Exploring the national and organizational culture mix in service firms

Using representative samples of U.S. and Japanese retail service firms, this study explores whether one particular type of organizational culture is the best with respect to business outcomes (performance and customer satisfaction) or whether the optimum culture depends on the national context in which the firm is embedded. The findings suggest that there is a significant interaction effect of organizational culture with national culture on outcomes. Specifically, the relationships between the importance placed on the cultural values of stability, people orientation, and detail orientation and outcomes are significantly greater for Japanese than for U.S. service retailers. On the other hand, the relationships between the values of aggressiveness, innovation, and outcome orientation and outcomes are greater for U.S. retailers. Further, the findings show that firms whose cultures match those of their home countries exhibit lower levels of outcomes when they operate in other countries with different cultural values. Implications are given for how service retailers might be designed and managed for purposes of improving business outcomes.     

A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising

Although interest regarding gender role portrayals in advertising has persisted for many years, the degree of gender stereotyping in advertising, possible changes of gender stereotyping over the years, and the nature of the relationship between gender stereotyping in advertising and role changing developments in society have not yet been studied in previous research. To address these issues, this study provides a meta-analysis of the research on gender roles in TV and radio advertising based on 64 primary studies. The results show that stereotyping is prevalent in advertising. Stereotyping occurs mainly related to gender’s occupational status, meaning gender equality in advertising is least likely in an area that is the primary concern of gender-related politics. Stereotyping in advertising has indeed decreased over the years, although this decrease is almost exclusively due to developments in high masculinity countries. The results of a correlation analysis and a simultaneous equation model show that gender stereotyping in advertising depends on gender-related developments and value changes in society rather than the other way around. These results provide for the first time empirical support for the mirror argument over the mold argument in the long-standing debate about advertising’s consequences for society. The findings further provide implications for researchers, public policy makers, and marketing practitioners.     

Military conquest and sovereign debt: Chile,Peru and the London bond market, 1876–1890

As a result of the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), Chile conquered Peruvian and Bolivian territories rich in nitrates and guano. We conduct econometric tests for structural breaks in the time series of the government bonds for Chile and Peru between 1876 and 1890 in order to examine the effects of the changes in resource endowments on the investors’ perceptions of the risk premia of Chilean and Peruvian securities. Our results reveal that investors were extremely pessimistic about the prospects of Chilean, and especially Peruvian debt prior to the war. Early Chilean victories that anticipated the transfer of the richly endowed provinces to Chile caused significant increases in the price of Chilean securities. But such was the low regard with which investors viewed the Peruvian government that the fall of Lima caused an increase in the price of Peruvian bonds on the hope that Chile would assume some of the responsibility for them. Endowments, reputations, and the countries’ financial conditions figure prominently as the driving forces behind the investors’ behavior.     

The effects of supplier capabilities on industrial customers’ loyalty: the role of dependence

This research examines whether suppliers’ capabilities impact OEM customers’ dependence on the supplier and thereby generate customer loyalty. Using a sample of purchasing managers focusing on a single key component supplier, we examine three supplier capabilities, two dependence dimensions, and three aspects of customer loyalty. Core offering capability increases the customer firm’s benefit-based dependence. Operations capability has a more comprehensive effect, enhancing both benefit-based and cost-based dependence. Benefit-based dependence leads to relational loyalty and, through its effect on relational loyalty, to insensitivity to competitive offerings and future purchase expansion. Cost-based dependence motivates insensitivity to competitive offerings, but does not affect relational loyalty or purchase expansion. The supplier’s communication capability is associated with relational loyalty, but this effect does not flow through the customer firm’s dependence. The divergent pattern of antecedents and effects of benefit-based dependence and cost-based dependence may explain the inconsistent and insignificant research findings in previous research on dependence. Our results suggest that adopting a bi-dimensional model of dependence more fully captures the theoretical domain of dependence, thereby permitting researchers to better examine its role in supply chain, channel, and marketing relationships.     

Explaining UK wage inequality in the past globalisation period, 1880–1913

The current era of globalisation has witnessed a rising premium paid to skilled workers resulting in increasing wage inequality in most OECD countries. This pattern differs from that observed during the past globalisation period (1880–1913), in which wage inequality decreased in most of the Old World countries. The present debate over wage inequality focuses on the implications of globalisation, technological change, the role of labour market institutions and education. Similar factors were at work in the past globalisation process. In order to disentangle the main factors that contribute to wage inequality, we calibrate a general equilibrium model for the UK economy in the past globalisation period. The results show that a trade shock and a skilled-biased technology shock increased wage inequality. However, education and emigration had a more significant impact and led to a decrease in wage inequality.     

