Commerce

Researchers from Texas Christian University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and University of Georgia published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines the consumer trend towards minimalist packaging in consumable products. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Symbolically Simple: How Simple Packaging Design Influences Willingness to Pay for Consumable Products” and is authored by Lan Anh N. Ton, Rosanna...

In three online surveys conducted with several hundred participants, the experts looked into how interactions between managers and staff affected employees’ behavior towards one another. “As our findings show, employees who receive better treatment from their supervisor often display arrogant behavior towards their colleagues,” summarizes Dr. Benjamin Korman, who now conducts research at the University...

In our increasingly polarized society, more people may find themselves in a workplace where they are one of the few conservatives or few liberals around. A new study found that those whose values – political or otherwise – don’t match the majority in their organization felt they received less respect and as a result were...

A decapitated banana plant is almost useless, an inconvenience to the farmer who must then uproot it and lay its dismembered parts as mulch. But can such stems somehow be returned to life? Yes, according to a Ugandan company that’s buying banana stems in a business that turns fiber into attractive handicrafts. The idea is...

In a new study, participants tended to judge faces appearing against backgrounds featuring houseplants or bookcases as more trustworthy and competent than faces with a living space or a novelty image behind them. Gender and facial expression also appeared to influence judgments. Research led by Paddy Ross, Abi Cook  and Meg Thompson at Durham University,...

Standardized and overly simplistic questionnaires are only scratching the surface of what employees think of their leaders, according to new research from Binghamton University’s School of Management (SOM), and negative behavior may be slipping through the cracks. As a result, the research finds, organizations may be missing out on critical information that could be keeping toxic...