Career Risk

The author defines asset manager career risk as the risk that asset owners terminate an existing manager due to an extended period of underperformance relative to a benchmark or peer group even though the manager has skill (defined here as positive information ratio). The author shows that myopic loss aversion gives rise to career risk even for skilled asset managers and that the current industry practice of quarterly or annual performance evaluations puts even the most skilled asset managers at risk of undue termination. The author also investigates how a reduction of tracking error leads to a reduction of career risk even though this comes at the expense of lower long-term performance. Finally, the author computes the minimum evaluation period needed to reduce career risk for asset managers of different skill levels.     

Deutsches Gesundheitssystem teuer und ineffizient — eine Fehldiagnose?

In Deutschland wird ein international überdurchschnittlicher Anteil des Bruttoinlandsprodukts für Gesundheitsleistungen aufgewendet. Gleichzeitig ist die Lebenserwartung der Deutschen im Vergleich der entwickelten L?nder allenfalls durchschnittlich. Aus dieser Diskrepanz wird oft der Schluss gezogen, das deutsche Gesundheitssystem sei ineffizient. Bei n?herer Analyse der zugrundeliegenden Daten erscheint diese Schlussfolgerung jedoch fragwürdig.     

Critical points of CSR‐related stakeholder dialogue in practice

This paper examines the roles of dialogue in the process of communication with stakeholders. The conceptual frameworks of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder relationships frequently present the initiation of a dialogue with stakeholders as a way for an organization to respond to criticisms of its social and environmental policies and actions. The paper discusses dialogue in the stakeholder and CSR literature. This is followed by the analysis of in‐depth semi‐structured interviews in the empirical section. Theoretical discussion and empirical examples demonstrate that the role of stakeholder dialogue in implementing CSR strategy is crucial in many ways. The case examples taken from the interviews with the heads of two large companies and two non‐governmental organizations illustrate the practical difficulties that may be encountered in applying the principle and practice of dialogue to the implementation of CSR programs in the real world.     

Guest Editorial: Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility

The aims of this introduction are to define the field of Corporate Social Responsibility communication, to emphasize the role of communicating CSR and briefly to describe different perspectives on CSR communication. In the second part, I review the papers in this special issue and stress the importance of different perspectives in CSR communication.     

The Effect of Word of Mouth on Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Products and Their Purchase Probability

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of word of mouth on consumers’ attitudes toward the product and its purchase probability. Furthermore, we examine the moderating influence of susceptibility to interpersonal influence, which is a personal characteristic of the receiver of word of mouth information. A quasi experiment was conducted, in which subjects were asked to evaluate a product, while being subjected to positive or negative word of mouth. Our results indicate that negative word of mouth has an impact on consumers’ attitudes and purchase probability, while the influence of positive word of mouth was not significant. Interestingly, susceptibility to interpersonal influence does not play a moderating role. While the experimental design with an unknown word of mouth source and fictitious brand allowed the comparison of results for the positive, negative, and control group, such conditions do not correspond to an actual market setting.     

Friendly flexible working practices within the internal marketing framework: a service perspective

The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of the existence of work flexibility and its relevance to internal marketing. Friendly forms of work flexibility are critical to an improved understanding of the role internal marketing should have to achieve better service quality performance. This exploratory study is based on a sample of 2997 private-sector organisations provided by the CRANET survey. The results show the divergence in industry business patterns in the use of friendly and unfriendly flexible work arrangements. Service companies tend to use friendly flexible working practices in larger proportions. The analysis reveals a small negative relationship between unfriendly practices and service quality. These findings may suggest that service organisations tend to create more supportive environments when offering flexible work arrangements that are friendlier for individual workers and their families.