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The ESMT innovation index 2012 – Electricity supply industry measures innovation activities of 16 major European utilities. In addition to expenses on research and development (R&D), patents and research areas, it also takes indicators for process innovation into account, in particular the utilities’ performance regarding productivity and sustainability.

A quarterly chat around the conference table between the chair and the old boy’s network (i.e., board members) no longer suffices, especially given market and stakeholder expectations, not to mention increasing efforts at mandating board diversity. So, what does the boardroom of the future look like? What are the challenges and strategies for effective functioning in that changing context? This symposium addresses what is actually happening in the current practice of board functioning as well as the state of current research, and seeks to build a picture of the functioning of boards of the future. Our panelists are seasoned academics, consultants and practitioners, and represent multiple perspectives on and experiences with boards across the US and Europe (and beyond) and will engage the audience—and each other—in a lively debate and discussion.

With permission of the Academy of Management

At times, consumers are motivated to reduce the influence of a product recommendation on their judgments. Based on previous research, it is unclear whether this correction process will increase or decrease consumers’ confidence in their judgments. We find that source credibility moderates the effect of correction on confidence: correction decreases confidence when a product recommendation comes from a high credibility source but increases confidence when the same message comes from a low credibility source. As a result, correction increases the effectiveness of recommendations from low credibility sources on purchase intentions. Notably, this “confidence via correction” effect is further moderated by elaboration, such that the effect is attenuated for high elaboration consumers. Our results have implications for understanding consumers’ reactions to persuasive messages and for both marketing practitioners and consumer protection agencies using correction cues to influence message persuasiveness.

With permission of Elsevier

It is widely known that loss aversion leads individuals to dislike risk, and as has been argued by many researchers, in many instances this creates an incentive for firms to shield consumers and employees against economic risks. Complementing previous research, we show that consumer loss aversion can also have the opposite effect: it can lead a firm to optimally introduce risk into an otherwise deterministic environment. We consider a profit-maximizing monopolist selling to a loss-averse consumer, where (following Koszegi and Rabin (2006)) we assume that the consumer's reference point is her recent rational expectations about the purchase. We establish that for any degree of consumer loss aversion, the monopolist's optimal price distribution consists of low and variable "sale" prices and a high and atomic "regular" price. Realizing that she will buy at the sale prices and hence that she will purchase with positive probability, the consumer chooses to avoid the painful uncertainty in whether she will get the product by buying also at the regular price. This pricing pattern is consistent with several recently documented facts regarding retailer pricing. We show that market power is crucial for this result: when firms compete ex ante for consumers, they choose deterministic prices.

This is an open access article.