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Many apparel brands use growth strategies that involve extending a brand’s line horizontally (same price/quality) and/or vertically (different price/quality). While such opportunities for growth and profitability are enticing, pursuing them could dilute a highly profitable parent brand. Categorization theory’s bookkeeping model and the cue scope framework provide the theoretical framework for this study. The purpose of this study is to test whether specific attributes of a line extension (i.e. direction of extension, brand concept, price discount and perceived fit) make a parent brand more susceptible to dilution.

This experimental study manipulates brand concept (premium or value brand) and price level (horizontal or vertical: −20per cent, −80per cent) and measures perceived fit to test effects on parent brand dilution. ANOVA and t-tests are used for the analysis.

Vertical extensions dilute the parent brand, but horizontal extensions do not. Dilution is strongest for premium (vs value) brands and when line extensions are discounted (i.e. −20per cent or −80per cent lower than the parent brand), regardless of the perceived fit between brand concept and brand extension price. Overall, brand concept is the strongest predictor of parent brand dilution in the context of vertical-downward extensions.

This study establishes which factors emerge as important contributors to parent brand dilution. Although previous studies on brand dilution are abundant, few studies have compared the effects of horizontal and vertical extensions on brand dilution. This study offers strong theoretical as well as practical implications.

Describes a Soviet approach to organizational change utilizing a game devised especially for one organization which poses organizational problems to managers and workers. By means of performance of a carefully crafted script, participants in the game devise solutions to the problems which are generally acceptable to all participants.

The difficulties entrepreneurs encounter as their organisations move from the rapid growth to the maturity stage are attributed to a personality/ organisation misfit. Personality characteristics that are an asset in the earlier stages become a liability in the later organisational life‐cycle stages. Several interventions are suggested for use with entrepreneurs who face this situation. The use of reframing strategies that involve unconscious information processing are advocated, as an intervention of last resort, when an entrepreneur wants to stay at the head of the organisation but the misfit is causing problems. This article although purposely speculative and hopefully, provocative, is designed to expand our thinking about the problems entrepreneurs face and to open up possibilities for potential solutions.

Highlights the importance of ensuring the highest possible return rates when using mail surveys. Describes a study investigating the difference in return rates between a parent company and a fictitious consulting firm. Reports that there was no difference between response rates for two different return addresses, and that response bias was not a problem. Concludes therefore that great cost savings can be made as a result of developing and mailing the materials in‐house. Summarizes research literature on response rate surveys.

This paper investigated the interactions between gender stereotypes for jobs, applicant gender, and the communication styles used by male and female applicants during an interview. This study was conducted as a laboratory experiment, utilizing a 2x2x2 mixed design. Subjects read one job description and heard three audiotapes of all male or all female job applicants exhibiting a dominant, submissive, or neutral communication style. The subjects then rated the applicant on five dimensions. These dimensions are likeability, competence, sociability, overall impression, and hireability. Results showed significant interactions of applicant gender and communication style on four of the five dimensions rated in this study. An inspection of the dimension means revealed different effects for gender‐appropriate and gender‐inappropriate behavior for males and females. Males were penalized on ratings of overall impression and hireability for communicating in stereotypically gender‐inappropriate manners. Females were penalized on ratings of sociability and likeability for communicating in a stereotypically gender‐inappropriate fashion. The implications of these findings for using interviews are then discussed in terms of aversive genderism.

Workforce analytics is an evolving measurement approach in human resource (HR) planning and strategy implementation. Workforce analytics can help organizations manage one of their most important resources: their human capital. The purpose of this paper is to propose a diversity metric, called the D-Metric, as a new tool for HR planning. The D-Metric can be used to assess the demographic representativeness of employees across skill categories of an organization’s workforce compared to its relevant labor markets.

The authors present a real example and discuss possible applications of the D-Metric in HRM strategic planning and diversity research.

The D-Metric is a statistic useful in assessing demographic representativeness in the occupational categories of an organization’s workforce compared to the demographics of its relevant labor markets. The methodology could be implemented to assess an organization’s work force representativeness on dimensions such as race, sex, age and pay levels. When the labor market is unitary, without measurable variance, a substitute metric, the U-Metric also presented in this paper, can be used.

Use of the D-Metric requires publicly available labor market data with variance across labor market segments.

