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Current antitrust doctrine seemingly accepts average variable cost as one possible boundary between competitive and predatory pricing. Certain authors contend, however, that equally efficient rivals can sometimes be excluded from a market even when a dominant firm prices above its own average variable cost. A model is developed to test for predatory conduct in one such case. This model is applied to the reconstituted lemon juice industry. It shows that under certain conditions, even prices above average variable cost can be exclusionary.

Entrepreneurship, Corporate sustainability, CSR, Supply chain.

Master's courses: Entrepreneurship, Strategic management.

In 2002, potential risks deriving from emerging normative demands in the CSR debate prompted Axel Springer (AS) to rethink their supply chain strategy for Russian wood. Being one of the first movers in CSR in the publishing business, AS realized that current practices could spark future public discussion that might put pressure on AS, a key player in these supply chains. In early 2002, AS and one of their main suppliers, Stora Enso, started a joint initiative to redesign the supply chain processes in two of the major Russian logging regions to improve their social and ecological performance. Sometime later, other major players in the publishing sector as well as critical reviewers from several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were invited to participate in the design of the new voluntary sustainability initiative called “Tikhvin Chalna project”, the second phase of which was accomplished by the end of 2006.

Learn that organizations (specifically high-brand owners) are responsible for practices within their entire supply chains (social as well as environmental performance).

Explore proactive corporate sustainability, CSR strategies are market but also institutional driven; Strategizing involves forming and transforming the rules, norms and standard models of customers as well as institutions such as NGOs or governmental bodies. Whether the initiator of such strategy is successful in increasing or manipulating demands is dependent on its resources and capabilities as well as on its network position. The case supports students in understanding resources being used to successfully transform or create institutional arrangements.

Discover that the value of a business' relationships and its network position.

Teaching note, Video files

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the multi-ethnic marketplace as the site of the emergence of service nepotism: the practice where employees bestow relational benefits and/or gifts on customers on the basis that they share a perceived common socio-collective identity. The authors draw on the contemporary turn to practice in social theory to explore why ethnic employees may engage in service nepotism even when they are aware that it contravenes organizational policy.

Given the paucity of empirical research which investigates the multi-ethnic marketplace as a locus for the emergence of service nepotism, the authors adopted an exploratory qualitative research approach to advance insight into service nepotism. The study benefits from its empirical focus on West African migrants in the UK who represent a distinct minority group living in urban areas of the developed world. Data for the study were collected over a six-month period, utilizing semi-structured interviews as the primary method of data collection.

The research highlights the occurrence and complexities of service nepotism in the multi-ethnic marketplace, and identifies four distinct activities (marginal revolution, reciprocal altruism, pandering for recognition, and horizontal comradeship), that motivate ethnic employees to engage in service nepotism, despite their awareness that this conflicts with organizational policy.

By virtue of the chosen theoretical lens, the authors were unable to demonstrate how service nepotism could be observed outside spoken language. Also, care should be taken in generalizing the findings from this study given the particularities of the sub-group involved. For example, since the study is based on a small sample of first generation migrants, the findings may not hold true for their offspring, whose socialization and marketplace experiences may be qualitatively different from those of their parents.

Service nepotism challenges fundamental western egalitarian ideals in the multi-ethnic marketplace. Organizations may wish to develop strategies to placate observers’ concerns of creeping favouritism in a supposedly equitable marketplace. The research could also serve as a starting point for managers objectively to assess the likely impact of service nepotism on the organizing value systems and competitiveness. In particular, the authors suggest that international marketing managers would do well to look beneath the surface to see what is really going on in international marketplaces, since ostensible experiences of marketplace consumption may not always reflect underlying reality.

By using service nepotism as an analytical category to explore the marketplace experiences of ethnic service employees living and working in industrialized societies, the research shows that the practice of service nepotism, whilst taken for granted, can have far-reaching impact on individuals, observers, and service organizations in an increasingly highly differentiated multi-ethnic society.

This paper aims to investigate capitalization support, an alternative perspective for theorizing social support in-service settings. In the service setting of the student-athlete experience, the relationships between capitalization support service dimensions (i.e. the academic, athletic, self-development and place dimensions), well-being and sports performance are examined through a transformative sport service research (TSSR) lens, a newly introduced form of transformative service research (TSR).

