The Dynamics of Brand Equity: A Hedonic Regression Approach to the Laser Printer Market

The authors develop a dynamic approach to measuring the evolution of comparative brand premium, an important component of brand equity. A comparative brand premium is defined as the pairwise price difference between two products being identical in every respect but brand. The model is based on hedonic regressions and grounded in economic theory. In constrast to existing approaches, the authors explicitly take into account and model the dynamics of the brand premia. By exploiting the premia’s intertemporal dependence structure, the Bayesian estimation method produces more accurate estimators of the time paths of the brand premia than other methods. In addition, the authors present a novel yet straightforward way to construct confidence bands that cover the entire time series of brand premia with high probability. The data required for estimation are readily available, cheap, and observable on the market under investigation. The authors apply the dynamic hedonic regression to a large and detailed data set about laser printers gathered on a monthly basis over a four-year period. It transpires that, in general, the estimated brand premia change only gradually from period to period. Nevertheless the method can diagnose sudden downturns of a comparative brand premium. The authors’ dynamic hedonic regression approach facilitates the practical evaluation of brand management.brand equity, price premium, hedonic regression, Bayesian estimation, dynamic linear model

The Influence of Clusters on the Competitiveness of Hog Production: The Example of Northwestern Germany

In recent decades the northwestern part of Germany (Weser-Ems region) has come to focus on intensive pork production. This has led to public outrage about the disposal of biological waste, farmers’ complaints about the high cost of leasing land, soaring risks of animal diseases, and the decreasing popularity of intensive animal husbandry. However, despite these problems, due to a beneficial cluster structure, the region is a successful market participant. To shed some light on the relationship between network relationships in clusters and competitiveness, an empirical survey was undertaken to compare this pork-intensive region with non–pork-intensive regions. Bi- and multivariate analyses reveal a better access to knowledge and information on the part of farmers in the Weser-Ems region as well as a higher regional competitiveness. As a result, the cluster region characterized by intensive hog production is economically more successful

Signed Network Modeling Based on Structural Balance Theory

The modeling of networks, specifically generative models, have been shown to provide a plethora of information about the underlying network structures, as well as many other benefits behind their construction. Recently there has been a considerable increase in interest for the better understanding and modeling of networks, but the vast majority of this work has been for unsigned networks. However, many networks can have positive and negative links(or signed networks), especially in online social media, and they inherently have properties not found in unsigned networks due to the added complexity. Specifically, the positive to negative link ratio and the distribution of signed triangles in the networks are properties that are unique to signed networks and would need to be explicitly modeled. This is because their underlying dynamics are not random, but controlled by social theories, such as Structural Balance Theory, which loosely states that users in social networks will prefer triadic relations that involve less tension. Therefore, we propose a model based on Structural Balance Theory and the unsigned Transitive Chung-Lu model for the modeling of signed networks. Our model introduces two parameters that are able to help maintain the positive link ratio and proportion of balanced triangles. Empirical experiments on three real-world signed networks demonstrate the importance of designing models specific to signed networks based on social theories to obtain better performance in maintaining signed network properties while generating synthetic networks.Comment: CIKM 2018: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=327174

The readiness of the South African private and public sector for the fourth industrial revolution

The exponential growth of technology over the past few years led to it being given prime slot at the World Economic Forum held in Davos in January 2016, with Forum founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab coining this potentially disruptive phenomenon as the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. Since then, the term Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR) has gained ever increasing relevance and importance. Schwab (2016) emphasised that the world is on the edge of “a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work and relate to one another”; and that in the pure “scale, scope and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before”. What is certain is that the FIR is predicted by many to impact significantly on jobs in the world as robotics; automation and artificial intelligence become more prolific. This shift will have a direct bearing on South Africa as well. With the challenges facing the country, such as infrastructure constraints, frequent industrial actions, rising costs and shortages of skills, the loss of further jobs should be of concern for government and the private sector alike. The outcomes of the in-depth analysis of future studies practice and theory in this research study give credence to the argument that the manner in which planning for the future of the FIR in the South African context is taking place requires profound adjustments. The development of fresh insight through the application of futures studies is essential to this planning process, as is progressively evidenced in the tendency for present day business to make collaborative decisions and strategies that are founded on and informed by futures studies. This research has tried to gain insight into the possible future of the FIR in South Africa through the creation of four scenarios towards 2035. These are outlined as follows: The Fifth Element, which is the ‘best case’ scenario, to which the country aspires; Terminator, the ‘worst case’ scenario, in which everything goes bad; The Matrix, the outlier future based on a surprising, disruptive, emerging issue; and The Day the Earth Stood Still, in which no change takes place, making it ‘business as usual’. The research furthermore endeavoured to discover the preferred future for the FIR in a South African context, as a basis for the Future Vision of the FIR in South Africa towards 2035. All through this study, Inayatullah’s (2008) pillars of futures studies were applied as a guide in mapping the present and future, further deepening and broadening the future through the development of scenarios, and, finally, transforming the future by narrowing it down to the preferred. It is up to the South African public and private sectors to determine which path is to be followed in the decisions surrounding the embrace and acceptance of the FIR as the country moves towards progress and sustainable development. Through a novel and innovative methodology, the creation of an atmosphere of trust, and the sharing of purpose, values and benefits, a national Future Vision of the FIR in South Africa towards 2035 is attainable. All stakeholders have to commit to working in co-operative partnerships, with government, society, local communities and labour striding boldly together into a world of technological, commercial, environmental and social innovation

