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SESSION I: TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
The burgeoning interest over the last decade in technology transfer at universities in the United States has driven contentious debates over patent policy. In this context…
Abstract
The burgeoning interest over the last decade in technology transfer at universities in the United States has driven contentious debates over patent policy. In this context, biotech patenting has become the poster-child for claims that the proliferation of patenting by universities, and in the private sector, is undermining scientific norms and threatening innovation. Commentators have expressed particular fears about the negative effects of biotech patenting on the public information commons and concerns about emerging “patent anticommons.” This chapter argues that the standard (finite) commons model is being misapplied in the biotech arena because, owing to the complexity of biological processes and the power of existing biotech methods to produce genetic data, biomedical science is, in crucial respects, an unbounded, uncongested common resource. These findings imply that strategic biotech patenting of problem-specific research tools (i.e., single-nucleotide polymorphisms, drug targets) is not economically justified and therefore is irrational.
This chapter focuses on the international development plans implemented in Colombia during the regime of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953–1957). It argues that foreign economists and…
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the international development plans implemented in Colombia during the regime of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953–1957). It argues that foreign economists and international agencies, such as the World Bank, played a significant role in supporting and strengthening local leaders opposing the regime. By analyzing the creation of the Cauca Valley Corporation in 1955, through the intervention of the former chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) David Lilienthal, this study provides two main contributions to the literature on economists and political economy under authoritarian rule. Firstly, it illuminates how local groups mobilized international economists to contrast Rojas. Secondly, it analyses the evolving relationship between World Bank advisors, David Lilienthal, and the regime. After describing the consolidation of political and economic interest groups and their global connections before Rojas coup d’état, it focuses on Rojas’ regime and on how it affected the implementation of the World Bank development started with the General Survey Mission in 1949. In the Cauca Department, local leaders invoked the World Bank and Lilienthal to implement a TVA model in opposition with the central government.
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The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and…
Abstract
The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.
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Aaron Schibik, David Strutton and Kenneth Thompson
The purpose of this study was to investigate assortative mating processes inside Internet-dating-service settings. Unattached consumers traditionally sought to satisfy their need…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate assortative mating processes inside Internet-dating-service settings. Unattached consumers traditionally sought to satisfy their need for love through conventional search processes, including old-fashioned match-making. That was then, this is now; dozens of internet-mediated dating websites promising romantic-love-matches currently operate internationally. These dating services cultivate dating-exchanges by offering new-fashioned match-making processes. Despite these trends, theoretical and practical questions related to how and why dating services marketers might induce superior romantic exchanges between customers by managing assortative mating processes remain unanswered until now.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey-based approach was used to test hypotheses. Pretests were conducted to develop reliable measures of assortative mating propensity. Seven subconstructs of assortative mating were identified by analyzing data from a representative sample. The measurement model was validated before hypotheses testing. The focal assortative mating construct was measured formatively; assortative mating subdimensions functioned as indicators. The model was tested by structural equation modeling.
Findings
Assortative mating processes facilitated superior preference-selection outcomes for individuals seeking consumer-to-consumer romantic relationships inside internet-mediated service settings. Insights were generated about how and why assortative mating processes exercised positive effects on consumers’ attitudes toward online dating and about how dating services marketers might leverage assortative mating tendencies to benefit consumers.
Originality/value
A novel concept was introduced to the services marketing literature, as were several theoretical implications. The study simultaneously measured consumers’ propensities to engage in assortative mating and captured the effects of various physical/behavioral consumer characteristics. This study develops new and practical insights about how dating service marketers could manage the effects of assortative mating processes.
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Edward J. Nugent and David J. Hamblin
Vertical integration is a key strategic management decision which requires research support. Existing literature is extensive but is preoccupied with measures of the extent of…
Abstract
Vertical integration is a key strategic management decision which requires research support. Existing literature is extensive but is preoccupied with measures of the extent of vertical integration rather than the fundamental effectiveness of the strategy. The industrial community that the research seeks to benefit is left with an array of measures of integration and an array of widely differing conclusions regarding its potential benefit to a business. Research should be driven by customer need and the decision areas industrialists need to address should set the research agenda. Identifies the key issues relating to vertical integration and the extent to which these are addressed by existing methodologies. Develops a new methodology which avoids the intractable problem of measuring the extent of integration. Adoption of this methodology would enable more coherent and clear messages to be sent to management, thus enabling more informed decision making.
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Michael Scholz and Roman-David Kulko
The purpose of this paper is to (1) investigate the effect of freshness on consumers' willingness to pay, (2) derive static and dynamic pricing strategies and (3) compare the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to (1) investigate the effect of freshness on consumers' willingness to pay, (2) derive static and dynamic pricing strategies and (3) compare the effect of these pricing strategies on a retailer's revenue and food waste. This investigation helps to reveal the potentials of dynamic pricing strategies for building more sustainable business models.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct an online experiment to measure consumers' willingness to pay for fresh and three-days’ old strawberries. The impact of freshness on willingness to pay is analysed using univariate tests and regression analysis. Pricing strategies are compared using a Monte Carlo simulation.
Findings
The results of this study show that freshness largely determines consumers' willingness to pay and price sensitivity. This renders dynamic pricing a promising strategy from an economic point of view. The results of the simulation study show that food waste can be reduced by up to 53.6% with a dynamic pricing instead of a static pricing strategy in the case that there are as many consumers as strawberry packages in the inventory. Revenue can be increased by up to 10% compared to a static pricing strategy based on fresh strawberries.
Practical implications
This study suggests that food retailers can improve their revenue when switching from static to dynamic pricing. Furthermore, in most cases, food retailers can reduce food waste with a dynamic instead of a static-pricing strategy, which might help to improve their image through a more sustainable business model and attract additional consumers.
Originality/value
This study is the first to analyse the possibility of using food freshness to design a dynamic pricing strategy and to analyse the impact of such a pricing strategy on both, a retailer's revenue and a retailer's food waste.
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Stephen Hardy, Brian Norman and Sarah Sceery
The purpose of this paper is to review and explore topics that might constitute a history of branding in sport and might also contribute to understanding today's sport branding…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review and explore topics that might constitute a history of branding in sport and might also contribute to understanding today's sport branding practices.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs both secondary and primary sources on a range of sports across centuries of time and space. The paper also employs Mayer's principles of multi‐media learning.
Findings
The paper finds that sport brands have a long history driven by entrepreneurs and organizations through rule‐making, equipment, distinct names, and employment of new technologies.
Originality/value
The paper identifies a series of topics that merit closer scrutiny by historians whose research might inform contemporary scholars and practitioners of sport marketing.
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This chapter gives one version of the recent history of evaluation case study. It looks back over the emergence of case study as a sociological method, developed in the early…
Abstract
This chapter gives one version of the recent history of evaluation case study. It looks back over the emergence of case study as a sociological method, developed in the early years of the 20th Century and celebrated and elaborated by the Chicago School of urban sociology at Chicago University, starting throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Some of the basic methods, including constant comparison, were generated at that time. Only partly influenced by this methodological movement, an alliance between an Illinois-based team in the United States and a team at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom recast the case method as a key tool for the evaluation of social and educational programmes.
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