Consumers are attracted to brands. This is evidenced in the ability of some brands to charge a premium and have greater loyalty than others. Fueled by a number of factors, such as the brand’s personality, associations, and equity, brands elicit an emotional connection with the consumer with roots to his/her self-concept. By understanding self, a common thread of storytelling can be uncovered that loosely ties the marketing theory of “self-concept” together with the narrative view of “identity.” In his article “Possessions and Storytelling: The Props Used in the Stories People Tell,” Stephen M. Rapier suggests that the exploration of possessions and their role in storytelling may strengthen the bond between consumers and brands.
In “The Covenantal Leader: Honoring the Implicit Relationship with Employees,” Cam Caldwell and Zuhair Hasan explain the role of covenantal leaders in understanding the too often overlooked assumptions that make up the unspoken psychological contract between leaders and followers. The article then briefly describes the five ethically related roles of covenantal leadership and the implicit message that is communicated to employees when covenantal leaders honor each of these roles.
Since minimizing costs from increased market efficiency is always of interest, commission-free ETFs may seem an obvious choice over other ETFs that carry a nominal commission. Unfortunately, other costs can play a role that can marginalize the perceived advantage of the commission-free ETFs, and in some cases, warrant the selection of an ETF that carries a commission. In this study, “Is There a Free Lunch in Commission Free ETFs?: How Holding and Transaction Costs Can Affect the Cost Calculus of Commission-Free ETFs,” James A. DiLellio and Philip M. Goldfeder investigate how holding and transaction costs can affect the cost calculus of commission-free ETFs. The results provide a clear recommendation on how to minimize costs using commission free ETFs.
In 2011 Argentina imposed currency controls that prompted the creation of an unofficial exchange rate, known as the blue dollar. By looking at the differential between the blue dollar and the official rate, this article demonstrates that the blue dollar rate, computed from a small basket of financial assets, provided a good proxy for a market rate. Marilyn B. Misch and Dean V. Baim suggest in “Using Small Baskets of Financial Assets to Estimate Exchange Rates: The Argentine Experience,” that companies operating in managed exchange rate environments may be able to use a similar proxy to establish suitable prices and to profit from currency speculation.
In Kurt Motamedi’s article, “Integrative Consulting: Real Time and Transorganization,” he discusses consulting and says that the basis for actionable decisions may be discovered at different levels in the organization and across networks of organizations both competing and collaborating with one another. Consultants can add value by identifying, educating, facilitating, and guiding involvement of key decision makers and stakeholders through competent social dialogue where productive relationships can be built.
Jonathan L Burke notes in his article, “Doing Business with the Untrustworthy: Anticipating a Collapse of Trust Can Improve Decision Making,” that empirical observations, laboratory experiments, and game theory suggest business trades that seem honest at a particular moment can be part of a strategic plan by an opportunist. The opportunist can initially make honest trades to build a reputation for trustworthiness, but there may be extra profit in eventually breaking trust (milking the reputation). Anticipating and perhaps forestalling such a collapse of trust in others can improve decision making when the trustworthy do business with the untrustworthy.
While enrollments in executive management education have faced some severe headwinds over the past few years, Owen P. Hall, Jr., notes in “Editorial: Changing the Face of Executive Management Education,” that those trends seem to be fading. The good news is that demand is once again on the rise. These trends might be somewhat surprising given that tuition for some of the premium EMBA programs is projected to surpass $200,000 within in the next few years and that fewer organizations are now providing significant tuition reimbursement. These financial developments, however, are more than offset by the growing demand from China and India to significantly grow their manager corps as a result of continued economic growth.
John J. Scully added a book review of Walking to Destiny: 11 Actions an Owner Must Take to Rapidly Grow & Unlock Wealth in The Book Corner. Be sure to read is 4 Star review.
When you are finished with these, you might be interested in looking through our archives, book reviews, and videos.
If you have questions, comments, or would like to submit an article, please contact Nancy Ellen Dodd at: nancy [dot] dodd [at] pepperdine.edu.
