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The consumer is currently feeling the consequences of the global economic crisis, leading to decreased spending by tourists. An important economizing strategy appears to be that vacationers do not give up their holiday but are likely to travel closer to home, a phenomenon called “staycation”, but this is just one of a variety of options vacationers can use. If they make economies within a holiday, where do they get their ideas about economizing from? The purpose of this paper is to study information searching from the perspective of economizing on vacations.

The work reported on is a survey of Dutch vacationers who stated that they economized on their 2009 holiday.

The research shows that different sources have strong and weak points in relation to the different subdecisions that constitute a vacation. Information sources are used in concert for subdecisions; the strongest joint use involves marketer‐generated sites and e‐WOM, and brochures and travel guides. In the family context, a tendency is found to use more information sources the more economizing decisions are discussed.

For tour operators, it seems to make sense to make it easier to compare vacation alternatives that differ on subdecisions such as booking moment and period, and to offer a range of options from expensive to inexpensive. Also, making options more flexible in terms of downgrading on vacation features could assist vacationers who want to economize. Consumer‐generated sources could focus more on providing information and comparison opportunities for subdecisions.

Information searching is a widely studied area in vacation decision making. Two extensive literature reviews give an overview of factors influencing this search process. In this literature, a contribution on information searching to obtain economizing ideas in difficult times is absent. In this article, with the aid of five research questions, the role of information searching in relation to economizing on vacations is investigated.

To provide a framework for understanding and analyzing economizing in differentiated distribution networks.

The paper is conceptual and reviews and develops some of the concepts and ideas provided by Wroe Alderson. The developed framework is then used in combination with some principle empirical examples from the PC industry to illustrate how the framework can be used in order to understand economizing in differentiated distribution networks. The paper also brings forward some methodological concerns regarding the use of the transvection concept in an empirical setting.

The paper concludes that by using a transvection approach three key concepts with regard to economizing in differentiated distribution networks can be identified; crossing points, sorting, and uniformity. These are interrelated and together they provide insight with respect to the logic of economizing in these kinds of networks.

The paper brings forward some “old” Aldersonian concepts in a “modern” setting and shows how these concepts can be used to understand economizing in differentiated distribution networks. The transvection is reintroduced as a useful concept for analyzing distribution structures, and the author found, in particular, that the concept is highly useful for understanding today's modern distribution arrangements.

This study examines how carbon tools, including carbon accounting and management tools, can be created, used, modified and linked with other traditional management controls to materialise and effectuate organisations’ response strategies to multiple interacting logics in carbon management and the role of sustainability managers in these processes.

This study utilises the construct of accounting toolmaking, which refers to practices of adopting, adjusting and reconfiguring accounting tools to unfold how carbon tools are used as means to materialise responses to multiple interacting carbon management logics. It embraces a field study approach, whereby 38 sustainability managers and staff from 30 organisations in New Zealand were interviewed.

This study finds that carbon toolmaking is an important means to materialise and effectuate organisations’ response strategies to multiple interacting carbon management logics. Four response strategies are identified: separation, selective coupling, combination and hybridisation. Adopting activity involves considering the additionality, detailing, localising and cascading of carbon measures and targets and their linkage to the broader carbon management programme. In adjusting carbon tools, organisations adapt the frequency and orientation of carbon reporting, intensity of carbon monitoring and breadth of carbon information sharing. Through focusing on either procedural sequencing, assimilating, equating or integrating, toolmaking reconfigures the relationship between carbon tools and traditional management control systems. Together, these three toolmaking activities can be configured differently to construct carbon tools that are fit for purpose for each response strategy. These activities also enact certain roles on sustainability managers in the process of representing, communicating and/or transferring carbon information knowledge, which also facilitate different response strategies.

The study demonstrates the various carbon toolmaking practices that allow organisations to handle the multiple interacting logics in carbon management. The findings provide suggestions for organisations on how to adopt, adjust and reconfigure carbon tools to better embed the ecological logic in organisations’ strategies and operations.

The authors identify how carbon toolmaking materialises and effectuates organisations’ responses to multiple interacting logics in carbon management.

Focuses on the basic concepts and principles of alternative economics; a new doctrine of economic thought centred around human communities and their natural environments. The ideas of Karl Polanyi, Ernst F. Schumacher, and Herman E. Daly are presented as the most important antecedents. Considering the economy as multiple interplay among natural ecosystems, economic organizations and human communities, alternative economics tries to find ways in which economies could have been made more ecologically benign and humane. Demonstrates the practical relevance of alternative economics to two fields: first, the responsibility problematics of economizing and, second, the question of how to form economic policies which serve real development.

The purposes of this study are to empirically test the differences among three major cities in India by their affluence level, selected factors related to consumer purchase behaviors, and to examine the regional differences in purchase behaviors.

