The Campus Parking Game: A Demonstration of Price Discrimination and Efficiency

This article presents a classroom game that allows students to directly experience the welfare improvements that can result from price discrimination. The demonstration uses a very familiar decision-making scenario, campus parking, to introduce the concept of price discrimination as well as reinforce the concepts of opportunity cost, consumer surplus, and search costs. This game can be used in a variety of classes, including principles, intermediate theory, industrial organization, or environmental economics, and can be conducted in a 50-minute class period with follow-up discussion in the next class.     

Shareholders and Corporate Community Involvement in Britain

Corporate community involvement is attracting increasing interest in Britain, but what do shareholders feel about this use of company assets? This timely survey of top UK corporate donors provides interesting data on current practice and explores the degree to which shareholders are consulted. The author is a member of the Department of Business Studies in the Faculty of Management and Business of The Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH; e–mail j.clarke@mmu.ac.uk.     

Duell oder Berichterstattung?

Televised debates between the German Chancellor and his challenger were held for the first time in the election campaign in 2002. Hence we had the opportunity to examine the effects of debates as well as the impact of the follow-up news coverage of the debate. By combining a content analysis of debate coverage and a representative survey, we explored how voters’ reception of the first TV debate and their reception of the debate coverage interacted. Voters were influenced both by the impression they formed by directly viewing the debate and by the indirect impression they gained from follow-up media coverage. On the one hand we found an impact on voters’ views of the candidates’ appearance and of who won the debate. On the other hand we found an impact on voters’ general notions of the candidates’ personalities and competences. Furthermore there were — probably rather short-lived — shifts of candidate and party preferences.     

Ecological tourism in the state image policy structure. Experience and problems of modern Russia

The article deals with the problems of ecological tourism in Russia. The authors give various approaches to the understanding of ecological tourism in modern science, analyse the reasons of interest in this kind of tourism, consider its types and identify specific features. The article provides an overview of the main regions and countries where ecological tourism is developed at a high level and considers some national policy models in the field of ecological tourism. Specific attention is paid to the analysis of the development of ecological tourism in Russia and its current status; the examples of different programmes aiming at support of ecological tourism are given. Specific impetus is given to Russia's resources for the development of ecological tourism, for example, natural landscapes, national parks and nature heritage sites. The authors explore the main challenges to ecological tourism in Russia, identify factors that hinder its development and suggest measures to improve the ecological tourism in the Russian Federation. The authors focus on the projects that promote the improvement of Russia's image as an eco-touristic destination. The authors pay specific attention to the analysis of international cooperation in this field. The article discusses various projects carried out within the framework of bilateral cooperation. The article discusses the role of ecological tourism as a tool for image policy. The article analyses in detail which elements of the Russian image are under the influence of ecological tourism and what are the future prospects of ecological tourism.     

Seeing through a Glass Onion: broadening and deepening formative research in social marketing through a mixed methods approach

ABSTRACT

The purpose of formative research in social marketing is to understand the target audience to generate consumer insight, which informs the planning, development and initial implementation of social marketing programmes. Focus groups, interviews or surveys, all of which are self-report methods, are the most commonly reported methods employed in formative research. Reliance on a relatively narrow range of methods may constrain understanding and insight gained during formative research. This paper challenges social marketers to mix methods or use multiple methods and research perspectives to generate a broader understanding of the consumer and the context in which they behave. A case study is used to demonstrate how mixed methods were used in a formative research study to inform the development of a social marketing programme designed to change eating behaviour. Challenges of mixed methods are detailed along with recommendations for future research.