Materiality and the comfort of things: drinks,dining and discussion with Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller is Professor of Material Culture at University College London. Miller’s foundational work in consumption studies, material culture studies and the anthropology of materiality has made profound contributions to our understanding of consumption, markets and culture. He is particularly known for Material Culture and Mass Consumption (1987 Miller, D. 1987. Material culture and mass consumption, Oxford: Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]), A Theory of Shopping (1998 Miller, D. 1998. A theory of shopping, Cambridge: Polity.  [Google Scholar]) and his edited collections Unwrapping Christmas (1995 Miller, D., ed. 1995. Unwrapping Christmas, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]), the four‐volume Consumption: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences (2001 Miller, D., ed. 2001. Consumption: Critical concepts in the social sciences, Vol. 4, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]), and Materiality (2005 Miller, D., ed. 2005. Materiality, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). He is a tremendously prolific scholar and has worked with a large number of doctoral students. His 2008 Miller, D. 2008. The comfort of things, Cambridge: Polity.  [Google Scholar] book, The Comfort of Things, has introduced Miller to a wider audience. This interview took place in London on 25 November 2008.     

Marketing images of gender: A visual analysis

An interpretive method drawing from social psychology, feminist theory and art criticism is developed to analyze contemporary images of gender. Utilizing and expanding upon visual research techniques, a selection of ads from contemporary fashion magazines and catalogs was assembled to illustrate particular themes suggested by research on the representation of gender in advertising. The body‐and what it expresses‐is a site of central concern, and discussion focuses on how female and male bodies are represented in advertising. The conventions of art history, when framed within a social science perspective, offer unique contributions to the study of advertising and gender, well suited for researchers interested in the culture of consumption.     

Using Attribute Importance Rankings Within Discrete Choice Experiments: An Application to Valuing Bread Attributes

We present a new Bayesian econometric specification for a hypothetical Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) incorporating respondent ranking information about attribute importance. Our results indicate that a DCE debriefing question that asks respondents to rank the importance of attributes helps to explain the resulting choices. We also examine how mode of survey delivery (online and mail) impacts model performance, finding that results are not substantively affected by the mode of survey delivery. We conclude that the ranking data are a complementary source of information about respondent utility functions within hypothetical DCEs.     

An Examination of the Association Between Gender and Reporting Intentions for Fraudulent Financial Reporting

We report the results of a study that examines the association between gender and individuals’ intentions to report fraudulent financial reporting using non-anonymous and anonymous reporting channels. In our experimental study, we examine whether reporting intentions in response to discovering a fraudulent financial reporting act are associated with the participants’ gender, the perpetrator’s gender, and/or the interaction between the participants’ and perpetrator’s gender. We find that female participants’ reporting intentions for an anonymous channel are higher than for male participants; the fraud perpetrator’s gender and the interaction with participants’ gender were not significantly associated with anonymous channel reporting intentions. Neither of the two factors nor the interaction between the two factors was associated with reporting intentions to a non- anonymous reporting channel. Results from an additional analysis indicate that male and female participants differ in the extent to which they judge the reduction in personal costs of an anonymous reporting channel compared to a non-anonymous reporting channel and that the reduction in personal costs mediates the relationship between participant gender and anonymous reporting intentions.     

Macroprudential Supervision and Monetary Policy in the Post-crisis World

Until two years ago, it was believed that the financial system as a whole was self-correcting and that modern tools of stabilization policy—monetary policy in particular—were sufficient to prevent severe economic contractions. We now know that we need a robust system of regulation and supervision that will recognize and prevent financial excesses before they lead to crisis, while at the same time maintaining an environment conducive to financial innovation. This address traces the causes of the crisis and the role of the Dodd-Frank Act in providing a framework for preventing recurrence. It then describes what must be done to identify emerging systemic financial risk, the tools and implementation of macroprudential financial supervision that must be developed, and the role of coordination between monetary policy and macroprudential supervision. Prevention of crises will not be easy—particularly because it will be necessary to walk a tightrope between prevention of catastrophe and keeping too tight a hold on the financial system.     

Overseas Investment, Encouraging Long Journey

In the context of the financial crisis, international capital flows, cross-border investment, as well as the mergers and acquisitions generally continues shrinking at a large range in 2009, while China's foreign investment and overseas cooperation still maintains a good momentum of devclopment.     

Towards a model of dynamic capabilities in innovation-based competitive strategy: Insights from project-oriented service firms

With the growing significance of services in most developed economies, there is an increased interest in the role of service innovation in service firm competitive strategy. Despite growing literature on service innovation, it remains fragmented reflecting the need for a model that captures key antecedents driving the service innovation-based competitive advantage process. Building on extant literature and using thirteen in-depth interviews with CEOs of project-oriented service firms, this paper presents a model of innovation-based competitive advantage. The emergent model suggests that entrepreneurial service firms pursuing innovation carefully select and use dynamic capabilities that enable them to achieve greater innovation and sustained competitive advantage. Our findings indicate that firms purposefully use create, extend and modify processes to build and nurture key dynamic capabilities. The paper presents a set of theoretical propositions to guide future research. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Finally, directions for future research are outlined.     

Comparative Research with Net and Gross Income Data: An Evaluation of Two Netting Down Procedures for the LIS Database

Researchers seeking to perform country‐comparative and trend analyses using income data have to account for the fact that income surveys differ in whether income is measured gross or net of taxes and contributions. We discuss, develop, and evaluate two ‘netting down procedures’ for data in the LIS Database. Evaluations of these netting down procedures indicate that comparisons across gross and net datasets can be greatly improved when netting down procedures are applied. In several cases, however, substantial amounts of bias remain.