The role of leadership in salespeople’s price negotiation behavior

Salespeople assume a key role in defending firms’ price levels in price negotiations with customers. The degree to which salespeople defend prices should critically depend upon their leaders’ influence. However, the influence of leadership on salespeople’s price defense behavior is barely understood, conceptually or empirically. Therefore, building on social learning theory, the authors propose that salespeople might adopt their leaders’ price defense behavior given a transformational leadership style. Furthermore, drawing on the contingency leadership perspective, the authors argue that this adoption fundamentally depends on three variables deduced from the motivation–ability–opportunity (MAO) framework, that is, salespeople’s learning motivation, negotiation efficacy, and perceived customer lenience. Results of a multi-level model using data from 92 salespeople and 264 salesperson–customer interactions confirm these predictions. The first to explore contingencies of salespeople’s adoption of their transformational leaders’ price negotiation behaviors, this study extends marketing theory and provides actionable guidance to practitioners

Making SENS: exploring the antecedents and impact of store environmental stewardship climate

Retailers increasingly recognize that environmental responsibility is a strategic imperative. However, little research has investigated or identified the factors that facilitate the successful implementation of environmentally responsible strategies across a network of customer-facing sales units (stores). We propose that a store manager’s ability to lead by example facilitates this process by fostering a supportive climate for store environmental stewardship (SENS-climate). By examining the influence of store managers’ actions on sales associates’ perceptions of the SENS-climate, as well as the subsequent impact on their performance—measured by margins, as well as sales of green and regular products—this study demonstrates that store managers can foster a SENS-climate by articulating their prioritization of environmental responsibility in their operational decisions. These positive effects are sustained by relational factors, such as the moderating effect of the store manager–sales associate dyadic tenure. In contrast, when store managers display high variability in their environmental orientation, it hinders the development of SENS-climate perceptions among sales associates. If sales associates perceive an enabling SENS-climate, they achieve higher margins and more green but fewer regular sales

