Evangelos Mitrokostas

Mobile Permission Marketing: Framing the Market Inquiry

The emergence of a mobile data infrastructure interconnected with the Internet and television marks the advent of a new marketing channel based on mobile messaging and complementary to traditional marketing channels and the Internet. Mobile marketing test drives are proliferating around the world, with the United Kingdom as the laboratory of innovation. Powerful brand names are involved. Technologies and business models are assessed through experimental campaigns and user-attitude studies. This article frames the ongoing inquiry on mobile marketing through an overview of the novel marketing channel and proposes a brief analysis of the emerging industry structure, followed by a discussion of the split of resources between incumbents and new entrants (i.e., entrepreneurial mobile marketing companies) and their effective competitive positioning.

Certification of corporate social responsibility activities in oligopolistic markets

We investigate the impact of alternative certifying institutions on firms’ incentives to engage in costly Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities as well as their relative market and societal implications. We find that the CSR certification standard is the lowest under for‐profit private certifiers and the highest under a Non Governmental Organization (NGO), with the standard of a welfare‐maximizing public certifier lying in between. Yet, regarding industry output, this ranking is reversed. Certification of CSR activities is welfare enhancing for consumers and firms and should be encouraged. Finally, the market and societal outcomes of CSR certification depend crucially on whether certification takes place before or after firms’ CSR activities. On fait enquete sur l’impact de diverses institutions de certification sur les incitations des entreprises a s’engager dans des activites couteuses pour assurer la responsabilite sociale ainsi que sur les implications relatives de ces sortes de certification pour le marche et la societe. On decouvre que le standard de certification est le plus bas pour ceux qui certifient les organisations du secteur privea but lucratif, et le plus eleve pour ceux qui certifient les organisations non‐gouvernementales, et que le standard d’un certificateur public qui viserait a maximiser le bien‐etre tombe entre les deux. Pour ce qui est de la production industrielle, l’ordre est inverse. La certification des activites de responsabilite sociale ameliore le bien‐etre des consommateurs et des entreprises, et devrait etre encouragee. Finalement, les impacts economiques et sociaux de cette certification dependent de maniere cruciale du fait que la certification a eu lieu avant ou apres ces activites.

Organizational structure, strategic delegation and innovation in oligopolistic industries

We endogenize firms’ organizational structures in a homogenous goods duopoly where firms invest in cost-reducing R&D and compete in quantities, and examine their impact on R&D efforts and market performance. Each firms owner can either delegate to a manager both market competition and R&D investment decisions (full delegation (FD) strategy) or delegate the market competition decision alone (partial delegation (PD) strategy). We show that when the initial marginal cost is relatively high, universal FD emerges in equilibrium. Otherwise, an asymmetric equilibrium with one owner choosing an FD strategy and the other a PD strategy arises. Finally, universal PD can arise in equilibrium only if the competition is in prices.

Strategic corporate social responsibility by a multinational firm

This paper investigates the determinants of a responsible multinational firms decision to enter in a foreign country either through exports or through foreign direct investment (FDI), as well as the relevant market and societal outcomes. We find that CSR investments are higher under FDI than under exports. The multinational firms incentives to serve the foreign country through FDI are increasing in the average consumers valuation for CSR and in the intensity of the foreign countrys market competition, but only if the average consumers valuation for CSR in this country is sufficiently high. These incentives are mitigated by the multinational firms liability in this country under exports. We also find that there is misalignment of preferences between the stakeholders of the two countries over the multinational firms mode of entry in the foreign country.

Certification of CSR activities in oligopolistic markets

We investigate the impact of alternative certifying institutions on firms’ incentives to engage in costly Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities as well as their relative market and societal implications. We find that the CSR certification standard is the lowest under for‐profit private certifiers and the highest under a Non Governmental Organization (NGO), with the standard of a welfare‐maximizing public certifier lying in between. Yet, regarding industry output, this ranking is reversed. Certification of CSR activities is welfare enhancing for consumers and firms and should be encouraged. Finally, the market and societal outcomes of CSR certification depend crucially on whether certification takes place before or after firms’ CSR activities. On fait enquete sur l’impact de diverses institutions de certification sur les incitations des entreprises a s’engager dans des activites couteuses pour assurer la responsabilite sociale ainsi que sur les implications relatives de ces sortes de certification pour le marche et la societe. On decouvre que le standard de certification est le plus bas pour ceux qui certifient les organisations du secteur privea but lucratif, et le plus eleve pour ceux qui certifient les organisations non‐gouvernementales, et que le standard d’un certificateur public qui viserait a maximiser le bien‐etre tombe entre les deux. Pour ce qui est de la production industrielle, l’ordre est inverse. La certification des activites de responsabilite sociale ameliore le bien‐etre des consommateurs et des entreprises, et devrait etre encouragee. Finalement, les impacts economiques et sociaux de cette certification dependent de maniere cruciale du fait que la certification a eu lieu avant ou apres ces activites.

Certification of corporate social responsibility activities in oligopolistic markets: Certification of corporate social responsibilities

We investigate the impact of alternative certifying institutions on firms’ incentives to engage in costly Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities as well as their relative market and societal implications. We find that the CSR certification standard is the lowest under for‐profit private certifiers and the highest under a Non Governmental Organization (NGO), with the standard of a welfare‐maximizing public certifier lying in between. Yet, regarding industry output, this ranking is reversed. Certification of CSR activities is welfare enhancing for consumers and firms and should be encouraged. Finally, the market and societal outcomes of CSR certification depend crucially on whether certification takes place before or after firms’ CSR activities. On fait enquete sur l’impact de diverses institutions de certification sur les incitations des entreprises a s’engager dans des activites couteuses pour assurer la responsabilite sociale ainsi que sur les implications relatives de ces sortes de certification pour le marche et la societe. On decouvre que le standard de certification est le plus bas pour ceux qui certifient les organisations du secteur privea but lucratif, et le plus eleve pour ceux qui certifient les organisations non‐gouvernementales, et que le standard d’un certificateur public qui viserait a maximiser le bien‐etre tombe entre les deux. Pour ce qui est de la production industrielle, l’ordre est inverse. La certification des activites de responsabilite sociale ameliore le bien‐etre des consommateurs et des entreprises, et devrait etre encouragee. Finalement, les impacts economiques et sociaux de cette certification dependent de maniere cruciale du fait que la certification a eu lieu avant ou apres ces activites.