Do offline and online go hand in hand? Cross-channel and synergy effects of direct mailing and display advertising

Despite the rise of digital, direct mailing as a marketing communication tool remains relevant and widely applied in practice. Nevertheless, research into the effectiveness of direct mailing in the online environment is scant. Key questions that remain entail how direct mails affect different online and offline consumer activity metrics throughout the purchase funnel and how they interact with digital marketing communication tools. The current paper, therefore, investigates these two questions by conducting two studies. First, we focus on the effect of direct mailing on zip-code level upper, middle, and lower funnel performance metrics over time by analyzing quasi-experimental data from a large European insurance firm. The results reveal that direct mailing significantly influences consumer activity metrics in the online channel (i.e., online search and clicking behavior), in support of cross-channel effects of direct mailing. Moreover, direct mailing is shown to be effective throughout the purchase funnel, both directly and indirectly, with a positive net sales effect. Second, we study the joint effect of direct mailing and display advertising by analyzing field experiment data from the same insurance firm. The results show positive synergy between direct mailing and display advertising. Therefore, despite the rise of digital, direct mailing still serves as an effective marketing tool, both by itself and in combination with digital marketing.     

Forest governance and economic values of forest ecosystem services in Vietnam

Forest ecosystems deliver valuable services to humanity. However, many forests are being degraded and their services have been undervalued. The main problem lies in the inadequate institutional arrangements for forest governance. This paper aims to assess the effects of alternative forest governance arrangements on the provision and economic values of forest ecosystem services (FES) in Vietnam. The study presents a framework for mapping land use and land cover (LULC) change stemming from actual and hypothetical changes in forest governance regimes, quantifies the resulting changes in the provision of FES, and estimates the associated economic values. In the context of the study site in the North Western uplands of Vietnam, we test three alternative forest governance scenarios: business as usual, with a dominant government role; a community-based governance regime; and a private, individual-based forestry governance regime. Scenarios are based quite closely on the way these regimes are (or might be expected to be) implemented in Vietnam. For each forest governance scenario, we map LULC changes based on land suitability analysis and transition likelihood for the period 2010 − 2020. The resulting maps are used as inputs into the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs) model, which is used to estimate the quantity of three specific FES: carbon storage/sequestration, sediment yield, and water yield. We apply economic valuation methods to value these services: the social cost of carbon is used to estimate the economic values of carbon storage/sequestration; the cost of removing sediment deposited in reservoirs is applied for valuing the reduction of sediment yield, and the residual value of water supply for hydropower generation is used for valuing water yield. The results show that forest governance regimes have a significant effect not only on forest LULC, but also on the quantity and values of FES derived from forests. The FES are differentially affected by alternative forest governance regimes: some FES increase in quantity and value under some governance regimes and decrease under others. Of the three forest governance regimes examined, there is no one regime that will always be ‘better’ than the others in terms of provisioning all considered FES. For the specific context of Vietnam, we find that the private forest governance scenario is inferior to the community-based governance scenario, as an alternative to the current state-based governance. Because our results pertain to the scenarios as constructed, rather than generally to broad categories of governance regimes, there remains the possibility that regimes can be constructed that outperform all of those examined here.     

Cultural distance and international trade in services: A disaggregate view

In this paper, we estimate the effect of “cultural distance” on bilateral trade in services. The measure of cultural distance we use is based on scores that reflect country averages of individuals’ attitudes towards inequality, self-orientation, competition, uncertainty, traditions, and indulgence. Controlling for standard ingredients of gravity equations, we show that an aggregate measure of cultural distance has a significantly negative effect on total bilateral services trade. Once we take a more disaggregate view, we find that the strength of this effect differs across various types of services and various aspects of cultural distance.     

Policy lessons from spatiotemporal enrollment patterns of payment for ecosystem service programs in Argentina

Payment for ecosystem services schemes (PES) are lauded as a market-based solution to curtail deforestation and restore degraded ecosystems. However, PES programs often fail to conserve sites under strong long-term deforestation pressures. Underperformance, in part, is likely due to adverse selection. Spatial adverse selection occurs when landowners are more likely to enroll parcels with low deforestation pressure than parcels with high deforestation pressure. Temporal adverse selection arises when parcels are enrolled for short time periods. In both cases, financial resources are allocated without having a sizeable impact on long-term land use change. Improving program performance to overcome these shortcomings requires understanding attributes of landowners and their parcels across large scales to identify spatial and temporal enrollment patterns that drive adverse selection. In this paper, we examine these patterns in Argentina’s PES program in Chaco forest, a global deforestation hotspot. Our study area covers 252,319 km². Results from multinomial logistic regression models showed that large parcels of enrolled land and parcels owned by absentee landowners exhibit greater evidence of spatiotemporal adverse selection than smaller parcels or parcels owned by local landowners. Furthermore, parcels managed under land use plans for conservation and restoration are more likely to be associated with adverse selection than parcels managed for financial returns such as harvest of non-timber forest products, silviculture, and silvopasture. However, prior to recommending that PES programs focus on land uses with higher potential earnings, a greater understanding is needed of the degree to which these land uses meet ecological and biodiversity goals of PES programs. We suggest that increased spatial targeting of enrollment, along with enrollment of local landowners and further incentives for land uses that support conservation and restoration, could promote long-term conservation of forest lands.     

