Peter Rampling, Ian Eddie and Jackie Liu
Kato & Long state that executive compensation has attracted much attention from economists in the past two decades yet most academic work on executive compensation has been…
Abstract
Purpose
Kato & Long state that executive compensation has attracted much attention from economists in the past two decades yet most academic work on executive compensation has been concentrated on a few developed countries such as the USA and the UK, mainly due to data availability. In light of the mounting interest in the vital role that corporate governance may play in economic development, however, it is of considerable importance to study how firms in developing countries compensate their top executives. In particular, for transition economies struggling to transform their state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) into profitable modern firms through various reform measures, the provision of efficient managerial incentives is a crucial ingredient of the successful transition of the economy. Since executive pay‐performance link represents the bulk of managerial incentives for top management, a closer look at the nature of pay‐performance link for top management in transitional economies will provide much needed information for the evaluation of the current reform effort and the designing of future reform measures. This paper seeks to address these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of available literature for this topic was sourced, collated and summarised.
Findings
The significant pay‐performance link for top management in China's listed firms is overall encouraging news for current policy makers in China, who consider public listing in the stock market as a key mechanism of achieving such a goal for large SOEs. However, not all news is good. Perhaps most importantly, they have found that government ownership of China's listed firms is weakening pay‐performance link for top managers and thus possibly making China's listed firms less effective in solving the agency problem.
Originality/value
Taken in context with other literature and research, this paper provides an insight into the link between Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and other publicly listed firms and executive remuneration.
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Linn Viktoria Rampl and Peter Kenning
The importance of employer branding to attract talent in organizations is increasing rapidly. Brand personality traits, particularly, have been shown to explain considerable…
Abstract
Purpose
The importance of employer branding to attract talent in organizations is increasing rapidly. Brand personality traits, particularly, have been shown to explain considerable variance in employer brand attractiveness. Despite such awareness, little is known about the underlying processes of this effect. The purpose of the authors is to close the research gap by drawing on a consumer brand model of brand affect and trust as a means of explaining employer brand attractiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
Students interested in working in the consultancy industry completed a survey designed to evaluate consultancy employer brands. Established scales for brand personality, trust, and affect, and employer brand attractiveness were used to test the conceptual model.
Findings
The results indicate that employer brand trust and affect are both influenced by the brand personality trait sincerity. Further, employer brand affect was positively affected by the traits excitement and sophistication, while negatively affected by ruggedness. Together, employer brand affect and trust explain 71 per cent of the variance in employer brand attractiveness.
Research limitations/implications
While the results show the importance of branding an organization as a sincere, exciting, and sophisticated employer, future research is needed to identify adequate marketing tools to achieve this goal, also in other industries besides the one investigated here.
Originality/value
This study is the first to apply a model that includes brand personality, trust, and affect to employer branding. By doing so, the variance explained in employer brand attractiveness could be increased substantially.
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Inga Wobker, Tim Eberhardt and Peter Kenning
Due to the rising number of product, service, and shopping possibilities available to consumers, food shopping has become increasingly more complex. As a result, consumers can…
Abstract
Purpose
Due to the rising number of product, service, and shopping possibilities available to consumers, food shopping has become increasingly more complex. As a result, consumers can become confused, and this state of confusion may influence their purchase behaviour (e.g. may cause them to not buy a product) and the personal needs they have in a shopping environment (e.g. certification to signal product quality, salesperson consultation for assistance in decision making, or governmental regulation). However, trust can reduce complexity, and may thereby moderate the influence of consumer confusion for negative outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to identify outcomes of consumer confusion and to investigate the moderating role of broader-scope trust on the negative outcomes of this confusion.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model was developed to study potential negative outcomes of consumer confusion. In order to assess consumer confusion and the degree of negative outcomes, a telephone survey method for the questionnaire was applied, querying 516 participants who regularly bought food products.
