中小企业品牌战略的实施

21世纪将是以品牌竞争为主要形式名牌竞争为主宰的时代,品牌经营已是势在必行。然而中小企业由于起步晚、基础薄弱、经验不足等原因,在品牌经营中存在很多误区,使中小企业处在一种两难境地中。中小企业要获得长久生存和前瞻性的发展,就要在实施品牌战略时既有宏观的把握,又有在对品牌内涵深刻理解的基础上实施品牌战略的规划,特别是品牌文化战略是中小企业取得无可替代的竞争优势的关键。     

Total quality management,institutional isomorphism and performance: the case of financial services

This article concentrates on the relationship between the number of years that the firms have been implementing total quality management and the impact its practice can have on performance. The literature provides studies revealing that the last firms to introduce total quality management fail partly due to the fact that they imitate the implementation strategy used. Based on a sample of 77 Spanish financial companies, this paper provides evidence of the concept of institutionalisation as a process by which different management practices are generalised. The conclusion reached is that the process differs depending on the moment in which the total quality management system is introduced.     

Likeability as a measure of advertising effectiveness: the case of financial services

Television advertising for financial services accounts for over one-third of total financial services advertising expenditure, yet there is evidence to suggest it is not very well done. Given the difficulties advertisers have to overcome in terms of promoting an intangible product in accordance with tight restrictions on advertising content and format to a largely uninvolved audience, it becomes all the more imperative to study how viewers judge financial services commercials. This paper presents the findings of a study which seeks to establish which elements, if any, of a financial services commercial first make it likeable to its target audience, second motivate the viewer to seek more information about the service being advertised and, third, have an effect on the image the viewer has of the advertiser. Some interesting findings from the research point to the similarities between the emerging factors for viewers' affective reactions to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and financial services commercials and the extent to which likeability mediates the influence which advertisement execution features have on subsequent behavioural intentions.     

大型百货商场顾客体验影响因素的实证研究

笔者对大连市的九家大型百货商场进行了一次实证研究,探究顾客体验的影响因素对顾客体验的影响机理。实证研究发现:顾客维度因素、情境维度因素、交通维度因素是影响顾客体验的三个主要维度因素(其中,情境维度因素是最重要的维度因素);服务功能质量是顾客体验最重要的影响因素,它不仅直接影响顾客的感知体验和情感体验,一些影响因素也通过它间接地影响顾客的感知体验和情感体验。     

Advertising in the Professions

The issue of self-promotional advertising has been under active consideration by most of the professional bodies in the UK, and, generally, the reaction has been hostile. From a position where advertising was anathema to the professional, however, the rising tide of consumerism on the one side and government dedication to free competition on the other have weakened the professions' protective barriers. This review of the literature on regulation and de-regulation of advertising draws on studies which have relevance to, or have been concerned with, the professions of medicine, law and accountancy. The study begins with a brief section on how advertising might work and its relevance to the professions. There is then a discussion of the studies, mainly from the USA, which have looked at individual advertising in the professions and attempts at blanket suppression of advertising. A wide range of studies are cited which have been used either by those who oppose professional advertising or by those who support it. The former group is generally made up of studies from professional groups themselves. By contrast, there is a growing body of evidence showing that, with the de-regulation of advertising in the professions in the USA far from this increasing the prices of goods, as was assumed previously, the absence of advertising actually increases the price of goods above the levels that prevail where advertising is allowed. The final section considers a number of recent attitudinal studies of both professionals and consumers.     

产业垂直专业化的驱动因素研究——基于中国高技术产业的实证检验

在构建一个理论分析框架的基础上,提出垂直专业化驱动因素的四个重要假说,并选取中国高技术产业1995—2008年三位数行业的面板数据,运用动态面板的GMM方法进行实证检验,结果发现:资本密集度、外向度和市场规模是影响中国高技术产业垂直专业化的重要因素;中国市场化改革所导致的交易费用下降驱动着高技术产业垂直专业化程度的不断深化;各驱动因素对垂直专业化的贡献可能存在着行业差异性。     

Trust and affective commitment as energizing forces for export performance

This study explores the effects of trust, commitment, relation-oriented competencies and entrepreneurial competencies on export performance. Using survey data from 134 exporting organizations located in the south of the Netherlands, a conceptual model is tested in which trust and affective commitment act as energizing forces for the development of competencies that have a positive effect on export performance. The main difference between this approach and other models is that affective commitment is hypothesized to have an indirect effect on performance, rather than a direct effect. This prediction is borne out by the data, which indicates that the role of trust and affective commitment in relational models of export performance may need to be reconsidered.     

Marketing strategies,financial structure,and innovation in U.K. retailing

This study examines the pattern by which retailers have adapted to recent changes in consumer markets. Information was obtained on the marketing strategies and financial structures of 88 of the leading U.K. retailers. The first section identifies the key environmental developments of the later 1970's and appraises their impact on retailers. In the second section, the methods by which retailers have sought to adapt to these changes are outlined. Finally, a model is developed which distinguishes successful from unsuccessful retailing strategies and provides a methodology for evaluating alternative approaches to market positioning.     

