Infant feeding as a social marketing issue: A review

Despite universally recognized benefits to both mother and child, there is a worldwide decline in the incidence and duration of breastfeeding. This paper examines the choice of infant feeding method as a social marketing and consumer behavior issue by considering infant feeding (1) in the context of exchange, (2) as the first complex consumption decision that is made for a child, (3) in a socio-cultural context, (4) as a policy issue affecting the health care system, the workplace, and the law, and (5) as a methodological challenge to marketing and consumer behavior researchers.

---

Zusammenfassung Die ErnÄhrung von SÄuglingen als ein Thema des sozialen Marketings: Ein überblick Obwohl seine Vorteile für Mutter und Kind allgemein anerkannt werden, nimmt das Stillen weltweit ab, sowohl was die HÄufigkeit als auch was die zeitliche Dauer betrifft. Der Beitrag prüft die Entscheidung über die SÄuglingsernÄhrung als Thema des sozialen Marketings und des Konsumentenverhaltens anhand der folgenden Gesichtspunkte: (1) Stillen als Beziehung und Austausch zwischen Mutter und Kind, (2) Stillen als erste komplexe Konsumentscheidung, die für das Kind getroffen wird, (3) Stillen im soziokulturellen Zusammenhang, (4) Stillen als ein Thema der Gesundheitspolitik, der Arbeits und der Rechtspolitik und schlie\lich (5) Stillen als methodische Herausforderung für Marketing- und Verbraucherforscher.

     

Who breaks the rules? The response of small businesses to external regulation

The impact of external regulation - such as taxation, wage and other regulations and employment legislation - on small businesses has recently attracted a good deal of academic and policy-making interest. Here the author presents the responses of some small businessmen, in retailing, to external regulation.     

Reducing distributor opportunism in the export market: Effects of monitoring mechanisms, norm-based information exchange, and market orientation

As monitoring mechanisms are critical to exporter–distributor relationships, the effectiveness of different types of monitoring mechanisms remains an important issue. Our study goes beyond the separate effects of monitoring mechanisms on opportunism, and tests the moderating effects of market orientation (MO) and norm-based information exchange on the monitoring mechanism–opportunism relationship. Based on survey data of 160 export ventures in China, we find that process control increases distributor opportunism, while norm-based information exchange and MO decrease it. Moreover, at high levels of norm-based information exchange and MO, the impact of process control on opportunism turns from positive to negative.     

The emerging discipline of bioeconomics: aims and scope of the Journal of Bioeconomics

'The enterprise within the social sciences best poised to bridge the gap to the natural science, the one that most resembles them in style and self-confidence, is economics' (Wilson 1998, p. 195)'The rich array of things to learn from other disciplines is too rich And not least of all, the need for economic theorists to work on something new and different is too impelling' (Kreps 1997, p. 80)