Profit Maximization (profit + maximization)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting


Selected Abstracts


SALES MAXIMIZATION AND PROFIT MAXIMIZATION: A NOTE ON THE DECISION OF A SALES MAXIMIZER TO THE INCREASE OF PER UNIT COST

PACIFIC ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 5 2007
Ke Li
A common mistake in currently used textbooks is pointed out, and a new proposition is proposed for replacing a false statement there. [source]


PROFIT MAXIMIZATION AND SOCIAL OPTIMUM WITH NETWORK EXTERNALITY,

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 2 2006
URIEL SPIEGEL
The paper analyzes the options open to monopoly firms that sell Internet services. We consider two groups of customers that are different in their reservation prices. The monopoly uses price discrimination between customers by producing two versions of the product at positive price for high-quality product and a free version at zero price for lower-quality product. The monopoly can sell advertising space to increase its revenue but risks losing customers who are annoyed by advertising. Network externalities increase the incentive to increase output; thus we find cases where the profit maximization is consistent with maximum social welfare. [source]


Profit maximization versus disadvantageous inequality: the impact of self-categorization

JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 3 2005
Stephen M. Garcia
Abstract Choice behavior researchers (e.g., Bazerman, Loewenstein, & White, 1992) have found that individuals tend to choose a more lucrative but disadvantageously unequal payoff (e.g., self,$600/other,$800) over a less profitable but equal one (e.g., self,$500/other,$500); greater profit trumps interpersonal social comparison concerns in the choice setting. We suggest, however, that self-categorization (e.g., Hogg, 2000) can shift interpersonal social comparison concerns to the intergroup level and make trading disadvantageous inequality for greater profit more difficult. Studies 1,3 show that profit maximization diminishes when recipients belong to different social categories (e.g., genders, universities). Study 2 further implicates self-categorization, as self-categorized individuals tend to forgo profit whether making a choice for themselves or another ingroup member. Study 3, moreover, reveals that social categorization alone is not sufficient to diminish profit maximization; individuals must self-categorize and identify with their categorization. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Oil transnational corporations: corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2008
Felix M. Edoho
Abstract Corporate social responsibility (CSR) occupies the center stage of the debate on the operations of transnational corporations in the developing countries. The quest for profit maximization as the overriding value at the expense of corporate social responsibility puts some transnational corporations on a collision path with their Niger Delta host communities, who are demanding environmental sustainability. Militant groups have shut down flow stations and taken oil workers hostage. Unresponsiveness of oil firms to community demands for CSR is heightening the volatility of the Nigerian oil industry. The problem will intensify until oil firms initiate authentic CSR strategies to address the environmental havocs emanating from their operations. At the core of such strategies is recognizing the host communities as bona fide stakeholders and addressing their socioeconomic needs. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]


Knowledge Life Cycle, Knowledge Inventory, and Knowledge Acquisition Strategies,

DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 1 2010
Andrew N. K. Chen
ABSTRACT For a knowledge- and skill-centric organization, the process of knowledge management encompasses three important and closely related elements: (i) task assignments, (ii) knowledge acquisition through training, and (iii) maintaining a proper level of knowledge inventory among the existing workforce. Trade-off on choices between profit maximization in the short run and agility and flexibility in the long term is a vexing problem in knowledge management. In this study, we examine the effects of different training strategies on short-term operational efficiency and long-term workforce flexibility. We address our research objective by developing a computational model for task and training assignment in a dynamic knowledge environment consisting of multiple distinct knowledge dimensions. Overall, we find that organizational slack is an important variable in determining the effectiveness of training strategies. Training strategies focused on the most recent skills are found to be the preferred option in most of the considered scenarios. Interestingly, increased efficiencies in training can actually create preference conflict between employees and the firm. Our findings indicate that firms facing longer knowledge life cycles, higher slack in workforce capacity, and better training efficiencies actually face more difficult challenges in knowledge management. [source]


Individual differences in allocation of funds in the dictator game associated with length of the arginine vasopressin 1a receptor RS3 promoter region and correlation between RS3 length and hippocampal mRNA

