Extended warranties are popular but expensive. This paper examines how consumers value these warranties, and asks whether economic considerations alone can account for their popularity. Results from two field surveys show that consumers greatly overestimate both the likelihood and the cost of...

Unrealistic optimism is all around us, and it is a well-documented psychological phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to take a critical approach of the main research done in the area and to analyze the important impact that it has in many economic and managerial contexts. We also analyze...

This study defines an aspect of consultant knowledge that provides credibility without claiming unrealistic status for a field like consulting. Our focus is the "sector knowledge" that consultants accumulate which derives from repeated assignments in the industrial sector in which the client...

Despite a pervasive belief that the world's largest firms compete globally, the vast majority have most of their sales in their home regions. Of the top 500 firms for which regional sales data are available, 118 are from Europe, and they compete predominantly within the European region. On...

We present a Hotelling model of price and advertising competition between prescription drugs that differ in quality/side effects. Advertising results in the endogenous formation of two consumer groups: brand loyal and non-brand loyal ones. We show that advertising strategies are strategic...

The Labour Force Survey estimates that there are now well over a million women managers and administrators in Great Britain, accounting for over 11 per cent of all employed women[1]. This same survey reveals that 83 per cent of these women managers work within the service sector. Much of the...

The voluntary and not-for-profit sector accounts for an important and growing proportion of employment in the UK though it remains highly under-researched Rates of pay are often relatively low, necessitating forms of human resource management that emphasise non-financial means of eliciting...

This thesis is concerned with the job satisfaction, motivation and performance of salespeople. Within this conceptual domain, the study examines the relationship between job-related expectations and the process of their fulfilment / nonfulfilment, in an attempt to account for differences in...

Direct patient care requires knowledge sharing between clinical professionals. However, clinicians have often been suspicious of managers' motives, this lack of trust often resulting in reluctance to share knowledge for managerial purposes. Trust is one component of the psychological contract -...