International business research output and rankings of Asia-Pacific universities: A 40-year time-series analysis

This study measures and ranks the performance of countries and academic institutions based on a 40-year analysis of publications appearing in 14 leading business and management journals. The focus is on the evolution of Asia-Pacific institutions in international business research output during this period. In addition, an examination is performed to identify factors associated with Asia-Pacific institutions that have achieved the highest rankings. This research shows that the Journal of International Business Studies and the Journal of World Business were central in spreading international business research, as well as in supporting research by authors from the Asia-Pacific region. Further, schools such as Harvard, Wharton, and University of South Carolina have maintained the highest ranks in research output throughout the 40-year period, but recent years have witnessed the emergence of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and University of Hong Kong, among others, in those top ranks.     

Econometric Methods for Modelling Systems With a Mixture of i(1) and i(0) Variables

This paper considers structural models with both I(1) and I(0) variables. The structural shocks associated with either set of variables could be permanent or transitory. We classify the shocks as (P1,P0) and (T1,T0), where P/T distinguishes permanent/transitory, while 1/0 means they are attached to structural equations with either I(1) or I(0) variables as their ‘dependent’ variable. We show that P0 shocks can affect cointegration analysis and provide a formula to compute the permanent component if they are present. Finally, we reformulate a well‐known empirical structural vector autoregression showing the impact of P0 shocks when there are just long‐run parametric and sign restrictions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Foreign aid and governance in Africa

This paper investigates the effect of foreign aid on governance in order to extend the debate on foreign aid and to verify common positions from Moyo’s ‘Dead Aid’, Collier’s ‘Bottom Billion’ and Eubank’s ‘Somaliland’. The empirical evidence is based on updated data from 52 African countries for the period 1996–2010. An endogeneity robust instrumental variable Two-Stage-Least Squares empirical strategy is employed. The findings reveal that development assistance deteriorates economic (regulation quality and government effectiveness) and institutional (corruption-control and rule of law) governance, but has an insignificant effect on political (political stability, voice and accountability) governance. While, these findings are broadly in accordance with Moyo and Collier on weak governance, they neither confirm the Eubank position on political governance nor the Asongu stance on the aid-corruption nexus in a debate with Okada and Samreth. The use of foreign aid as an instrument to influence the election and replacement of political leaders in Africa may have insignificant results. It is time to solve the second tragedy of foreign aid and that economists and policy makers start rethinking the models and theories on which foreign aid is used to influence economic, institutional and political governance in recipient countries.     

Raising the Bar (3)

This editorial summarizes and comments on the papers published in issue 11(3) so as to raise the bar in applied spatial economic research and highlight new trends. The first paper proposes spatial and a-spatial indicators to describe the networks of airline companies around the world. The second paper sets forth a two-regime gravity-type model with an endogenous threshold parameter to assess the effect of labour market conditions on interregional migration flows. The third paper utilizes micro-data to explain student migration flows to higher education institutions. The fourth paper is among the first to make use of simulation-based location quotients in a multiregional input–output model. Finally, the last paper provides a purely economic–theoretical model on cooperative limit pricing in the context of spatial competition.     

Green Demarketing in Advertisements: Comparing “Buy Green” and “Buy Less” Appeals in Product and Institutional Advertising Contexts

This research compares consumer response to traditional green advertising appeals to that of less conventional, “green demarketing” (GD) appeals—messages by for-profit companies encouraging reduced category consumption for the sake of the environment. Rather than encouraging greener consumption, modern environmentalism calls for decreased consumption overall, a trend reflected in recent advertising campaigns (e.g., Patagonia's “Don't Buy This Jacket”). Despite its potential impact and unconventionality, research on GD in general is sparse, and no empirical research has examined consumer response to GD appeals relative to traditional green appeals. In three experiments, we find that, in the context of product advertising, consumers' attitudes for green ads are more favorable than those for GD ads, mediated by greater inferences of genuine environmental concern. However, we find the reverse pattern in the context of institutional ads. Further, an “anti-consumption amplifier” message embedded in the ad—espousing the potential harm of overconsumption—further boosts favorable consumer attitudes for the GD institutional ad relative to its traditional green counterpart. Importantly, we assess all effects while controlling for consumers' individual levels of green consumerism, such that implications may be applied more generally rather than to a specific segment of green consumers.     