GENES, BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR, Issue 3 2008
A. Knafo
Human altruism is a widespread phenomenon that puzzled evolutionary biologists since Darwin. Economic games illustrate human altruism by showing that behavior deviates from economic predictions of profit maximization. A game that most plainly shows this altruistic tendency is the Dictator Game. We hypothesized that human altruistic behavior is to some extent hardwired and that a likely candidate that may contribute to individual differences in altruistic behavior is the arginine vasopressin 1a (AVPR1a) receptor that in some mammals such as the vole has a profound impact on affiliative behaviors. In the current investigation, 203 male and female university students played an online version of the Dictator Game, for real money payoffs. All subjects and their parents were genotyped for AVPR1a RS1 and RS3 promoter-region repeat polymorphisms. Parents did not participate in online game playing. As variation in the length of a repetitive element in the vole AVPR1a promoter region is associated with differences in social behavior, we examined the relationship between RS1 and RS3 repeat length (base pairs) and allocation sums. Participants with short versions (308,325 bp) of the AVPR1a RS3 repeat allocated significantly (likelihood ratio = 14.75, P = 0.001, df = 2) fewer shekels to the ,other' than participants with long versions (327,343 bp). We also implemented a family-based association test, UNPHASED, to confirm and validate the correlation between the AVPR1a RS3 repeat and monetary allocations in the dictator game. Dictator game allocations were significantly associated with the RS3 repeat (global P value: likelihood ratio ,2 = 11.73, df = 4, P = 0.019). The association between the AVPR1a RS3 repeat and altruism was also confirmed using two self-report scales (the Bardi,Schwartz Universalism and Benevolence Value-expressive Behavior scales). RS3 long alleles were associated with higher scores on both measures. Finally, long AVPR1a RS3 repeats were associated with higher AVPR1a human post-mortem hippocampal messenger RNA levels than short RS3 repeats (one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA): F = 15.04, P = 0.001, df = 14) suggesting a functional molecular genetic basis for the observation that participants with the long RS3 repeats allocate more money than participants with the short repeats. This is the first investigation showing that a common human polymorphism, with antecedents in lower mammals, contributes to decision making in an economic game. The finding that the same gene contributing to social bonding in lower animals also appears to operate similarly in human behavior suggests a common evolutionary mechanism. [source]


Profit maximization versus disadvantageous inequality: the impact of self-categorization

JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 3 2005
Stephen M. Garcia
Abstract Choice behavior researchers (e.g., Bazerman, Loewenstein, & White, 1992) have found that individuals tend to choose a more lucrative but disadvantageously unequal payoff (e.g., self,$600/other,$800) over a less profitable but equal one (e.g., self,$500/other,$500); greater profit trumps interpersonal social comparison concerns in the choice setting. We suggest, however, that self-categorization (e.g., Hogg, 2000) can shift interpersonal social comparison concerns to the intergroup level and make trading disadvantageous inequality for greater profit more difficult. Studies 1,3 show that profit maximization diminishes when recipients belong to different social categories (e.g., genders, universities). Study 2 further implicates self-categorization, as self-categorized individuals tend to forgo profit whether making a choice for themselves or another ingroup member. Study 3, moreover, reveals that social categorization alone is not sufficient to diminish profit maximization; individuals must self-categorize and identify with their categorization. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Private Politics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Integrated Strategy

JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 1 2001
David P. Baron
This paper provides a theory of private politics in which an activist seeks to change the production practices of a firm for the purpose of redistribution to those whose interests it supports. The source of the activist's influence is the possibility of support for its cause by the public. The paper also addresses the issue of corporate social responsibility by distinguishing among corporate redistribution as motivated by profit maximization, altruism, and threats by the activist. Private politics and corporate social responsibility not only have a direct effect on the costs of the firm, but also have a strategic effect by altering the competitive positions affirms in an industry. From an integrated-strategy perspective the paper investigates the strategic implications of private politics and corporate social responsibility for the strategies of rival firms when one or both are targets of an activist campaign. Implications for empirical analysis are derived from the theory. [source]


Testing for market power in the Australian grains and oilseeds industries

AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 3 2007
Christopher J. O'Donnell
We formally assess competitive buying and selling behavior in the Australian grains and oilseeds industries using a more realistic empirical model and a less aggregated data set than previously available. We specify a duality model of profit maximization that allows for imperfect competition in both input and output markets and for variable-proportions technologies. Aggregate input-output data are used to define the structure of the relevant industries, and time series data are then used to implement the model for 13 grains and oilseeds products handled by seven groups of agents. The model is estimated in a Bayesian econometrics framework. We find evidence of flour and cereal food product manufacturers exerting market power when purchasing wheat, barley, oats and triticale; beer and malt manufacturers exerting market power when purchasing wheat and barley; and other food product manufacturers exerting market power when purchasing wheat, barley, oats and triticale. [EconLit citations: C11, L66, Q11]. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 23: 349,376, 2007. [source]


Wage formation and employment in a cointegrated VAR model

THE ECONOMETRICS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2001
Thórarinn G. Pétursson
This paper uses a general equilibrium, monopolistic competition model of wage bargaining between trade unions and firms to derive two steady state relations which are estimated within a cointegrated VAR framework using quarterly Danish data. The first cointegrating relation is the marginal productivity condition for labour, derived from profit maximization of firms who face a downward sloping demand curve for their product. The second cointegrating relation is a real wage relation, derived from the bargaining between trade unions and firms over wages, in the right-to-manage manner. The theoretical model is not rejected and the model displays parameter constancy throughout the estimation period and is able to forecast out-of-sample. [source]


PROFIT MAXIMIZATION AND SOCIAL OPTIMUM WITH NETWORK EXTERNALITY,

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 2 2006
URIEL SPIEGEL
The paper analyzes the options open to monopoly firms that sell Internet services. We consider two groups of customers that are different in their reservation prices. The monopoly uses price discrimination between customers by producing two versions of the product at positive price for high-quality product and a free version at zero price for lower-quality product. The monopoly can sell advertising space to increase its revenue but risks losing customers who are annoyed by advertising. Network externalities increase the incentive to increase output; thus we find cases where the profit maximization is consistent with maximum social welfare. [source]