Profit Maximization Strategy Research Articles

Yield management: an overview

Yield Management has been succesfully adopted by the airline industry following deregulation in the late 1970's. In an hotel context, yield management—a profit maximization strategy—is concerned with the market sensitive pricing of fixed room capacity relative to specific market characteristics. The concept of yield management is reviewed and the authors present a comprehensive structured operational framework for management in the hospitality industry focusing on 10 key areas. The article concludes with a look at the future of Yield Management and some areas for further research.

Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling in Greenland: The Case of Qeqertarsuaq Municipality in West Greenland

Policy debates in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) about aboriginal subsistence whaling focus on the changing significance of whaling in the mixed economies of contemporary Inuit communities. In Greenland, Inuit hunters have taken whales for over 4000 years as part of a multispecies pattern of marine harvesting. However, ecological dynamics, Euroamerican exploitation of the North Atlantic bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), Danish colonial policies, and growing linkages to the world economy have drastically altered whaling practices. Instead of using the umiaq and hand-thrown harpoons, Greenlandic hunters today use harpoon cannons mounted on fishing vessels and fiberglass skiffs with powerful outboard motors. Products from minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) provide both foods for local consumption and limited amounts of cash, obtained through the sale of whale products for Greenlandic foods to others. Greenlanders view this practice as a form of sustainable development, where local renewable resources are used to support livelihoods that would otherwise be dependent upon imported goods. Export of whale products from Greenland is prohibited by law. However, limited trade in whale products within the country is consistent with longstanding Inuit practices of distribution and exchange. Nevertheless, within the IWC critics argue that even limited commiditization of whale products could lead to overexploitation should hunters seek to pursue profit-maximization strategies. Debates continue about the appropriateness of cash and commoditization in subsistence whaling in Qeqertarsuaq Municipality in West Greenland, demonstrating that despite significant changes, whaling is an integral part of Greenland's mixed economy and a vital component of Greenlandic Inuit cultural identity. The social organization of whaling continues to be kinship-based and Greenlandic foods, including whale products, are prominent in local diets and in cultural celebrations. The research reveals that Greenlanders participate in whaling not to maximize profits but in order to sustain cultural traditions and to reduce dependency on tenuous links to the world economy.Key words: Greenland, Qeqertarsuaq Municipality, aboriginal subsistence whaling, Inuit whaling, mixed economy, minke whale,fin whale, International Whaling Commission 

Management by ‘service’—not by objective

Yield Management has been succesfully adopted by the airline industry following deregulation in the late 1970's. In an hotel context, yield management—a profit maximization strategy—is concerned with the market sensitive pricing of fixed room capacity relative to specific market characteristics. The concept of yield management is reviewed and the authors present a comprehensive structured operational framework for management in the hospitality industry focusing on 10 key areas. The article concludes with a look at the future of Yield Management and some areas for further research.

Profit maximization and marketing strategies: Demand rotation and social influences

AbstractMicroeconomic texts discuss alterations in industry demand curves as movements to higher or lower levels. Consider, instead, the implications for a monopolist's profit of rotating its (linear) demand curve. Where this can be done without cost by pivoting at the current price it will be profitable to continue to pivot the curve until it is horizontal or vertical. The possibility of rotating the demand curve of a ‘new’ product on an arbitrarily selected price allows us to consider the optimality of different advertising strategies (‘bandwagon’ or 'snob').

Concentration and Profitability in a Small Open Economy

IN industrial organization, it is commonly accepted that concentration ratios are useful indices of market power and that a positive relationship exists between these indices and profitability. Contrary to what is sometimes argued,1 theoretical bases can be found to support these views. For example, in his 'theory of oligopoly', G. Stigler [I6] has shown that the effectiveness of collusion leading to joint profit maximization strategies is increased by fewness of sellers and disparity of relative seller size. T. Saving [15] has established within the confines of the static price leadership model, that concentration ratios expressed by the share of the k largest firms can be related to the Lerner measure of the degree of monopoly. More recently, D. Encaoua and A. Jacquemin [i], have derived equilibrium relations between measures of concentration and aggregated Lerner indices for a whole set of static and dynamic, co-operative and non-co-operative, oligopoly models. However these studies have also demonstrated that concentration ratios are not the whole story of monopoly power and that only a refined analysis incorporating the various aspects of market structure and behavior allows an appraisal of the existence of the degree of monopoly. One aspect which is crucial for an open economy is the role of international trade.2 By overlooking it, numerous studies have not only used inappropriate variables to detect the existence or the effect of monopoly power, but have neglected the theoretical implications of the role of international factors for the behavioral relation between market structure and market performance.3 The purpose of this paper is to provide, for the Belgian manufacturing industry, a behavioral model allowing to test the validity of conventional concentration ratios as measures of domestic producers' market power and as determinants of the industry profit margin-viz. the Lerner index in case