Student vs. faculty perspectives on quality instruction: Gender bias, “hotness,” and “easiness” in evaluating teaching

This article systematically examines differences between student and faculty perspectives on quality instruction, using local data for a regional university's college of business matched to RateMyProfessors.com evaluations. Particular attention is focused on gender bias, “hotness,” and “easiness.” In addition to documenting a student bias or preference in favor of male faculty, this article also shows how students and faculty have different views of “easiness” and “hotness.” For this college, students value “easiness” while faculty penalize it; however “hotness” has no measurable effect on faculty in this study.     

Oil prices and world inflation

In this paper we attempt to address the nature of the causal relationships between oil prices and U.S. inflation. We use a procedure developed by Granger to assess “causality” or, more precisely stated, “informativeness.” Our results confirm that higher oil prices have increased the U.S. WPI. Our results also support OPEC's contention that their price increases have in part been a result of worldwide inflation.     

Using simultaneous latent structure models to analyze group differences: Exploratory analysis of buying style items

This article shows how methods for simultaneous latent structure analysis can be used to test for intergroup differences in unobservable characteristics. In many respects these techniques are similar to those for simultaneous factor analysis. To show how these methods can be used, we analyze data obtained from the 1979 Study of Media and Markets collected by the Simmons Market Research Bureau. Five dichotomized items pertaining to buying style attitudes were chosen as “indicators” of a latent variable (or variables): brand loyalty, willingness to experiment, degree of conformity to buying style of others, persuadibility, and style consciousness. The sample was composed of full-time employed, married, white females in the middle social class categories recognized on the survey. Two groups were compared in terms of latent structure model parameters. The first group consisted of those who work “at a career” and the second consisted of those whose work was “just a job.” Using the methods advocated here there is no significant difference between these two groups once the “brand loyalty” item is excluded. The model-search procedure takes account of within-group contributions to lack of fit. Generalizations of this procedure may be useful in exploratory analysis using the simultaneous latent structure model.     

In Defence Of Mutuality

“There was something a little unseemly about how the building societies intending to demutualise did so by encouraging their members to vote in favour with the inducement of significant payments in shares”. Should one have no regard for the intentions of those who produced the present capital accumulation, or for the idea of holding reserves in trust for future members? The author is DBM Professor of Corporate Governance at Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University, Calverley Street, Leeds LS1 3HE.     

Speculative behavior of foreign exchange rates during the current float

The current regime of floating exchange rates has been characterized by a number of informed observers as economically unsatisfactory. Use of terms such as “overshooting”, “bandwagon effects”, “destabilizing”, and “insufficient speculation” reflects serious misgivings on the part of many toward the long-run viability of a floating, rather than a fixed or semi-fixed, rate regime. Using fairly standard procedures, the authors have attempted to determine the extent to which the foreign exchange market exhibits the adverse features noted above. The authors conclude that by and large foreign exchange markets have not performed particularly poorly. The foreign exchange markets seem to be efficient at least in the weak form sense. Past exchange rate changes are not useful in predicting future exchange rate changes. This empirical finding contrasts sharply with the view that the markets “overshoot”, or that there are “bandwagon effects”, or that the amount of price stabilizing speculation is inadequate.     

An Investigation of Ghana's Tourism Positioning

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of Ghana's tourism positioning and whether a literature-derived positioning framework can further elaborate the latter. Using the face-to-face long interviews among key policy makers, marketing managers and experts, and observation techniques, data were collected and analyzed via the inductive reasoning approach. The results show that Ghana's tourism positioning aim is built around perceptions of a “com petitive middle class tourist destination,” i.e., “profit and status” through the pursuit of “functional” positioning objective. Positioning strategies including “service”, “value for money”, “culture”, “selectivity”, “attractiveness”, “reliability”, “manpower development”, “quality controls” and “ecology” are pursued in order to achieve the aim and objectives. The latter are managed/positioned in the “primal” positioning life cycle stage. Conclusions, managerial implications, future research directions and limitations are noted.     

Effects of inflation on consumer choice

Possible effects of a nonhomogeneous inflation on consumer choice among brands of energy-using durables are considered. For this purpose price differentials among brands are regarded as “investments,” while operating costs differentials are viewed as “returns.” Using a life cycle-cost approach, it is shown how inflation may affect consumers' critical implicit rates of return and ultimately their brand choice. Empirical observations which support the theoretical results are provided.     

