Motivators of market mavenism in the retail environment

This study examines relationships between market mavenism and five other consumer characteristics. We conceptualize three of these characteristics as broad marketplace concepts at the same (or higher) level of abstraction as mavenism. The remaining two variables are involvement with specific product categories: mobile phones and clothing. The data come from a survey of 258 US student consumers. The results show that mavenism is positively associated with brand engagement in self-concept, status consumption, and materialism. Mavenism is also positively associated with involvement with mobile phones and with clothing. This pattern of relationships enriches the nomological network of market mavenism by describing possible motivators and consequences of this unique aspect of consumer behaviour.     

Escaping Nash Inflation

An ordinary differential equation (ODE) gives the mean dynamics that govern the convergence to self-confirming equilibria of self-referential systems under discounted least squares learning. Another ODE governs escape dynamics that recurrently propel away from a self-confirming equilibrium. In a model with a unique self-confirming equilibrium, the escape dynamics make the government discover too strong a version of the natural rate hypothesis. The escape route dynamics cause recurrent outcomes close to the Ramsey (commitment) inflation rate in a model with an adaptive government.
"If an unlikely event occurs, it is very likely to occur in the most likely way."
Michael Harrison     

Exploitation or Choice? Exploring the Relative Attractiveness of Employment in the Maquiladoras

This study investigates the relative attractiveness of production level jobs provided by multinational firms in Mexico's maquiladora industry. We take the position that workers themselves are an important and often overlooked source of information relevant to the controversy focusing on the responsibilities of multinational companies to their employees in the developing world. We conducted interviews with 59 maquila production level workers in the Mexican cities of Cd. Juárez and Chihuahua. Using a relative attractiveness framework that compared maquila jobs to other employment available in the local economy, maquila line and technical workers responded to questions addressing why they were working at a maquila, their work history, the attractiveness of maquila jobs compared to both their prior jobs and the jobs held by friends and family, and whether they planned to continue working in the maquilas. While the responses from maquila workers are diverse, they suggest that maquila jobs provide attractive employment for the economically disadvantaged in Northern Mexico.     

Australian consumer attitudes to health claim – food product compatibility for functional foods

This study with Australian consumers investigated how appealing different health claims combined with particular food carriers were to Australian consumers, and compared the results of a similar study with Dutch consumers. 149 shoppers considered up to 30 different food concepts, rating how ‘attractive’, ‘believable’, and ‘new and different’ they found each concept and their ‘intention to try’. Each variable was significantly related to intention to try (p < 0.001) and together explained 56% of the intention score. Claims and carriers independently had a significant effect on ratings of attractiveness and intention to try but, unlike the Dutch study, the carrier was a more important predictor of intention to purchase than the claim. Implications for regulation of health claims for food are discussed.     

Women in science fiction

Science fiction reflects attitudes typical of this century; and the worlds that provide settings for the stories have therefore tended to be ones in which men provide the action, and women, when they are not ignored, are primarily cast in traditional roles of wife and mother. However, modern writers, many of whom are women, are increasingly exploring future situations with women in positive roles. The insights portrayed in this literature can therefore become increasingly important in providing relevant images for the future.     

Business Students' Perceptions of Potential Ethical Dilemmas Faced by Faculty

Because students' ethical behavior may be modified through socialization contact with faculty, the perspectives of students relating to faculty ethics is an important topic. Prior research on business schools and ethics has not included students' perceptions of ethical dilemmas that often confront faculties of business schools. Student questionnaire data provides two important insights into students' perceptions of the ethics of faculty behavior. In the aggregate, students viewed 29 potential ethical issues as more serious than did faculty. Based on students' perceptions, four factors of ethical dilemmas were isolated: Regulations, Academic Job Performance, Dating, and Personal Benefits.     

Understanding European unemployment with matching and search-island models

To understand European and American unemployment during the last 60 years, we use a search-island model and four matching models with workers who have heterogeneous skills and entitlements to government benefits. When there is higher turbulence, in the sense of worse skill transition probabilities for workers who suffer involuntary layoffs, high government mandated unemployment insurance (UI) and employment protection (EP) in Europe increase unemployment rates and durations. But when there is lower turbulence, high European EP suppresses unemployment rates despite high European UI. Four matching models differ in how they assign unemployed workers to matching functions. That affects how strongly unemployment responds to increases in turbulence. Heterogeneity among unemployed workers highlights the central role of adverse labor market externalities in matching models and reveals that the cost of posting vacancies is the lynchpin of a matching model.