The impact of technical consultants on the quality of their clients' products: Evidence from the Bordeaux wine industry

Research summary : Recent research rooted in the resource‐based view of the firm suggests that resources are more likely to create value if they are effectively managed. An underlying assumption of the literature is that firms manage their resources on their own. However, many firms hire consultants to help them do so. In this study, I develop and test hypotheses regarding the impact of technical consultants on the quality of their clients' products. Using data from the Bordeaux wine industry, I find evidence that the use of technical consultants has a positive impact on relative product quality and a negative impact on the extremeness of relative product quality. Moreover, the positive impact of technical consultants on relative product quality is stronger at lower levels of relative resource quality. Managerial summary : Findings from a study in the Bordeaux wine industry indicate that the decision to hire consultants should depend on a firm's strategy. If a firm wants to improve its performance, it should hire consultants. Indeed, the “best practices” of technical consultants are generally more valuable than internally generated knowledge. If a firm wants to achieve outstanding performance, hiring consultants may not be the right decision. Because the “best practices” of technical consultants have more certain performance implications than internally generated knowledge, they decrease the likelihood of extremely low performance. However, their lack of uniqueness also decreases the likelihood of extremely high performance. Finally, the decision to hire consultants should depend on the quality of a firm's resources. Firms with low‐quality resources tend to benefit more from the “best practices” of technical consultants. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Visitor centre staffing: Involving volunteers

Volunteer involvement in visitor centres has received little attention by tourism researchers despite the critical role staff play in welcoming tourists to a destination and promoting tourism activities. The community function of visitor centres - of which volunteering is part - has also been underplayed in previous research. Using data from a survey and interviews with visitor centre managers in Australia, this paper investigates the rationales for staffing visitor centres with volunteers and/or paid employees and, related to motivations for volunteering, the factors influencing the attractiveness of visitor centre volunteer programmes. The dominant rationales for involving volunteers are need, community involvement, visitor experience, and the personal qualities and motivations of volunteers. Visitor centre volunteering is attractive because of location and local pride, interactions with tourists and social relationships with other volunteers, and the reputation of the visitor centre and its volunteer programme.     

Why do satisfied customers switch? Focus on the restaurant patron variety-seeking orientation and purchase decision involvement

Company efforts to make customers switch from competitive brands to their own or induce them to repurchase their own brands are very important in their marketing activities and in this regard studies of customer variety-seeking orientation and level of involvement in decision making play a crucial role in explaining customers’ product selection activities. The purpose of this study intends to examine interrelationships among customer satisfaction, loyalty, and switching intent in family restaurants and verify the moderating effect of customer variety-seeking orientation and purchase decision involvement. A total of 305 patrons in Korea participated. The results showed a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Participants expressing a high level of satisfaction were more likely to switch restaurants. Whether customers feel loyalty determines their switching intent. There were moderating effects related to customer variety-seeking orientation in the causal relationships between customer loyalty and switching intent. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.     

Do Small Family Firms Outperform Non-family Firms？ A Research Agenda Based on Agency and Stewardship Theories＊

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of family involvement and altruism on agency costs of equity and debt, as well on the performance of small family businesses. To achieve this objective, the authors reviewed the literature on family business. Drawing from agency theory and stewardship theory, the authors also proposed a research model that highlights the links among the variables. In so doing, this paper makes some contributions to the literature in three ways. Firstly, it takes an integrative framework that may help to explain behaviors oriented towards maximizing potential performance within a context in which pro-organizational attitudes co-exist with self-serving motivations. Secondly, it advances the understanding of corporate governance mechanisms in small family businesses, and finally, it deepens the discussion of prior research by advancing a set of propositions based on two theoretical approaches. Thus, the authors believe that a systematic comparison of different contexts provides new insights into small family business governance. The implications and directions for future research are in the last section.     

家族涉入方式的差异如何影响企业双元创新意愿?