Findings
The results clearly suggest that consumer confusion evokes various negative outcomes that are of relevance for food retailing. The intensity of the influence of consumer confusion on several of those negative outcomes could be decreased by broader-scope trust. Further, an interaction effect linked to gender was observed.
Originality/value
To the best of the knowledge, this is the first international journal publication on the moderating role of trust on the outcomes of consumer confusion.
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Linn Viktoria Rampl, Tim Eberhardt, Reinhard Schütte and Peter Kenning
The rising number of food safety scandals during recent years has led to increased uncertainty about food consumption choices. Additionally, new production process technologies…
Abstract
Purpose
The rising number of food safety scandals during recent years has led to increased uncertainty about food consumption choices. Additionally, new production process technologies, increased attention toward product ingredients, and obesity concerns have affected general levels of trust in food. Consequently, trust is an ever more decisive factor for success in food industry buyer‐seller relationships and, hence, in the retail food market. Although considerable research has investigated trust in organizations, research in the food retailing industry needs further investigation. The aim of this paper is to identify variables related to consumer trust in food retailers. Only when consumer trust in food retailers is understood can retailers effectively apply corresponding strategies to secure long‐term success.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an established model of trust in organizations, the authors developed a questionnaire to test drivers (ability, benevolence, integrity), outcomes (risk taking, loyalty) of specific trust in food retailers, as well as moderators (propensity to trust, perceived risk).
Findings
Study results support the hypothesized model, showing that specific trust in a food retailer strongly predicts risk taking and, in turn, loyalty. The food retailer's ability and integrity were identified as relevant to specific trust, while the customer's propensity to trust was shown to moderate the relationship between benevolence and specific trust. The results further indicate that the perceived risk affects the relationship between specific trust and risk taking.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to apply and test an established model of trust in the food‐retailing market.
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Poultry meat is a significant source of food poisoning throughoutmost of the developed world. In England and Wales it has been regularlyimplicated in human salmonellosis, and…
Abstract
Poultry meat is a significant source of food poisoning throughout most of the developed world. In England and Wales it has been regularly implicated in human salmonellosis, and during 1984‐5 was the apparent vehicle of infection in 32 per cent of family and general outbreaks. From 1988 onwards the explosive increase in UK food poisoning due to Salmonella enteritidis phage type 4 has further implicated poultry because of the particular association of this organism with chickens. The present situation provides a considerable challenge for the industry, where the modern scale and conditions of breeding, rearing and processing are highly conducive to the spread of minority organisms such as salmonellas. It also highlights the need for improved control measures, especially for protecting flocks against salmonella infection to reduce the hazard of subsequent cross‐contamination in the processing plant.
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Susanne Beck and Peter Kenning
The long-term survival of companies depends strongly on successful new product introductions. However, insufficient customer new product acceptance (NPA) often leads to high…
Abstract
Purpose
The long-term survival of companies depends strongly on successful new product introductions. However, insufficient customer new product acceptance (NPA) often leads to high failure rates for manufacturers. Retailers, as intermediaries between the company and the customer, often obtain a crucial role as primary touchpoint. Previous research shows that customers’ perception of a company is transferable to its products and thus influences NPA. Family firms, as successful company type, are supposed to positively influence NPA. The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether manufacturers achieve a strategic advantage regarding NPA when choosing retailer that are perceived as family firms.
Design/methodology/approach
Conducting an online survey, the authors tested whether the family firm image (FFI) of a retailer’s brand influences customers’ belief in the trustworthiness of a new product brand and their purchase intention, which reflect two components of NPA.
Findings
The results indicate that a strongly perceived FFI has a direct positive effect and, through perceived trustworthiness, an indirect effect on NPA. Those effects are moderated by the customers’ perceived uncertainty about the product. The authors show that aside from increasing trustworthiness, a retailer’s FFI creates a substantial strategic advantage that increases NPA and hence decreases manufacturers’ failure rates.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to investigate retailer brand influence on NPA. By providing a new definition and measurement of customers’ family firm perception, this study represents the first quantitative intent to assess the consequences of such perception.
