Why should firms manufacture retailer brands?

For firms manufacturing convenience goods there are three branding policies available, a proprietory brand policy, a retailer brand policy and a mixed brand policy. A firm's choice depends on differences in demand and promotion costs between the proprietory and retailer brand markets. This can be analysed using a simple elaboration of the standard 3rd degree price discrimination model. But if the two markets are not independent over the long-term there may be other consequences of following the optimization rules of the model. If retailers develop consumers' preference for their own shops and their own brands, the demand advantage enjoyed by manufacturers' brands may be reduced further. The more willing are manufacturers to supply retailer brands, the more retailers win undermine the demand for manufacturers' proprietory brands.     

On Perennial Re-examination of the U.S. Constitution

Abstract . The United States Constitution is still shrouded in myths, clothed in broad terms and garbed with ambiguities. These require constant reinterpretation. If a continuing constitutional convention is thus endemic to the American political system, then is it, as Jefferson said, “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary”? Justice Jackson wrote that “we are infallible only because we are final,” but it is a maxim of American politics that the Court follows the election returns. In the last analysis, there is a higher court in a republican democracy, the Court of Public Opinion (of which scholars and publicists are the officers) which achieves revision by periodic reinterpretation and re-examination.     

Foreign Ownership and Firm Innovation: Evidence from Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examines whether foreign equity investment promotes domestic firms’ innovation activities. Using panel data on the Korean firms during the 1999–2013 period, we find that foreign ownership has a positive effect on firms’ innovation activities. Furthermore, we also show that, as compared to non-chaebol firms, chaebol firms’ innovation activity becomes much greater with the increase of foreign ownership. Finally, we investigate industry-level spillover effects of innovation. Specifically, we find that foreign ownership promotes innovation activities via forward linkage, the effect of which is also more pronounced in chaebol firms.     

Local cuisines and destination marketing: cases of three cities in Shandong,China

This study analyzes how the three cities of Jinan, Qingdao, and Qufu in Shandong Province of China use their cuisines in promoting their destinations. Based on a critical review of previous studies, a conceptual framework was developed, which included five closely related areas: foods, beverages, dining, farming, and food festivals. All related texts, images, videos, brochures, booklets, and websites designed to market these three cities were content-analyzed. The study findings suggest that all the three cities have not yet fully utilized their cuisines in their destination marketing efforts. Although some of their culinary resources appear in their marketing materials, the local cuisines of these three cities are not yet skillfully integrated into their marketing efforts. The present study offers specific theoretical and practical implications on marketing the culinary resources of destinations that are in the early stages of their development.     

Comparing Big Givers and Small Givers: Financial Correlates of Corporate Philanthropy

In a departure from the traditional studies of corporate philanthropy that focus on board composition, advertising, and social networks, the authors investigate the financial correlates of corporate philanthropy. The research design controls for firm size and industry while observing firms from a variety of industries. The sample contains matched pairs of generous and less generous corporate givers. The authors find, as hypothesized, a positive relationship between a firm's cash resources available and cash donations, but no significant relationship between corporate philanthropy and firm financial performance, regardless of whether corporate philanthropy is measured as cash payouts or the aggregate contributions that charities actually receive, and regardless of whether financial performance is gauged using accounting measures or market measures. Whereas the link between available resources and corporate philanthropy is well accepted in the literature on corporate social responsibility, it has been rarely tested and never so definitively found as in this research.     

Variety in the video game industry: An empirical study of the Wundt curve

This study analyzes the effect of variety on consumer utility using historical behavioral information for 1,397 consumers participating in 729,049 unique rounds of play. We show that consumers generally exhibit a preference for variety as part of their gameplay utility. The relationship between variety and utility is nonlinear and follows, at least for some types of variety, an inverted u‐shape as predicted by the Wundt curve. Our results represent the first such evidence on the importance of variety in video gaming, which has significant implications for consumption through optimization of gameplay utility to satisfy the demand for variety.     

The organization of the future: Unity of marketing and strategy

Marketing and strategy, while once diverse activities and entities, are moving ever closer together—in this paper it is speculated that they may someday become one. This is in response to changing business environments, and to the emergence of new organizational forms. However, a more fundamental force may be the simple recognition that without relationships there is no need for strategy, and that relationships are fundamental to marketing.