Nursing diagnoses related to skin: operational definitions

OBJECTIVE: to validate the operational definitions of the defining characteristics and risk factors of the three NANDA International (NANDA-I) nursing diagnoses and to revise these diagnoses' definitions. METHOD: content validation of nursing diagnosis. 146 defining characteristics and risk factors were identified in the literature in Brazilian and international databases. This was followed by content validation of the definitions of these diagnoses (presented by NANDA-I) and of the operational definitions (developed by the researchers) of the defining characteristics and risk factors, carried out by six expert nurses, regarding relevance, clarity and comprehensiveness. RESULT: of the 146 defining characteristics and risk factors, 22 were considered redundant and were excluded. The experts proposed changing the definitions of the diagnoses of Impaired Tissue Integrity and Risk for Impaired Skin Integrity. It was possible to identify various defining characteristics and risk factors which are not present in the NANDA-I taxonomy but which are indicated in the literature. CONCLUSION: the process attained its objective of producing valid operational definitions for defining characteristics and risk factors, which will permit the undertaking of validation studies for these diagnoses. The study's contribution to advancing scientific knowledge consists in its presenting clearer operational definitions for these diagnoses and a higher number of defining characteristics and risk factors, which will assist the nurses in the identification and use of the same with greater accuracy in clinical practice.OBJETIVO: validar las definiciones operacionales de las características definidoras y factores de riesgo de los tres diagnósticos de enfermería relacionados a la piel de la NANDA International (NANDA-I) y revisar las definiciones de eses diagnósticos. MÉTODO: validación de contenido de diagnóstico de enfermería. Se identificaron 146 características definidoras y factores de riesgo en la literatura en las bases de datos nacionales e internacionales. Enseguida, se realizó la validación de contenido de las definiciones de estos diagnósticos, presentadas por la NANDA-I y de las definiciones operacionales, elaboradas por las investigadoras, de las características definidoras y factores de riesgo, por seis enfermeras expertas, en cuanto a la pertinencia, clareza y abarcamiento. RESULTADO: de las 146 características definidoras y factores de riesgo, 22 fueron considerados redundantes y excluidos. Los peritos propusieron alterar la definición de los diagnósticos de Integridad Tisular Dañada y Riesgo de Integridad de la Piel Dañada. Fue posible identificar varias características definidoras y factores de riesgo que no están presentes en la taxonomía de la NANDA-I, pero, que fueron apuntados por la literatura. CONCLUSIÓN: el proceso alcanzó el objetivo de producir definiciones operacionales válidas para características definidoras y factores de riesgo, lo que permitirá realizar estudios de validación de estos diagnósticos. La contribución del estudio para el avance del conocimiento científico consiste en presentar definiciones operacionales más claras de estos diagnósticos y un número mayor de características definidoras y factores de riesgo que podrá aportar con los enfermeros en la identificación y utilización de los mismos con mayor precisión en la práctica clínica.OBJETIVO: validar as definições operacionais das características definidoras e fatores de risco dos três diagnósticos de enfermagem, relacionados à pele, da NANDA International (NANDA-I), e revisar as definições desses diagnósticos. MÉTODO: validação de conteúdo de diagnóstico de enfermagem. Identificaram-se 146 características definidoras e fatores de risco na literatura, nas bases de dados nacionais e internacionais. Em seguida, realizou-se a validação de conteúdo das definições desses diagnósticos, apresentadas pela NANDA-I e das definições operacionais, elaboradas pelas pesquisadoras, das características definidoras e fatores de risco, por seis enfermeiras peritas, quanto à pertinência, clareza e abrangência. RESULTADOS: das 146 características definidoras e fatores de risco, 22 foram considerados redundantes e excluídos. Os peritos propuseram mudar a definição dos diagnósticos de Integridade Tissular Prejudicada e Risco de Integridade da Pele Prejudicada. Foi possível identificar várias características definidoras e fatores de risco que não estão presentes na taxonomia da NANDA-I, mas que foram apontados pela literatura. CONCLUSÃO: o processo atingiu o objetivo de produzir definições operacionais válidas para características definidoras e fatores de risco, o que permitirá realizar estudos de validação desses diagnósticos. A contribuição do estudo para o avanço do conhecimento científico consiste em apresentar definições operacionais mais claras desses diagnósticos e número maior de características definidoras e fatores de risco que poderão contribuir para que os enfermeiros identifiquem e se utilizem dos mesmos com maior acurácia na prática clínica

O Efeito da Sinalização de Qualidade no Contexto de Serviços

Signaling theory states that signals are firms’ actions that communicate information about the quality of a product. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of signal quality in a service context, through the investigation of the signaling effects of price and responsiveness in a service context. Perceived behavior control, regarded as an individual's perception of the ability to perform a behavior, was proposed as a moderator between signaling variables and perceived quality. Two experimental studies with factorial and inter-subject designs were conducted in order to test the hypotheses formulated from the literature review. Results from both experiments show that signaling quality through price and responsiveness can affect perceived quality. The second experiment supports the hypothesis of perceived behavior control moderation between price as a signaling variable and perceived quality, but not between responsiveness and perceived quality. These results and their implications are discussed in the final section of the paper

The mathematics of xenology: di-cographs, symbolic ultrametrics, 2-structures and tree-representable systems of binary relations

The concepts of orthology, paralogy, and xenology play a key role in molecular evolution. Orthology and paralogy distinguish whether a pair of genes originated by speciation or duplication. The corresponding binary relations on a set of genes form complementary cographs. Allowing more than two types of ancestral event types leads to symmetric symbolic ultrametrics. Horizontal gene transfer, which leads to xenologous gene pairs, however, is inherent asymmetric since one offspring copy “jumps” into another genome, while the other continues to be inherited vertically. We therefore explore here the mathematical structure of the non-symmetric generalization of symbolic ultrametrics. Our main results tie non-symmetric ultrametrics together with di-cographs (the directed generalization of cographs), so-called uniformly non-prime () 2-structures, and hierarchical structures on the set of strong modules. This yields a characterization of relation structures that can be explained in terms of trees and types of ancestral events. This framework accommodates a horizontal-transfer relation in terms of an ancestral event and thus, is slightly different from the the most commonly used definition of xenology. As a first step towards a practical use, we present a simple polynomial-time recognition algorithm of 2-structures and investigate the computational complexity of several types of editing problems for 2-structures. We show, finally that these NP-complete problems can be solved exactly as Integer Linear Programs

