Search results

Little attention has been paid to prospective customers who defect before buying. This paper examines the almost customer phenomenon. It reviews literature on service quality, customer satisfaction, retention, relationships, loyalty and defection. It also categorizes the causes of almost customer experiences into a series of themes. The almost customer phenomenon and its effects are presented in the context of implications for managers and for future research. The almost customer phenomenon may appear to be a study of early customer defection, but the almost customer defects before buying. The customer defection literature assumes that a firm has attracted customers. But, not every attempted transaction leads to a purchase. Sometimes, elements of the interaction have an impact on whether or not the individual buys. This paper examines defection before a customer becomes a customer. Reducing the incidence of almost customer episodes represents an opportunity for firms to optimize growth and profitability.

David M. Gordon advanced labour economics with his theory of labour market segmentation, in which jobs rather than the marginal productivity of individual workers were the unit of analysis. He advanced economic historiography and macroeconomics by conceptualising social structures of accumulation – a framework built on the foundation of his institutionalist training and enriched by his study of Marxist economics. By appropriating methods from other social science disciplines into econometrics, he augmented empirical analysis in economics. He was a founding member of the Union of Radical Political Economics and its journal, the Review of Radical Political Economics – that advanced and promoted heterodox, radical, and Marxist economists in the United States. His contributions to economics, to organised labour, and to the New School for Social Research, where I studied with him, were stunning.

Part 1 lays out some context about the New School Graduate Faculty where Gordon taught. Part 2 explores what historical forces, including his family, led to his expansive creativity. Part 3 summarises how he expanded labour economics to include the relations as well as the technology of production, linked his understanding of the production process to a historical materialist view of labour in the United States, then extended that to econometric analyses of the US macroeconomy. Part 4 presents a bibliometric analysis to provide some idea of the impact of his work. I end with some concluding remarks.

Recognizing heterogeneity of legal/social status, historical experience, and the resulting variation in the constraints faced by different groups can be a valuable complement to forms of heterogeneity already recognized by Austrian economists. This is particularly true for empirical analyses of caste-based societies, women’s history, and the experiences of other currently or historically persecuted minority populations. When (1) political institutions and/or other emergent social structures establish rules that apply to some individuals but not others, (2) these non-general rules are constructed in such a way that individuals cannot easily move in and out of established groups, and (3) some of the groups created by this process hold authority over others, class structures are created that can be understood without violating methodological individualism and other key tenets of Austrian economics. Like other heterogeneities that have now become incorporated into mainstream economic thought, the development of an Austrian theory of class could advance both the Austrian tradition and economic science in general.

One of the main roadblocks to increasing uptake of national police accreditation (i.e. accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA)) is concern among some in law enforcement that promoting national standards for policing would undermine local control. The purpose of this study is to assess whether CALEA-accredited police departments are more (or less) likely than non-CALEA-accredited police departments to utilize information from resident surveys to inform agency operations.

This study utilizes data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey and cardinality matching, a quasi-experimental approach, to estimate the relationship between CALEA accreditation status and utilization of information from resident surveys among municipal police departments.

We find that agencies that subscribe to national police accreditation are more likely to use resident surveys to prioritize crime/disorder problems, evaluate officer or agency performance, guide training and development and inform agency policies and procedures compared to matched agencies that do not subscribe to national police accreditation.

While there is research on the effects of national police accreditation on traditional policing outcomes, there is a paucity of research on whether national police accreditation undermines the ability of local residents to affect policing standards. The findings from this study suggest that national police accreditation may enhance the power of local residents to affect policing.

Gives the highlights of the 2004 annual conference of the American Library Association (ALA) held in Orlando, Florida, in June 2004. These included differing viewpoints on publishing and licencing scholarly work and technology trends.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the facets of copyright licensing for commercial composers. As traditional business models within the music industry wane, there emerges a tacit opportunity for composers to exploit copyright through partnerships with third‐party entrepreneurs, across sectors such as television, video games and film.

A case study is utilised to identify opportunities within the television sector for commercial composers who own both publishing and mechanical copyright. Despite the economic crisis facing the entertainment industries, the paper identifies facets for commercial composers through licensing their intellectual property (IP) to third‐party entrepreneurs.

Composers who own both publishing and mechanical rights arguably hold a market advantage, resulting in an emergence of “one‐stop” licensing agreements – and less administrative fees – for major publishers.

The implications asserted within this paper relate specifically to the television sector and further research could be undertaken in order to examine the utilisation of similar practice across different sectors, such as video games, and film, within which different opportunities and limitations will undoubtedly exist.

The implications for composers and managers is clear. A basic understanding of key legal terms, contract structure and the administrative functions of societies such as the MCPS‐PRS Alliance, are essential. This paper offers a valuable insight into very current changes across both the music and television sectors, identifying tangible opportunities for commercial composers.

This paper explores the facets of copyright licensing for commercial composers within new sectors including television. The author believes that sectors such as television, film and videogames can and do provide lucrative opportunities for independent musicians, composers and record labels. It is essential to explore such opportunities.

Heritability studies attempt to estimate the contribution of genes (vs. environments) to variation in phenotypes (or outcomes of interest) in a given population at a given time. This chapter scrutinizes heritability studies of adverse health phenotypes, emphasizing flaws that have become more glaring in light of recent advances in the life sciences and manifest most visibly in epigenetics.

Drawing on a diverse body of research and critical scholarship, this chapter examines the veracity of methodological and conceptual assumptions of heritability studies.

The chapter argues that heritability studies are futile for two reasons: (1) heritability studies suffer from serious methodological flaws with the overall effect of making estimates inaccurate and likely biased toward inflated heritability, and, more importantly (2) the conceptual (biological) model on which heritability studies depend – that of identifiably separate effects of genes versus the environment on phenotype variance – is unsound. As discussed, contemporary bioscientific work indicates that genes and environments are enmeshed in a complex (bidirectional, interactional), dynamic relationship that defies any attempt to demarcate separate contributions to phenotype variance. Thus, heritability studies attempt the biologically impossible. The emerging research on the importance of microbiota is also discussed, including how the commensal relationship between microbial and human cells further stymies heritability studies.

Understandably, few sociologists have the time or interest to be informed about the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of heritability studies or to keep pace with the incredible advances in genetics and epigenetics over the last several years. The present chapter aims to provide interested scholars with information about heritability and heritability estimates of adverse health outcomes in light of recent advances in the biosciences.