Effects of dissatisfaction in tourist services: The role of anger and regret

Dissatisfied customers due to a service failure probably will switch the provider, will complain and/or will spread negative word-of-mouth. However, to what extent some specific emotions triggered by dissatisfaction can mediate between the latter and the previous mentioned behaviours? A sample of 359 users of restaurants and 308 users of hotel services has shown that, whereas anger has a significant influence on the three behaviours under study, regret only affects switching and negative word-of-mouth. Furthermore, slight differences between hotels and restaurants have been found because, in the case of restaurants, anger is not an antecedent of switching whereas regret has an inverse effect on complaining.     

Parental education,gender preferences and child nutritional status in Peru

This paper examines whether the distribution of bargaining power between parents affects nutritional indicators in the early stages of a child’s life, giving evidence that the allocation of household resources varies by the gender of the child and the parents. After accounting for the potential endogeneity of the indicator of power distribution within the household, related to assortative mating in the marriage market, this paper shows that maternal power is more positively associated with girls’ nutrition than boys’. Among households located in rural areas, resource allocation between girls and boys seems to differ. Similarly, some evidence of competition for household resources affecting girls’ nutrition is found.     

Using mean-Gini and stochastic dominance to choose project portfolios with parameter uncertainty

Although a variety of models have been studied for project portfolio selection, many organizations still struggle to choose a potentially diverse range of projects while ensuring the most beneficial results. The use of the mean-Gini framework and stochastic dominance to select portfolios of research and development (R&D) projects has been gaining attention in the literature despite the fact that such approaches do not consider uncertainty regarding the projects’ parameters. This article discusses, with relation to project portfolio selection through a mean-Gini approach and stochastic dominance, the impact of uncertainty on project parameters. In the process, Monte Carlo simulation is considered in evaluating the impact of parametric uncertainty on project selection. The results show that the influence of uncertainty is significant enough to mislead managers. A more robust selection policy using the mean-Gini approach and Monte Carlo simulation is proposed.     

INTERNATIONALIZATION STRATEGIES IN OLIGOPOLY WITH HETEROGENEOUS FIRMS

This paper examines the foreign direct investment (FDI) versus exports decision of foreign oligopolistic firms under cost heterogeneity. An additional motivation for firms to invest abroad is the technological sourcing via spillovers, which flow from the host more efficient firm to foreign less advantaged firms. For intermediate values of the set‐up costs associated with FDI entry, it is shown that foreign firms choose opposite entry strategies. An equilibrium where the less efficient foreign firm exports whereas the more efficient invests is more likely to happen when foreign firms become more heterogeneous, the larger the trade costs and not too big oligopolistic profitability. Interestingly, the opposite may also be an equilibrium thus finding that the more efficient firm does not choose to invest, a result that emphasizes the relevance of the strategic setting under consideration. The latter result identifies a market failure since welfare in the host market is higher when both firms undertake FDI; a finding that calls attention to how appropriate are host government policies towards internationalization strategies.     

Anger and Regulation

We study a model in which agents experience anger when they see a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for the welfare of its clients (i.e., altruism) making high profits. Regulation can increase welfare, for example, through fines (even with no changes in prices). Besides the standard channel (i.e., efficiency), regulation affects welfare through two other channels. (i) Regulation calms down existing consumers, because a reduction in the profits of an unkind firm increases total welfare by reducing consumer anger. (ii) Individuals who were out of the market when they were angry in the unregulated market decide to purchase once the firm is regulated.     

Affective commitment and future purchase intentions in the performing arts: An empirical approach

We examine whether affective commitment can influence customers' future purchase intentions. Our empirical approach focuses on the performing arts sector in which we interviewed 927 theatregoers at the entrances or exits to 150 theatres throughout Spain. The theoretical relationship management model proposed herein provides an analysis of the role played by satisfaction, trust, and commitment in future purchase intentions. Our findings reveal that affective commitment mediates the relationship between future purchase intention and both satisfaction and trust. We discuss the theoretical and management implications of our findings and identify some possible future research directions. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Simultaneous-Equations Model of Trade, Conflict, and Cooperation

A simultaneous-equations model is developed for the reciprocal relationship among bilateral trade value, conflict, and cooperation by modeling the actions of exporters, importers, and governments. The model is estimated separately for each of the dyads among the US, the USSR, China, Japan, and (West) Germany for the yearly data from 1948 to 1992. The direction of the effects of conflict or cooperation on trade and that of trade on conflict or cooperation are generally mixed, as expected. Certain reciprocal relationship patterns emerge depending on whether countries belong to the East or West block.     

Europe vs America: Institutional hysteresis in a simple normative model

We show how the differences in US and European institutions can arise in a normative model. The paper focuses on the labor market and the government's decision to set unemployment benefits in response to an unemployment shock. The government balances insurance considerations with the tax burden of benefits and the possibility that they introduce adverse “incentive effects” whereby benefits increase unemployment. It is found that when an adverse shock occurs, benefits should be increased most when the adverse incentive effects of benefits are largest. Adjustment costs of changing benefits introduce hysteresis and can help explain why post-oil shock benefits remained high in Europe but not in the US. Desirable features of the model are that we obtain an asymmetry out of a symmetric environment and that the mechanism yielding hysteresis is both simple (requires the third derivative of the utility function to be non-negative) and self-correcting. Empirical evidence concerning the role of corporatism is discussed.     

Macroeconomic performance and convergence in OECD countries

This paper investigates the robustness of the correlation between growth and a set of variables which comprises accumulation rates in human and physical capital and medium term macroeconomic indicators in OECD countries. We include these variables as additional regressors in the standard growth equation that comes from the human capital-augmented Solow model. Our results show that variables related to medium term macroeconomic performance affect both growth and convergence. In some periods these variables even outperform the explanatory power of the conventional growth variables such as the accumulation rates. Our results also suggest that it is difficult to analyse the contribution to growth of any particular macroeconomic indicator in an isolated way. Rather, these effects should be studied in a framework that accounts for the macroeconomic performance of a country.