Alternative Regulatory Cases Challenging Consumer Policy

By means of the concept of postmodern politics, we provide insights into how alternative regulation is challenging consumer policy. New actors, new forms of interaction, and new goals are emerging alongside established forms of consumer policy. In particular, we examine two alternative regulatory cases: trust marks and consumer-generated information systems. They both exemplify alternative regulation of electronic commerce, which has facilitated regulatory innovation for over a decade. On the basis of our analysis, we suggest that governmental consumer policy cannot imitate the alternative regulatory solutions. We also encourage governmental actors to consider building bridges to consumer networks. This would broaden the scope of consumer policy and be in line with the modes of operation of governmental actors. Consumers are themselves contributing to this rethinking of governmental consumer policy. By networking, consumers provide each other with empowering information on consumption. Doing so on the massive scale enabled by information and communication technologies, they are challenging conventional consumer policy, which can no longer address consumer needs as it could in the pre-Internet days. New issues are emerging for consumer policy to address, and networked consumers are already contributing to policy.     

Does Organic Food Consumption Signal Prosociality?: An Application of Schwartz’s Value Theory

Current research suggests that sustainable consumption choices (including favoring organic foods) can act as signals of prosociality. However, who actually perceives such acts as indicators of prosocial, altruistic tendencies is still unclear. Through an online survey (n = 168) and by using personal value priorities (Schwartz’s theory of values) as IVs, the present study sheds light on this issue. First, the results suggest that organic food consumption can confer the valuable signal of prosociality – and some other socially valued traits were also associated with this everyday behavior strategy. Then, the study shows that the interpretation of the signal is dependent on respondents’ positioning in Schwartz’s value circumplex. Intriguingly, in addition to those people who endorse self-transcendence values, people with conservative value priorities also view the presumed organic consumer as prosocial. These impressions are further mediated by more specific organic food attitudes, thereby forming a value–attitude–impression relationship. The implications are outlined.     

Male–Male Status Signaling through Favoring Organic Foods: Is the Signaler Perceived and Treated as a Friend or a Foe?

Even though consumers’ status signaling is a heavily researched topic, empirical contributions from two important research areas—the mundane food context and prosocial status signaling between male consumers—to signaling literature are still scarce. Thus, this study empirically investigates how a male signaling about his status through favoring organic foods is perceived and treated by other males in two different sociocultural settings (urban vs. rural). In an urban area—but not in a rural—the pro‐organic signaler was perceived as more respected, altruistic, and affluent than a male who did not signal about this (he also received statistically more money in a charity donation task). This may indicate that signaling about this tendency—because it can be viewed as use of one's own resources for the benefit of others—is not only a way to attain status, but can also make others behave more positively toward the signaler.     

Regime Market Performance Analysis: Informing European Consumer Policy

The Single Market of the European Union has progressed during recent decades to encompass more than 500 million consumers in 28 EU Member States and adjoining countries. During the same period, consumer issues have received growing policy interest and policy measures have been put in place to harmonize the Single Market, that is, to make national markets more alike. Yet, in order to provide policy measures that promote desirable market outcomes, the considerable challenge of understanding differences in the market performances of participating countries and the relationships between national markets and the Single Market need to be addressed. Consequently, this article proposes the consideration of differences in terms of regimes, that is, between groups of similar countries, when assessing the performances of markets. Differences in market performances are analysed with the Kruskal–Wallis test using survey data from the European Commission, and results were reviewed against market studies carried out by the Commission. Findings show that regime differences in market performance can indeed be observed and that the regime approach can draw policy attention to commonalities in market arrangements in addition to the consumer issues conventionally examined, such as price differences and consumer awareness.     

Assessment of hidden and future customer needs in Finnish business‐to‐business companies

The development of new products should be based on the needs expected to exist even several years ahead – at the moment of market introduction and during the whole lifecycle of the product. To develop successful new products in the toughening business environment, companies should be able to surpass customers' expectations and to assess emerging customer needs proactively. Early, thorough understanding of the customer's real needs, including the assessment of hidden and future customer needs and requirements, plays a very important role in the successful development of new products.
The purpose of our paper is to study the assessment of new (hidden and future) customer needs for product development in Finnish business‐to‐business companies. We have carried out a survey in 93 Finnish business‐to‐business companies and SBUs to study their common problems in the assessment of unrecognized customer needs and potentially effective ways in clarifying new customer needs and dealing with important problems. On the basis of the results, we propose several possible ways to facilitate the assessment of unrecognized customer needs.     

Wage-setting coordination in a small open economy*

This paper studies wage-setting coordination in a two-sector, open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. Two large sectoral unions anticipate the effects of their wage demands on aggregate variables. In an open economy, there are externalities that the unions can take into account to increase aggregate welfare, but the strategic interaction between the sectoral unions tends to erode this gain. When wage coordination takes place through a wage norm set by either of the sectors, this minimizes the strategic interaction. However, wage norms create welfare losses as sector-specific wage adjustment is required to make an efficient adjustment to shocks.