COMMENT ON THE 2010 WINCOTT LECTURE, ‘EUROPE: HOW CAN THINGS GET BETTER?’

The increasing centralisation of government at European Union level is eroding individual freedom. Greater EU regulation of financial markets, as advocated by Charlie McCreevy, represents a further threat to liberty, while the measures advocated would have been ineffective at preventing the current financial crisis.     

Corporate Ethical Values and Altruism: The Mediating Role of Career Satisfaction

This study explores the ability of career satisfaction to mediate the relationship between corporate ethical values and altruism. Using a sample of individuals employed in a four-campus, regional health science center, it was determined that individual career satisfaction fully mediated the positive relationship between perceptions of corporate ethical values and self-reported altruism. The findings imply that companies dedicating attention to positive corporate ethical values can enhance employee attitudes and altruistic behaviors, especially when individuals experience a high degree of career satisfaction.     

The Case for International Competition Among Economic Policy Makers

How can governments and civil servants be controlled? Professor Roland Vaubel, of the University of Mannheim, explains how competition between nations improves economic policy.     

Real exchange-rate changes in the European community: A new approach to the determination of optimum currency areas

Deviations from relative purchasing power parity (real exchange-rate changes) are suggested as a comprehensive and operational criterion of the desirability of currency unification. Using consumer price indices, the criterion is applied to the European Community in 1959–1976 and in various subperiods. It is shown, inter alia, that the Community is probably a less desirable currency area than comparable existing currency unions like Germany, Italy and the U.S., that its failure to implement its 1971 plans for monetary union can hardly be attributed to unusually unfavourable external disturbances and that it is possible to identify the member countries which are the most suitable candidates for a pioneer venture in currency unification.     

LESSONS FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION

The current financial crisis has arisen as a result of entrepreneurial and business error rather than because of inappropriate incentives within the private sector. However, government failure has exacerbated the problem. The case for responding to government failure by greater international co-ordination of banking regulation is weak. The IMF is particularly ill-suited for this job.     

The Ethics of Professorial Book Selling: Morality, Money and "Black Market" Books

This study used experimental and correlational techniques to examine perceptions that university faculty hold regarding the practice of professorial selling of examination textbooks to wholesalers. Faculty members (n = 236) from 14 universities and community colleges and a wide variety of academic disciplines responded to a web-based survey. We presented hypothetical selling situations to respondents with manipulated variables consisting of solicitation status (unsolicited versus solicited) and use of money (for faculty or for student activities). Both main effects and the interaction effect were significant such that respondents perceived it to be more ethical to sell an examination book when the book was unsolicited and when the money was being used to fund student activities. The variable most correlated with faculty members' beliefs that book selling is ethical and the faculty members' self-reports of whether or not they have engaged in bookselling was how widespread the practice appeared to be on campus. About 30 percent of faculty members sold textbooks over the past year at a dollar value of about $80 per professor. About 38 percent of respondents reported they believed the practice to be generally ethical. Implications for business ethics theory, students' moral development, and advancement of on-campus codes of ethics policies are discussed along with avenues for future research.     

Can the EC Mediterranean policy be revitalised?

Intereconomics - The enlargement of the European community to include Portugal and Spain has focussed public attention on the EC's relations with certain other states bordering the...     

Exploring the Role of Product Development Capability for Transforming Marketing Intelligence into Firm Performance

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This study examines the role of product development capability for transforming marketing intelligence activities into firm performance on industrial markets.

Methodology/Approach: The authors apply structural equation modeling to analyze survey data from 342 industrial manufacturing companies.

Findings: Results reveal that sales integration and holistic macroeconomic view are particularly important features of the marketing intelligence capability on industrial markets to gain additional insights in order to develop products successfully. Results also reveal that product development capability transforms the marketing intelligence activities into firm performance on industrial markets.

Research Implications: This study offers new insights on marketing theory by extending and concretizing the concept of market orientation to a broader concept of the marketing intelligence capability for industrial markets. Further, this research reveals that the product development capability serves as a mediator to business performance.

Practical Implications: This study’s systematic and tangible outline of the dimensions of marketing intelligence and its link to the product development capability helps firms to better understand how to capitalize on market orientation’s potential values.

Originality/Value/Contribution: This research (a) reveals the relevant dimensions of marketing intelligence on industrial markets and (b) shows how the product development capability tranforms marketing intelligence activities into firm performance on industrial markets.     

高效率并不意味高利润

正服务业企业的生产率与利润率之间,呈现一种"倒U型"关系,存在一个最优的生产率水平。对服务业企业而言,与其把生产率作为最大化的目标来对待,不如当作战略决策变量,即选择最合适的生产率,从而最大化利润率     

Weshalb konjunkturprognostiker regelmäßig den wetterbericht studieren sollten

Certainly, economic activity is infl uenced by weather conditions. In short term economic forecast, normal weather fl uctuations over the year are covered by using seasonally adjusted fi gures. However, they are calculated by time series methods and do not take into account specifi c weather conditions such as unusually mild or cold winters. In particular in the fi rst quarter of a year, it is often diffi cult to identify whether short term shifts in economic activity are due to cyclical reasons ore merely refl ect specifi c weather conditions. The paper shows that this uncertainty leads to biased forecast. After mild winters forecasts of GDP and investment in construction tend to be over optimistic whereas they are too pessimistic after atypically cold winters.