Search results

This is the third and last of the series of summaries of papers presented at the Dechema Corrosion Congress held in Frankfurt. Earlier reports of the congress have been given in the January and February issues of CORROSION TECHNOLOGY. This month the summaries are of papers on corrosion prevention methods.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how fairness garners loyalty by breeding trust in the pharmaceutical wholesaler‐pharmacy relationship. Specifically, the paper seeks to understand if the two dimensions of fairness – procedural and distributive – contribute differently in fostering the two types of trust – credibility and benevolence. The paper further aims to examine how the two dimensions of trust mediate the fairness‐loyalty relationship.

Data from 156 retail pharmacies on their relationship with the pharmaceutical wholesalers are used to test the hypotheses. The mediation models are tested using the Barron and Kenny procedure.

The findings of this paper show the importance of both procedural and distributive aspects of fairness on the part of pharmaceutical wholesalers as perceived by the pharmacies. Each aspect of fairness plays a more prominent role for fostering a particular type of trust, which, in turn, leads to loyalty.

Future research may investigate the antecedents to fairness to unearth additional insights as to how organizations can manage their customers' perceptions of fairness and thereby enhance their trust and loyalty.

Pharmaceutical wholesale is a competitive business to retain pharmacies by building loyalty thus balancing pharmacies' dependence on the more powerful pharmaceutical manufacturers in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Given the intense competition, the wholesaler that does a superior job in creating a competitive advantage leveraging fairness to engender trust will get to benefit in recruiting and retaining more pharmacies.

This paper contributes to the fairness‐trust‐loyalty stream of literature by examining the mediation effects at the sub‐dimension level of the fairness and trust constructs. The paper also has practical implications, especially given the low gross margins for pharmaceutical wholesalers and the growing threat of direct distribution of pharmaceuticals or disintermediation by the manufacturers using third party logistics companies, such as united parcel service. The paper shows how wholesalers may be able to build loyalty with the pharmacies by signaling fairness and fostering trust.

The first European Corrosion Congress took place in Paris during the week beginning November 18. It was organised by the Société de Chimie Industrielle, in conjunction with the Federation Européen de Corrosion, contemporary with the XXIX Congrès International de Chimie Industrielle. Professor A. Portevin was President of the Congress and the technical meetings were organised by a committee under the presidency of Monsieur G. Chaudron, Director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

Certain classes of organic chemicals that can behave like carbon black in protecting polythene from thermal degredation have recently been developed at Bell Telephone laboratories in the U.S.A. Mrs. A. Worthington and Dr. W. L. Hawkins described their discovery at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York. They demonstrated that a number of compounds containing alternating unsaturated bonds provide excellent thermal anti‐oxidant properties in combination with previously reported sulphur‐bearing compounds.

FRANCE Bacterial corrosion. Sulphate reducing bacteria are anaerobic and autotropic, and they have no need for organic substances. Their need of carbon is supplied by CO2 or bicarbonates. They gain their energy from the reaction of the sulphate with H, which is available as a gas, or via the iron acting as a local cathode. The corrosion is greatly accelerated by adding ferrous iron and yeast, but the latter, supplied without the iron, acts as an inhibitor.—(M. E. Adams and T. W. Farrer, Chim. et Ind., 70 (3), 441.)

Last month we published abstracts and summaries of some of the papers presented at the Congress, which was held at the Imperial College of Science and Technology from April 10–15 under the auspices of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. In this issue we publish further abstracts and summaries together with illustrations of many of the corrosionists attending and photographs of some of the many visits which were arranged to works and laboratories. The Congress attracted over 800 delegates.

GERMANY Metallic zinc in paints. The corrosion‐inhibiting effect of zinc‐containing paints is due in the first place to electrical interaction between pigment and iron base, resulting largely information of difficultly soluble basic zinc compounds. This means insulating of the cathodic part of the base surface, with closing of pores and cracks. This may be continued by oxidation due to moisture or atmospheric oxygen. As the cathodic action of zinc dust is limited it is advisable to apply this method to corroded iron surfaces which must be carefully pre‐cleaned. The experiments herein described have confirmed that there is a fundamental difference between zinc treatment in the ordinary sense and the application of zinc dust paint, not only in mechanical features but also in behaviour in regard to anti‐corrosion. Protection due to a compact zinc mass as a rule lasts until complete breakdown of the ferrous base. Zinc dust treatment has special merits of its own beyond that of a mere zinc coating.— (H. J. Schuster, Werks u. Korr., 1959, 10 (8), 490–494.)

THE development of undergraduate teaching in Aeronautical Engineering at Manchester University has followed a different pattern from that in most other Universities in this country. Although Osborne Reynolds carried out his famous experiments in the Engineering Department at Manchester, the teaching of Aeronautical Engineering grew out of Mathematics rather than out of Engineering. For a large proportion of the past 80 years the Chair of Applied Mathematics has been held by men eminent in the field of Fluid Mechanics: Lamb, Goldstein and Lighthill must surely be names well‐known to every aeronautical engineer. It was due to the initiative of Professor S. Goldstein that a separate Department of Fluid Mechanics was set up in 1946 under the direction of Mr W. A. Mair. At first it was natural that the emphasis should be on experimental work to complement the theoretical work carried out in the Mathematics Department. Later, however, although close relations with the Mathematics Department were still maintained, the Mechanics of Fluids Department developed into a separate entity making both theoretical and experimental contributions to fundamental knowledge.

Brightening solutions for aluminium. The chemical brightening of aluminium in mixtures based on phosphoric acid formed the subject of a series of experiments in which commercial purity aluminium panels were used in order to assess the influence of the aluminium content of the bath, and the effect of temperature upon the amount of metal removed. Four mixtures were employed: phosphoric‐sulphuric acid, phosphoric‐sulphuric‐nitric acid, phosphoric‐acetic‐nitric acid and phosphoric acid‐water‐nitric acid. If a highly specular finish is required, then the presence of about 5% (by volume) of nitric acid is essential. Acetic acid reduces the tendency for the rate of attack to increase with temperature, while water increases the maximum aluminium content which can be tolerated before the bath becomes unusable. Weight loss‐time curves are given for S1, S1B, S1C, NS4, HS10WP, HS15W and an Al (99.99%), 1.25% Mg, alloy treatment times up to 5 min. in the four solutions investigated. Except for HS15W, the response was found to be good for most materials, but a loss of brightness occurred with the lower‐purity materials on anodising.— (A. W. Brace and T. S. de Gromoboy, Trans. Inst. Met. Finishing, 1956, 33, advance copy No. 2.)

Mathematical models were used to explore research methodology in the field of marketing; however, the methodology was focused more on quantitative than on qualitative methods. Utilizes the mathematical model on deductive technique and flow chart to explain how the means‐end chains (MECs) method establishes the MECs logic construction to apply on computer programming for instituting useful marketing strategies. Based on the mathematically deductive technique and logical construction methods, seeks to enhance the MECs procedure, to describe the procedure of the MECs data collection, and further to transfer tabular data when building a hierarchical value map (HVM). Logic construction on MECs in this research improves the MECs methodology. Moreover, researchers can use the logic construction to understand the MECs procedure and to develop powerful marketing strategies for an enterprise.