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This article considers the familiness construct within the resource‐based view of the firm by examining the manner in which intangible and other unique resources translate into competitive advantages held by family businesses. Specifically, this article, through a case‐based approach, questions whether the familiness qualities of a firm contribute to actualization of an effective market orientation thereby constituting a competitive advantage. Analysis of multiple interviews from family owners and managers suggests that familiness qualities, including, but not limited to, strategic focus, customer orientation, family relationships, and operational efficiency, do contribute to a propensity for execution of an effective market orientation.

A one parameter family of iteration functions for finding roots is derived.]he family includes the Laguerre, Halley, Ostrowski and Euler methods and, as a limiting case, Newton's method. All the methods of the family are cubically convergent for a simple root (except Newton's which is quadratically convergent). The superior behavior of Laguerre's method, when starting from a point z for which [z[ is large, is explained. It is shown that other methods of the family are superior if [z[ is not large. It is also shown that a continuum of methods for the family exhibit global and monotonic convergence to roots of polynomials (and certain other functions} if all the roots are real.

Firms engage in environmental marketing in order to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers. Within the context of the forest product industry, this research uses data from two studies to empirically test whether a relationship exists between demographic/psychographic characteristics and reported environmentally conscious intentions. In both studies, the results indicate that the environmental marketing of certifi ed/ecolabeled forest products appeals to a segment of environmentally conscious consumers. This appeal occurs for both a value-added product (furniture) and a non-value-added product (plywood). Thus, there is support for the argument that environmental marketing to environmentally conscious consumers can result in 'green segmentation'. Key fi ndings from this study suggest that those consumers reporting the strongest preferences for environmentally certifi ed forest products were more willing to pay a premium for certifi ed products, more likely to display environmentally conscious behavior and more likely to perceive that green consumer purchases effectively benefi t the environment. These characteristics were most common among females and those familiar with the concept of environmental certifi cation.

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