Does Store Brand Patronage Improve Store Patronage?

Review of Industrial Organization - We investigate the relationship between a household's store brandpatronage and store patronage through its impact on store revenuesand profits. The nature of...     

Joint Optimization of Product Price, Display Orientation and Shelf-Space Allocation in Retail Category Management

We develop a model that jointly optimizes a retailer's decisions for product prices, display facing areas, display orientations and shelf-space locations in a product category. Unlike the existing shelf-space allocation models that typically consider only the width of display shelves, our model considers both the width and height of each shelf, allowing products to be stacked. Furthermore, as demand is influenced by each product's two-dimensional facing area, we consider multiple product orientations that capture three-dimensional product packaging characteristics. That enables our model to not only treat shelf locations as decision variables, but also retailers’ stacking patterns in terms of product display areas and multiple display orientations. Further, unlike the existing studies which consider a retailer's shelf-space allocation decisions independent of its product pricing decisions, our model allows joint decisions on both and captures cross-product interactions in demand through prices. We show how a branch-and-bound based MINLP algorithm can be used to implement our optimization model in a fast and practical way.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Extreme Cherry Picking Behavior of Consumers in the Frequently Purchased Goods Market

Extreme cherry pickers are customers who seek price deals and excessively avail themselves of deep discount offers, which generates negative profits for retailers. This study uses market transaction and primary consumer survey data to provide insights into the determinants, prevalence, and profit impacts of such behavior in the frequently purchased goods market. We find that the extreme cherry picking segment is small (about 2% of all shoppers), but its relative value varies across stores, and consumers manifest this behavior only in secondary stores. An inverse U-shaped relationship marks consumers’ opportunity costs for cross-store price search and likelihood of extreme cherry picking behavior. Finally, we also find that a loss leader promotional strategy adds to retailers’ bottom lines, despite the pure loss generated by extreme cherry pickers.     

Research productivity patterns in the organizational behavior and human resource management literature

Closely following the analysis approach used for similar studies in the economics and finance literature, we present the first study to examine if there exists an empirical regularity in the bibliometric patterns of research productivity in the organizational behavior (OB) and human resource management (HRM) literature. Our results present strong evidence that there indeed exists a distinct empirical regularity. It is the so-called Generalized Lotka's Law of scientific productivity pattern: The number of authors publishing n papers is about 1/n^c of those publishing one paper. The observed pattern in the OB and HRM area is interestingly very consistent with those in much older, related business disciplines.     

Diversity �C diskutieren oder tabuisieren? Eine explorative Studie in Indien

Completing existing forms of diversity, the paper is the first to introduce the distinction between an off-limits form of diversity and a non off-limits form of diversity. This distinction is relevant because we argue that an off-limits form of diversity will result in a shift of intragroup conflicts, while a non off-limits form of diversity will result in an escalation of intragroup conflicts. For the management of diversity, this distinction is important to appropriately assess the risks of rising diversity in organizations. Analyzing data from N?=?96 schools in southern India (Kerala), religious diversity appears to be off-limits, whereas union diversity does not. As expected, union diversity was accelerated positively related to intragroup conflicts. Moreover, this positive relationship was stronger under high levels of religious diversity. In order to explain these results, we explicitly consider the particularites of Kerala. In order to draw conclusions for diversity management in German organizations, we additionally analyze which forms of diversity could unfold analogous dynamics and what implications for managers are to expect.     

Patterns of Research Productivity in the Business Ethics Literature: Insights from Analyses of Bibliometric Distributions

In any academic discipline, published articles in respective journals represent “production units” of scientific knowledge, and bibliometric distributions reflect the patterns in such outputs across authors or “producers.” Closely following the analysis approach used for similar studies in the economics and finance literature, we present the first study to examine whether there exists an empirical regularity in the bibliometric patterns of research productivity in the business ethics literature. Our results present strong evidence that there indeed exists a distinct empirical regularity. It is the so-called Generalized Lotka’s Law of scientific productivity pattern: the number of authors publishing n papers is about 1/n ^c of those publishing one paper. We discuss the likely processes that underlie the productivity pattern postulated by the Generalized Lotka’s Law. We find that the value of the exponent c is equal to about 2.6 for the comprehensive bibliometric data across the two leading business ethics journals. The observed research productivity pattern in the business ethics area, a relatively young discipline, is interestingly very consistent with those found in much older, related business disciplines like economics, accounting, and finance. We discuss the general implications of our findings.     

A comparative analysis of greening policies across supply chain structures

In this paper, we examine an apparel serial supply chain whose players initiate product “greening.” We consider situations in which the players cooperate or act individually. Our problem is motivated by recent developments in the supply chains of global apparel players. We build game theoretic models and show how greening levels, prices and profits are influenced by channel structures. We also study the impact of greening costs and consumer sensitivity towards green apparels. We propose a two-part tariff contract to coordinate the green channel. Our key contribution lies in the model of decision making of various supply chain structures and analyzing its impact on the players and supply chain. The problem throws interesting insights into the strategies of apparel players and their key decisions.     

How social influence affects consumption trends in emerging markets: An empirical investigation of the consumption convergence hypothesis

The authors empirically test the veracity of the consumption convergence hypothesis for emerging markets (EMs): the hypothesis that through social influences on individual consumers resulting from global integration, and exposure to the United States (U.S.), consumption levels in EMs converge toward U.S. consumption levels. Drawing upon psychological theories of social influence, and using national per capita consumption data from 22 major EMs and the U.S., the authors find strong empirical support for consumption convergence for both, the aggregate consumption level of EMs, as well as for soft‐drink consumption therein. After controlling for income and price levels, the results show that global integration and exposure to the U.S. each increase the EM's consumption convergence. The authors also find that degree of global integration interacts with specific exposure to the U.S., accelerating consumption convergence of EMs. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are considered, and future research opportunities are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Responding to QE taper from the receiving end

This paper analyses the spillovers of quantitative easing (QE) and their taper in India, as there could be country-specific nuances that qualify the inferences thrown up by cross-country studies, and therefore, can enrich and empower the on-going debate. Using a combination of event study analyses, generalized method of moments and VAR estimates, it finds that QEs have significantly altered monetary conditions in India. Among the QEs, QE1 had the largest impact and taper announcement had a strong negative impact, with the spillovers working mainly through the portfolio rebalancing channel, followed by the liquidity channel. Going forward, emerging economies are likely to take into account these spillovers in the conduct of monetary policy, with implications for both policy autonomy and global welfare.     

Empirical regularity in academic research productivity patterns in marketing

In any academic discipline, published articles in their respective journals represent “production units” of scientific knowledge, and bibliometric distributions reflect the patterns in this productivity across authors or “producers”. We use a comprehensive data set from 11 leading marketing journals to examine whether there is any empirical regularity in the patterns of research productivity in the marketing literature. Our results present strong evidence that there is indeed a distinct empirical regularity. It is the so-called generalized Lotka's Law of patterns in scientific productivity: the number of authors publishing n papers is approximately 1/n^c of those publishing one paper. We find the empirically estimated value of the exponent c to be 2.05 for the overall bibliometric data across the leading marketing journals. For individual journals, the estimated values of c range from 2.15 to 2.83, with lower values indicating higher authorship concentration levels. We also find that variations in authorship concentration levels across journals and over time are driven by a journal's maturity, its topical focus, its attractiveness as a publication outlet, the characteristics of its review process, and the extent of author collaboration present in the journal. We discuss the general implications of our findings.