How SFU Business fared in the news for the week of December 12, 2008

National and International News

• Marketing prof Lindsay Meredith was in a national Canadian Press story on 2010 Olympic ticket sales—and VANOC’s efforts to limit scalping. “Legally, once I pay you money and take possession of some item . . . I have become the owner of it. What I do with that is my own power.” He added that under the Competition Act, it’s illegal to try to limit the re-seller from selling a ticket at whatever he can get.
• Meredith was also in a Globe and Mail story on how some Canadians win from the economic downturn and others lose badly. The Globe quoted Meredith as saying there’s a danger of a vicious cycle in which consumers save their cash—leading to an economic slowdown that ultimately leaves them worse off. “His message: Don’t worry, be happy—and spend.”
• A “Counterpoint” column in National Post challenged an earlier article by SFU business prof John Peloza. He had written that managers need metrics to gauge the success of Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. A human resources manager countered: “ . . . doing the math for CSR strategies may be the wrong way to measure their value.”
  (Closer to home, Peloza was interviewed by CBC Radio in Prince George on the fate of charitable donations during an economic slump.)
• Peter Tingling, assistant prof in SFU Business, wrote a guest article on corporate decision-making that is to appear next week in National Post. “Most particularly among heavily regulated industries . . . decision makers have often been found to copy or mimic the decisions of others and create a herd of common choice even if the outcome is wrong. The adage that bankers make lemmings look like free thinkers has a great deal of currency in financial circles.”
  Tingling was also on the Dave Rutherford talk show on CHQR Radio, Calgary. The subject: “How do companies decide who gets a pink slip?”

National and International News

• Lindsay Meredith was on GlobalTV, talking about the recent disappearance of a marketing gimmick: the prominent posting of gasoline prices at 3.5 cents a litre more than the actual price at the pump.

Also in the News

• Business prof emeritus Gary Mauser wrote a letter in The Vancouver Sun: “The Liberal party does not appear to be committed to democracy. It has no more respect for its members than it does for any other Canadians. The Liberals are just as comfortable with having insiders choose their leader as they were with forming a backroom coalition to install Stéphane Dion as prime minister without going to an election.”