Social Media Marketing, Quality Signaling, and the Goldilocks Principle

Embraced by a rapidly increasing number of companies, social media marketing has become an integral part of companies' business strategies. However, not all the firms plan on a big spend on social media marketing. Our stylized model investigates the strategic effects of social media marketing spending (SMM spending) with the presence of exogenous quality revelation through sources over which firms have no direct control. Unlike traditional advertising, social media marketing has two roles: awareness enhancement and information revelation. Consumers are heterogeneous in their awareness of the product (e.g., whether they know the existence of the product). Our results suggest that the high-quality firm gets enough quality transparency from background user-generated discussions, and the cost of maintaining a social presence outweighs the benefits. The low-quality firm avoids social media marketing because quality transparency is broadly detrimental, whereas the mid-tier firm is “just right” to benefit from social media discussions they encourage. Our model provides a first step toward framing social media marketing spending as a strategic investment. We recognize that social media marketing, although capable of increasing consumer awareness and improving the realized perceptions of a firm's true quality, also has strategic signaling effects.

Costs dictate strategic investment in dominance interactions

Dominance is important for access to resources. As dominance interactions are costly, individuals should be strategic in whom they interact with. One hypothesis is that individuals should direct costly interactions towards those closest in rank, as they have most to gain—in terms of attaining or maintaining dominance—from winning such interactions. Here, we show that male vulturine guineafowl ( Acryllium vulturinum ), a gregarious species with steep dominance hierarchies, strategically express higher-cost aggressive interactions towards males occupying ranks immediately below themselves in their group's hierarchy. By contrast, lower-cost aggressive interactions are expressed towards group members further down the hierarchy. By directly evaluating differences in the strategic use of higher- and lower-cost aggressive interactions towards competitors, we show that individuals disproportionately use highest-cost interactions—such as chases—towards males found one to three ranks below themselves. Our results support the hypothesis that the costs associated with different interaction types can determine their expression in social groups with steep dominance hierarchies. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies’.

Interregional Competition for Strategic Economic Factors

The present research featured various ways to increase the investment attractiveness of regions, realize the potential of their development strategies, and assess the resource provision of their strategic priorities. The limited resources and ever-growing interregional competition mean that regions strive to increase their competitiveness and attract the missing resources. The paper introduces a new approach to the problem: the factors of economic development of regions should be divided into basic and mobile. These two groups are to be analyzed for the level of provision of the regional strategic development. Such approach can help local authorities to attract resources and implement the sustainability of the regional strategy, thus increasing the local strategic investment attractiveness and improving the quality of life in the region. Regional governments should select priorities that have a high potential for attracting mobile resources from other regions. The paper also contains an algorithm for analyzing the resource provision of strategic priorities.

Foreign-Economic Priorities of the Development of Investment Infrastructure of Agri-Food Production Entities

The article considers foreign economic priorities of investment infrastructure development of agri-food production entities of Ukraine. A comprehensive methodological approach to assessing the effective diversification of investment infrastructure of agri-food production entities has been developed. It is substantiated diagnostics of attracting foreign direct investment in the development of agri-food production allows forming an export-oriented type of state economy, identify the main sources of technical equipment for agribusiness and master innovative technologies, form production potential and mechanism for implementing strategic investment goals. An algorithm for calculating the level of attractiveness of the investment infrastructure of agri-food production entities has been developed. The dynamics of foreign trade in agri-food products of the steppe zone of Ukraine is given. The amount of foreign direct investment from foreign economic activity of agri-food production entities in the economy of the regions of the Steppe zone of Ukraine is determined. The geography of agri-food exports of the steppe zone of Ukraine in the international trade markets is presented. The forecast volume of exports of agri-food products in the regions is calculated and the limit parameters of indicators of attractiveness of investment infrastructure of subjects at attraction of direct foreign investments from foreign economic operations are defined

Why and Where to Fund Carbon Capture and Storage

This paper puts forward two claims about funding carbon capture and storage. The first claim is that there are moral justifications supporting strategic investment into CO2 storage from global and regional perspectives. One argument draws on the empirical evidence which suggests carbon capture and storage would play a significant role in a portfolio of global solutions to climate change; the other draws on Rawls’ notion of legitimate expectations and Moellendorf’s Anti-Poverty principle. The second claim is that where to pursue this strategic investment poses a morally non-trivial problem, with considerations like near-term global distributive justice and undermining legitimate expectations favouring investing in developing regions, especially in Asia, and considerations like long-term climate impacts and best uses of resources favouring investing in the relatively wealthy regions that have the best prospects for successful storage development.

Intra-Labour Strategic Commitment

<p>This thesis explores a strategic investment motive for the choice of skilled labour (management). Using the case study of department store competition, we argue that management is an observable and irreversible input. This allows firms to use it to obtain a first-mover advantage in oligopolistic interactions. We find that, given complementarities of labour inputs, firms will hire excess management relative to the cost-minimising input bundle. This idea is first illustrated with a simple two-stage example. We then show that over-management also holds in a more realistic setting with infinitely-lived firms facing finite adjustment costs.</p>

Intra-Labour Strategic Commitment

<p>This thesis explores a strategic investment motive for the choice of skilled labour (management). Using the case study of department store competition, we argue that management is an observable and irreversible input. This allows firms to use it to obtain a first-mover advantage in oligopolistic interactions. We find that, given complementarities of labour inputs, firms will hire excess management relative to the cost-minimising input bundle. This idea is first illustrated with a simple two-stage example. We then show that over-management also holds in a more realistic setting with infinitely-lived firms facing finite adjustment costs.</p>