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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conceptual framework about human resources downsizing and restructuring and how organizations of the public sector can do that effectively and efficiently. These facts drive to the conclusion that the implementation of early retirement incentives requires the most elaborate planning and execution to be effective, predictable and safe in the long term.

This paper adopts an analytical, descriptive methodology approach to describe the basic features of the data by using the descriptive research design. Data have been collected through different sources, which include secondary data, to introduce the theoretical literature of the subject as books, journals, articles, published working papers and referred previous studies related to the same subject.

Downsizing process is a deliberate administrative process that includes, but is not limited to, workforce reduction and is primarily aimed at achieving efficiency in public organizations. The definition of workforce downsizing may be narrowed to reducing the number of workers, or more likely to refer to general efforts to restructuring human resources in public organizations, Early Retirement Incentive Programs (ERIP) represents a viable alternative for organizations seeking to reduce staff. For the ERIP to be successful, the program coordinator must understand the business objectives and goals that the organization is trying to obtain.

Human resources strategies concerning downsizing public administration workforce should be more appropriate to those who leave the organization and those who stay at work, reducing the negative psychological, administrative and economical effects. This could be achieved through a strategy called early retirement incentive programs.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a channel incentive program conceptual framework. In order to do so, a consolidated theoretical effort was completed together with observations from two countries – Brazil and the USA – to build evidence toward the proposed framework.

This paper first proposes a theoretical framework for understating marketing channel incentive programs, conceptualizing it as being composed by four dimensions being control, benefits, exclusiveness and formalization, mediated by power distribution between dealers and manufactures. Second, the developed framework was used for a cross-country analysis. Three multinational firms, global leaders in the crop protection industry, were selected in Brazil and the same three were selected in the USA. For completing each case report for the six companies in total, 16 people were interviewed, besides documental research over companies’ documents.

The framework helped describing and understanding the different group of incentives used per firm and country. Indeed, there are much more similarities within Brazil or the USA, than the same company in these two countries. The institutional environment and the network structure were fundamental to understand why the power center was different in these two countries that resulted in different channel incentive programs. In the USA, programs are very clear and straightforward in regard to a powerful dealer. If the dealer develops five or six output tasks, margins would increase considerably. In Brazil, however, dealers have a wider array of activities accompanying output measures. If they perform well they receive support, but fundamentally manufacturers strongly influence dealers’ daily management decisions.

The incentive programs analyzed are mostly based on the set of standard documents manufacturers produced for dealers and on interviews for clarifying the content of the documents. Therefore, manufacturers probably set some relationship aspects aside since “individual approaches” to dealers might exist that were not captured in this study. Another limitation is the application to one sole industry that may per se present particularities that could be inducted too far the conceptual model that was built.

The framework as suggested might first help to organize the thinking of first identifying the power distribution between manufacturer and dealers and understanding institutional and network underlying causes. The framework might then help to select the right performance measures, benefits while keeping exclusivity and formalization levels in mind. Several types of control measures and benefits are presented as examples that can be adapted to a particular situation. Special concerns should be considered when managing marketing channels with incentives in an emerging market, but mainly, one must recognize the need to identify resources limitations (financial, knowledge, or infrastructure). Second, institutions work quite inefficiently, which means that beyond legal enforcements, firms may rely heavily on additional coordination mechanisms such as incentives schemes and communication strategy to build a more social and bilateral control mechanism. Third, a manufacturer should recognize that even if they currently hold a less-dependent position to dealers, the dynamics of an emerging market may quickly change the dependence structure.

The paper brings together a literature review and consolidation over the topic of channel incentive programs, proposes a framework to be used by researchers or practioners and dive in three pairs of companies in different countries to analyze why management practice should be adjusted. Differences in developing and developed countries are highlighted and the impact on channel incentives.

This conceptual paper aims to present a new framework for the use of incentives when encouraging small businesses to adopt more sustainable business practices. It seeks to identify and categorize various types of incentives.

The incentives framework was designed as a practical tool for use during the development of a small business sustainability program. Although conceptual in nature, the framework is based on research conducted by the Washington State (USA) Department of Ecology that used, in part, a modified grounded theory approach.

In addition to identifying and categorizing potential incentives, the paper presents an overview of mainstream thought on incentives and argues that incentives and disincentives are significantly different concepts. The paper identifies seven potential barriers to implementing incentives and summarizes potential solutions to those barriers. It also explains how incentives can be used to encourage sustainable behavior and corporate social responsibility reporting.

The framework presented is intended to assist practitioners develop and structure incentive programs. It is also intended to provide guidance to practitioners regarding the current mainstream paradigm on incentives and recommends changes to that paradigm.

The framework presented is entirely original. No similar framework appears to currently exist.

The purpose of this paper is to address the overarching question, which was whether the incentives programmes formulated for the community have been found to be suitable to the aspirations and needs of the local residents.

This study has resulted from the authors’ experience through conducting a survey with the local residents in three locations, namely the Bukchon Hanok Village located at Seoul metropolitan city; the Hahoe Village, Angdong and the Yangdong Village, Gyeongju; both the latter are located towards the west of the Korean peninsula in the Gyeongbuk-do Province. This study has hopefully tried to analyse the residents’ perception of the effectiveness of the current incentives policy by using the Bennett’s programme evaluation method.

