How much do plant guarantees reduce perceived risk?

Abstract

Consumers do perceive risk in purchase decisions and seek to reduce both uncertainty and probability of loss. Risk also varies across persons and purchasing situations. Retailers promote product guarantees as risk reducers, but the quantitative evidence is lacking. They offer guarantees to help resolve outcomes from post-purchase problems mainly, product performance. We used an online survey to investigate the role of risk mitigation by money-back guarantees (MBGs) on a live product: plants. We obtained online responses from 504?US residents?≥?age 18 years who had made at least one live plant purchase in the six months prior to the study. As MBG length increased, perceived risk (PR) decreased. PR was higher for men than for women and declined as income increased. Subjects with a higher level of product involvement, expertise, delight, repurchase intentions, and regret had a higher level of PR. We conducted separate Chow tests for annual and perennial plants by price and MBG length and found several break points. As price increased from $5 to $10, a 30-d MBG reduced PR for annual plants while the reduction in PR was incrementally decreased for all guarantee lengths when annuals were priced over $20. With perennial plants, the MBG had an increasingly larger effect on reducing PR for each $10 increase in price. Overall, for each day increase in MBG length, we observed a 0.0337 decrease in PR, which meant that a 90-d MBG on a plant would reduce PR by 3%. This quantitative evidence of reduction in PR should encourage the use and communication of MBGs which have the potential to improve purchases, customer retention, and profitability.     

The identification of fiscal and monetary policy in a structural VAR

Good economic management depends on understanding shocks from monetary policy, fiscal policy and other sources affecting the economy and their subsequent interactions. This paper presents a new methodology to disentangle such shocks in a structural VAR framework. The method combines identification via sign restrictions, cointegration and traditional exclusion restrictions within a system which explicitly models stationary and non-stationary variables and accounts for both permanent and temporary shocks. The usefulness of the approach is demonstrated on a small open economy where policy makers are actively considering the interaction between monetary and fiscal policies.     

Strategic conversation quality and engagement: assessment of a new measure

When considering organization strategy‐making and execution from a learning perspective, the role of conversation and engagement is of critical importance, yet little research has been conducted in this area. Recent publications have suggested an increasing role for conversation and dialogue in strategic planning processes. The present study provides initial validity and reliability scores of an instrument for measuring individual conversation quality and engagement skills in a strategic planning context. Participants were managers (n = 204) from four organizations. Results indicate an instrument with highly accurate and consistent measurement scores. Implications for practice and future research are briefly discussed.     

Changing Sources of Household Income,Poverty, and Sectoral Inequality in Sri Lanka, 1990–2006

Comparing dynamic changes in household income and poverty among urban, rural, and estate sectors in Sri Lanka from 1990 to 2006, this study finds that a shift of household income away from farm to nonfarm sources is accompanied by a significant improvement in household income and reduction in poverty, particularly in the rural sector. Major contributing factors are the rise in returns to labor, in general, and educated labor, in particular, due to the development of the nonfarm labor market. Persistently low income among estate households can be explained primarily by the limited availability of nonfarm employment opportunities and the low education levels of working members.     

Let's Get Messi? Top‐Scorer Productivity in the European Champions League

Getting a player like Lionel Messi in the squad would seem like a dream come true for a professional football manager, but is it always best to have top‐quality players? We study the determinants of top goal‐scorers’ productivity in the UEFA Champions League. We find evidence of a concave relationship between age and productivity and uncover an inverted‐U relationship between performance and minutes played. Finally, we find a positive effect on height, being left footed and being a striker on the probability of scoring a goal. The results have important implications for managers both in looking to sign on new players and to maximise their potential during a competitive match.     

Analysing disequilibrium interest-rate systems in developing countries

Under equilibrium conditions, monetary policy measures to raise institutional interest rates are contractionary. When interest rates are held below their free-market equilibrium levels, however, an increase can be expansionary. Higher institutional interest rates may deter savings in the form of unproductive inflation hedges and encourage savings in the form of financial claims issued to finance productive investment. In most developing countries, money is the predominant financial repository of savings and bank loans are a major source of investible funds. Hence, attention is focused here on models which analyse the effects of binding interest-rate ceilings on financial intermediation. Empirical evidence reported in this paper is consistent with the view that binding institutional interest-rate ceilings can have a substantial growth-reducing impact.     

Soil conservation in Swiss agriculture—Approaching abstract and symbolic meanings in farmers’ life-worlds

This paper explores the significance of ‘life-worlds’ for better understanding why farmers adopt or reject soil conservation measures and for identifying basic dimensions to be covered by social learning processes in Swiss agricultural soil protection. The study showed that farmers interpret soil erosion and soil conservation measures against the background of their entire life-world. By doing so, farmers consider abstract and symbolic meanings of soil conservation. This is, soil conservation measures have to be feasible and practical in the everyday farming routine, however, they also have to correspond with their aesthetic perception, their value system and their personal and professional identities. Consequently, by switching to soil conservation measures such as no-tillage farmers have to adapt not only the routines of their daily farming life, but also their perception of the aesthetics of cultivated land, underlying values and images of themselves. Major differences between farmers who adopt and farmers who reject no-tillage were found to depend on the degree of coherence they could create between the abstract and symbolic meanings of the soil conservation measure. From this perspective, implementation of soil protection measures faces the challenge of facilitating interactions between farmers, experts and scientists at a ‘deeper’ level, with an awareness of all significant dimensions that characterise the life-world. The paper argues that a certain level of shared symbolic meaning is essential to achieving mutual understanding in social learning processes.     

Pig pandemic: Industrial hog farming in eastern Mexico

Industrial hog farming is an increasingly important land use in Mexico. Despite the known public health and environmental risks associated with this factory-style model of production, hog concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) remain unregulated. Legal standards regarding the establishment and operation of swine CAFOs are lacking at municipal, regional, and federal levels. There are currently no restrictions on the size, concentration, or geographic location of operations, and public notice to surrounding and downstream communities is generally not required. These lax environmental standards facilitate swine CAFO expansion in regions such as the Perote Valley, with potential for negative long-term impacts on public health, community well-being, water resources, ecosystems, and climate.