There currently is no published metric that evaluates the representativeness of an organization’s work force relative to its relevant labor markets. Many organizations seek a demographically representative workforce to better understand their diverse customer segments. Monitoring the representativeness of an organization’s work force, as captured in Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO-1) forms in the USA, for example, is an important component of HR management strategy. From a legal perspective, the D-Metric or the alternative U-Metric, could be useful in showing progress toward a demographically representative work force.

The present paper reviews the research literature on trust in bargaining and mediation. Several models of trust within the bargaining process are also described. It is concluded that trust means different things, depending upon the relationship under investigation. Trust among negotiators can refer to a personality trail (how trusting a negotiator is of others) or to a temporary state. Within the state perspective, trust often refers to one of three orientations: (1) cooperative motivational orientation (MO), (2) patterns of predictable behavior, (3) a problem‐solving orientation. Trust between a negotiator and constituents usually refers to a cooperative MO (i.e., shared loyalty) between these two groups. The addition of a mediator can impact both the opposing negotiators' relationship and each negotiator‐constituent relationship; the mediator also has direct and indirect relationships with the parties and their constituents. Future directions for research on trust are identified.

This study investigated the effects of arbitration condition and risk‐taking propensity upon bargaining behavior. Negotiators anticipating final‐offer arbitration settled more contracts, resolved more contract issues, and conceded more than did negotiators anticipating conventional arbitration. Contrary to our hypothesis, low risk‐taking propensity dyads did not settle significantly more contract issues under final‐offer arbitration than they did under conventional arbitration. Union negotiators made significantly greater concessions during the 30 minute pre‐arbitration bargaining period and conceded a greater total amount than did management negotiators. Possible explanations for these findings are presented.

The purpose of this study is to examine and interpret post‐socialist consumer experiences in relation to clothing consumption practices when consumers shop, acquire, and wear clothing and other fashion‐related products.

The in‐depth interview was the primary data collection tool. Data collection was conducted during summer 2004 in St Petersburg, Russia. College students formed the sample for the study. In total, 17 students (four males and 13 females) were interviewed. The hermeneutic approach was used to interpret the meanings of the participant lived experiences.

In comparison to consumers in an established market‐based economy, consumers in this post‐socialist market have unique perceptions of clothing attributes (quality, brand name, country of origin, retail channel) critical for buying decisions. Overall, appearance and clothing play a special role in the emerging Russian market as they help construct and communicate new identities more than any other product category.

Identified challenges of the Russian apparel market indicate opportunities for domestic and foreign apparel businesses. The meanings Russian consumers attach to clothing attributes can be used to develop product positioning and promotional strategies. Discussed implications of the research findings can be extended to other post‐socialist emerging markets.

This study explored how Russian consumers have adjusted to the new economic reality after almost fifteen years of transition from a socialist to a capitalist society from the perspective of the consumer. Whereas previous research findings were confirmed, the present study provides rationale for perceived importance of quality and unimportance of brand name in the Russian apparel market.

Bertil Ohlin was a most active commentator on current economic events in the interwar period, combining his academic work with a journalistic output of an impressive scale. He published more than a thousand newspaper articles in the 1920s and 1930s, more than any other professor in economics in Sweden.

Here we have collected 10 articles by Ohlin, translated from Swedish and originally published in Stockholms-Tidningen, to trace the evolution of his thinking during the Great Depression of the 1930s. These articles, spanning roughly half a decade, bring out his response to the stock market crisis in New York in 1929, his views on monetary policy in 1931, on fiscal policy and public works in 1932, his reaction to Keynes’ ideas in 1932 and 1933 and to Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933, and, finally, his stand against state socialism in 1935.

At the beginning of the depression, Ohlin was quite optimistic in his outlook. But as the downturn in the world economy deepened, his optimism waned. He dealt with proposals for bringing the Swedish economy out of the depression, and reported positively on the policy views of Keynes. At an early stage, he recommended expansionary fiscal and monetary policies including public works. This approach permeated the contributions of the young generation of Swedish economists arising in the 1930s, eventually forming the Stockholm School of Economics. He was critical of passive Manchester liberalism, ‘folded-arms evangelism’ as well of socialism while promoting his own brand of ‘active social liberalism’.