Mobile payment apps filling value gaps: Integrating consumption values with initial trust and customer involvement

This study aims to understand the consumption values that positively influence the adoption of mobile payment apps (MPAs). The theory of consumption values and two more constructs, initial trust (INT) and customer involvement (COI) are used to create a model tested using structural equation modeling with data collected from 880 Indian consumers. The results obtained from the analysis identified functional (FUV), conditional (COV), epistemic (EPV), and emotional (EMV) values having a significant positive impact on MPA adoption intention. While INT mediated all consumption values, COI positively moderated the relationship of FUV, EPV, and EMV with adoption intention. The critical contribution is using INT and COI to test the mediating and moderating effect utilizing the theory of consumption values. It explains factors contributing directly and indirectly to MPA adoption intention. The study results demonstrate that all consumption values except social value (SOV) positively influence MPA adoption intention. The cross-sectional data was collected during the pandemic from the urban population, which may not be generalizable with other developed nations. The study suggests that promoters of MPAs must focus more on FUV, COV, EPV, and EMV. Governments can promote MPAs with an increased focus on building trust through policy measures and special drives to increase trustworthiness in MPAs. Businesses could increase efforts to involve customers when introducing MPAs and collate critical information from customer touch points for improved consumer involvement. Through greater usage of MPAs, governments can substantially reduce the cost of printing and handling currency bills, saving taxpayers’ money and diverting it to social spending.     

The discourse,practice, and expansion of Chinese scientific socialism: Geopolitical implications for Latin America and the United States

Chinese scientific socialism (CSS) is analyzed as a state of purpose rather than one of ambiguity. Distinct historical contexts and associated semantic shifts are integrated to contemporarily situate CSS, particularly regarding foreign policy and practice in Latin America. Findings indicate Western media and specialists generally analyze Chinese economic dynamics along a continuum of capitalism, failing to capture relevant forms of geopolitical socialist‐communist expression and their local‐to‐global impacts. CSS rhetoric and practice reflect principles of unity and reciprocity, are long term, and enjoy trust in Latin America. Thus, the Chinese development model derives and generates benefits comparatively greater than the traditional capitalist model and impacts US hegemony. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A conceptual framework for analyzing consumers' food label preferences: An exploratory study of sustainability labels in France,Quebec, Spain and the US

In a qualitative study of 375 consumers in France, Quebec, Spain and the US, respondents are asked to choose between pairs of actual food labels and to describe the reason(s) for their choice. The food labels included sustainability labels (eco‐labels, Fair Trade, origin) as well as product attribute (e.g. quality, kosher) and health/nutrition labels. Respondents' reasons were coded in the original language using the same coding system across all four nations to examine their preferences for label message, design and source. We also examined the role of consumers' values, beliefs and experiences on their label choices. The coding system was drawn from a review of theoretical and empirical literature and provides a conceptual framework we call the Label Consumer Interaction model for evaluating consumers' food label preferences. Although this is case study, the results point to substantial differences across nations in terms of preferred labels, as well as the rationale for their choice in terms of attributes of the labels and consumer characteristics.     

Advertising visuals in global brands’ local websites: a six-country comparison

The visual strategies employed in top global brands’ local advertising websites were compared between two groups of nations: the Western group, consisting of the US, UK and Germany; and the Eastern group, consisting of Japan, Korea and China. The results of a content analysis of 253 web ads show a clear pattern of differences in the role of visuals (literal vs symbolic), the use and role of celebrity models, the use of photographs vs illustrations, and the frequency of product portrayals between two groups. Ads from high-context nations tend to rely on symbolic visuals, celebrity models featured as characters, mixed use of photographs and illustrations, and indirect portrayals of advertised products. Ads from low-context nations are found to be the opposite, reaffirming the association between Hallx2019;s information contextuality and advertising visual strategies. The findings imply that the idea of employing advertising visuals that reflect the communication styles of a particular national market appears to be a promising strategy to effectively reach consumers around the world. With this in mind, multinational advertisers might prefer to implement differentiated ad visual strategies in web advertising for Western and Eastern markets.     