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Filip Fidanoski, Kiril Simeonovski and Vesna Mateska
Many organizations around the world currently are facing board diversity issues and challenges. Hence, this empirical paper investigates the relationship between board diversity…
Abstract
Many organizations around the world currently are facing board diversity issues and challenges. Hence, this empirical paper investigates the relationship between board diversity and firm’s financial performance. We use a sample of 35 companies from five countries in Southeast Europe (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece) for the period between 2008 and 2012 to find that, on average, companies with well-educated board members are more profitable and overvalued on the market. When running the regression again to test the levels of heterogeneity, we also find that the companies with more women on board tend to be overvalued on the market, while those with more foreigners on board are subject of undervaluation. The paper mostly contributes to the literature on corporate governance and board diversity. First, we postulate the impact of each of the board diversity variables on the financial performance and then show the extent of this impact and its economic interpretation. Our findings have important practitioners’ implications for corporate regulators and policy-makers since the demonstrated positive impact of the well-educated board members on firm’s financial performance gives a new impetus in building a corporate strategy that will intend to engage more people holding PhD on board.
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T.S. Nanjundeswaraswamy, Sindu Bharath and P. Nagesh
This paper aims to design, develop and validate an instrument to measure employer branding by considering existing employee perceptions.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to design, develop and validate an instrument to measure employer branding by considering existing employee perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach
In this systematic research, the predominant factors of employer branding are identified through Pareto analysis; using structured questionnaire information and data collected from 423 employees. The number of items and dimensions was reduced by conducting exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and validated extracted dimensions using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using statistical software (SPSS-21). The designed scale was verified by applying relevant statistical techniques, including a multicollinearity test, construct validity, content validity, divergent validity, convergent validity and reliability test. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed using AMOS, to explore the interrelationship between the dimensions of the scale.
Findings
Considering the perception of existing employees, seven factors along with 24 items scale were designed and developed to measure the employer branding. The identified seven factors are; career development opportunities; compensation and benefits; corporate social responsibility; training and development; work environment; organizational culture; and work-life balance. The proposed model explains a total variance of 70.35% and the model fit indices are within the acceptable range, validity and statistical reliability are established for seven dimensions of employer branding.
Research limitations/implications
Employer branding is studied from existing employee perspective by collecting responses from the employees of the IT sector only.
Practical implications
This validated scale is valuable for practitioners and academicians. The proposed dimensions in the scale may help practitioners explore the impact on the outcomes of organizations such as employee commitment, employee retention, employee satisfaction and total productivity. This novel instrument helps to measure employees' perception of their employers. Further, the authors identify the gaps and accordingly plan strategies to attract and retain the talented workforce.
Originality/value
The authors believe that this novel measuring instrument is comprehensive and the first of its kind. Employer branding has been modeled using SEM analysis by considering the perceptions of the present employees.
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Upamali Amarakoon and Linda Colley
This study examines employee attraction and retention issues and uses a case study of an Australian regional medium-sized enterprise to highlight the importance of organisational…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines employee attraction and retention issues and uses a case study of an Australian regional medium-sized enterprise to highlight the importance of organisational context factors such as place and scale in designing human resource (HR) solutions.
Design/methodology/approach
The research presents a qualitative case study, with data drawn from strategic documents, interviews and focus groups, analysed thematically.
Findings
A carefully constructed set of HR strategies – including purposeful use of employer branding, synchronising of human resource management (HRM) formality and informality and capitalising on the regional context – are key to employee attraction and retention and in turn the growth and competitiveness of the case study organisation.
Originality/value
The HRM literature acknowledges the tendency to study larger corporations in metropolitan areas, at the expense of more nuanced research related to context. This research contributes to knowledge of attraction and retention through employer branding, with particular attention to scale and place, through study of a medium sized firm in a regional location. It highlights the importance of informality-formality dynamism.