Wage bargaining and shock sensitivity of a small open economy

This paper analyzes the effects of centralized bargaining over a nominal wage (indexation) rule on a small open economy with fixed exchange rates. It is shown that the relative bargaining power of the confederation of employers and the union, respectively, affects not only the level of the endogenous variables but also their reaction to exogenous disturbances. If the union's power exceeds a critical value, positive aggregate demand shocks increase unemployment since the actual nominal wage rises more than the market clearing one. Moreover, if the union's power is sufficiently close to its upper bound, the overreaction of wages becomes so large that positive aggregate demand shocks even lead to a decrease in output and employment, i.e., the multipliers become negative.     

Kommunikation von Innovationen — Marketing und PR als „Spielmacher“

Zusammenfassung  Im Innovationsprozess, bei dem Kunden, Mitarbeiter und andere Stakeholder frühzeitig eingebunden werden, bekommen auch Marketing- und PR-Verantwortliche neue Aufgaben. über Kreativit?t, Vermittlungskompetenz und Medien-Know-how hinaus sind neue F?higkeiten und Rollenbilder gefragt. Als besonders geeignet für die ver?nderten Anforderungen haben die Autoren die Strategie der „Spielmacher“ identifiziert. Lesen Sie, was diese Strategie auszeichnet, welche Rollen Kommunikationsabteilungen im Innovationsprozess übernehmen und wie das in der Praxis aussieht.     

Participation by U.S. Agencies in International Brand Advertising: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Marry ad agency executives have proclaimed the era of the global advertising agency. They observe that corporations are moving towards placement of their worldwide advertising through a single agency, and they predict that a few large “mega-agencies” will take over a majority of international advertising accounts. Yet, no published studies have examined how many brands are actually handled by the same ad agency worldwide. This paper presents the results of a survey examining the extent to which U.S. companies use the same agency to advertise abroad and in the home market. The study found that of the brands sold abroad, only about one-third are handled by the same agency both at home and abroad. This proportion does not vary significantly with advertising budgets, by product class, or between standardized and non-standardized brands. In addition, no single-agency group or “mega-agency” handles more than eight percent of the sample brands, and no agency handles a majority of its U.S. brands abroad.     

Diagnose Krebs

Die Diagnose Krebs erschüttert nicht nur die Patienten, auch ihr Familiensystem ger?t ins Wanken. Das gilt ganz besonders dann, wenn Kinder in der Familie leben. Welche Hilfsangebote brauchen betroffene Familien?     

Do Shareholders Vote Strategically? Voting Behavior, Proposal Screening, and Majority Rules

We analyze how shareholders screen management proposals at annualgeneral meetings. First, we use a simple model of strategicvoting to develop a theoretical benchmark of effective informationaggregation through voting. Then, we derive testable implicationsand provide structural estimates of the model parameters. Themain conclusions are that shareholders vote strategically andthat proposal screening increases value. Shareholders largelyneutralize the lock-in effect of supermajority rules, therebypreventing the incorrect rejection of proposals.     

A Manager's Perspective on Virtual Customer Integration for New Product Development

Despite the high potential of virtual customer integration (VCI) methods for new product development (NPD) mentioned in the literature, practical use is still limited. This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of managers’ perspectives on VCI and their intentions to use these methods for NPD. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) served as basis for developing a research model, which considers managers’ cognition, attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control as important factors affecting their intention to apply VCI. Because more recent literature has expressed doubts about the explanatory potential of the rather simple TPB model, a more complex alternative model was proposed for comparison. The alternative model included the market orientation of the company, the hierarchical position of the innovation manager as well as the manager's level of innovativeness as additional explanatory variables. An empirical online study was conducted in the field of consumer goods and services. Based on a sample of 216 German‐speaking innovation managers, the results show that the model derived from the TPB explains 68% of the variance in the managers’ intention to apply VCI compared with 69% of variance explained by the model containing additional explanatory variables. An extension of the model does not significantly improve its explanatory power. Managers show high interest in virtually integrating customers in NPD processes. Managers consider identification of future customer needs, a broader decision basis, increased efficiency in gathering and use of customer information, and increased customer retention as major advantages of VCI. Disadvantages considered by managers in making their overall judgment are the lack of secrecy and only incremental innovations. The perceived potential contribution of VCI to NPD, the assessment of its general acceptance within the company, and the perceived ability of innovation managers to successfully implement VCI mainly influence the adoption decision. Managers’ attitudes toward VCI have no significant influence on their intention to use VCI. The results suggest that strong promotion of VCI through senior management would enforce the positive effect of subjective norms on applying VCI. Measures such as including VCI on innovation managers’ personal scorecard, trainings offered, and cross‐functional meetings could help speed up VCI in NPD processes by increasing innovation managers’ perceived behavioral control toward VCI.