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1 – 10 of 683Terence A. Brown, Douglas C. Friedman and Zinaida Taran
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the phenomenon of “showrooming” in which shoppers use mobile devices in retail stores to check prices and other data on products that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the phenomenon of “showrooming” in which shoppers use mobile devices in retail stores to check prices and other data on products that they then may buy online.
Methodology/approach
We conducted depth interviews with 50 consumers, 13 small retailers, and 6 large retailers.
Findings
We identified four distinct behavioral groups of customers and six strategies small retailers are currently using or could use to address the potential problems showrooming can create. We also identified a new type of reference pricing.
Research limitations/implications
This research provides a guide researchers can use in further work on showrooming. The research consists of depth interviews. It is possible that other types of retailers may have developed other strategies not identified here or that a larger number of non-student participants would have identified other categories, though differences between students and non-students in our sample were not noteworthy.
Practical implications
This chapter provides a practical guide to small retailers as to how they can deal with the growing practice of showrooming, helping them to choose strategic responses based on the types of consumers they serve.
Originality/value
This is one of the first papers to be published in an academic journal on the value of showrooming. It provides a typology of consumers grouped by their behavior, that is, how and why they engage or don’t engage in showrooming. This can help academic researchers in future research as well as managers of small retail businesses. We also identified a new, third type of reference pricing.
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The similarities among the writings of Ralph Hawtrey, Lauchlin Currie and Milton Friedman are re‐affirmed, as is the influence of the former on what Friedman has called “the…
Abstract
The similarities among the writings of Ralph Hawtrey, Lauchlin Currie and Milton Friedman are re‐affirmed, as is the influence of the former on what Friedman has called “the Chicago tradition” of the 1930s. The underconsumptionist analysis of Paul Douglas is not integral to that tradition.
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This chapter explores a number of relatively unknown aspects of the controversy over Milton Friedman’s March 1975 visit to Chile through the analytical framework provided by James…
Abstract
This chapter explores a number of relatively unknown aspects of the controversy over Milton Friedman’s March 1975 visit to Chile through the analytical framework provided by James M. Buchanan’s late 1950s assessment of the economist-physician analogy. The chapter draws upon a range of archival and neglected primary sources to show that the topics which generally rear their head in any contemporary discussion of Friedman’s visit to Chile – for example, whether it is appropriate to provide policy advice to a dictator – were aired in a largely private mid-1970s exchange between Friedman and a number of professional associates. In particular, the controversy over Friedman and Chile began several months before Friedman arrived in Santiago.
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What historical background Van Overtveldt offers, he primarily draws from interviews he personally conducted and memoirs of various Chicago economists, especially Milton Friedman…
Abstract
What historical background Van Overtveldt offers, he primarily draws from interviews he personally conducted and memoirs of various Chicago economists, especially Milton Friedman. In the introduction, Van Overtveldt (2007, p. 15) sheds light on his methodology; he states that he based his historical analysis on three layers of sources: “The first layer includes the books, essays, monographs, and articles published in academic journals by Chicago and non-Chicago economists…The second layer consists of material that is available in the archives of the University of Chicago…and in the files of the Communications Department of the University of Chicago. The third layer [draws from]…the more than 100 interviews that were conducted from 1994 to 2003.” Regarding the third, Van Overtveldt has provided a valuable historical contribution by compiling such an extensive oral history. Of the three layers Van Overtveldt mentions, the second is relatively thin. In the endnotes, Van Overtveldt only cites, excluding newspaper citations, seven archival sources from either the Special Collections at the University of Chicago or the files in Chicago's Communications Department. Tellingly, in the endnotes, the ratio of interview citations to archival citations is roughly 120:7≅17:1.1 While adducing interviews per se is not problematic, information in an interview (or a memoir) needs to be checked against archival sources. Historian of economic thought, Bruce Caldwell (2007, pp. 348–349), cautions “[One should] take reminiscences with a grain of salt, and whenever possible to consult multiple archival sources.”2 If a reflection cannot be checked against archival sources, it should be used with guarded skepticism. Van Overtveldt, however, unquestioningly relies on interviews; in fact, a retrospective point made by Friedman sometimes trumps assertions, explicit and implicit, critical of Chicago economics and its history. Van Overtveldt (2007, p. 27) plays the Friedman trump card, for example, in the following context:[Crauford] Goodwin noted that by the end of the 1940s, prominent members of the business community backed economists who preached the advantages of free competition and capitalism and ‘were all associated with the University of Chicago.’ Friedman strongly denies the relevance of this Cold War argument and the implied patronage of economics – especially at the University of Chicago – by business interests in favor of capitalism and the free-market economy.
Offers a response to David Laidler’s article “More on Hawtrey, Harvard and Chicago”, in this issue. Asserts that the unique Chicagoan quantity‐theory of the early 1930s embodied a…
Abstract
Offers a response to David Laidler’s article “More on Hawtrey, Harvard and Chicago”, in this issue. Asserts that the unique Chicagoan quantity‐theory of the early 1930s embodied a policy framework which left it immune from the Keynesian revolution and contained important linkages with Friedman’s views in its business‐cycle analysis and policy positions. Claims that this tradition explains why Chicago (and not Harvard) originated the monetarist counter‐revolution.
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In 1969, Warren Nutter left the University of Virginia Department of Economics to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Nixon…
Abstract
In 1969, Warren Nutter left the University of Virginia Department of Economics to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Nixon administration. During his time in the Defense Department, Nutter was deeply involved in laying the groundwork for a military coup against the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Although Nutter left the Pentagon several months before the successful 1973 coup, his role in Chile was far more direct than the better-known cases of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Arnold Harberger. This chapter describes Nutter’s role in Chile policymaking in the Nixon administration. It shows how Nutter’s criticisms of Henry Kissinger are grounded in his economics, and compares and contrasts Nutter with other economists who have been connected to Pinochet’s dictatorship.
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