The linking pin role in organizational buying centers

The buying center concept has been widely accepted in the organizational buying behavior literature. Nevertheless, the application of the concept in empirical investigations has been limited in scope. Most research has examined either the composition of the buying center or the influence processes operating within it. The intraorganizational dynamics (among members of the buying center) and the interorganizational dynamics (between buying center members and outside organizations) have been ignored in buying center research. Common to these two sets of relationships is the presence of a “linking pin” or “boundary role” person.The purposes of this paper are twofold. The first is to suggest the concept of the “linking pin” role in a buying center and to highlight the conceptual importance of this role in furthering the understanding and prediction of organizational buying processes and outcomes. Explication of this role should also lead to an enriched conceptualization of the relationships between the buying and selling organizations. The second objective is to report on the results of some initial empirical investigations into the role of a designated linking pin in hospital buying centers. These results offer preliminary evidence of the value of the linking pin concept.     

Effects of equal credit opportunity legislation in consumer finance lending

The objective of equal credit opportunity legislation (ECOL) is to eradicate discrimination against women and minority groups in the nation's consumer credit markets. Whether ECOL is successful and “benefits” such consumers is an empirical issues. Also, the “costs” of ECOL, if any, must be assayed. This article discusses these and related issues concerning the impact of ECOL. Against this background empirical findings from a nationwide consumer finance company are reviewed and implications for public policy are drawn.     

In defense of social responsibility

Recent journalistic criticism of the concept of corporate social responsibility rests on the assertion that social responsibility adds nothing to corporate profits. Hence, inclusion of the motion in the business vocabulary amounts to nothing more than “double talk.”The author of an influential 1953 book on the topic took another look at social responsibility twenty-five years later and found “few gains in the quality of business stewardship over that time.” The idea “remains peripheral to the mainstream of economic thought.”Corporate social responsibility involves more than simply being a law-abiding corporate citizen. It reaches into these decision-making areas where perfectly legal choices may have harmful social consequences. As evidence of social harm amounts, society has to define and defend the ground on which it requires an appropriate response from the business corporation. Society will get the response it demands.     

Optimal price and advertising policy for new products

Extending a model originally proposed by Bass, a “diffusion model” is developed that allows us to investigate the effects of certain price and advertising strategies during and after the introduction of new products by means of numerical computer simulation. The distinction between “innovators” and “imitators” forms the core of the model. A wide variety of implications for marketing strategies is derived.     

论儒家“五常”文化与时俱进的时代特质

文章论述了儒家“五常”文化在中国古代、社会主义市场经济条件下及“一带一路”背景下的内涵发展演变轨迹,将儒家“五常”文化与“一带一路”国际合作相结合,老树着新花。阐释了“五常”文化与时俱进的时代特质,对“五常”文化用世界级的眼光进行审视,在“一带一路”建设的大背景下赋予了“五常”文化合理的时代内涵。     

The importance of integrating marketing planning with corporate planning

“Strategic marketing” implies that marketing has attained a corporate orientation. However, scant evidence is available to support this view. The primary focus of marketing remains at a micro, consumer-oriented level. Integration of marketing planning with corporate planning would suggest a higher perspective for marketers; recognizing that internal integration of planning is as important for effective marketing as external studies of customers and markets. Toward this end, four key dimensions of corporate planning are introduced. As corporate planning constrains marketing planning, it is this most “strategic” of outlooks that needs to be integrated into the process of marketing planning.     

