Simulating in-store lighting and temperature with visual aids: methodological propositions and S–O–R effects

Lighting and temperature are two important stimuli in sensory marketing. However, these stimuli have not yet been studied in controlled retail environments. The objective of this research is twofold: (1) to propose a methodology to infer the effect of different levels of lighting and temperature in a controlled environment with visual aids and (2) to test the impact of these simulated stimuli on environmental perceptions and behavioral intentions, following a Stimulus–Organism–Response model. This model postulates that stimuli should influence internal responses which in turn shall have an impact on behavioral responses. This research is based on the encoding and retrieval literature as well as the literature in physics, ergonomics and environmental psychology. In Study 1, we manipulated lighting and temperature levels in digital photographic images, using relevant cues (illuminance and color temperature for lighting; clothing and activity level for temperature). A between-subjects design experiment was carried out over 387 respondents: two simulated levels of lighting (bright cool light and soft warm light) × two simulated levels of temperature (slightly warm temperature and slightly cool temperature) × three types of stores (jeans store, bookstore, and furniture store). We found that under these simulated conditions, the participants accurately perceived the differences of lighting and temperature levels, as we predicted. In Study 2, the same photographs were used in a within-between subjects design over 110 participants and 330 observations. We tested the impact of these simulated stimuli on environmental perceptions (stimulating and relaxing) and behavioral intentions (intention to buy and intention to spend time in the store). Both a bright cool light and a slightly warm temperature had a stimulating effect on participants’ store perception. Under these conditions, participants also increased their intentions to buy and to spend time in the store. The stimulative perception mediates the relationship between (1) lighting and both intention to spend time in the store and purchase intention and (2) temperature and intention to spend time in the store. These results confirm the benefit of using digitally manipulated stimuli with photographs in controlled environments.     

The impact of sustainable public procurement on supplier management — The case of French public hospitals

In the public sector, procurement managers are now required to comply with new sustainable regulations and to look for suppliers able to provide a sustainable offering. Stating that contracts can only frame part of the interaction and that parties often turn to more negotiated agreements, we investigate whether sustainable expectations within public hospitals could impact supplier management and imply rearrangements between public buyers and private providers. Data were collected from fifteen French hospitals through semi-structured interviews. Findings first highlight the sustainable expectations of public buyers from global key providers, and, second, that sustainable procurement does impact the relationship by creating new rules. Building on these results, managerial implications are suggested.     

Board independence and operating performance: analysis on (French) company and individual data

This article studies the relationship between board independence and firm operating performance in French listed companies. We take advantage of an original database, with a time-series dimension that can be used to mitigate heterogeneity and dynamic endogeneity issues. In addition, this database can be disaggregated at the individual (director) level. This design enables us to introduce firm fixed effects and individual fixed effects in firm performance equations, thereby controlling for heterogeneity at the firm and individual levels. Our main result is to document a significant negative relationship between independence and accounting performance. This result suggests that, in the French context, the costs of independence (i.e. the informational gap supported by independent directors compared to insiders and affiliated directors) outweigh the benefits of independence (i.e. the reduction in agency costs).     

Competing mechanism games of moral hazard: communication and robustness

We consider multiple-principal multiple-agent models of moral hazard: principals compete through mechanisms in the presence of agents who take unobservable actions. In this context, we provide a rationale for restricting principals to make use of simple mechanisms, which correspond to direct mechanisms in the standard framework of Myerson (J Math Econ 10:67–81, 1982). Our results complement those of Han (J Econ Theory 137(1):610–626, 2007) who analyzes a complete information setting where agents’ actions are fully contractible.