Aesthetic Products and Aesthetic Consumption: A Review

This article presents a review of recent thinking about consumers’ aesthetic experiences. These experiences are examined within the context of philosophical, psychological, and social science perspectives on aesthetics. A distinction is made between aesthetic products and aesthetic consumption, and these two concepts are discussed in terms of marketing views of their core elements. The review also reflects on the impact of “postmodernism” on aesthetics within marketing. Consideration is given to four philosophical conundrums relating to the aesthetic experience which are relevant to marketing theory: disinterested attention; objective and subjective taste; the nature of the aesthetic encounter; and the relationship of evaluation to preference.     

Countervailing Power and Input Pricing: When is a Waterbed Effect Likely?

A downstream firm with countervailing power can extract a reduced price from an input supplier. A waterbed effect occurs if this price reduction leads the input supplier to raise the price that it charges another downstream firm. Policy makers have been concerned that this waterbed effect could undermine downstream competition and it was considered in detail in the 2008 UK grocery inquiry. This paper presents a simple but parsimonious model to investigate if and when a waterbed effect may arise. It shows that the effect may arise through optimal pricing behaviour, but that this critically depends on the nature of upstream technology, downstream competition and consumer demand. In particular, downstream competition tends to work against a waterbed effect, but convex upstream costs support the effect. The analysis is complementary to recent academic work on the waterbed effect that focuses on bargaining constraints.     

On dollarization and currency boards: Error and deception

A diagnosis of the laws and balance sheets of the monetary authorities in Argentina, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hong Kong and Lithuania is presented. With the exception of Bosnia, all employ active monetary policies and engage in sterilization. Accordingly, they are not currency boards. The methods used to dismantle the Argentine system in 2001, prior to its eventual abandonment, are presented. An evaluation of the Hong Kong system (1997-1998) suggests that its so-called currency board was not a party to counter-speculation in the stock market. Evidence is presented to show how deception was employed by the US and the IMF during the Indonesian currency board debate (1998) as a means to engineer a political regime change.     

Decision usefulness of whole-asset operating lease capitalizations

Monson (2001) and Hepp and Scoles (2012) argue that some leased assets should be capitalized at the assets' purchase price (whole-asset value) rather than at the present value of future minimum lease payments (right-of-use asset value). The argument is based in part on the notion that the assets under lease generate future income not the obligation related to future lease payments. To test the notion we compare associations between capitalizations representing whole asset values and current and future return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) with capitalizations representing right-of-use asset values and current and future ROA and ROE. Our results indicate that the whole-asset annuity values are incrementally associated with future ROA and ROE over right-of-use asset values. We interpret our results to suggest that the current practice of capitalizing future lease payments does not fully reflect the income generation provided by leased assets.     

Developing brand champions: A franchisee perspective

Abstract

The establishment of a compelling brand lies at the heart of a franchise network’s success. To maintain brand integrity, franchisors rely on franchisees to deliver the brand promise consistently. However, franchisee behaviour is sometimes difficult to manage, impacting negatively on the franchise brand. In adopting an internal brand management theoretical lens, this study provides new insight into the development of franchisees as brand champions. This is achieved through the empirical validation of a model, which encapsulates the dynamics of important antecedent variables (i.e. information generation, knowledge dissemination, the ‘H’ factor, role clarity, franchisee satisfaction, and brand commitment) in creating franchise brand champions. The findings provide significant theoretical and practical implications and lay the foundation for future research in this important research domain.     

Marketing’s roles in innovation in business-to-business firms: Status, issues, and research agenda

A project funded by the Institute for the Study of Business Markets to develop an understanding of the current state of business-to-business marketing and a research agenda for the field identified a lack of understanding of how the marketing function can or should best contribute to firms’ innovation efforts as the top priority. A workshop of senior academics and research-oriented practitioners explored this topic further, identifying four specific themes: (1) improving customer needs understanding and customer involvement in developing new products, (2) innovating beyond the lab, (3) disseminating and implementing research findings in firms, and (4) marketing’s overall role in innovation. This article defines these themes, sketches the current status of knowledge about each theme, frames practitioners’ issues with them, and proposes research agendas for each theme to move the field forward. The goal is to encourage rigorously executed academic research that can also help firms innovate more successfully.     

大规模私有化与后共产主义国家死亡率危机的跨国分析

在20世纪90年代初欧洲的大部分后共产主义国家的成年人死亡率都呈上升态势,而各国在不同时期死亡率变化的差异至今仍然缺乏一个确切的解释.我们通过多元纵向回归来分析在东欧和前苏联的后共产主义国家中处于工作年龄段(15-59岁)男性从1989到2002年的年龄标准化死亡率,研究发现:作为一个经济转型策略,快速的大规模私有化是造成后社会主义国家成年人死亡率差异的决定性因素;而如果一个国家社会资本高,那么私有化对死亡率的影响就会被削弱.     

‘Thinking Before Acting’ or ‘Acting Before Thinking’: Antecedents of Individual Action Propensity in Work Situations

We introduce the concept of ‘individual action propensity’ to examine the approach of individuals towards solving situations for which they lack knowledge and/or experience about what to do. We focus on a naturally contrasting pair of responses: ‘thinking before acting’ or ‘acting before thinking’, and associate low action propensity with thinking one's way into understanding how to act, and high action propensity with acting one's way into understanding such situations. We build on regulatory mode theory – with its dimensions of locomotion and assessment and the trade‐off between speed and accuracy – to examine individual characteristics as predictors of individual action propensity. We find that individual action propensity is associated with being a woman, having fewer years of formal education, not relying on help‐seeking behaviours, and having a positive attitude towards spontaneity. Our findings shed light on why individuals take action, or not, and provide implications for research on organizational action propensity.     

Sustainability of Tourism Development in Macao,China

To maximize the benefits to stakeholders in Macao, the sustainability of Macao tourism was examined by assessing the economic, socio‐cultural and environmental impacts of tourism, visitor satisfaction and the level of community involvement in local tourism planning from 2002 to 2009, through the use of primary and secondary data. The results revealed that tourism did bring both positive and negative impacts to the community. Visitor satisfaction was found to be moderate. Channels for community participation in local tourism development were also lacking. The paper suggests that for sustainable tourism development, Macao needs to diversify away from its casino industry, to speed up the construction of the public transport system and to keep monitoring the environmental conditions, the students' drop‐out and crime rate and the locals' quality of life. More importantly, a master plan for its tourism development integrating all the key stakeholders' interests is urgently required. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.