Data from an online survey of Australian student-athletes (n = 867) is examined using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results support the theorized service dimensions of capitalization support, indicating their validity and relevance to the student-athlete experience. Further, the results demonstrate that all capitalization support dimensions except athletic support (i.e. academic support, place support and self-development support), have a direct effect on well-being and an indirect effect on sports performance.

This research is unique for several reasons. First, it introduces a new perspective, capitalization support, to theorizing about social support in services. Second, it is one of the first studies in both TSR and TSSR to empirically test and demonstrate a relationship between support services, well-being and performance in a single study. Insight into how to design services to optimize well-being in relation to other service objectives like performance thus emerges.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate linkages in US labor market between importance of specific skills, education, or training requirements, and private average salary for occupations not characterized as requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Data set constructed that matches 474 less than bachelor’s occupations to private average salary, education, or training requirements category, and 35 specific skills. Statistical and regression analysis has been done to assess linkages between these variables.

Highest returns associated with cognitive skills, quantitative skills, and other core academic basic skills set followed by traditional blue-collar technical skills. Interpersonal skills and related social skills set exhibited weak, and sometimes negative, association with private average salary by occupation.

Study of only US labor market at single point of time, findings may not generalize to either non US markets or occupations requiring bachelor’s degree or higher.

Workers in the less than bachelor’s labor market have greater upside salary potential if they obtain postsecondary certificates or associates’ degrees and target occupations placing a greater importance on cognitive skills, quantitative skills, and core academic basic skills than if they target traditional blue-collar technical skill occupations.

Social policies to enhance earnings for workers lacking bachelor’s degrees must target improving core generic transferable academic skills as well as vocationally specific training.

This if the first study that links these many specific skills to salary variation across less than bachelor’s occupations.

Under New Labour, there was no area of public policy that reflected the imprint of media influence more vividly than the issue of drugs. The sacking of Professor David Nutt, the banning of mephedrone, and arguments about the harm classification of ecstasy and cannabis have all demonstrated a government in thrall to the views of the Daily Mail and The Sun. This paper traces the contours of the media‐government relationship on drugs through content and framing analysis and interviews with former members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), former Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, and a leading newspaper columnist. It concludes that science was trumped by fears stoked by the media.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.

A debate on whether new ventures should be supported with public funding is taking place. Adopting a position on this discussion requires rigorous assessments of implemented programs. However, the few existing efforts have mostly focused on regional cases in developed countries. To fill this gap, this paper aims to measure the effects of a regional acceleration program in a developing country (Medellin, Colombia).

The economic notion of capabilities is used to frame the analysis of firm characteristics and productivity, which are hypothesized to be heterogeneous within the program. To test these relationships, propensity score matching is used in a sample of 60 treatment and 16,994 control firms.

This paper finds that treated firms had higher revenue than propensity score-matched controls on average, confirming a positive impact on growth measures. However, such financial growth is mostly observed in service firms rather than other economic sectors.

Further evaluations, with a longer period and using more outcome variables, are suggested in the context of similar publicly funded programs in developing countries.

These findings tip the balance in favor of the literature suggesting supportive programs for high-growth firms as opposed to everyday entrepreneurship. This is an insight, especially under the context of an emerging economy, which has scarce funding to support entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the development of planned organisational change models (POCMs) since Lewin’s three-step model and to highlight key linkages between them.

A total of 13 commonly used POCMs were identified and connections with Lewin’s three-step framework and associated process attributes were made, reflecting the connections between these models and Lewin.

The findings show that first Lewin’s three-step model represents a framework for planned change; however, these steps could not be viewed in isolation of other interrelated processes, including action research, group dynamics, and force field analysis. These process steps underpin the iterative aspects of his model. Second, all 13 POCMs have clearly identified linkages to Lewin, suggesting that the ongoing development of POCMs is more of an exercise in developing ongoing procedural steps to support change within the existing framework of the three-step model.

The authors recognise that the inclusion of additional POCMs would help strengthen linkages to Lewin. The findings from this paper refocus attention on the three-step model, suggesting its ongoing centrality in planned organisational change rather than it being dismissed as an historical approach from which more recently developed models have become more relevant.

This paper presents opportunities for organisational change management researchers to challenge their thinking with regard to the ongoing search for model refinement, and for practitioners in the design and structure of POCM.

An analysis of the ongoing relevance of Lewin and his linkage with modern POCMs assist in rationalising the broadening, and often confusing literature on change. This paper therefore not only contributes to filtering such literature, but also helps clarify the myriad of POCMs and their use.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.