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Why, despite clear economic incentives, did eighteenth-century slave traders fail to defend their business interests against the abolition campaign? We focus on the outport of Bristol as a case in point. Our main argument is that slave traders lacked an organizational basis to translate their economic interests into political influence. Supporting evidence from merchant networks over the 1698–1807 period shows that the Society of Merchant Venturers offered such an organizational site for collective political action. Members of this chartered company controlled much of Bristol’s seaborne commerce and held chief elective offices in the municipal government. However, the Society evolved into an organization that represented the interests of a closed elite. High barriers to entry prevented the slave traders from using the Society as a vehicle for political mobilization. Social cohesion among slave traders outside the chartered company hinged on centrally positioned brokers. Yet the broker positions were held by the few merchants who became members of the Society, and who eventually ceased their engagement in slave trading. The result was a fragmented network that undermined the slave traders’ concerted efforts to mobilize against the political pressure of the abolitionist movement.

This study aims to ask whether the funding behaviour of companies is different during a recession. Specifically, the authors study whether firms fund marketing resources and capabilities with internal or external financing during a recession and under which conditions of strategic financial flexibility debt might be used to fund marketing resources and capabilities in recessions.

This study estimates empirical models using a newly merged data set covering 17 years, from 2000 to 2016. The authors merge firms’ marketing and financial information from Advertising Age, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Compustat and the Centre for Research in Security Prices. The sample includes a panel of 653 firm-years of 67 top corporate advertisers.

The results indicate that firms take recessions as opportunities to be proactive and invest in short- and long-term marketing capabilities, companies with higher strategic financial flexibility relative to their industry peers tend to rely more on debt to fund short- and long-term marketing capabilities during recessions, firms use internal financing to fund their marketing budgets and short-term marketing capabilities in recessionary and non-recessionary periods and firms use internal financing and signals from past stock returns as mechanisms to fund long-term marketing capabilities.

The findings contribute to the body of knowledge on the antecedents of marketing resources and capabilities. The results extend the pecking order theory to include recessions and provide nuances of the financing drivers of resources and capabilities.

Companies should be proactive during recessions and invest in short- and long-term marketing capabilities. When negotiating marketing budgets with chief financial officers, marketing practitioners could suggest the sources to finance specific marketing resources and capabilities. Based on the results of top corporate advertisers, the authors recommend companies to fund marketing capabilities with internal resources (e.g. cash flows, retained earnings), and if cash is not available, companies need to rely on their superior strategic financial flexibility to access long-term debt and fund investments in marketing capabilities. The authors also recommend companies to fund long-term marketing capabilities by re-allocating investments. As well, signals from past performance are an important source to gain access to capital and fund investments in long-term marketing capabilities.

This study provides a more complete picture of the financial antecedents of marketing resources and capabilities in general and during a recession. The authors provide light on the moderating role of strategic financial flexibility during recessions. This study also clarifies the potential signalling of past performance for funding marketing resources and capabilities.

The question of the best commercial method of retailing milk requires to be dealt with from the various standpoints of the different classes of milk vendors.

There is a peculiar problem in the US that is proving to challenge core values that undergird our laws, interpersonal interactions, and challenge the civil rights of many. American society believes in harsh sentences for committing crimes without a system for rehabilitation from crime and absent from resources from a community level to prevent crimes. As crime has declined since the 1990s, policing behavior has grown to a level that reflects a disregard for humanity resulting in police-involved shootings, also known as “justifiable homicides” or deaths by legal intervention. This peculiar problem reifies old notions of racial inferiority and racial profiling that stem from a long history of lynchings in America, and highlights a broken legal system that shows bias toward poor communities and communities not of the racial and ethnic majority. When laws support one racial or ethnic group and those with resources, other communities become invisible and subjected to state-sanctioned violence that allows some police agencies and police officers to engage in behaviors that do not reflect their training foster an overwhelming sense of fear in these communities. We have observed that when communities fear the police and the larger society disbelieves the negative interactions with police, residents have begun to capture police encounters with community members on social media. Despite the video footage that has been collected documenting abuse of power, some police have been granted impunity for their actions, which further fuels fear in these communities. What we propose are ways to frame and solve negative police encounters with communities through an understanding of: (1) racial biases; (2) racial and gender consciousness; (3) ways to provide more equitable policing practices; (4) the enforcement of legal remedies for those who abuse power; and (5) the prevention of acts of discrimination by holding individuals culpable who informally police Black males. We believe these strategies aid in addressing the historical legacy of these behaviors and moves multiple systems and disciplines toward integrated solutions to eliminate “justifiable homicides.”

