The impact of leniency and whistle-blowing programs on cartels

Antitrust authorities have set up leniency programs for cartel members that denounce their collusive agreements. These programs help prosecute participants and can thereby deter collusion. We compare the impact of reduced fines and positive rewards and argue that rewarding individuals, including firm employees, can deter collusion in a more effective way.We discuss possible adverse effects of whistle-blowing programs on firms' behavior, and particularly on turnover, incentives to innovate and cooperation. We also explore explanations for the puzzling fact that managers keep incriminating evidence and argue reward programs actually provide additional incentives for keeping such evidence.     

The Effects of Prior Impressions of a Firm's Ethics on the Success of a Cause-Related Marketing Campaign: Do the Good Look Better While the Bad Look Worse?

ABSTRACT

The exploratory study that is the subject of this paper examines the importance of ten church service and program variables in the decision by members of different age cohorts to join a church. Variables that were investigated included aspects of the worship service; adult, children and senior education programs; and recreational activities. Two additional variables, denominational loyalty and the desire to be part of a spiritual community, were also investigated. Chi-square tests were used to evaluate the significance of each program as well as elements of the worship service. In addition, sources of information that members used prior to the first visit were examined. The most important resource was word-of-mouth. There were 460 respondents who were members of Southern Baptist and Unitarian Universalist churches located throughout the South and Southwest.     

Employee Perceptions of Award and Incentive Programs

Abstract

Employee award and incentive programs have become standard practice in the business world and in many nonprofit organizations. A study was conducted to measure employee beliefs about meeting management's objectives and employee satisfaction with award/incentive programs. It was found that employee motivation-in terms of liking awards, willingness to encourage others, and willingness to work hard for awards-was the most important factor contributing to employee satisfaction with the programs and employee perception that management's objectives were satisfied by these programs.     

油蒸汽回收方案研究

倡导节能环保,用以节约现有能源消耗量,提倡环保型新能源开发,造福社会。首先要了解我们日常生活中到底耗费在哪里,污染在哪里,针对主要问题,应提高节能环保,减少不必要的能源浪费。随着可持续发展战略在全球达成的共识,节能减排成为每个国家企业发展所考虑的重要因素。能源是国家发展的动力,如何将能源做到节能减排、可持续发展,是能源企业的重要目标之一。油蒸汽回收就是这样一种绿色使用能源的方式。它的利用和发展,符合可持续发展的政策,符合和谐社会的发展目标,是能源企业及其他企业发展值得借鉴的手段。     

Toward a more practical approach to evaluating programs: The Multi‐Objective Realization approach

Emerging trends indicate that programs are being used to deliver benefits that may not be fully harnessed from single sets of uncoordinated projects. To support this movement, it is essential to have suitable measurement frameworks to assess the contribution of these activities and supply decision makers with valuable data on whether their objectives are being realized. This paper introduces the Multi‐Objective Realization Method (MORE) to help measure the strategic contributions of programs. The main principles of MORE underline the importance of a formal strategy to elicit and develop program objectives and to frame those objectives within defined measurement dimensions.     

Investigating the impact of surprise rewards on consumer responses

Adopting an experimental approach, this research compared surprise rewards with membership discount rewards in terms of their impact on customer responses of delight, frustration and satisfaction. In addition, this research examined the circumstances under which surprise rewards should be offered in order to yield maximum benefits for hospitality firms. In particular, the study examined how the customer's cumulative satisfaction (high vs. low) influences the effectiveness of surprise rewards (vs. membership discount rewards) in increasing customer delight and satisfaction and decreasing customer frustration. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, results show that surprise rewards are more effective than membership discount rewards for enhancing customer delight and satisfaction and attenuating customer frustration, particularly when the customer's cumulative satisfaction is low. These findings have important implications for the hospitality industry. Hospitality managers and marketers could use this information to design effective loyalty reward programs.     

银行监督、企业社会性成本与贷款融资体系

本文从政府机构控股国有企业所造成的企业行为扭曲的角度来研究银行贷款策略组合的微观机制,即银行对国有企业和私营企业进行事前筛选的程度及贷款利率设定,并建立了关于银行贷款融资体系的微观模型和理论框架。首先,将企业社会性成本和银行监督功能(事前筛选)引入债务合同模型,说明国有企业在面临破产做清算决策时会考虑到社会破产成本,从而推导出国有企业的还款机制有别于私营企业,信息不对称条件下银行事前对贷款筛选的激励也会有所不同,并提供了一般性推导和数值解拟合分析;同时,事前筛选存在一定的反转效应,因此需要就监督效率的社会剩余价值进行权衡。     

Organizational diversity programs across cultures: effects on absenteeism,turnover, performance and innovation

This study examined data from over 5000 organizations in 22 countries to address three complementary issues: (1) the influence of national culture on the adoption of diversity programs aimed at recruiting, training and promoting individuals from specific target groups; (2) the moderating effect of national cultural practices on the relationship between these diversity programs and the organizational outcomes of absenteeism and turnover; and (3) the mediating effect of absenteeism and turnover on the relationship between diversity programs and organizational performance and innovation. National cultural values and practices were taken from the GLOBE study and assigned respectively to the organizations in our sample. A multilevel path analysis supported the hypothesized effects of national cultural values on organizational diversity programs. Moreover, cultural practices were found to moderate the relationship between diversity programs and absenteeism and turnover. Our hypotheses on the role of absenteeism and turnover as mediators of the relationship between diversity programs and organizational performance and innovation were also supported. Our findings may help guide managers' decisions on the adoption of diversity programs in units operating in different national cultures. We discuss the implications of our findings for scholars and practitioners concerned with diversity management issues in a global context.     

Can economic bonus programs jeopardize service relationships?

Research findings on the impact of economic bonus programs on service relationships are contradictory. While some studies find positive effects of economic bonus programs on customer’s relational behavior, other studies demonstrate negative effects. Building on self-determination theory, Dholakia (J Market Res 43(2):109–120, 2006) points at a possible explanation for these conflicting results, arguing that economic marketing programs have negative effects on self-determined customers when the program is perceived as controlling by them. By testing the effect of four different kinds of economic bonus programs on loyalty in an experimental setting using a nationwide representative sample of 768 participants, this research is the first that provides empirical evidence that economic bonus programs can indeed endanger service relationships by reducing customer’s self-determination. Implications of our findings for the abundance of economic bonus programs offered to service customers these days are highlighted.     

Understanding Active Loyalty Behavior in Hotel Reward Programs Through Customers’ Switching Costs and Perceived Program Value

Whether loyalty programs have become part of the lexicon of buzzwords or not, the hotel industry continues to adopt loyalty/rewards programs as a major channel to nurture customers’ active loyalty as well as to reap return business. This study examins the structural relationships among perceived program value, switching costs, and active loyalty. The proposed model is supported by an online survey dataset collected from United States (US) tourists. The findings show that perceived program value is less effective in driving active loyalty compared with switching costs. This implies a need for strategic thinking on the part of hoteliers and the industry. Rather than aggressively spending money or copying schemes used by competitors to gear up program value, the value of a defensive tactic of increasing switching costs should be considered.