The extended website stage model: a study of Canadian winery websites

Rao, Metts, and Mora Monge (2003) proposed a stage model to reflect the progression small businesses follow in their use of Internet technology. We extend their work in two ways. We introduce marketing integration into this technology-focused model and further differentiate the transactions stage of the framework. We then use the model to examine differences in the degree of sophistication of websites used by businesses in the Canadian winery sector. Data collection entailed a content analysis on a census of English language Canadian winery websites (N = 206). A supplementary survey was used to distinguish among those sites that were making use of relatively advanced technologies. A multinomial logit analysis was applied to examine a series of research questions based upon our integrated model. Implications of the findings for scholarship and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2009 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Economic and Systemic Explanations of Ownership Concentration among Europe's Largest Companies

The paper examines causes and effects of ownership concentration among the largest companies in 12 European countries. As a reference point the paper takes a seminal empirical study on US data and examines to what extent the model is applicable in European countries. The findings indicate that both general economic effects and system effects are significant. Ownership concentration is found to decrease with firm size and to increase with earnings volatility. But in support of the system theories advocated nationality is also found to have a significant effect which is partly attributable to institutional differences between nations such as stock market size and the frequency of large banks. Finally ownership concentration is found to have an insignificant effect on accounting profitability (return on equity)     

Intellectual Property Rights in China: The Changing Political Economy of Chinese–American Interests

We review the evolution of modern Chinese intellectual property right (IPR) laws and enforcement and explore economic and political forces involved in international conflicts over Chinese IPR protection. Our analysis considers why the US and China moved from conflict to cooperation over intellectual property rights. Structural and institutional aspects of the political economy of IPRs within each country are considered, and data on Chinese‐US trade in intellectual property‐intensive goods are examined. We conclude that although enforcement of IPRs within China continues to be relatively weak, Chinese IPR institutions are converging on those in the OECD nations.     

Book Reviews

While fashion piracy has been practised on an industrial scale for at least a century, the levels of intellectual property protection for fashion design have been low in most nations. This article gives a summary of the context of the lack of design protection for the Swedish textile and fashion industries, broadly defined, in the twentieth century, with comparisons to contemporary debates on fashion and creativity and to the historical French and US context. France, the US and Sweden have followed different paths in their approaches to intellectual property protection for fashion design. A study of the Swedish legislative debates 1916–70 shows that the different legislative approaches are connected to the local contexts of production. It is proposed that one way of understanding the levels of protection for fashion design is in terms of the differences in logic between ‘fashion’ and ‘clothing’.     

When Ethics are Compromised by Ideology: The Global Competitiveness Report

The Global Competitiveness Report raises ethical issues on multiple levels. The traditional high ranking accorded the US is largely attributable to fallacies, poor science and ideology. The ideological bias finds expression in two ways: the inclusion of indices that do not provide competitive advantage, but that fit the Anglo/US ideology; and the exclusion of indices that are known to offer competitive advantage, but that do not fit the Anglo/US ideology. This flaw is compounded by methodological problems that raise further doubt as to the reliability and validity of the survey results. The resultant false high ranking of the US, a strong proponent of Anglo/US capitalism, pseudo-legitimizes the propensity of US-dominated institutions and entities to persuade, coerce and, in the worst-case force other countries and their constituents to adopt Anglo/US practices and behaviours. This is ethically reprehensible because research shows that these practices and behaviours, when compared with other approaches, are sub-optimal in the results they produce for individuals, corporations and nations. The report also unjustly and unnecessarily stigmatizes entire groups of countries with little conceivable benefit to anyone. Given the report’s gravitas through the profound global influence it exerts on the decisions of top government and business leaders, these are serious ethical and economic issues.     