Indirect identification of horizontal gene transfer

Several implicit methods to infer horizontal gene transfer (HGT) focus on pairs of genes that have diverged only after the divergence of the two species in which the genes reside. This situation defines the edge set of a graph, the later-divergence-time (LDT) graph, whose vertices correspond to genes colored by their species. We investigate these graphs in the setting of relaxed scenarios, i.e., evolutionary scenarios that encompass all commonly used variants of duplication-transfer-loss scenarios in the literature. We characterize LDT graphs as a subclass of properly vertex-colored cographs, and provide a polynomial-time recognition algorithm as well as an algorithm to construct a relaxed scenario that explains a given LDT. An edge in an LDT graph implies that the two corresponding genes are separated by at least one HGT event. The converse is not true, however. We show that the complete xenology relation is described by an rs-Fitch graph, i.e., a complete multipartite graph satisfying constraints on the vertex coloring. This class of vertex-colored graphs is also recognizable in polynomial time. We finally address the question “how much information about all HGT events is contained in LDT graphs” with the help of simulations of evolutionary scenarios with a wide range of duplication, loss, and HGT events. In particular, we show that a simple greedy graph editing scheme can be used to efficiently detect HGT events that are implicitly contained in LDT graphs

Multilevel Analyses in Marketing Research: Differentiating Analytical Outcomes

Marketing scholars are increasingly recognizing the importance of investigating phenomena at multiple levels. However, the analyses methods that are currently dominant within marketing may not be appropriate to dealing with multilevel or nested data structures. We identify the state of contemporary multilevel marketing research, finding that typical empirical approaches within marketing research may be less effective at explicitly taking account of multilevel data structures than those in other organizational disciplines. A Monte Carlo simulation, based on results from a previously published marketing study, demonstrates that different approaches to analysis of the same data can result in very different results (both in terms of power and effect size). The implication is that marketing scholars should be cautious when analyzing multilevel or other grouped data, and we provide a discussion and introduction to the use of hierarchical linear modeling for this purpose

From event-labeled gene trees to species trees

BACKGROUND: Tree reconciliation problems have long been studied in phylogenetics. A particular variant of the reconciliation problem for a gene tree T and a species tree S assumes that for each interior vertex x of T it is known whether x represents a speciation or a duplication. This problem appears in the context of analyzing orthology data. RESULTS: We show that S is a species tree for T if and only if S displays all rooted triples of T that have three distinct species as their leaves and are rooted in a speciation vertex. A valid reconciliation map can then be found in polynomial time. Simulated data shows that the event-labeled gene trees convey a large amount of information on underlying species trees, even for a large percentage of losses. CONCLUSIONS: The knowledge of event labels in a gene tree strongly constrains the possible species tree and, for a given species tree, also the possible reconciliation maps. Nevertheless, many degrees of freedom remain in the space of feasible solutions. In order to disambiguate the alternative solutions additional external constraints as well as optimization criteria could be employed

Phylogenomics with paralogs

Phylogenomics heavily relies on well-curated sequence data sets that comprise, for each gene, exclusively 1:1 orthologos. Paralogs are treated as a dangerous nuisance that has to be detected and removed. We show here that this severe restriction of the data sets is not necessary. Building upon recent advances in mathematical phylogenetics, we demonstrate that gene duplications convey meaningful phylogenetic information and allow the inference of plausible phylogenetic trees, provided orthologs and paralogs can be distinguished with a degree of certainty. Starting from tree-free estimates of orthology, cograph editing can sufficiently reduce the noise to find correct event-annotated gene trees. The information of gene trees can then directly be translated into constraints on the species trees. Although the resolution is very poor for individual gene families, we show that genome-wide data sets are sufficient to generate fully resolved phylogenetic trees, even in the presence of horizontal gene transfer