Examining product managers’ job satisfaction and performance using selected organizational behavior variables

The product management form of organization has been around for quite a while; yet little empirical research has been done on product managers. This article reports a study of product managers and some organizational behavior factors which contribute to their job satisfaction and job performance. These factors include centralization of decision making, job structure, job scope, role ambiguity, and role conflict. Finally, several suggestions are made for creating an environment more conductive to having product managers who are satisfied with their jobs.     

Playing safe in coordination games:: the roles of risk dominance, payoff dominance, and history of play

This paper presents results from a series of experiments designed to test the impact on subject behavior of changes in the risk dominance and payoff dominance characteristics of two player coordination games. The main finding is that changes in risk dominance significantly affect play of the subjects, whereas changes in the level of payoff dominance do not. Observed history of play also has an important influence on subject behavior, both when subjects are randomly rematched after each game and when they remain matched with the same individual for a sequence of games.     

Measures used to evaluate industrial marketing activities

Given the importance of controlling marketing efforts, a study was conducted of industrial manufacturers to determine the extent of their use of various measures to evaluate different marketing activities. The predominate measures used for evaluation were sales volume with much less utilization of profitability, productivity, and expense measures.     

Provision versus Appropriation in Symmetric and Asymmetric Social Dilemmas

Social dilemmas characterize decision environments in which individuals' exclusive pursuit of their own material self‐interest can produce inefficient allocations. Social dilemmas are most commonly studied in provision games, such as public goods games and trust games, in which the social dilemma can be manifested in foregone opportunities to create surplus. Appropriation games are sometimes used to study social dilemmas that can be manifested in destruction of surplus, as is typical in common‐pool resource extraction games. A central question is whether social dilemmas are more serious for inhibiting creation of surplus or in promoting its destruction. This question is addressed in this study with an experiment involving three pairs of payoff‐equivalent provision and appropriation games. Some game pairs are symmetric, whereas others involve asymmetric power relationships. We find that play of symmetric provision and appropriation games produces comparable efficiency. In contrast, power asymmetry leads to significantly lower efficiency in an appropriation game than in a payoff‐equivalent provision game. This outcome can be rationalized by reciprocal preference theory but not by models of unconditional social preferences.     

Potential Tax Revenue from a Regulated Marijuana Market A Meaningful Revenue Source

A bstract . Dissatisfaction with current drug policy measures has led to a push for the regulation of drugs , especially marijuana . On the premise that such regulation is a real possibility, estimates of potential tax revenue from a regulation scheme and critical comments on other estimates of the size of the marijuana market are presented. For 1991, potential tax revenue is estimated to range from 2.55 to 9.09 billion dollars. The uncertainty surrounding the price elasticity of demand for marijuana, home cultivation of marijuana by individual users, and the extent to which purchases may still be made from the black market are discussed, as are their implications for potential tax revenue.     

Vertical territorial restraints rules of legality and guidelines for channel design

Location clauses and other vertical territorial restraints are often used by manufacturers to exert control over their distributors. Yet, recent Supreme Court decisions have resulted in some uncertainty as to the legality of these restraints. According to the case of Continental T.V. versus GTE Sylvania, the court now appears to be applying the rule of reason when asked to examine vertical territorial restraints. In this article, the sequencing of precedent cases that ultimately resulted in the rule of reason are presented first. Second, an interpretation of the Continental T.V. versus GTE Sylvania case is offered. Finally, some selected guidelines that should help a manufacturer survive a court inquiry under the rule of reason are provided.     

INSTITUTIONS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Scholars have tended to recommend ‘optimal’ solutions for coping with open‐access problems related to common‐pool resources such as fisheries, forests and water systems. Examples exist of both successful and unsuccessful efforts to rely on private property, government property and community property. After briefly reviewing how the often‐recommended solutions have worked in the field, I suggest that institutional theorists move from touting simple, optimal solutions to analysing adaptive, multi‐level governance as related to complex, evolving resource systems.     

Leveraging customers’ multiple identities: identity synergy as a driver of organizational identification

Marketers want to encourage constituents to strongly identify with their organizations, because organizational identification contributes to positive firm outcomes. However, the extant research on organizational identity largely has overlooked the fact that an individual??s ??self?? actually is a collection of multiple social identities. This study is the first to propose and empirically demonstrate that marketers can leverage customers?? multiple societal roles (e.g., parent, environmentalist, professor) to build and reinforce their relationships with the firm. Specifically, the research introduces the concept of ??identity synergy.?? Identity synergy occurs when individuals?? involvement with an organization facilitates their pursuit of other important social identities. Our study shows that customer perception of identity synergy is positively related to identification with an organization. Moreover, the study helps explain the process by which antecedents of organizational identity (identity affirmation, identity support, and value congruence) positively affect customer-firm relationships by proposing and testing identity synergy as a mediator between these antecedents and organizational identification. The study also contributes to our understanding of organizational identity theory by introducing the new concept of peer identification, or identification with other members of the organization, such as other customers or volunteers. The empirical evidence demonstrates identity synergy??s role in building peer identification, as well as peer identification??s role in building organizational identification.     

Supplier evaluation as a new marketing tool

Sales people contacting potential industrial buyers are selling more than just a physical product or a service, they are selling the total benefits offered to the buying firm—the “augmented” product. (P. Kotler, Marketing Management. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1976). In today's market, the product benefits that are critical in making a sale are those that a firm adds “to their factory output in the form of packaging, services, advertising, customer advice, financing, delivery arrangements, warehousing, and other things that people value” (T. Levitt, The Marketing Mode. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1969). The salesperson, however, may often err in the presentation of the “augmented” product to the customer due to lack of information on the buyer's needs. These errors are compounded by lack of knowledge about which dimensions of the “augmented” product give the competitive advantage to the firm. This article proposes a new role for supplier performance evaluation that can contribute greatly to the effectiveness of the industrial marketer.