When managers pressure employees to behave badly: Toward a comprehensive response

Over the last 10 to 15 years, a disturbing number of well-publicized cases of unethical worker behavior have made national headlines. These events have been associated with tragic consequences: countless people have lost their jobs and the associated health insurance and retirement benefits on which they depended; investors have lost their nest eggs; and the trust in the corporate world that is so critical to a thriving economy has been sullied. Pundits have offered simple explanations for these events (e.g., greed) and equally simple solutions (e.g., punish the wrong-doers). In this article, I draw attention to a trigger of unethical work behavior that has received less attention than is warranted: pressure to behave unethically (PBU) perpetrated by organizational authorities. Many instances in which employees violate ethical standards reflect acquiescence to managerial pressure. Herein, I introduce a comprehensive approach to reduce the frequency with which managers execute acts of PBU. My approach draws on a recent influence framework to target managers’ motivation to perform PBU, and ability to achieve personal and organizational goals without resorting to PBU.     

A Discursive Approach to Understanding Women Leaders in Working Life

In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework for understanding women leaders in working life. Our starting point is in statistics and earlier women-in-management literature, which show that women leaders represent a minority of the managerial population. We assume such underlying mechanisms causing discriminatory practices towards women leaders to exist which have become naturalized and invisible. Our concern is that everyone irrespective of gender should have a fair chance in career progression. This is both a moral and also an economic challenge. The framework we develop in this paper is an alternative approach to studying women leaders compared to traditional women-in-management literature. It aims at revealing the "natural and taken-for-granted" cultural mechanisms behind discriminatory practices. Our framework is based on a critical discursive approach, which draws on ideas of how women's leadership becomes symbolically represented and constructed in discursive practices. These symbolic constructions, which are mediated through language, often have an ideological loading which positions women leaders and builds their identities in ways that can help to legitimize unequal relations between the genders. However, our framework emphasizes the possibility of multiple discourses and a dynamic view of culture. The cultural constructions of women leaders are, thus, open to change.     

Antecedents of perceived national and corporate culture differences: evidence from Chinese international strategic alliances

We investigate the determinants of managers' perceptions of national and corporate culture differences, using data obtained from Chinese partner managers of international strategic alliances. An expected positive relationship is found between the extent to which the managers have experienced culture-related management impediments and their perceptions of national and corporate culture differences. An expected negative relationship is found between the extent to which the Chinese partner firms have adopted cultural management policies and the perception of national culture difference, but is not found for the perception of corporate culture difference. The authors find no support for the expected negative relationship between cultural sensitivity and the perception of national and corporate culture differences. Adoption of cultural management policies moderates the relationship between the extent to which managers have experienced culture-related management impediments and their perception of corporate culture difference, but not their perception of national culture difference. It was also found that the degree of cultural sensitivity moderates the relationship between the extent to which the Chinese managers have experienced culture-related management impediments and their perceptions of national and corporate culture differences.     

Wages and skills utilization: effect of broad skills and generic skills on wages in Singapore

Many people go for training to upgrade their skills which is hoped to pave the way for better pay. But what are the kinds of skills that really affect wages? Employers have emphasized the value of generic skills such as interpersonal and communication skills, teamwork and problem solving. Does possession of these skills translate to at least the same or better wages as compared with having broad skills represented by educational qualifications and job‐related training? This paper, arising from the research project on the Skills Utilisation in Singapore, aims to answer which skills can have more influence on wages and which job‐related training in terms of training duration can have more impact on wages. Using ordinal logistic regression, our findings show that educational qualification and initial training time can influence wages as well as utilization of leadership, planning and problem‐solving skills.     

Assessing the Performance of ‘Inflation Targeting Lite’ Countries

This paper deals with what is referred to in the literature as the ‘Inflation Targeting Lite’ (ITL) countries. These are a category of emerging countries, whose main characteristics are that they are least developed and small economies that pursue IT. They use inflation targeting to define their monetary policy framework, but for a number of reasons they are not in a position to put top priority to IT in relation to other objectives. This paper deals with a set of ITL countries for which consistent data could be gathered, and for which a date for setting inflation targeting could be discerned. The object of the paper is to study the impact of IT on actual inflation and inflation expectations. We utilise intervention analysis to time series on inflation for a number of ITL countries, which have actually implemented IT. In doing so our main concern is to assess whether, due to the IT intervention, there has been a significant change in the trend corresponding to these series and the extent to which inflation rates have actually been ‘locked‐in’ at low levels after the implementation of IT. Two major results emerge. The first is that ITL countries have been successful in ‘locking‐in’ inflation rates. The second is that non‐IT countries have also been successful in terms of the ‘lock‐in’ effect. Our overall conclusion, then, is that other factors in addition to IT underpin the apparent success of the control of inflation.     

