Media Matters – SFU Business in the News – April 9

How SFU Business fared in the news for the week ending April 9, 2009

National & International News

• Dianne Cyr, associate professor of Management Information Systems at the Surrey campus, wrote a guest column in the Financial Post section of National Post looking at how men and women respond differently to e-commerce websites and online shopping, and how websites do (or don’t) affect consumer loyalty. “In particular, online vendors that cater to women may have better outcomes if they are able to convey a sense of warmth and sociability on their Web sites.” Men also like such sociable websites—but don’t develop the same degree of  loyalty.

• Another writer’s guest column in National Post examined some of the “unexpected consequences” companies have encountered after implementing layoffs to save money. Among them:
  “Christopher Zatzick and Roderick Iverson of Simon Fraser University report that layoffs in ‘high-involvement workplaces’ can be a lot more damaging to the company than in the average company, because they are viewed as a violation of the psychological contract between the company and its employees, resulting in a decrease of trust and more stress, which in turn negatively affect productivity.”

Police Beat

• The latest shooting in gangland (47 gun-attacks since late January, with 21 dead) meant Gordon was featured in numerous news stories in Canada. Gordon and criminologist Ehor Boyanowsky were in a story in Britain’s The Independent (circulation 250,000), which spoke to them at the point when there had been 44 shootings and 18 deaths.  The lurid headline: “From heaven to hell: 18 die as drugs war rages on the streets of Vancouver.” The fact that The Independent carried a story made headlines in BC and Canadian media. The Globe and Mail, for one, quoted Rob Gordon as saying it doesn’t reflect well on Canada’s Olympic city: “It’s a black eye; as big a black eye as Tasering people at the airport. . . . I wouldn’t be at all surprised if others don’t pick up [the story] or mark it for further follow-up.” Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson called the story “a bit of a cheap shot”, but SFU marketing prof Lindsay Meredith told CTV News: “Reality doesn’t matter a damn, perception is everything. This kind of coverage can blow away a lot of very hard work in advertising, in developing those overseas connections, in presenting Vancouver as a brand that is a very desirable end market.”