The World Trade Organisation's Doha Cotton Initiative: A Tale of Two Issues

Four West African nations have demanded that the WTO's Doha Development Agenda include a Cotton Initiative that involves two issues: cutting cotton subsidies and tariffs, and assisting farm productivity growth in Africa. This paper provides estimates of the potential economic impacts of (a) complete or partial removal of cotton subsidies and import tariffs globally and (b) cotton productivity growth through the adoption of genetically modified (GM) cotton varieties. Use is made of the GTAP database and global economic model to address both these issues. On Doha, our results confirm that for cotton – unlike for other agricultural subsidies and tariffs – it is subsidy reductions rather than tariff cuts that would make by far the largest impact. For Sub‐Saharan Africa the potential gains are huge relative to the effects on that region of reforming other merchandise trade policies. And they could be more than doubled if that reform provided the cash for farmers to take advantage of the biotechnology revolution and adopt GM cotton varieties. But those potential gains, and the affordability of switching to costly GM seed, depend crucially on the extent to which high‐income countries are willing to lower domestic support to their cotton farmers.     

面向对象和设计模式在ISS管理系统中的应用

提出了利用面向对象和设计模式方法作为ISMS的设计新方法,并使用UML语言描述了面向对象和设计模式在综合传感器管理系统(ISMS)中的具体应用,在系统的设计和开发中取得了较好的效果。最后进一步指出了面向体系结构(SOA)模式为以后ISMS的设计新方向。     

Culture,cognitive style and consumer response to informational vs. transformational advertising among East Asians: Evidence from the PRC

Existing literature suggests that people's cognitive styles vary significantly across nations and cultures, and that East Asians emphasize holistic information processing and are more receptive to transformational advertising than people in the West. Yet, both theoretical rationale and empirical evidence of the effect of cognitive style on consumers' advertising responses are lacking. This study proposes a congruency-activation model and adopts a three by two experimental design to examine Chinese consumers' attitude towards different advertisements. The results indicate that Chinese consumers prefer transformational and integrated ads to informational ads under both low and high involvement conditions. Protocol analysis shows that Chinese consumers engage in more affective processing than cognitive thoughts. Thus, marketers should consider the effect of the cognitive style of indigenous consumers when devising international advertising strategies.     

US trade policy in an unbalanced world economy

Both the national as well as the international debate on US trade policy are overshadowed, and strongly influenced, by the large external inbalances of major trading nations. What do these disequilibria mean for US trade policy? Moreover, is the USA losing comparative advantage in agriculture and high-technology manufacturing? Do industrial policies in other countries distort American trade?     

To Whom,When, and How Much to Discount? A Constrained Optimization of Customized Temporal Discounts

Customized temporal discounts are price cuts or coupons that are tailored by size, timing, and household to maximize profits to a retailer or manufacturer. The authors show how such discounts allow companies to optimize to whom, when, and how much to discount. Such a scheme allows firms to send just enough discounts just prior to the individual's purchase of a rival brand. To do so, the authors model household purchase timing and brand choice in response to discounts and use Bayesian estimation to obtain individual household parameters. They illustrate the model on a Japanese data set having price cuts, a US data set having coupons, and another US data set having discounts. They formulate the optimization task of customized temporal coupons as a constrained multiple-knapsack problem under a given budget. They use simulations of the empirical contexts to obtain optimal solutions and to assess improvement in profits relative to existing practice and alternate models in the literature. The proposed model yields increase in profits of 18–40 percent relative to a standard model that optimizes the value but not timing of discounts.     

