In this research, we use a unique scanner panel dataset to investigate how brand choice behavior varies for the same consumer shopping for the same brand across different retail formats. We develop hypotheses pertaining to promotion sensitivity, price sensitivity, package size preference, and effects of demographic and shopping variables on consumer brand choice behavior and test them using a multi-format probit choice model that allows for the estimation of the cross-format differences with respect to the above. We find that consumers exhibit different promotion and price sensitivities in brand choice behavior between the mass merchandise format and supermarkets. (key sustainability dimensions: niche marketing impact on business strategy and target markets; different retail formats have sustainability implications for new IT markets to reduce environmental impact and increase social welfare.)

This research offers a new perspective that looks at corporate social responsibility as a source and outcome of brand equity. The paper is the first empirical study that tests the interrelationship between social performance and financial-based brand equity. The work offers global managers an improved understanding on how social responsibility relates to brand equity. Managers can increase brand equity by using corporate social responsibility as a strategic tool for positioning differentiation. To maintain competitive parity in social positioning and preserve brand equity, very large firms will likely need to ensure that they achieve comparable social performance as their global peer competitors.

This paper examines ethical decision making as a major concern in business and society in general. The models used for ethical decision making tend to be scripts and case study orientated. The question of how to educate students in the art and science of decision making motivated our investigation. The Management Information Systems (MIS) course was appropriate for this study because one of its major purposes was decision making and decision modeling. Evaluation of the decision modeling effort and cooperative discussion boards was students' understanding of information systems concepts. Additionally understanding the principles and axioms of decision making was an outcome measure for decision modeling.

This article looks at the effect of marketing brands in a highly competitive environment and has direct application to new products and services in entrepreneurship. Anticipating the speed of market entry can help the feature pioneer and me-too brands develop more informed product launch strategies. This paper explains imitation speed, broken down into the incidence and timing of imitation, across 144 imitators and 847 nonimitators in 22 consumer packaged goods subcategories. On average, it takes 85 weeks for a me-too brand to introduce its feature imitation. Increasing category market share increases the incidence of imitation and, conditional on their occurrence, decreases the time to market of feature imitators. Faster entry arises for store brands as they are more likely to imitate and tend to take shorter times to market. Price premium does not have a significant effect on the incidence or timing of a me-too brand as it tends to dissipate after the first year. Brands imitate innovative features more often than noninnovative features. Some evidence indicates these imitators can take a longer time to enter the market. New product managers may benefit from the direction as well as the magnitude of these results.

The article addresses social impact management: Impacts of product development/design/pricing on consumers, Niche marketing impact on business strategy and target markets.

In this paper, we develop a flexible and powerful heuristic framework for managers to make intra-day resource adjustment decisions that take into account updated call forecasts, updated agent requirements, existing agent schedules, agents' schedule flexibility, and associated incremental labor costs. We demonstrate the value of this methodology in managing the trade-off between labor costs and service levels to best meet variable rates of demand for service, using data from an actual call center. For nearly all call centers, agent schedules are typically created several days or weeks before the time that agents report to work. After schedules are created, call center resource managers receive additional information that can affect forecasted workload and resource availability. (key sustainability dimensions: workforce impact of IT enhancements, systems thinking issues, work-life balance, adjusted workload.)

This paper examines the driving forces and key success factors related to the increasing globalization of the wine industry. It further analyzes the current competitive advantage positions of four Old and five New World wine producing countries. The group with the strongest sources of competitive advantage position includes the United States, Australia, and Chile. The group of countries with moderate competitive advantages includes Italy, Spain, Argentina and South Africa, and the countries with the weakest competitive advantages in the global wine industry are two traditional strongholds of wine production from the Old World: France and Germany. This competitive advantage scenario should be a wake-up call to many countries. The study offers three specific recommendations for wineries of all sizes in all nations. They are: (i) increased emphasis on market orientation, (ii) increased export assistance, (iii) managing trade barriers effectively. (key sustainability dimensions: international trade barriers, emerging market comepetitiveness, cultural implications of marketing in transitional economies, social marketing)

In this paper, we consider a periodic review inventory problem where demand in each period is modeled by linear regression. We use a Bayesian formulation to update the regression parameters as new information becomes available. We find that a state-dependent base-stock policy is optimal and we give structural results. One interesting finding is that our structural results are not analogous to classical results in Bayesian inventory research. This departure from classical results is due to the role that the independent variables play in the Bayesian regression formulation. Because of the computational complexity of the optimal policy, we propose a combination of two heuristics that simplifies the Bayesian inventory problem. Through analytical and numericalevaluation, we find that the heuristics provide near-optimal results.

Efficient supply chain management systems are critical components of environmental responsibilty and energy efficient operations programs. This article addresses the stock inventory model which relates to two aspects of Environmental impact management: waste reduction, systems thinking. Example finding: "Larger demand realizations do not necessarily lead to larger base-stock levels" pg. 825.

Efficient distribution and inventory systems are critical components of environmental responsibilty and energy efficient production. This article touches upon responsible practices in the wine industry.

With the global growth of both export programs and private label brands, wineries must allocate production across an increasing variety of sales channels before demand is known. Misallocation may result in surpluses in some channels and lost sales opportunities in others. Although postponement would aid in solving this problem, this strategy has not been widely adopted. The research in this article involved surveying California wineries (N=142) on their current exporting, private labeling, and postponement practices and on their predictions for future usage. A majority of the respondents export, but many fewer have private label channels or engage in postponement. Additionally, wineries anticipate increasing adoption of export and private label practices but show less enthusiasm for utilizing postponement.

In this commentary, two studies of reputation that use different theoretical perspectives and modeling strategies to analyze the same data are compared. The purpose of the commentary is twofold: (a) to articulate the consequences of different modeling strategies for studying organizational reputation empirically and (b) to highlight some core theoretical issues concerning the attributes of reputation as an intangible asset. It is hoped that the commentary will provide some guiding points for future research seeking to develop a better understanding of reputation as an intangible asset. (key sustainability dimension: social impact - corporate reputation/image; implications for sustainability reputation as an intangible asset.)