New financial elites,or financial dualism in historical perspective? An extended reply to Folkman,Froud, Johal and Williams

This paper challenges the recent suggestion that a new financial elite has evolved which is able to capture substantial profit shares for itself. Specifically, it questions the assumption that new groups of financial intermediaries have increased in significance primarily because there is evidence that various types of financial speculators have played a similarly extensive role at several junctures of economic development. The paper then develops the alternative hypothesis that, rather than being a recent development, the rise of these financial intermediaries is a cyclical phenomenon which is linked to specific regimes of capital accumulation. The hypothesis is underpinned by historical data from the US National Income and Product Accounts for the period from 1930 to 2000, which suggest that the activities of `mainstream' financial intermediaries have been accompanied by the frequently countercyclical activities of a `speculative' sector of security and commodity brokers. Based on the combination of this qualitative and quantitative evidence, the paper concludes that the rise of a speculative financial sector is a potentially recurrent phenomenon which is linked to periods of economic restructuring and turmoil.     

Corporate Community Involvement: a case for regulatory reform

The central thesis of this paper is that Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) is not a neutral activity with positive and mutual benefits for all involved. Rather, it is a much more complex activity which may also have negative impacts. Using Donaldson and Preston's (1995) explanatory model of the stakeholding concept as a framework, this paper explores: (1) the practice of CCI in the UK (with some reference to US experience from which UK firms have drawn extensively), (2) the grounds on which it is justified, and (3) the material consequences of such activity for corporate governance. It concludes by arguing that there is a case for a review of the law on CCI to assess the need for fuller public disclosure so as to allow shareholders and other interested groups the opportunity to assess the impact and effectiveness of CCI more thoroughly.     

Impact of Mobile Computing Terminals in Police Work

A major metropolitan police department in the Northeast recently began using mobile-computing terminals (MCTs). This research explores how MCTs have improved critical factors that affect the work environment of the officers in the department, particularly related to deterrence and job satisfaction. Amodel for investigation is developed and tested using a survey instrument administered to officers using the MCTs. We find that MCTs have enabled better communication among officers and have increased the availability of information, both of which are found to have a significant positive impact on the officers' job satisfaction. Savings in time from plate checks are found to have a significant impact on deterrence. However, though the availability of information from MCTs has a positive impact on deterrence, the relationship is not very significant.     

武汉市渔业生产力与其人文影响因素的灰色关联性分析

以位于长江中下游平原的＂百湖之市＂——武汉市为研究对象,利用灰色关联模型分析了武汉市渔业生产力与其人文影响因素的互动关系。研究结果表明：各项人文影响因素与渔业中鱼类、虾蟹类、贝类和其他类生产量的关联度均在0.6以上,人文因素是影响渔业产量的基本因素;总体上化肥用量、养殖面积和城市化对渔业生产的影响较大,而人口密度、人口素质和人均GDP的影响较小;化肥用量、城市化、养殖面积和人口密度是影响武汉渔业生产中鱼类、贝类和其他类产量的主要人文驱动因子;人均GDP和人口素质是影响武汉虾蟹产量的主要人文驱动因子。     

反补贴:中国和欧盟贸易之间的博弈

反补贴是继反倾销之后兴起的又一种贸易保护政策的一种手段,在2010年,欧盟和中国对彼此都发起了反补贴的调查,这让我们不得不猜想,反补贴是否会成为欧盟与中国贸易之间的一场博弈.反补贴的影响有利有弊,重要的是我们要趋利避害,针对反补贴提出有利欧盟与中国双方贸易的有效措施.     

Sustainable Supply Chains in the Age of AI and Digitization: Research Challenges and Opportunities

Sustainability has become a global corporate mandate with implementation impacted by two key trends. The first is recognition that global supply chains have a profound impact on sustainability which requires “greening” the entire supply chain. The second is technology—digitization, artificial intelligence (AI), and “big data”—which have become ubiquitous. These technologies are impacting every aspect of how companies organize and manage their supply chains and have a powerful impact on sustainability. In this essay, we synthesize current dominant themes in research on sustainable supply chains in the age of digitization. We also highlight potential new research opportunities and challenges and showcase the papers in our STF.     

Effects of local fiscal policy on firm profitability

For decades, scholars and policy-makers have been interested in how fiscal policy influences entrepreneurship. Until now, research has focused on fiscal policy at the federal or regional level and used macro-economic outcome measures. Considerably less attention was given to how municipal governments can influence economic outcomes at the micro level. The present study examines the effect of municipal taxes, spending and tax compliance costs on firm profitability within the Flemish hospitality industry. This is an interesting research setting, since Flemish municipalities have far-ranging fiscal autonomy which has resulted in a proliferation of local taxes, many of which are specific to the hospitality industry. The findings reveal that local taxes have a negative impact on firm profitability, while aggregate public spending has a positive influence. The tax effect is economically relevant and exceeds the public spending impact. Finally, we find no impact of compliance costs from local taxes.