Inspectors visiting districts in connection with the Foreign Meat and Unsound Food Regulations have made detailed inquiries in certain instances in regard to local methods of administration of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. Special visits for this purpose have also been made to other districts where inquiry appeared to be specially called for. In the course of these inquiries it was found that in some instances the public analyst had made a report to his local authority on some special investigation which had been undertaken in the district respecting a particular article of food, but that copies of such report had not always reached the Board. During an inquiry in the county of Cheshire Dr. Coutts ascertained that the county analyst had made valuable reports in regard to butter and Cheshire cheese of which the Board were unaware. Reports of this nature are of much interest to this sub‐department, and it would be of advantage if local authorities would send to the Board copies of all special reports made by the public analyst.

This paper aims to address two unique and important questions. First, how do recessions directly affect firms’ marketing spending decisions? Second, and more importantly, do firms which are more committed to marketing spending through past recessions achieve better stock market returns?

This study is based on a combination of National Bureau of Economic Research, COMPUSTAT and Center for Research in Security Prices data on 6,000 firms between 1982 and 2009 which are analyzed using panel data-based regression models.

The authors find that firms cut marketing spending during recessions. However, firms committed to marketing spending during past recessions achieve better stock market returns. The findings are found to be robust across B2B and B2C industries, different periods and US firms which vary on the proportion of their global revenue from non-US sales.

Top executives cut marketing budgets during recessions; however, if they can resist the pressures, and strategically continue to make marketing investments during recessions, they will achieve higher stock market returns.

This is the first paper to establish the longer-term (not short-term) positive stock market performance of continuous (not episodic) marketing spending through past recessions, i.e. the view that marketing spending is necessary (not discretionary) for stock returns.

This study aims to answer two unique related questions on the overarching relationship between a CEO’s personal religious affiliation, the firm’s advertising spending decision and its shareholder value. First, does the CEO’s religious affiliation, a proxy for risk taking, influence the firm’s advertising spending decision? Second, does the advertising spending decision mediate the relationship between the CEO’s religious affiliation and the firm’s shareholder value?

This study uses data on the religious affiliations of CEOs of publicly listed US firms, 1992–2014, from Marquis Who’s Who; advertising spending and shareholder value from Compustat, and panel data-based regression models including CEO characteristics from ExecuComp, and firm-, industry- and time-based controls.

We find higher advertising spending levels for Protestant over Catholic-led firms, and advertising spending mediates the relationship between a CEO’s religious affiliation and the firm’s shareholder value.

Marketing theory needs to incorporate the missing but fundamental effect of the CEO’s religious affiliation-based values on decisions and outcomes.

Boards of Directors may need to align the CEO’s and their firm’s spending goals.

While previous studies focused on the influence of religious affiliation on consumers’ attitudes and behavior, and executives’ financial and R&D spending decisions, this study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first to investigate the effect of a CEO’s religious affiliation on the firm’s advertising spending decision and its shareholder value.

Business cycles strongly influence corporate sales and profits, yet strategy research largely ignores the possibility that corporate management practices related to the business cycle influence profitability. This paper aims to offer initial empirical support for the view that high peformance firms use a variety of business cycle management (BCM) practices that low performance firms do not.

This exploratory study examines the association of firm performance with business cycle management behaviors identified in the prescriptive literature and further developed from a set of case analyses. The empirical analysis uses a matched sample of 35 pairs of high vs low performers from the S&P 500.

Discriminant and conditional logit analyses provide preliminary evidence that business cycle‐sensitive behaviors such as countercyclical hiring and investment associate positively with firm performance.

Future research should use larger data sets and strictly archival data to overcome the limitations of the small sample size and data coding with some subjective elements.

This research suggests a variety of business cycle related practices dealing with staffing, capital investment, acquisitions and divestitures, capital financing, credit policy, pricing, and advertising may improve firm performance.

This is the first paper to offer evidence of the impact of business cycle related practices across a range of practices and industries.