Developing a Marketing Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations: An Exploratory Study

Nonprofit organizations have grown tremendously in the last three decades. With this growth has come a greater interest from the nonprofit sector in the importance of marketing. Nonprofits did not apply marketing techniques until 1960–1970, but it is now a well accepted practice. Traditional marketing strategies do not work for nonprofit organizations, and this study proposes the development of a new marketing strategy specifically for this sector. Through the use of interviews and surveys, the authors examine issues of marketing strategy that are distinct for nonprofits. Unlike previous studies, this study examines these issues from the viewpoint of the nonprofit organization. The perception of marketing is different in nonprofit organizations, and the strategic implications of this finding are discussed.     

Toward a Fine Balance: Cross-Cultural Comparison of Work–Family Identities

This study investigates the differences in the salience of work and family identities between samples of employees in the United States and India. The authors hypothesized the effects of cultural differences on these workers' salient identities. Additionally, the authors hypothesized that across cultures a balance in the importance of family and work identities achieved by an individual would lead to greater job and life satisfaction and fewer intentions to turnover. Structural equation modeling tests support the authors' hypotheses. This article contributes toward an understanding of cross-cultural differences and even some similarities in work–family identity issues and the outcomes a balance in them engender.     

Community Connections to Enhance Undergraduate International Business Education: An Example of Business Consulting Projects

Practical project experience as a means of augmenting traditional classroom learning has long been viewed as a value adding curricular exercise. While students participating in the projects gain valuable skills that will enhance their personal marketability, successful projects also benefit the client companies involved and help enhance the image of the university. Substantial effort goes into planning and implementing such an experience and involves extensive coordination with multiple constituents. This article details how a project-based capstone experience was developed in partnership with the local business community and the College's Center for International Business as part of the degree requirements for a relatively new Bachelor of Science in International Business program.     

On the Class of Erlang Mixtures with Risk Theoretic Applications

Abstract

A wide variety of distributions are shown to be of mixed-Erlang type. Useful computational formulas result for many quantities of interest in a risk-theoretic context when the claim size distribution is an Erlang mixture. In particular, the aggregate claims distribution and related quantities such as stop-loss moments are discussed, as well as ruin-theoretic quantities including infinitetime ruin probabilities and the distribution of the deficit at ruin. A very useful application of the results is the computation of finite-time ruin probabilities, with numerical examples given. Finally, extensions of the results to more general gamma mixtures are briefly examined.     

Machine learning for quantitative finance: fast derivative pricing,hedging and fitting

In this paper, we show how we can deploy machine learning techniques in the context of traditional quant problems. We illustrate that for many classical problems, we can arrive at speed-ups of several orders of magnitude by deploying machine learning techniques based on Gaussian process regression. The price we have to pay for this extra speed is some loss of accuracy. However, we show that this reduced accuracy is often well within reasonable limits and hence very acceptable from a practical point of view. The concrete examples concern fitting and estimation. In the fitting context, we fit sophisticated Greek profiles and summarize implied volatility surfaces. In the estimation context, we reduce computation times for the calculation of vanilla option values under advanced models, the pricing of American options and the pricing of exotic options under models beyond the Black–Scholes setting.     

Food Regime Analysis in a Post‐Neoliberal Era: Argentina and the Expansion of Transgenic Soybeans

This paper uses the food regime literature to analyse the political and economic relations promoting the expansion of soybeans in Argentina following the post‐neoliberal turn in the early 2000s. Continuities of the agrarian expansion from the neoliberal to post‐neoliberal model highlight the state's role in supporting a neoliberal food regime. Neoregulation in the post‐neoliberal agenda continues to favour increased production of transgenic food over ecological and human‐health considerations. Moreover, the emergence of new corporate and transnational actors has contributed to a new form of corporate‐agrarian governance premised on biotechnology. First, a food regime lens is used to describe the expansion of transgenic soybeans in Argentina, followed by an analysis of planning documents to show the state's position in reproducing neoliberal discourses and policies favouring the expansion of agriculture. The conclusion discusses the utility of food regime analysis for explaining the new forms of agricultural governance in Argentina.     

On the Moments of the Time of Ruin with Applications to Phase-Type Claims

Abstract

We describe an approach to the evaluation of the moments of the time of ruin in the classical Poisson risk model. The methodology employed involves the expression of these moments in terms of linear combinations of convolutions involving compound negative binomial distributions. We then adapt the results for use in the practically important case involving phase-type claim size distributions. We present numerical examples to illuminate the influence of claim size variability on the moments of the time of ruin.