Networking in Meat Production Systems: The Influence of Cooperative Structures on Farmers’ Participation

Increasing competitive pressures as well as growing requirements with regard to quality and safety pose a continuous challenge for farmers in European agrifood netchains. Against this background, the significance of network‐wide collaboration has been pointed out in recent years, especially for German livestock farming (Petersen et al., 2007). In the literature, it is generally agreed that participation in specialized networks can be beneficial to the competitiveness of individual farms and firms (Gellynck, Vermeire and Viaene, 2006). (more....

Standortvorteil Nordwestdeutschland? Eine Untersuchung zum Einfluss von Netzwerk- und Clusterstrukturen in der Schweinefleischerzeugung

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Farm household risk balancing : implications for policy from an EU perspective

Purpose - Building on the risk balancing theory and on recent discussions the appropriateness of using farm income maximization as behavioural assumption, this paper extends the risk balancing framework by accounting for business-household interactions. The purpose of this paper is to theoretically introduce the concept of farm household risk balancing, a theoretical framework in which the farm household sets a constraint on the total household-level risk and balances farm-level and off-farm-level risk. Design/methodology/approach - The paper argues that the risk behaviour of farmers is better understood by considering risk at the household level. Using an analytical framework, equations are derived linking the farm activities, off-farm activities, consumption and business and private liquidity. Findings - The framework shows that a farm household that wants to minimize the risk that total household cash flow falls below consumption needs, may exhibit a wide variety of behavioural responses to changes in the policy and economic environment. Social implications - The framework suggests multiple ways for policy makers and individual farmers to support risk management. Originality/value - Risk management is at the core of the agricultural policy and it is of paramount importance to be able to understand behavioural responses to market and policy instruments. This paper contributes to that by suggesting that the focus of current risk analysis and management studies may be too narrowly focused at the farm level

Variscan sourcing of Westphalian (Pennsylvanian) sandstones in the Canobie Coalfield, UK

The zircon age spectrum in a sample from the Canonbie Bridge Sandstone Formation (Asturian) of southern Scotland contains two main peaks. One is Early Carboniferous in age (348– 318 Ma), and corresponds to the age of igneous activity during the Variscan Orogeny. The other is of late Neoproterozoic to early Cambrian age (693–523 Ma), corresponding to the Cadomian. Together, these two groups comprise 70 % of the zircon population. The presence of these two peaks shows unequivocally that a significant proportion of the sediment was derived from the Variscides of western or central Europe. The zircon population also contains a range of older Proterozoic zircons and a small Devonian component. These could have been derived from the Variscides, but it is possible that some were locally derived through recycling of northerly derived sandstones of Devonian–Carboniferous age. The zircon age data confirm previous suggestions of Variscide sourcing to the Canonbie area, made on the basis of petrographical, heavy mineral and palaeocurrent evidence, and extend the known northward distribution of Variscan-derived Westphalian sediment in the UK

Von der Wertschöpfungskette zum Netzwerk: methodische Ansätze zur Analyse des Verbundsystems der Veredelungswirtschaft Nordwestdeutschlands

In der modernen Veredlungswirtschaft nimmt Nordwestdeutschland mit den Intensivregionen Weser-Ems und Westfalen-Lippe eine herausragende Position im internationalen Wettbewerb ein (Spiller et al. 2005; Windhorst und Grabkowsky 2008). Vor dem Hintergrund neuer ökonomischer, rechtlicher und gesellschaftlicher Herausforderungen gilt es, diese Position kontinuierlich zu verteidigen. Vor allem Fragen zur Qualität und Sicherheit von Lebensmitteln und deren Herstellungsprozessen, aber auch das Erstarken ausländischer Wettbewerber sowie steigende Futtermittelkosten erlangen zunehmende Bedeutung insbesondere für die Fleischproduktion... --