CRM in intermediated financial services markets

A division of a major UK insurance company manufactures insurance products for wholesale clients to retail into their banking and building society customer bases. This paper discusses the CRM challenges of leveraging insurance business from existing partnership relationships, including issues of confidentiality between client portfolios, the strategic use of data marts rather than data warehouses and the sharing of information. It describes the issues involved in implementing CRM, such as rolling out customer contact management and call centre systems. The study concludes with an appraisal of lessons learned, which include a better understanding of who the customers are and which of them are profitable, together with the characteristics that contribute to them becoming profitable or unprofitable.     

Modelling Impacts of Wildlife Tourism on Animal Communities: A Case Study from Royal Chitwan National Park,Nepal

This paper describes the development of a generic model which allows for the analysis of wildlife-tourism interaction impacts in the natural environment. The development of a computer system to facilitate the collection of data and the use of this model is described, using data collected on large mammals in Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal. The computer system stores parameters describing wildlife tours and animal characteristics for an area and plots regions of disturbance and non-disturbance for the animal in that area. Predictions can then be made regarding the potential impacts of tourism on the animal species for the area. Applications for this model and computer system include the management of high tourism areas at sustainable levels so that tourist enjoyment is maintained and animal disturbance is minimised.     

Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?

We analyze 1,607 investors who switched from phone-based toonline trading during the 1990s. Those who switch to onlinetrading perform well prior to going online, beating the marketby more than 2% annually. After going online, they trade moreactively, more speculatively, and less profitably than before—laggingthe market by more than 3% annually. Reductions in market frictions(lower trading costs, improved execution speed, and greaterease of access) do not explain these findings. Overconfidence—augmentedby self-attribution bias and the illusions of knowledge andcontrol—can explain the increase in trading and reductionin performance of online investors.     

Perennial grain crops in the West Soudanian Savanna of Mali: perspectives from agroecology and gendered spaces

Perennial grain crops may play an important role in environmentally sound and socially just food systems for Africa. We study the future possibility of integrating perennial grains into Malian farming systems from the perspective of agroecology, and more specifically using a gendered space approach. We interviewed 72 farmers across the sorghum-growing region of Mali. We found that perennial grains offer a vision for transforming human relations with nature that mirrors the resource sharing of customary land tenure, including patterns of extensive and intensive land use in time and space. Women interviewees identified a broad set of potential advantages and challenges to perennial grain production. Advantages include reduced labour, saving seed, and improving food security. Women farmers were concerned about livestock, water access, and resource limitations. We argue that perennial grains may increase access to land and natural resources for women farmers. Perennial grains may improve soil quality, reduce labour early in the rainy season, and provision more resources from fallow lands. Pastoralists stand to benefit from improved pastures in the dry season. We conclude that investments are needed to develop viable crop types in consideration of the complexity of West African farming systems and the local needs of women farmers and pastoralists.     

Using corporate social responsibility performance to evaluate financial disclosure credibility

Due to the paucity of immediate and direct information about financial disclosure credibility, it is often difficult for investors to assess the credibility of financial disclosures (e.g. whether reported earnings are biased). Given this situation, the present study proposes and finds that investors use additional cues, such as information about corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, to form overall impressions about management's honesty, credibility, and trustworthiness. Similar to other findings in the halo effect literature, we find that these overall impressions subsequently influence both investors' assessments of financial disclosure credibility and the prices they are willing to pay for a company's stock. The findings support the theoretical framework on financial disclosure credibility by (1) showing that management credibility is an important tool that investors use to assess disclosure credibility and (2) suggesting that management credibility is a multidimensional latent construct for which CSR performance can be one of several relevant indicators.     

Factors affecting the effectiveness and acceptance of electronic selection systems

There has been a rise in the use of electronic selection (e-selection) systems in organizations. Given the widespread use of these systems, this article reviews the factors that affect their effectiveness and acceptance by job applicants (applicant acceptance), and offers directions for future research on the topic. In particular, we examine the effectiveness and acceptance of these systems at each stage of the selection process including (a) job analysis, (b) job application, (c) pre-employment testing, (d) interviewing, (e) selection decision-making, and (f) evaluation and validation. We also consider their potential for adverse impact and invasion of privacy. Finally, we present some implications for e-selection system design and implementation.