RIME cluster hosts an event

The Researchers in Management Education (RIME) cluster will host a session Tuesday, 11 Dec 2012, 10 am to review a presentation and draft of a paper targeted at the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management 2013.

This will be the second paper developed from BLC Year 3 Project Research for a academic conference venue. A paper to the SCOS conference was successfully presented last July in Barcelona. The paper will be presented by Luisa Bech Lund and Jochen Lenders, who have devoted themselves to study of the cigarette industry in the EU/Denmark for two project years, first in a German industrial sector analysis. The third author serves as academic editor.

Should anyone have a particular interest in the paper and would like to offer reviewer comment, please let me know. Otherwise, anyone is welcome to the session, which we'll hold on the First floor somewhere or other. The title and abstract are below; I will circulate the draft paper when it is ready, hopefully no later than this Thursday.

Irish Soda bread may appear, but could not begin to compete with the upcoming COG cluster "pepparkakor" promised…

Charlie Tackney and Maribel Blasco

Smoke for Thought?

A Submission for the Social Issues in Management Division

Academy of Management Conference 2013

Luisa Bech Lund, Jochen Lenders, and Charles T. Tackney, Ph.D.

This cigarette industrial sector inquiry included a case investigation into the strategic possibilities of a leading cigarette firm in the Danish market. The case study sought strategies to appropriately respond to the challenges of a declining, heavily regulated cigarette industry. The case method included access to proprietary data from the firm and research into the observed decline of cigarettes sales in relation to increased regulation and taxes. Porter’s work on competitiveness combined with industrial sector endgame analysis offered by Harrigan to initially frame the case study and broader sector analysis. Findings indicate that the decline of the sector does not follow the typical pattern Harrigan reported, being strongly influenced instead by a range of national and EU legislation. Specifically, the mainly high-end cigarette producer was hit particularly hard by regulation changes that allowed the introduction of low-cost cigarettes in Denmark. At the industrial sector level, a policy-neutral analysis resulted in two theoretical contributions. First, the Government Paradox captures the complicated intertwining of tobacco industry and Danish Government. Second, this Paradox grounds the concept of an Equilibrium estimator. The estimator displays a point in time where the combined tobacco-related expenses for a national economy (mainly health expenses) will outweigh the combined economic returns the sector offers: dividend and capital gains-sourced pension returns, tax on sales and corporate performance. This Equilibrium is graphically illustrated. While total income benefits still outweigh total costs in Denmark, possible Equilibrium scenarios are discussed in light of different legislative options. In addition, we explore possible applications of the Government Paradox and Equilibrium estimator to other industrial sectors in decline.