Minority Faculty Hiring Power in Academe: an Economic Model

This paper investigates whether minorities in academe exercise bargaining power in a way that influences hiring of other minority faculty. We develop a stylized model that shows how minorities influence the hiring of other minorities, taking into account the hiring of majority faculty. We postulate that such behavior is similar to the behavior of insider workers in the context of the insider-outsider literature.     

Two-level national-regional planning and mathematical programming decomposition applied to spatial price equilibrium models2

This paper is concerned with computation strategies related with the quantitative analysis of only a sector of a global economy (e.g. agriculture or energy). Under a ceteris paribus condition on the environment of the sector, and within the hypothetical context of the neoclassical economic theory, it is well known a type of partial equilibrium model that can be cast mathematically into an optimization framework. We attempt here to a typical specification which considers spatially separated markets, that has been called spatial price equilibrium model and that has contained within it many classical transportation problems (one for each commodity). The model is specially suitable for mathematical programming decomposition, resulting regional sybsystems whose coupling variables are the transportation flows. We explore here this structure, discussing two decomposition algorithms with economic interpretations that suggest decentralized procedures for planning. The first—of the price coordination type—is a variant of the Dantzig-Wolfe's principle which is expected to have a low number of cycles of information flow between the master level and the sub-problems (at each cycle it is calculated a series of regional production-consumption responses to alternative prices generated by transhipment problems at the central planning level). The second algorithm specializes the Geoffrion's projection/feasible directions technique, so interpreting the problem solution within the context of a net-output target coordination.     

Satisfying and Delighting the Rural Tourists

ABSTRACT

This study applies the concept of customer delight and the model proposed by Oliver, Rust, and Varki (1997 Oliver, R. L., Rust, R. T. and Varki, S. 1997. Customer delight: Foundations, findings and managerial insight. Journal of Retailing, 73(3): 311–336. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and modified by Finn (2005 Finn, A. 2005. Reassessing the foundations of customer delight. Journal of Service Research, 8(2): 103–116. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to the context of rural tourism. The model is applied to rural tourism lodgings in northern Portugal and validated using PLS technique. The results suggest that satisfaction is a more significant determinant of loyalty than delight and disconfirmation is an important predictor of both satisfaction and delight. This study further supports the conceptualization of customer delight and customer satisfaction as distinct constructs. Results may help managers of rural tourism accommodations to develop and implement more successful relationship marketing strategies.     

Green Product Development and Product Portfolio Management: Empirical Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Few studies have explored the relationship between green products development (GPD) and product portfolio management (PPM). When considering evidence from emerging economies, the knowledge gap is even deeper. Consequently, the objective of this work is to analyze how green and traditional practices of new product development (NPD) influence product portfolio and NPD performance. In addition, we explore how GPD opens new markets and technology opportunities. The empirical evidence is based on a sample of firms that are developing products and belong to innovative industrial sectors in Brazil. In general, the framework developed and tested in this research indicates the following: (i) the adoption of GPD practices significantly influences product portfolio performance; (ii) the adoption of GPD practices tends to generate positive results with regard to obtaining technological and market opportunities; (iii) the adoption of traditional PPM practices influences the dependent factors. Unexpectedly, correlations between a firm's size or age and its performance were not confirmed. This is the first empirical evidence relating GPD, PPM, and market and technology opportunities in Brazil. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

International Public Preferences and Provision of Public Goods: Assessment of Passive Use Values in Large Oil Spills

With global media reporting major environmental disasters, environmental damages linked to large oil spills may go well beyond the territorial limits of affected countries, particularly in the case of passive use values. In this analysis, we compare environmental damages linked a large oil spill off the coast of Spain using an online contingent valuation survey in three different European countries: Spain, UK, and Austria. Our results show that mean willingness to pay in Spain is about 124.37€/household, 80.87€/household in the UK, and 89.08€/household for Austria (expressed in 2009 prices). Conclusions and implications of our results suggest policy makers should consider the potential importance of passive use values in the compensation process of environmental damages caused by large international oil spills, especially within the European Union.     

A Capabilities Perspective on the Evolution of Firm Boundaries: A Comparative Case Example from the Portuguese Moulds Industry*

ABSTRACT The issue of vertical firm boundaries continues to attract interest both for economics and management research. The transaction cost economics approach, emphasizing transaction‐specific assets and opportunism in order to explain discrete ‘make‐or‐buy’ decisions, dominates the literature. Nevertheless, alternative perspectives, developed under the guise of the capabilities, competence or knowledge‐based theories of the firm, have gained attention recently. They focus on the evolutionary dynamics of boundaries in the context of the division of labour among firms in an industry and on what is to be divided and co‐ordinated – i.e. productive knowledge. The conceptual links between this line of research, which some refer to as neo‐Marshallian, and the Industrial Networks approach are explored in this paper. The paper emphasizes both a vision of firms as sets of direct and indirect capabilities, developed and combined in different ways over time, and the connectedness between inter‐firm relationships. The discussion is illustrated with the cases of two firms, which are contrasted in terms of the dynamic evolution of their boundaries. The analysis made supports the argument that firms’ vertical boundaries reflect their relationships with specific counterparts and the way they address through time the division and integration of knowledge through the configuration of direct and indirect, counterpart specific, capabilities.