Services as drivers of economic growth. Is there an opportunity for Latin America countries?

ABSTRACT

Considering the recent improvements in services innovation and productivity performance, the aim of the article is to analyze if they can act as a new growth driver for Latin American countries. For that, we review the literature on services and structural change in two stages. First, we apply a bibliometric methodology to identify the main trends in literature. Second, we analyze in-depth a smaller set of papers in order to extract the main lessons regarding three aspects of our question: (i) services and productivity growth, (ii) new opportunities for innovation in services and (iii) relation between services and manufacturing through servitization process. The results show that productivity and innovation growth in services are concentrated in only a few branches. Besides this, services performance depends on their links with manufacturing activities. We conclude that the current Latin American servitization process clausure opportunities for developing instead of opening them.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Seizing the opportunity of demanding customers by means of frontline service behaviors

Service businesses are increasingly facing more demanding customers as a result of a shift in power from the service providers' side to the customers' side. Related literature predominantly examines the negative side of this ongoing trend, while overlooking the positive side. The major aim of this paper is to examine how frontline employees — investment account managers — deal with the ongoing increase in customer demandingness. To address this, we draw on adaptability performance theory to test the facilitating effect of frontline employees' post-transaction service behaviors (SBs) — diligence, inducements, information communication, sportsmanship, and empathy — as a means of adaptation to higher levels of customer demand. Findings indicate that frontline employees adapt most of their SBs' intensities to match customers' demands. The results show that some SBs actually increase the effectiveness and efficiency of frontline employees' service performance, leading to an increase in customer value and satisfaction. Customer value is found as a mediator in some of the relationships between SBs and customer satisfaction. Contrary to the conception of the negative outcomes of customer demandingness, service firms need to consider taking advantage of customer demandingness by stressing the role of frontline employees in adapting to customers’ demands.     

Coproduction of ecosystem services as human–nature interactions—An analytical framework

There seems to be widespread consensus in the ecosystem services literature that benefits from ecosystems are not produced by ecosystems independently of humans, but arise because of people’s interactions with an ecosystem. Yet, these interactions are hardly ever explicitly investigated in a way that directly contributes to the ecosystem services debate. Here, we empirically examine the role of humans in the generation of ecosystem services, and the factors that might help us to understand diversity in these processes.We analyzed 47 qualitative interviews with people using a mixed woodland–farmland–upland ecosystem in Fife, Scotland, for a variety of activities. Interviewees mentioned a wide range of ecosystem services, especially provisioning and cultural services, which were closely connected to human activities in the place. We term the interactions between people and place that lead to ecosystem services here ‘co-production’, and distinguish between: (a) the co-production of ecosystem structures; (b) the co-production of the services proper and (c) the attribution, i.e., construction, of meaning to these structures and services. All three processes could be carried out by individuals or jointly, by groups of people, and the social nature of the interaction often added meaning and value to the co-production process. Two sets of factors, clustered under the headings of ‘identities’ and ‘capabilities’, shaped these interactions, and helped us to understand variation in people’s engagement with the ecosystem as well as their views on ecosystem disservices.While further research is needed to explore the usefulness of our analytical framework in other contexts, our findings suggest that identities and capabilities of people have to be considered much more strongly than is currently the case in standard ecosystem services assessments, as these influence which ecosystem structures are eventually turned into benefits, and give important insights into the environmental justice related to the distribution of ecosystem benefits.     

Tourism at Costalegre,Mexico: An ecosystem services-based exploration of current challenges and alternative futures

Tourism, as all human activities, is dependent on the natural environment and its respective ecosystem services (ES). Different user groups manage and consume these touristic ES differently, resulting in discrepancies and potential conflicts. Despite the urgency to find inclusive local approaches for sustainable development, tourism studies still analyze socio-economic and ecological impacts separately and lack integrated social–ecological approaches to improve foresight in tourism planning. Based on a growing concern regarding the future of Costalegre on the Jalisco coast of Western Mexico, we analyze through interviews, surveys, and participant observation the dependence of tourism on specific ecosystem services and conduct a scenario analysis which shows present and future implications for the social–ecological system. Furthermore, this analysis shows in detail how different scenarios change ES provision and people's livelihoods. Key findings include identifying freshwater provision and cultural ES as the most important touristic ES. At a regional scale, peasants in ejidos are the main ES stewards, whereas high-class tourism facilities constitute important local stewards. Benefits, mainly access to freshwater and the beach, are unequally distributed, provoking conflicts among different ES user groups that may escalate in the near future. Improved communication between all user groups and strengthening of key political actors seem to be the most immediate recommendations to ensure the long term sustainability of this particular region. This work may contribute to improved planning and decision-making as our ES based scenarios are a first step to integrate social–ecological knowledge into improved decision-making. At a local scale, the study reveals the most likely future development options and their social and ecological consequences. It could also serve as a baseline for informed policy making.