Ethical Customer Value Creation: Drivers and Barriers

There is a long-standing discussion on the positive interactions between enterprise value creation and business competitiveness. The corporate value can be seen as being created from three major sources within the cycle – from employees, from processes, and from customers or investors through reinvestment. To achieve competitive advantages, a firm must create more value than its competitors in the industry. Emphasizing that, firms should explore the positive drivers of customer value creation, allowing for a true value creation that will lead to increments in competitiveness. In reality, however, there are also barriers that hinder customer value creation. Targeting the above issues that have not yet been explored or analyzed, we have collected related literature at the first stage. Based on these presumable assumptions, this paper then conducts an empirical study by surveying and analyzing the relevance given by the investigated leading machinery measuring equipment firms in Taiwan, regarding the concerns as drivers and barriers in relation to customer value creation. This paper especially aims to answer several key questions: What drivers revolving around employees and processes can facilitate the organization to create more value for its customers? Conversely, what barriers block the organization from creating value for customers in examining the same dimensions? Does value creation direct an organization’s profitability and competitiveness? Our questionnaire survey results show that the most recognized and agreed drivers of customer value creation in consideration of employees are “distinctive skills”, “personal experience”, “learning and training”, and “team work”; and, in regard to the firm’s processes, the key drivers are “innovation and evolution”, “R&;D capability”, and “capability for differentiation”. Conversely, the most recognized and agreed barriers to customer value creation in relation to employees are a “distrustful environment” and “inadequate knowledge”; and, in terms of processes, they are “short of core technology”, “poor resource support”, and “bad services and attitudes”. Furthermore, our in-depth interview outcomes reveal that “capital sufficiency” and “mergers and acquisitions” are in practice considered to be other important customer value creation drivers; in contrast, “cultural and structural barriers” and “short of mechanisms to measure customer value creation effectively” are viewed as additional critical barriers to customer value creation.     

成都“天府论”考

成都自古即有“天府”和“天府之国”之称，其最初得名略晚于关中，以后取代关中，这已成千古定论。根据苏秦、张良、诸葛亮之定义，所谓“天府”和“天府之国”，必须具有“四塞之国”、“沃野千里”、“天子之都”三个标准。后来太原、北京、沈阳、汪淮以南、闽中等地先后有“天府”之称，但均因缺乏其中一条或多条标准而够不上“天府”和“天府之国”之称谓，也自然为历史所淘汰。目前在成都未丧失上述条件前，来开展评选“新天府”活动则毫无意义。     

“去商品化”视角下的中国养老金问题研究

艾斯平-安德森在其开创性的著作《福利资本主义的三个世界》中提出了运用“去商品化”这一概念对资本主义国家的福利体制进行分析,并以“去商品化”程度高低把西方资本主义国家划分为三种模式。近年来,“去商品化”程度已经成为国内外众多学者分析各国福利体制时必然使用的衡量指标。本文也利用这一工具对中国养老保险体系的发展进行量化分析和比较。研究表明,我国现今的养老保险制度中存在“去商品化”程度较低和“去商品化”程度逐渐下降等问题,其根本原因是受到了体制身份不平等和收入分配不公平等因素的影响。鉴于此．我国亟待建立更加公平的社会保障体系。     

Labor market differentials and the expected gain from search

Several recent empirical studies have used the residuals from estimated earnings equations as explanatory variables in models of on-the-job search and quit behavior. It has often been argued that the coefficients on these “market differential” variables are biased downward because estimated residuals overstate the “true” quasi-rent or disincentive to search for alternative employment. This argument—that observed wages include implicit payments for workplace and person-specific characteristics not fully specified in earnings models— ignores an opposing bias associated with the value of being able to reject unattractive wage offers. As a consequence, there is no unambiguous a priori relationship between estimated wage residuals and the theoretical expected gain from search. Some evidence bearing on the relative magnitudes of the two biases is discussed.     

农产品电商模式能实现最优生产效率吗？

文章在一个关系契约分析框架下，比较了农产品电商渠道中“农户+电商市场”“农户+采购商”“农户+电商企业”和“农户+政府委托采购商”四种典型模式的生产效率，并分析了最优效率的形成条件。结果表明：（1）由于契约的不完全性、市场竞争程度高等因素，“农户+电商市场”模式缺乏信息优势、平台优势和技术优势，无法达到最优生产效率；（2）“农户+采购商”“农户+电商企业”和“农户+政府委托采购商”三种模式下，契约价格波动越接近市场价格波动，贴现率达到足够小，可以更接近最优生产效率；（3）农户在契约关系中的谈判力以及签订契约的机会成本会影响农产品电商模式的生产效率，且与生产效率成正相关的关系。     

Semantics and capital market efficiency: Testing the market's reaction to the naming of stock distributions as splits or dividends

The AICPA and NYSE urge corporations to avoid the term “stock dividend” and use the term “stock split” when referring to large common stock distributions. Theoretically these large distributions do not convey any economic value to the stockholders. Therefore a rule was considered necessary so as not to mislead them as to the actual nature of the distributions. The purpose of this study is to examine security price reactions to the differential naming of these distributions. The results strongly suggest that security returns are not differentially affected by naming a large common stock distribution a stock dividend rather than a stock split. That is, the capital market appears to be semantically efficient between terminologies.