An Empirical Analysis of Short-run and Long-run Irish Export Functions: Does exchange rate volatility matter?

We analyse the long-run and short-run relationship between merchandise export volume and its determinants, foreign income, relative prices and exchange rate volatility, using the techniques of cointegration and error correction. The model was estimated for Irish exports and sectoral exports SITC 0-4 and SITC 5-8 to the EU using quarterly data for the period 1978-1998. The sectoral classification corresponds to the exports of mainly indigenous Irish firms and multinationals, respectively. We find that the exchange rate volatility has no effect on the volume of trade in the short-run but a significant positive effect in the long run. This is true in the aggregate and for our sectoral classifications. We can tentatively conclude that the decline in intra-EU exchange rate volatility associated with the single currency will lead to a long-run fall in Irish exports to the EU.     

LOGISTICS OUTSOURCING RELATIONSHIPS: CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVES

This study attempts to infuse relationship marketing theory into the study of logistics outsourcing relationships. In particular, the study demonstrates that not all of the partnerships between customers and providers of third‐party logistics services are the same in terms of their level of development. The existence of distinct levels of partnership established previously in the logistics literature is partially supported and a relationship between level of partnership development and the customer perceptions of key relationship marketing elements and outcomes is established. While exploratory in nature, these findings suggest there are benefits for the increased costs of developing closer partnerships.     

Tourism in British Columbia Metropolitan and Camping Visitors

Two issues common to tourism planning are investigated in the context of a current planning proposal between the British Columbia and Canadian governments. These issue are the problem of spatial imbalance in travel patterns and the place of camping in market development strategies. Through the use of multiple regression two group discriminatory analysis, several characteristic of metropolitan and campers visitor to British Columbia are differentiated. The dominant tourist position of British Columbia's two metropolitan centers is shown to be a function of their relative location and the availability of familiar visits. The campers proved to be independent travellers: independent of familial ties and metropolitan locations. Some implications and planning strategies for the integration of these two groups into the travel industry development objectives for the province of British Columbia are suggested.     

Fostering ethical marketing decisions

This paper begins by examining several potentially unethical recent marketing practices. Since most marketing managers face ethical dilemmas during their careers, it is essential to study the moral consequences of these decisions. A typology of ways that managers might confront ethical issues is proposed. The significant organizational, personal and societal costs emanting from unethical behavior are also discussed. Both relatively simple frameworks and more comprehensive models for evaluating ethical decisions in marketing are summarized. Finally, the fact that organizational commitment to fostering ethical marketing decisions can be accomplished by top management leadership, codes of ethics, ethics seminars/programs and ethical audits is examined. Gene R. Laczniak is Professor of Business at Marquette University. He has written extensively in the field of marketing and business ethics. He is coeditor of Marketing Ethics: Guidelines for Managers, Lexington Books, 1985 and coauthor of The Higher Road: A Path to Ethical Marketing Decisions, Allyn & Bacon, 1992 (both with P. E. Murphy). Professor Laczniak's research interests focus on the social and ethical influence of marketing activities on society as well as marketing strategy. Patrick E. Murphy is Professor of Marketing in the College of Business Administration at the University of Notre Dame. His articles on business and marketing ethics have appeared in several periodicals. He currently serves as editor of Journal of Public Policy & Marketing and is coeditor of Marketing and Advertising Regulation: The Federal Trade Commission in the 1990s, Notre Dame Press, 1990 (with W. L. Wilkie). His research interests focus on the ethical and public policy issues facing business.This article is based on material forthcoming in The Higher Road: A Path to Ethical Marketing Decisions, Allyn & Bacon, 1992.     

An analysis of efficiency in the delivery of financial services: The case of life insurance agencies

Scale and scope economies are examined for life insurance agencies that distribute multiple financial products. The results of this study suggest that there are significant administrative returns to scale for firms that sell a mix of financial products. The findings for scope estimates are inconsistent, suggesting that there are positive and negative cost complementaries for pairs of products. Subadditivity can be rejected, suggesting that joint distribution of financial products is not necessarily more efficient than specialization and that different-sized agencies are not necessarily at a cost disadvantage.     

Executive stock options and IPO underpricing

In about one-third of US IPOs between 1996 and 2000, executives received stock options with an exercise price equal to the IPO offer price rather than a market-determined price. Among firms with such “IPO options”, 58% of top executives realize a net benefit from underpricing: the gain from the options exceeds the loss from the dilution of their pre-IPO shareholdings. If executives can influence either the IPO offer price or the timing and terms of their stock option grants, there should be a positive relation between IPO option grants and underpricing. We find no evidence of such a relation. Our results contrast sharply with the emerging literature on managerial self-dealing at shareholder expense.     

THE ROLE OF INVENTORIES AND SPECULATIVE TRADING IN THE GLOBAL MARKET FOR CRUDE OIL

We develop a structural model of the global market for crude oil that for the first time explicitly allows for shocks to the speculative demand for oil as well as shocks to flow demand and flow supply. The speculative component of the real price of oil is identified with the help of data on oil inventories. Our estimates rule out explanations of the 2003–2008 oil price surge based on unexpectedly diminishing oil supplies and based on speculative trading. Instead, this surge was caused by unexpected increases in world oil consumption driven by the global business cycle. There is evidence, however, that speculative demand shifts played an important role during earlier oil price shock episodes including 1979, 1986 and 1990. Our analysis implies that additional regulation of oil markets would not have prevented the 2003–2008 oil price surge. We also show that, even after accounting for the role of inventories in smoothing oil consumption, our estimate of the short‐run price elasticity of oil demand is much higher than traditional estimates from dynamic models that do not account for for the endogeneity of the price of oil. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Engaging patients and families in ehealth

National Health IT Week, which ran from September 11-16, 2011, served as a time to highlight the importance of efficient information systems that protect the privacy and security of personal health information while improving the delivery of health care in the United States. During the week, the health IT community came together to raise national awareness regarding the consistent breakthroughs and hard work industry professionals, providers, and consumers have put forward to ensure they are moving toward the common goal of advancing the future of health care through private and secure health IT. Two events during the week (the Consumer Health IT Summit and the launch of the HealthlT.gov web site) brought home a theme increasingly seen as important to improving our health care system--patients participation in their care. Nurses will need to work with patients so they understand the importance of their participation as a partner in their care, instead of playing a passive role. One way we can do that is to encourage our patients to actively use technology to manage their own health care and to share information with their health care providers.     

The nursing informatics workforce: who are they and what do they do?

Nursing informatics has evolved into an integral part of health care delivery and a differentiating factor in the selection, implementation, and evaluation of health IT that supports safe, high-quality, patient-centric care. New nursing informatics workforce data reveal changing dynamics in clinical experience, job responsibilities, applications, barriers to success, information, and compensation and benefits. In addition to the more traditional informatics nurse role, a new position has begun to emerge in the health care C-suite with the introduction of the chief nursing informatics officer (CNIO). The CNIO is the senior informatics nurse guiding the implementation and optimization of HIT systems for an organization. With their fused clinical and informatics background, informatics nurses and CNIOs are uniquely positioned to help with "meaningful use" initiatives which are so important to changing the face of health care in the United States.