The Joint Effects of Justice Climate,Group Moral Identity,and Corporate Social Responsibility on the Prosocial and Deviant Behaviors of Groups

While research has focused on why certain entrepreneurs elect to create innovative solutions to social problems, very little is known about why some social entrepreneurs choose to scale their solutions while others do not. Research on scaling has generally focused on organizational characteristics often overlooking factors at the individual level that may affect scaling decisions. Drawing on the multidimensional construct of moral intensity, we propose a theoretical model of ethical decision making to explain why a social entrepreneur’s perception of moral intensity of the social problem, coupled with their personal desire for control, can significantly influence scaling decisions. Specifically, we propose that higher levels of perceived moral intensity will positively influence the likelihood of scaling through open as opposed to closed modes in order to achieve greater speed and scope of social impact. However, we also propose this effect will be negatively moderated by a social entrepreneur’s higher levels of desire for control. Our model has implications for research and practice at the interface of ethics and social entrepreneurship.     

Effects of Product Option Framing and Temporal Distance on Consumer Choice: The Moderating Role of Process versus Outcome Mental Simulations

This research demonstrates that the type of product option framing (additive vs. subtractive) and the temporal distance between an option choice and later buying behavior can influence decision difficulty. In two studies, the authors show that consumers who engage in additive option framing experience greater difficulty in making decisions for the near future than for the distant future, whereas consumers who engage in subtractive option framing experience greater difficulty in making decisions for the distant future than for the near future. In addition, by using theories of mental simulation, the authors show that communication strategies that promote process simulations for distant‐future choices in the subtractive option framing condition and those that promote outcome simulations for near‐future choices in the additive option framing condition are most effective in reducing decision difficulty. These effects hold across varying product categories and varying option prices.     

Cointegration as an explanation for the Meese–Rogoff puzzle

Some economists suggest that the failure of exchange-rate models to outperform the random walk in exchange rate forecasting out of sample can be attributed to failure to take into account cointegration when it is present. We attempt to find out if cointegration matters for forecasting accuracy by examining the relation between the stationarity and size of the forecasting error. Results based on three macroeconomic models of exchange rates do not provide strong support for the proposition that cointegration matters for forecasting accuracy. The simulation results show that while stationary errors tend to be smaller than non-stationary errors, this is not a universal rule. Irrespective of the presence or absence of cointegration, none of the three models can outperform the random walk in out-of-sample forecasting, which means that cointegration cannot solve the Meese–Rogoff puzzle.     

The ethical profile of global marketing negotiators

As international trade and business opportunities grow globally, insight into trading partners’ strategies is essential. One of the major strategies that impact trading partners’ relationships is negotiation strategy employed by each partner. These strategies assume even greater importance when these strategies have ethical content. This study examines the effects of marketing executives’ preferred ethical ideologies (relativism and idealism), opportunism and Machiavellianism on their perceived appropriateness of unethical negotiation tactics. Utilizing a sample of 995 marketing executives from six countries, cluster analysis and multivariate analysis of variance revealed two types of marketing negotiators: principled and corrupt negotiators. Corrupt negotiators tend to be more Machiavellian, more relativist, more opportunistic and less idealistic than their principled counterparts. Principled negotiators tend to perceive unethical negotiation tactics less favorably than their corrupt counterparts. Implications of these results for practitioners and directions for future research are discussed.     

From ‘just a swimmer’ to a ‘swimming mother’: women’s embodied experiences of recreational aquatic activity with pre-school children

Increased academic attention on the gendering of leisure pastimes in recent years has highlighted the centrality of the gendered body in influencing how leisure is accessed, experienced and transformed. To date, however, little attention has been paid to how women experience aquatic leisure activity, the second most popular form of leisure activity in the UK, and where female participation predominates. This paper presents results from research investigating the aquatic leisure experiences of 22 women, with children aged under 3, in the North-East of England. A number of key themes emerged from the data, which highlighted the centrality of the gendered, lived body as a key social construct contouring participant perceptions in the swimming pool environment. Women reflected upon their self-perceived physical deficiencies when wearing revealing swimming costumes, particularly under the critical gaze of ‘other’ bodies, whether present or imagined. The co-presence of other bodies was also central in shaping lived experiences, and the presence of ‘dependent’ children’s bodies shifted bodily intentionality away from the self towards perceived maternal responsibilities and the management of perceived risks, including ‘dirt’ and ‘germs’ and the negotiation of the tacit rules of the swimming pool. Results also suggest that the emphasis on maternal responsibility in aquatic leisure activity and timing of parent-toddler sessions could lead to reproduction of gender inequalities and the exclusion of some fathers from participation.