Pensions and poverty traps: Is saving worthwhile for women?

Present policy means that a private pension, unless it is substantial, may fail to bring financial gain in retirement due to means testing: the pensions poverty trap. This paper examines women's acquisition of private (occupational and personal) pensions and their risk of facing this trap. Because of the loosening link between marriage and motherhood, previous patterns of pension advantage according to marital status are shifting. The employment and pension impact of motherhood varies with socio-economic status but the pension prospects of the majority of women are poor. It is concluded that women's need for financial advice to avoid the pensions poverty trap is greater than men's. An improved basic pension, indexed to national income, would reduce the risk of mis-selling and restore confidence that saving for a pension is worthwhile.     

Private ownership form and productive efficiency: Electric cooperatives versus investor-owned utilities

Property rights theory predicts that private firms whose ownership shares are not tradable will not be managed efficiently. This paper tests that theory by comparing the costs of rural electric cooperatives (RECs) and investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs). Separate translog cost functions are estimated for the RECs and the IOUs. The estimated costs of producing several three-product output bundles are then compared across ownership form under the assumption that all firms face identical input prices. The empirical results suggest that the cooperative sector of the electric power industry produces its output in a much less efficient manner than does the investor-owned sector.I would like to thank David Kaserman, Steven Caudill, T. Randolph Beard, Daniel Gropper, and David Laband for their many helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This research was partially funded by the Auburn University Utilities Research Center. The views expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of the New York State Public Service Commission.     

Relationship marketing of services—growing interest,emerging perspectives

Relationship marketing is an old idea but a new focus now at the forefront of services marketing practice and academic research. The impetus for its development has come from the maturing of services marketing with the emphasis on quality, increased recognition of potential benefits for the firm and the customer, and technological advances. Accelerating interest and active research are extending the concept to incorporate newer, more sophisticated viewpoints. Emerging perspectives explored here include targeting profitable customers, using the strongest possible strategies for customer bonding, marketing to employees and other stakeholders, and building trust as a marketing tool. Although relationship marketing is developing, more research is needed before it reaches maturity. A baker’s dozen of researchable questions suggests some future directions. holds the J. C. Penney Chair of Retailing Studies, is a professor of Marketing, and is director of the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University. He is a former national president of the American Marketing Association. His research interests are services marketing, service quality, and retailing strategy. He has published numerous journal articles and books, includingDelivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations (Free Press, 1990),Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality (Free Press, 1991), andOn Great Service: A Framework for Action (Free Press, 1995).     

Learning, Asset-Pricing Tests, and Market Efficiency

This paper studies the asset-pricing implications of parameter uncertainty. We show that, when investors must learn about expected cash flows, empirical tests can find patterns in the data that differ from those perceived by rational investors. Returns might appear predictable to an econometrician, or appear to deviate from the Capital Asset Pricing Model, but investors can neither perceive nor exploit this predictability. Returns may also appear excessively volatile even though prices react efficiently to cash-flow news. We conclude that parameter uncertainty can be important for characterizing and testing market efficiency.     

Organizational Culture: A Framework and Strategies for Facilitating Employee Whistleblowing

Seven dimensions of organizational culture that influence the employee reflection process that ultimately leads to whistleblowing behavior are presented. These include 1) vigilance, 2) engagement, 3) credibility, 4) accountability, 5) empowerment, 6) courage, and 7) options. Key considerations within each dimension are discussed and a compliance framework is used to identify strategies for encouraging a culture that supports employee communication, questioning, and reporting of illegal, unethical, and illegitimate practices within organizations.     

Alliance competence, resources, and alliance success: Conceptualization, measurement, and initial test