文章以2012-2017 年中国上市家族企业的数据,基于社会情感财富理论,分析了家族在股权与管理层两种不同涉入方式下的战略偏好与目标导向,进而探究出其对于双元创新的影响,并结合产品市场竞争环境下的情形,进一步分析了市场竞争的加剧对于股权涉入和管理层涉入与双元创新关系的调节效应。结果发现：家族在股权涉入与利用式创新呈显著的正相关,但与开发式创新呈负相关,而家族管理层涉入与利用式创新和开发式创新均呈现显著的正相关;产品市场环境的竞争能够加强家族股权涉入与利用式创新的正向关系和家族管理层涉入与开发式创新的正向关系。     

Deracializing Exploitation? ‘Black Economic Empowerment’ in the South African Wine Industry

This paper considers the discourse and practice of 'Black Economic Empowerment' (BEE) in the South African wine industry. It argues that far from representing a decisive break with an inequitable past, BEE allows the South African wine industry to avoid potentially more uncomfortable options to redress current and past race-based imbalances – such as land redistribution, import boycotts and better working conditions for grape pickers. An essentialist racial discourse, pivoting on ahistorical and dislocated notions of 'blackness', has been used to displace the transformation agenda away from addressing the conditions faced by workers, and to an ameliorism that allows a small cohort of black entrepreneurs to become the preferred beneficiaries of 'transformation' in the wine industry. The new terrain is characterized by branding, advertising and image building on the one side: and by codes of conduct, a sectoral BEE charter, scorecards and auditing on the other. These allow the standardization, legitimation and ostensible deracialization of exploitative labour and social relations in the South African wine industry.     

In Vino ‘No’ Veritas: impacts of fraud on wine imports in China

China is one of the largest wine importing countries in the world and is poised for continued import growth in the future. Increased wine purchases throughout China have given rise to persistent fraud where fake wines are packaged and sold with counterfeit contents and labels. For exporting countries like France, counterfeit wines displace market share, damage foreign brand reputation, and cause distrust in consumers who are aware of counterfeiting problems throughout the country. We examine the impact of fraudulent wine events (as measured by negative media reports) on Chinese wine demand differentiated by supplying country. We employ the Rotterdam demand system and a switching regression procedure to estimate import demand and compare results across different media variable specifications. Results consistently show that negative reports disproportionately affect French wine regardless of how the media variable is specified. This is not surprising because most fraudulent events involve French wine counterfeits.     

The effectiveness of fear appeals in ‘green’ advertising: An analysis of creative,consumer, and source variables*

This study focused on the effectiveness of fear appeal messages used to arouse a threat in green advertising. An experiment recruited 175 participants to test the influence of the advertising appeal (fear vs. non-fear appeal), source (for-profit vs. non-profit organizations), and involvement with the environment on attitude toward the ad (A_ad), attitude toward the product (A_p) and purchase intention (PI). Results revealed that a fear appeal in a green ad negatively affected A_ad and A_p and that participants who were highly involved with the environment were more likely to have positive attitudes toward the green ad and advertised green product as well as a stronger intent to purchase it. The source type in the green ad did not affect ad effectiveness and involvement with the environment did not moderate the effects of either appeal or source.     

It's not what you know but who you know that's important: the influence of social networks on communities

Since its conception in 1945, the UK National Health Service (NHS) has been the focus of extensive political rhetoric regarding the involvement of patients and the public in the provision of health‐care services both locally and nationally. However, achieving substantial user involvement within local communities has proven to be a complex task. The exploratory research presented in this paper investigates the influence of social networks within local communities and its relevance for user involvement. Four main findings emerged: interviewees have strong informal social networks; there is a strong sense of generalized reciprocity; diversity is limited within the social groupings; and there exists a lack of trust in governmental institutions. With regards to health issues, there is an overriding feeling that ‘things like that should be left to the people who know’. If user involvement is to be achieved at the level envisioned by the UK government, achieving a greater relevance for users is essential.     

Accounting for Gender in a Study of the Motivation-Involvement Relationship

ABSTRACT

The effects of gender on involvement in high-risk recreation have received limited research attention despite mounting evidence suggesting the learned interactions between people and places likely vary for men and women. The purpose of this study was to provide insights into how gender influenced the motivation-involvement relationship among whitewater recreationists on a Wild and Scenic River in California. Our results revealed the motivations of Risk, Escape, Learning, and Achievement/Stimulation positively influenced involvement in rafting activities. Although gender did not influence all dimensions of involvement, we found that identity expression varied between subgroups. Specifically, men were more likely to ascribe meaning to rafting than women because this activity allowed them to affirm and express their individual character. The implications emanating from this study advance theoretical understanding of the factors that influence enduring involvement and inform natural resource management decisions about maintaining the desired benefits of activities sought by nature-based recreationists.