A total of 652 usable data were collected from consumers of age 18 years or older residing in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore, India via mall intercept surveys.

Overall, the findings confirmed that affluence level in each region explains the variances in region's values, attitudes, lifestyles, and consumption patterns of foreign branded goods. That is, Mumbai (i.e. the highest GDP among the three cities) showed individualistic characteristics (i.e. lower levels of face saving and group conformity). Attitude toward economizing was found to be inversely related to a city's affluence level with Bangalore (least affluent) having the highest attitude toward economizing and Mumbai (most affluent) having the lowest attitude toward economizing. Mumbai and New Delhi consumers purchased significantly more foreign jeans than Bangalore consumers. In purchasing foreign brand goods, social attributes (i.e. brand name and latest fashion) were more prominent in Bangalore consumers who are the most collectivistic in this study.

The findings of this study convey a clear message: assuming Indian consumers are the same across regions is a mistake and a localization approach should be considered to market to each region.

This study is one of the first attempts to examine regional differences in the Indian market. This study adds empirical evidence that differing economic affluence levels are critical in estimating consumption differences by region.

Compared to external audit, internal audit has been charged with having no theory to guide academic research and practice. Suggests that the claims that internal audit has no theory have overlooked the theory of transaction cost economics. A variation of agency theory, transaction cost economics provides a conceptual framework for internal audit. Explains the theory that transaction cost economics provides for internal audit, and tests the theory with an experiment involving the usefulness of internal audit findings for senior executives in government organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional context of the entrepreneurial discovery of blockchain applications.

This paper draws on institutional and entrepreneurial theory to introduce the economic problem entrepreneurship in the early stages of new technologies, examines the diversity of self-governed hybrid solutions to coordinating entrepreneurial information and draws policy implications.

To perceive a valuable and actionable market opportunity, entrepreneurs must coordinate distributed non-price information under uncertainty with others. One potential class of transaction cost economising solution to this problem is private self-governance of information coordination within hybrids. This paper explores a diverse range of entrepreneurial hybrids coalescing around blockchain technology, with implications for innovation policy.

This paper points to the problem of how the defining of the innovation problem as either choice-theoretic or contract-theoretic changes the remit of innovation policy. Innovation policy and blockchain policy should extend beyond correcting sub-optimal investments or removing barriers to action, to incorporate how polices impact entrepreneurial choices over governance structures to coordinate information.

In this study, the homogeneity versus heterogeneity of global consumption is tested in a cross‐cultural price/brand effect model. Middle‐class consumers in two countries are compared: the USA, an established consumer society, and India, a recently developing consumer society. Focus groups demonstrate the tremendous importance of brands in India, but survey data suggest that, compared to Americans, Indians actually have a lower perception of brand quality. They need to be convinced of standardized quality. Indians are, in addition, more positive than Americans about economizing. This implies that they feel guilty about consumption. These differences between Americans and Indians influence how price and brand affect their different purchase decisions: the Indian is a much tougher consumer to whom to sell. The results suggest that consumption, while it is becoming global, is still heterogeneous. It is being interpreted and implemented differently in different cultures.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the case for studying non-interaction in networks, particularly instances of intentional avoidance of interaction.

The paper is based on the analysis of instances of interaction avoidance across four case studies in medical technology development, food product development, food distribution network change, and regional innovation in construction.

Some answers are provided to the questions of why and how actors may seek to avoid interaction. Five modes of interaction avoidance are identified and outlined. Within these modes, interaction avoidance took place in order to protect knowledge, enforce progress, economise in business networks, avoid wasting resources, and maintain opportunities respectively. This list is not seen to be exhaustive of the theme, and further studies are encouraged.

Few inter-organisational network studies have dealt explicitly with interaction avoidance or non-interaction.

This paper aims to describe a pricing process that can aid companies in modifying their product strategy.

The case describes an approach that uses grass roots data from franchisees to change pricing strategy effectively.

The paper illustrates the wisdom of franchisees with customer contact and an intimate knowledge of customer wants. The application may not be applicable to all industries. The restaurant industry is affected by numerous economic conditions that can bankrupt operators. Fast food operations usually lose less business than traditional restaurants, since consumers who want to eat out but need to economize “trade down.” Within the fast food sector, Subway capitalized on consumers' need to economize and reduced the price of its sandwiches. It was the right move for the times and Subway enjoy considerable success. Their results can be valuable to other companies.

As in all case studies, the specific conditions found in one organization may not be found more generally in others. Readers are cautioned that the conclusions drawn in this case may have limited applicability.

The case depicts the process that one firm used to boost sales and compete effectively by matching customer wants to the characteristics of the product offering.

The case describes how a pricing strategy, focusing on the needs of a target audience, can boost sales amid an economic downturn.