This research examines the effect of an alliance competence on resource-based alliance success. The fundamental thesis guiding this research is that an alliance competence contributes to alliance success, both directly and through the acquisition and creation of resources. Using survey data gathered from 145 alliances, empirical tests of the hypotheses provide support for the posited explanation of alliance success. The findings indicate that an alliance competence is not only antecedent to the resources that are necessary for alliance success but also to alliance success itself. C. Jay Lambe (Ph.D., The Darden School at University of Virginia) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. For 10 years prior to entering academe, he was engaged in business-to-business marketing for both Xerox and AT&T. His research interests include business-to-business marketing, relationship marketing, marketing strategy, and sales management. He has publications in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, theInternational Journal of Management Reviews, theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing, and theJournal of Relationship Marketing. He also serves as a reviewer for theJournal of Business-to-Business Marketing. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he was one of five Texas Tech University faculty members chosen in 1999 from the entire university for the annual Outstanding Faculty Member Award by the Mortar Board and Omicron Delta Kappa (Texas Tech University student organizations that recognize excellence in teaching). Robert E. Spekman is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School at the University of Virginia. He was formerly a professor of marketing and associate director of the Center for Telecommunications at the University of Southern California. He is an internationally recognized authority on business-to-business marketing and strategic alliances. His consulting experiences range from marketing research and competitive analysis, to strategic market planning, supply chain management, channels of distribution design and implementation, and strategic partnering. He has taught in a number of executive programs in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. His executive program experience ranges from general marketing strategy, to sales force management, to channels strategy, to creating strategic alliances, to business-to-business marketing strategy, to a number of single-company and senior executive management programs. He has edited and/or written seven books and has authored (coauthored) more than 80 articles and papers. He also serves as a reviewer for a number of marketing and management journals, as well as for the National Science Foundation. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Southern California, he taught in the College of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. During his tenure at Maryland, he was granted the Most Distinguished Faculty Award by the MBA students on three separate occasions. Shelby D. Hunt is the J. B. Hoskins and P. W. Horn Professor of Marketing at Texas Tech University, Lubbock. A past editor of theJournal of Marketing (1985–87), he is the author ofModern Marketing Theory: Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science (South-Western, 1991) andA General Theory of Competition: Resources, Competences, Productivity, Economic Growth (Sage, 2000). He has written numerous articles on competitive theory, macromarketing, ethics, channels of distribution, philosophy of science, and marketing theory. Three of hisJournal of Marketing articles—“The Nature and Scope of Marketing” (1976), “General Theories and Fundamental Explananda of Marketing” (1983), and “The Comparative Advantage Theory of Competition” (1995) (with Robert M. Morgan)—won the Harold H. Maynard Award for the best article on marketing theory. His 1985Journal of Business Research article with Lawrence B. Chonko, “Ethics and Marketing Management,” received the 2000 Elsevier Science Exceptional Quality and High Scholarly Impact award. His 1989 article, ”Reification and Realism in Marketing: in Defense of Reason,” won theJournal of Macromarketing Charles C. Slater Award. For his contributions to theory and science in marketing, he received the 1986 Paul D. Converse Award from the American Marketing Association, the 1987 Outstanding Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science, and the 1992 American Marketing Association/Richard D. Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award.     

EVIDENCE ON RELATIONSHIPS AMONG ALTERNATIVE MEASURES OF CONCENTRATION: A TOOL FOR ANALYSIS OF LDC INEQUALITY

The evidence on economic inequality in nearly all developing countries is both seriously incomplete and of moderate to poor quality. In addition, information often corresponds to distributions which appear to be less revealing and useful than other ones; thus it can be argued that the frequently available distribution of income among households ranked by household income is less helpful than the seldom found distribution of consumption among persons ranked by per capita household consumption. Whether one's objective is to assess inequality in some absolute sense or (especially) to make comparisons across countries or evaluate trends over time, it is useful to know whether systematic relationships exist among various measures of inequality, in particular between those most commonly available and those conceptually most interesting. Illustrative comparisons of a variety of inequality indicators are presented. They suggest that in developing countries the concentration of income among persons (assuming equal distribution within the family) does not differ much from the concentration among households. They also suggest that the concentration of consumption is somewhat less unequal than that of income, the ratio of the respective Gini coefficients tending to cluster around 0.85 to 0.90.     

Performance lies are hazardous to organizational health

Performance lies arise both from individual and from situational causes, but in this article, the attention is on situational causes. These are generally triggered by loyalty to the coalition, which is expressed through the continued use of performance lies. Because performance lies help create a boundary around the coalition that insulates its activities from top management, performance lies enable members of the coalition to exercise a greater degree of internal control. Naturally, such lies are dysfunctional, resulting in the avoidance of difficult issues and problems and compromising the organization's ability to adapt to a changing environment based on accurate information.