Ethics in Advertising Decisionmaking: Implications for Reducing the Incidence of Deceptive Advertising

A survey of 206 advertising professionals assessed the relative influence of four factors (ethics, legal considerations, business considerations, and anticipated approval of management/peers) on decision-making about advertising content and policy. Most professionals were influenced only by legal considerations; ethics exerted a relatively minor role. Age and length of professional experience were related to the factor that exerted the dominant influence on an individual's decisionmaking. Those who were youngest and had least professional experience were most influenced by business considerations. Professionals who were slightly older with slightly more experience were most influenced by legal considerations. Finally, those professionals who were the oldest and had the most experience were primarily influenced by ethical considerations. The results are used as basis for identifying specific actions in professional training, advertising agency management, and advertising regulation which have potential to reduce the incidence of deceptive advertising.     

Filing and Disposition of Consumer Complaints: Some Empirical Evidence*

Who complains and why? What are the dimensions of consumer complaints? How are complaints handled by various recipients? In this article, empirical evidence is offered to shed some light on these questions. Based on a direct inquiry addressed to state consumer protection offices and voluntary consumer associations, this study shows that the number of complaints filed by consumers is rapidly accelerating and that the “grey” areas of marketing are increasingly the target of customer frustrations. The study also points to a consumer-corporate communications vacuum and to various complaint dispositions by the recipients.     

Electing Directors

Using a large sample of director elections, we document that shareholder votes are significantly related to firm performance, governance, director performance, and voting mechanisms. However, most variables, except meeting attendance and ISS recommendations, have little economic impact on shareholder votes—even poorly performing directors and firms typically receive over 90% of votes cast. Nevertheless, fewer votes lead to lower "abnormal" CEO compensation and a higher probability of removing poison pills, classified boards, and CEOs. Meanwhile, director votes have little impact on election outcomes, firm performance, or director reputation. These results provide important benchmarks for the current debate on election reforms.     

Product Market Competition and Human Resource Practices in the Retail Food Sector

In the wake of Wal‐Mart and other mass merchandisers’ entry into food retailing, the nature of competition in the industry has changed radically. Using longitudinal data on workers and firms to construct measures of compensation and churning for traditional food retailers, this paper examines how these measures change in response to mass merchandiser entry. While there is considerable heterogeneity across retail food establishments, human resource practices are persistent even in the face of new external competition.     

The disinfectant action of low-temperature laundering

The purpose of this research was to investigate the disinfectant action of a heavy-duty biological detergent at low and recommended washing temperatures. The effectiveness of the process was measured in terms of the removal, transfer and destruction of bacteria from infected test pieces. The results indicate that reducing the washing temperature decreases the degree of disinfection and increases the cross-infection of any articles washed in the same load. Evidence is also obtained that shows that the presence of detergent is more important than the washing temperature for disinfectant action.     

AUSTRALIAN CREDIT UNIONS AND THE DEMUTUALIZATION AGENDA

ABSTRACT ** :  There is a strong prospect of widespread demutualization occurring in the Australian credit union industry in coming years. This paper explains the reasons for this phenomenon, identifies some potentially undesirable social consequences, and examines the relative merits of alternative types of demutualization process. It identifies a number of principles which warrant reflection in the design of legislation addressing demutualization processes.