Trust, Personal Moral Codes, and the Resource-Advantage Theory of Competition: Explaining Productivity, Economic Growth, and Wealth Creation

Scholars agree that societal-level moral codes that promote social trust also promote wealth creation.  However, what specific kinds of societal-level moral codes promote social trust?  Also, by what specific kind of competitive process does social trust promote wealth creation?  Because societal-level moral codes are composed of or formed from peoples’ personal moral codes, this article explores a theory of ethics, known as the “Hunt-Vitell” theory of ethics, that illuminates the concept of personal moral codes and uses the theory to discuss which types of personal moral codes foster trust and distrust in society.  This article then uses resource-advantage (R-A) theory, one of the most completely articulated dynamic theories of competition, to show the process by which trust-promoting, societal-level moral codes promote productivity and economic growth.  That is, they promote wealth creation

Teaching Dynamic Competition in Marketing

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how marketing instructors can prepare students for the real world of dynamic, even hyper-kinetic, competition by teaching resource-advantage (R-A) theory of competition. Accordingly, this paper reviews the problem of marketing students’ lack of preparation for real-world, dynamic competition which is a result of the static-equilibrium focus of the theories of competition that they learn in their economics courses, and shows how the problem can be resolved by exposing students to the dynamic competition of R-A theory. Specifically, we provide answers to five questions concerning pedagogy and R-A theory: (1) Why should students learn about dynamic competition, in general, and R-A theory, in particular? (2) What should students read prior to class? (3) What background information should be discussed? (4) Which figures and tables should be used? (5) What does R-A theory imply for teaching marketing? Overall, in addition to providing students an understanding of dynamic competition, R-A theory “pulls together” theories of marketing strategy. In fact, in graduate and undergraduate marketing strategy classes that use R-A theory, instructors report that they see extensive use by students of R-A theory and the theory’s lexicon, R-A theory’s conceptual frameworks, and central tenets of different forms of marketing strategy

Managerial Action And Resource Advantage Theory: Conceptual Frameworks Emanating From A Positive Theory Of Competition

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate that conceptual frameworks developed from a general theory of competition, i.e. resourceadvantage (R-A) theory, can facilitate managerial action. Design/methodology/approach – After a brief overview of resource-advantage (R-A) theory, five conceptual frameworks are developed and offered for the purposes of managerial action. Findings – This paper identifies several conceptual frameworks and after noting that conceptual frameworks that do not have positive theoretical foundations may not be as useful as those that do, develops five conceptual frameworks that are based on R-A theory. Practical implications – The conceptual frameworks developed in this paper have great potential for facilitating managerial action. Originality/value – Conceptual frameworks that have positive theoretical foundations can be very useful for practitioners. In fact, the frameworks proposed in this paper can replace frameworks that are currently in use for managerial action

Pest population dynamics are related to a continental overwintering gradient

Overwintering success is an important determinant of arthropod populations that must be considered as climate change continues to influence the spatiotemporal population dynamics of agricultural pests. Using a long-term monitoring database and biologically relevant overwintering zones, we modeled the annual and seasonal population dynamics of a common pest, Helicoverpa zea (Boddie), based on three overwintering suitability zones throughout North America using four decades of soil temperatures: the southern range (able to persist through winter), transitional zone (uncertain overwintering survivorship), and northern limits (unable to survive winter). Our model indicates H. zea population dynamics are hierarchically structured with continental-level effects that are partitioned into three geographic zones. Seasonal populations were initially detected in the southern range, where they experienced multiple large population peaks. All three zones experienced a final peak between late July (southern range) and mid-August to mid-September (transitional zone and northern limits). The southern range expanded by 3% since 1981 and is projected to increase by twofold by 2099 but the areas of other zones are expected to decrease in the future. These changes suggest larger populations may persist at higher latitudes in the future due to reduced low-temperature lethal events during winter. Because H. zea is a highly migratory pest, predicting when populations accumulate in one region can inform synchronous or lagged population development in other regions. We show the value of combining long-term datasets, remotely sensed data, and laboratory findings to inform forecasting of insect pests

Marketing (as) Rhetoric: paradigms, provocations, and perspectives

In this collection of short, invited essays on the topic of marketing (as) rhetoric we deal with a variety of issues that demonstrate the centrality of rhetoric and rhetorical considerations to the pursuit of marketing scholarship, research and practice. Stephen Brown examines the enduring rhetorical power of the 4Ps; Chris Hackley argues for the critical power of rhetorical orientations in marketing scholarship but cautions us on the need to work harder in conceptually connecting rhetorical theory and modern marketing frameworks; Shelby Hunt explains how rhetorical processes are incorporated in his inductive realist model of theory generation, using one of his most successful publications as an illustration; Charles Marsh demonstrates what Isocrates’ broad rhetorical project has to teach us about the importance of reputation cultivation in modern marketing; Nicholas O’Shaughnessy uses an analysis of Trump’s discourse to argue that political marketing as it is currently conceived is ill-equipped to engage effectively with the rhetorical force of Trump’s ‘unmarketing’; Barbara Phillips uses Vygotsky’s work on imagination to investigate the important of pleasure and play in advertising rhetoric; and finally, David Tonks, who in many ways started it all, reiterates the need for marketers to recognise the strength of the relationship between marketing and persuasion