Beyond Anecdotes: A Quantitative Examination of Black Women in Academe

Using data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, and the Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System Completion Survey by Race, this paper provides a quantitative analysis of black woman as they progress through the academy as students, faculty or administrators. This paper will detail the number of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees awarded to black woman, the colleges and universities that are successful at conferring said degrees, and the professional outcomes of black women employed in academe. We find that black women earn twice as many degrees as black men and that younger black female professors seem to face fewer barriers to success in the academy than their predecessors.     

Developing transition pathways for a low carbon electricity system in the UK

This paper describes the approach to developing transition pathways for a low carbon electricity system in the UK, being pursued in a major new inter-disciplinary research project. The project aims (a) to learn from past transitions to help explore future transitions and what might enable or avoid them; (b) to design and evaluate transition pathways towards alternative socio-technical energy systems and infrastructures for a low carbon future; and (c) to understand and, where appropriate, model the changing roles, influences and opportunities of large and small ‘actors’ in the dynamics of transitions. The paper describes the approach, which builds on the work of Dutch researchers on transitions and transition management using a multi-level framework of niches, socio-technical regime and landscape, as well as on other parts of the innovation systems literature. It also describes its application to several outline transition pathways to a low carbon energy system in the UK. The pathways embrace both the evolution of the physical and institutional infrastructure changes and the roles of both large actors, e.g. multinational energy supply and distribution companies, national governments, major investors, and small actors, e.g. households, innovators and entrepreneurs.     

From complete exclusion to minimal inclusion: African Americans and the public accounting industry, 1965–1988

African Americans have always been severely under-represented among certified public accountants. After active exclusion for the first several decades of this century, in 1965 African Americans comprised only 0.1% of CPAs. Twenty-five years later, African Americans comprised close to 1% of CPAs, still far below their 12% representation in the population. This paper examines the accounting industry's response to the change in public expectations regarding equal employment opportunity that followed the civil rights movement. The study reveals that, in the late 1960s and early 1970s when support for equal opportunity was at its peak, the industry ended its complete exclusion and engaged in some visible efforts to recruit African Americans. However, even these minimal efforts waned with the decline in emphasis on fair employment in the 1980s.     

Control your inventory in a world of lean retailing

As retailers adopt lean retailing practices, manufacturers are feeling the pinch. Retailers no longer place large seasonal orders for goods in advance-instead, they require ongoing replenishment of stock, forcing manufacturers to predict demand and then hold substantial inventories indefinitely. Manufacturers now carry the cost of inventory risk--the possibility that demand will dry up and goods will have to be sold below cost. And as product proliferation increases, customer demand becomes harder to predict. Most manufacturers apply one inventory policy for all stock-keeping units in a product line. But the inventory demand for SKUs within the same product line can vary significantly. SKUs with high volume typically have little variation in weekly sales, while slow-selling SKUs can vary enormously in weekly sales. The greater the variation, the larger the inventory the manufacturer must hold relative to an SKU's expected weekly sales. By differentiating inventory policies at the SKU level, manufacturers can reduce inventories for the high-volume SKUs and increase them for the low-volume ones--and thereby improve the profit-ability of the entire line. SKU-level differentiation can also be applied to sourcing strategies. Instead of producing all the SKUs for a product line at a single location, either offshore at low cost or close to market at higher cost, manufacturers can typically do better by going for a mixed allocation. Low-variation goods should be produced mainly offshore, while high-variation goods are best made close to markets.     

Migration with local public goods and the gains from changing places

Without public goods and under fairly standard assumptions, in Hammond and Sempere (J Pub Econ Theory, 8: 145–170, 2006) we show that freeing migration enhances the potential Pareto gains from free trade. Here, we present a generalization allowing local public goods subject to congestion. Unlike the standard literature on fiscal externalities, our result relies on fixing both local public goods and congestion levels at their status quo values. This allows constrained efficient and potentially Pareto improving population exchanges regulated only through appropriate residence charges, which can be regarded as Pigouvian congestion taxes.     

Does Processing Level Affect Vegetable Region of Production Certification Preferences?

While a number of U.S. agricultural industries have implemented a region of production (ROP) certification, little research has focused on ROP valuation associated with both whole and processed forms of a food product. Understanding consumer preferences toward certified products sold in multiple forms is critical to the success of a new certification program in an industry that sells products at multiple levels of processing. This study examines preferences for a possible ROP-certified vegetable across two product forms: fresh and processed. Discrete choice analysis was conducted using data collected from an online panel survey of 553 U.S. food consumers. A chile pepper product’s ROP was deemed important by participants, although the ROP certifier appears to matter less than other potential certifications (e.g., safety, quality). Differences in the importance of ROP between product forms suggest a single certification can have disparate effects on consumer preferences for different forms of a ROP-certified vegetable.     

Developing Loyalty Programs for Convention Attendees: An Exploratory Study

Reward programs build loyalty for hospitality businesses. Such programs are rare in the convention industry, despite the fact that the industry is challenged to increase attendance while maximizing profits. This study evaluated the attributes of a possible reward program for convention attendees. Attendees at a large international convention completed a survey on which they rated potential reward program attributes and benefits. Benefits were classified into four primary dimensions: monetary, redemption, functional, and recognition; and two secondary categories: tangible–intangible and direct–indirect. Attendees prefer tangible, monetary rewards directly related to the convention. Suggestions are provided for creating effective reward programs that could increase loyalty for conventions.     

An examination of the use of legitimate power in marketing channels

The importance of understanding and managing the channel conflict process has been well discussed, however little research has been conducted to examine the relationship between channel conflict and channel structure. In order to provide the focus for an in-depth research effort, this investigation was restricted to one type of channel structure, a retailer-owned co-operative wholesaling-retailing system, and to an examination of the role and importance of legitimate power as it contributes to channel conflict. A cross-sectional study was conducted of management and boards of directors of the wholesaler and 165 member-retailers of the Co-operative Retailing System. Results from correlational analysis of the aggregated data from sixty-four retail outlets indicated that a co-operative retailing-wholesaling system offers a model of distribution where the benefits of independence and co-ordination have been melded. From the retailers' perspective, autonomy for the independent retailers and a degree of control over channel decisions is offered. For the wholesaler, the decision-making structure provides a model for managing relations between large and small organizations which incorporates a mechanism for conflict resolution, while maintaining standardized delivery of products and services.     

Strategic Versus Tactical Nature of Sales Promotions

Sales promotions (SP) are short‐term instruments usually designed to yield an immediate sales effect. Previous research has suggested that SP can be seen as detrimental to a brand's consumer franchise/equity as, in the long term, SP deteriorates brand value. In this paper, we theoretically broaden the scope of SP research relation to the following topics: strategy concept, marketing strategy, the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) concept, the specific nature of each SP instruments and the underlying processes associated with consumer uptake of SP. We present findings that illustrate managers' perceptions of the positioning of SP instruments. We argue that the strategic nature of SP needs to be incorporated into marketers' research agendas.