Product competitiveness and beating analyst earnings target

While Wall Street closely watches financial analysts’ earnings forecasts, Main Street often scrutinizes product quality relative to competition. Do firms with superior product competitiveness enjoy greater likelihood of beating analyst earnings target? And if so, is there contingency in this impact? We show that positive changes in product competitiveness contribute to the firm’s likelihood of beating analyst earnings target, while negative changes in product competitiveness account for missed earnings target. In addition, this impact of product competitiveness on the likelihood of beating analyst earnings target is more positive in the situations of high firm future growth opportunity and low financial environment uncertainty. These findings innovatively use analyst forecast metrics to reinforce the relationship between product quality, competitive advantage, and financial performance. Our study also cultivates a contingency theory of the marketing-finance interface and allows marketing and finance executives to find common ground in strategic discourse. Overall, this research offers brand new financial analysts-based implications of product competitiveness.     

Exploring the relationship between marketing and supply chain management: introduction to the special issue

Supply chains and supply chain management are important areas of business practice and scholarship that overlap with the discipline and practice of marketing and marketing management. The co-editors of the Journal’s Special Issue “Exploring the Relationship Between Marketing and Supply Chain Management” provide an introduction to the special issue, overview its contents and extend their appreciation to the authors, reviewers, editor and staff whose contributions and efforts made it possible.     

Control-based channel governance and relative dependence

Control and governance theories recognize that exchange partners are subject to two general forms of control, the unilateral authority of one firm and bilateral expectations extending from their social bond. In this way, a supplier both exerts unilateral, authority-based controls and is subject to socially-based, bilateral controls as it attempts to manage its brand successfully through reseller channels. Such control is being challenged by suppliers’ growing relative dependence on increasingly dominant resellers in many industries. Yet the impact of supplier relative dependence on the efficacy of control-based governance in the supplier’s channel is not well understood. To address this gap, we specify and test a control model moderated by relative dependence involving the conceptualization and measurement of governance at the level of specific control processes: incenting, monitoring, and enforcing. Our empirical findings show relative dependence undercuts the effectiveness of certain unilateral and bilateral control processes while enhancing the effectiveness of others, largely supporting our dual suppositions that each control process operates through a specialized behavioral mechanism and that these underlying mechanisms are differentially impacted by relative dependence. We offer implications of these findings for managers and identify our contributions to channel theory and research.     

General alliance experience,uncertainty, and marketing alliance governance mode choice

Drawing from transaction cost economics (TCE), the knowledge-based view (KBV), and real options theory (ROT), we propose that the general alliance experience of alliance partner firms moderates the impact of market uncertainty and alliance-specific uncertainty on the benefits and costs of the two marketing alliance governance modes, i.e., non-equity alliances and joint ventures. Based on our systematic study of 18,616 marketing alliances occurring in 48 industries across 164 countries between 1992 and 2008, we find general alliance experience significantly moderates firms’ marketing alliance governance mode choices. Our framework reconciles some contradictory empirical results in the interfirm relationship governance structure literature by emphasizing the moderating role of partner firms’ general alliance experience. Specifically, when alliances can be characterized has having a large cultural distance between the partners or having a market with a broad geographic scope, it seems that TCE predictions regarding the marketing alliance governance mode choice hold for inexperienced firms while KBV and ROT predictions hold for experienced firms. In addition, by incorporating key aspects of all three theories, our proposed framework has the potential to provide deeper insights into the role of alliance experience and uncertainty in firms’ marketing alliance governance mode choices.     

大城市郊区农户农地流转意愿及影响因素——基于对上海郊区实地考察的研究

本文从大城市郊区的地理空间、经济空间、社会空间的特殊性出发,基于上海郊区210户农户的调研数据,实证分析了上海郊区土地流转现状、衣户对土地的认知情况及农户在土地流转中的意愿,从微观层次描述农户参与农地流转的意愿、动机、目的以及所动用的工具和手段,探讨了城市化框架体系下农村土地流转中的农户意愿及行为决策。