Results show that there was a divergent direction between the current incentives policy and the local aspirations between sites. In most cases, the cultural heritage conservation has been found to be a catalyst to fulfil a heritage tourism advantage rather than to cater to the local community needs.

The paper is the first insightful study of the historic villages which attempts to draw out the importance of the effectiveness of the incentives programme in guiding the conservation efforts for the local economic development.

The authors aim to analyze actual practice in industry with respect to the use, choice, and effectiveness of four types of incentives, cash, prepaid cards, travel, and merchandise.

The paper uses a survey of 170 practicing incentive design managers.

Usage of cash and cards continue to increase but travel and merchandise are still frequently used.

This will provide useful information to practitioners who design incentive programs.

Many companies in the USA have corporate wellness programs but are having trouble encouraging employees to take part in these programs. Even with monetary incentives, many employees do not join. The purpose of this paper is to consider whether timely reminders combined with monetary incentives improve participation in health benefit programs.

Employees of a large manufacturing company across multiple facilities were encouraged to enroll in a messaging service. Once a week, members received an SMS or e-mail reminder to complete a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) and Health Action Plan (HAP). The authors segmented employees based on prior year health insurance plan choice and HRA participation to analyze current HRA and HAP completion, with and without intervention.

The intervention increased completion rates 6 percent for subgroups that completed the HRA in the prior year and 34–37 percent for those that did not.

Corporate wellness programs should develop good communication channels with employees. The effectiveness of such programs will depend also on employee engagement.

With better communication, companies could raise participation in corporate wellness programmes and potentially reduce some of the monetary incentives that they currently offer.

This paper aims to provide a literature review of corporate wellness programs to develop recommendations for effective internal marketing of healthy behaviors in work environments.

A review of research literature published since 2000 addresses corporate wellness programs’ justifications and best program design practices.

Corporate and employee benefits documented in the literature are reviewed and best practices from published literature are identified to guide the design of wellness programs. These include framing clear messages, alignment of corporate culture and business strategy with wellness program goals, senior leader support, clear objectives and evaluation, incorporation of peer support and enjoyable activities, utilization of effective priming for healthy choices and consideration of legal and ethical incentives.

Further research is needed, including how to frame messages for diverse work groups, how to carry out effective program assessments, what types of marketing appeals are effective, what wellness activities lead to healthy behavior change and how is increased employee productivity related to quality of life. Additional questions include how priming encourages healthy behaviors, what promotes healthy workplace cultures and what social marketing appeals promote healthy behaviors.

Senior managers can implement findings to create effective wellness programs benefiting employees and firms through improved employee health and productivity and reduced corporate health-care costs.

Effective wellness programs reduce overall health-care costs for society and provide improved participants’ quality of work, personal and family life.

This research uniquely applies internal marketing, social marketing and marketing exchange concepts to best practices from the wellness literature and applies these to recommendations for effective corporate-based wellness programs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of different reward programs on in‐role and extra‐role behaviour; and to investigate whether specific reward programs can be designed to enhance both in‐role and extra‐role behaviour simultaneously.

Semi‐structured in‐depth interviews were conducted on a total of 11 employees from four different fashion retail outlets. Informants consisted of employees from different positions within these organizations (i.e. store manager, assistant store manager and sales associates) to provide researchers with possibly differing viewpoints. Interviews were content analysed and classified, according to emerging themes.

Certain reward programs, namely individual and group financial incentives motivated sales associates to engage in both in‐role and extra‐role behaviour simultaneously. Further, compared to formal recognition programs, informal reward programs (individual financial incentives, individual social recognition and group social recognition) appeared to be more effective in motivating sales associates to enhance their in‐role and extra‐role performance.

This paper contributes to a better understanding of the effects of different reward programs and their administration on in‐role and extra‐role performance of retail sales associates.

Many university-based services for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have incorporated peer mentorship programs; however, the research on the success of these programs to increase social engagement is extremely limited. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of a peer mentor program, both alone and combined with an incentive program, on increasing the social engagement of college students with ASD. Additionally, the perceptions of college students with ASD were also examined to determine potential barriers to participate in these social events.

A component analysis was used to determine what intervention component or combination of components, was most effective in increasing the social engagement among college students with ASD. The number of students during each component was totaled and averaged across the number of social events held during that phase. A survey regarding barriers to social engagement was also provided.

Results suggest that both the peer mentor program alone, as well as the peer mentor program in conjunction with an incentive program, were effective at increasing students’ attendance at weekly supervised social events. Results from the survey regarding barriers to social engagement revealed that the majority of students reported difficulties managing time to fit social events into their schedule.

To the knowledge, the use of peer-mentoring programs combined with an incentive program on increasing social engagement has not yet been investigated. Further, perceptions of the use of these programs by college students with ASD is relatively limited.

Examines new directions company health and safety programmes are taking. Discusses new dealings with Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) which companies employ, stress management, and wellness or preventative health programmes. Considers employee participation in the implementation of safety programmes and various forms of safety incentives.