项目管理研究综述

对项目的实践始于人类的分工协作,项目管理古来便有。人类对项目的认识及项目管理的水平随工程及工程管理的实践而逐步深入。人类最早的项目管理实践始于金字塔和万里长城,古代的项目管理基于艺术,即个人经验、智慧、直觉、才能、天赋等,缺乏科学的方法体系、明确的技术标准与作业规范。第一次世界大战期间的1917年,亨利·L·甘特发明了甘特图,甘特图的主要目的是为作业排序。项目管理作为规范的学科始于第二次世界大战期间。最经典的案例是美国军方的“曼哈顿计划”(1942—1945)。二战结束后的冷战时期,项目管理的实践以美国为中心得到进一步的发展。如1957年的关键路径法(CPM);1958年的计划评审技术(PERT),由美国海军特种计划局和洛克希德航空公司在研制“北极星”导弹潜艇的项目中发明应用。90年代末至今,社会步入知识和信息时代。业界和学界开始实践及研究如何对项目进行集成化管理,项目管理由此进入多项目管理阶段。     

On the Incidence of US Tariffs

This paper provides evidence on the incidence of tariffs on products of export interest to developing countries by investigating the relationship between per capita incomes of US trading partners and tariff rates. It constitutes the first attempt to assess the incidence of tariffs imposed by the US on countries that span the entire range of per capita incomes. Average tariff rates are lower for the poorest and richest countries and higher for countries in the middle of the income distribution. This finding is not consistent with the widely held view that tariffs used by industrial nations bear more heavily on products of export interest to poorer developing countries than on imports from industrial nations. It is consistent with the tariff escalation pattern reported in earlier studies if advanced countries account for most products at the high end of the fabrication scale. Results show that poorest countries will find it difficult to escape tariffs by attaining higher levels of economic development.     

The common sources of business cycles in Trans‐Pacific countries and the US? A comparison with NAFTA

This paper uses both a non‐structural and a structural approach to investigate the drivers of the business cycles in the US and 15 Trans‐Pacific (TP) countries. Our non‐structural analysis, based on a principal component methodology, reveals the shares of variation in macroeconomic variables that are due to factors common to both the US and the TP region, and factors that are region‐specific. We obtain similar measures by using a structural model (an estimated two‐country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model) that allows for common and correlated shocks across the two regions. The clear and common finding from our analyses is that common shocks explain a substantial amount of macroeconomic variation. Comparison with the NAFTA region, along this dimension, reveals that the US economy is more similar to the TP region (a wider region that also includes Mexico and Canada) than its two neighbours.     

美国国际收支结构的特征、趋势分析及对中国的启示

美国日益增长的经常项目赤字和庞大的净对外债务已经成为影响世界经济的一个不确定因素。长期来看,以亚洲国家为外围主体为美国经常项目赤字融资这一复活的布雷顿森林体系难以长久存在,因而以“逆差+顺差”为特点的美国国际收支结构是很难持续的,美国的经常项目很可能会经历一次趋向平衡的调整过程。同时指出了中国对美国经常项目调整可能给中国经济发展带来冲击的应对措施。     

Exploration in product usage: A model of use innovativeness

In this article a conceptual model of use innovativeness is proposed. Use innovativeness is positioned within the broader innate innovativeness construct. Use innovativeness is conceptualized as a consumer's receptivity/attraction to and creativity with using products in new ways. Thus, use innovativeness focuses on the origination and production of new product uses rather than the adoption of new products. Relationships between innovativeness, use innovativeness, and use behaviors are explicated. In addition, issues in construct measurement and validation are also highlighted. Finally, a research agenda that flows from the proposed model is suggested. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Enablers and inhibitors of permission-based marketing: A case of mobile coupons

Permission-based marketing is a unique marketing practice that requires consumers' overt consent. Previous studies examined only either positive or negative predictors of adoption of permission-based marketing practices. Thus, the current study proposes and tests both enablers and inhibitors that determine consumers' adoption decision of permissionbased marketing in a context of mobile coupons and aims to provide insights on relative importance of antecedents. A national survey of US consumers (N=611) supported the proposed model. Perceived risk and subjective norm are particularly important for consumers who have never used mobile coupons. Moderating effects of prior experience was also examined. Finding of moderating effects of prior experience in mobile service adoption suggests research implications for future studies.