maximum reduced explosion overpressure in the vessel. Most significantly, the theoretical understanding of explosion propagation and extinguishing has led to computer design guidance which has simplified system design. Explosions can be combated effectively in pipelines up to diameter 2500 mm.