We’re all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem

Consumers are adopting increasingly active roles in co-creating marketing content with companies and their respective brands. In turn, companies and organizations are looking to online social marketing programs and campaigns in an effort to reach consumers where they ‘live’ online. However, the challenge facing many companies is that although they recognize the need to be active in social media, they do not truly understand how to do it effectively, what performance indicators they should be measuring, and how they should measure them. Further, as companies develop social media strategies, platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are too often treated as stand-alone elements rather than part of an integrated system. This article offers a systematic way of understanding and conceptualizing online social media, as an ecosystem of related elements involving both digital and traditional media. We highlight a best-practice case study of an organization's successful efforts to leverage social media in reaching an important audience of young consumers. Then, we conclude with several insights and lessons related to the strategic integration of social media into a firm's marketing communications strategy.     

PERIODICAL USEFULNESS: THE U.S. LOGISTICS EDUCATOR PERSPECTIVE

Traditional methodologies for evaluating periodicals focus on the quality of research‐oriented, peer refereed journals. This research broadens the evaluation process to include practitioner publications and an assessment of periodical usefulness across three educational activities. More than 100 U.S. logistics educators identified and evaluated periodicals germane to the logistics discipline. The Journal of Business Logistics, Harvard Business Review, and Supply Chain Management Review achieved the highest usefulness scores based on an analysis of the survey responses.     

Swedish preschool children's experience of food

Focus group interviews were carried out at 12 preschools. The aim was to investigate children's perceptions and experiences of food, and the possibility of using focus group techniques with children aged 3–5 years. A total of 103 children participated. The children associated food and eating with rules and norms. Most children described these rules and norms as well as what they were and were not allowed to do. They knew very well the difference between acceptable and non‐acceptable mealtime behaviour, and were especially aware of what they were not allowed to do. When children were asked to rate foods they ‘disliked’, they spoke instead about their favourite foods. They did not categorize food as good or bad, as adults often do, but as ‘food’ and ‘non‐food’, for example, sweets were not food. The method used in this study, the focus group interview, was judged to be a useful tool for exploring how children think about and jointly reflect upon food.     

Memory,slavery, and plantation museums: the River Road Project

ABSTRACT

Heritage tourism plays an increasingly important yet controversial role in interpreting the emotionally and politically charged memories and legacies of African enslavement. Antebellum plantation museums in the southeastern USA remain relatively underanalyzed by researchers, despite their tradition of ignoring and minimizing the contributions and struggles of the slave community. Yet, this neglect is being challenged somewhat by a growing number of plantations and counter-narrative sites that incorporate slavery into docent-led tours, promotional materials, exhibits, and preserved structures. Responding to a need for scholarship that can ferret out the nuances, complexities, and conflicts of producing and consuming heritage at these tourist sites, this special issue presents the results of a study of four plantations (Laura, Oak Alley, Houmas House, San Francisco) along Louisiana's River Road. The issue's editors and contributing authors address a central question: what factors, social actors, and interactions (social and spatial in nature) shape, facilitate, or even constrain the remembering of slavery at southern plantation museums, including those sites making seemingly significant progress in recovering the enslaved? River Road is a microcosm of the larger politics of reshaping southern and American heritage tourism and demonstrates the value of industry-engaged, multi-method examinations of different plantation landscapes within the same region.     

家庭最优化论

一、引言这篇文章的主旨是为了阐述发展家庭最优化理论在如何帮助消费者更加有效地管理家庭资源这个问题上的重要性。最优化是指获得最佳结果。对企业来说,最优化是达到利润的最大化;对家庭来讲,最优化则是达到最大满意度。为了使分析研究切实可行,我们通常会选择一个具体的目标。譬如,对于一个企业来说,存货成本的最小化就是一个合理的最优化目标。从数学角度来看,最优化可以被看成是“到达山顶”。Intriligator(1971)已经描述了几个最优化问题的决定性因素:时间(静态和动态)、约束方式(无约束、等式约束、不等式约束)和决策者人数(一个或…     

Customer segmentation in retailing based on retail brand patronage patterns

In this study, we propose an alternative method for customer segmentation based on households’ retail brand portfolios. We suggest blockmodeling, a method that is rooted in social network analysis, to identify homogeneous groups of customers being characterized by similar patronage patterns. In a second step, we combine this method with psychometric analyses to examine group differences based on sociodemographic and purchasing behavior variables. To illustrate our approach, we use a sample of 500 households out of a panel data set of 36,502 German households in the fast-moving consumer goods sector. The findings of our analyses yield support for our assumption that our methodology, taking into account the relationship between households and the different retail brands they patronize, provides a broader understanding of the antecedents of households’ multiple store patronage strategies, leading eventually to a new form of customer segmentation.     

Lagging Effects of the Use of Activity‐Based Costing on the Financial Performance of Small Firms*

This paper contributes to the earlier small business literature by investigating the lagging effects of the use of activity‐based costing (ABC) on small firms' performance. Moreover, we examine if the small firms' past financial performance drives the adoption of ABC and explore whether the extent of ABC use leads, in turn, to improvements in firms' financial performance in the immediate future. In sum, the survey results indicate that small firms with adequate financial resources as well as firms experiencing declining growth tend to use ABC and such use facilitates their subsequent growth and profitability. Small firms seem to benefit from using ABC.     

Anticipating Tax Changes: Evidence from the Finnish Corporate Income Tax Reform of 2005*

Using register‐based panel data covering all Finnish firms from 1999 to 2004, we examine how corporations anticipated the 2005 dividend tax increase via changes in their dividend and investment policies. The Finnish capital and corporate income tax reform of 2005 creates a useful opportunity to measure this behaviour, since it involves exogenous variation in the tax treatment of different types of firms. The estimation results reveal that those firms that anticipated a dividend tax hike increased their dividend payouts in a statistically significant way. This increase was not accompanied by a reduction in investment activities, but rather was associated with increased indebtedness in non‐listed firms. The results also suggest that the timing of dividend distributions probably offsets much of the potential for increased dividend tax revenue following the reform.     

Status quo des multi-channel-managements im deutschen einzelhandel

Im Kontext von E-Commerce wurde Multi-Channel-Retailing zu einem der Schlagw?rter im Handel. Es wurde vergleichsweise polarisiert und gleicherma?en emotional diskutiert, ob Multi-Channel-Retailing der „K?nigsweg” oder der „Todessto?” für den Einzelhandel sei. Aus theoretischer Perspektive wird Multi-Channel-Retailing-Systemen das Potenzial zugesprochen, Steigerungen der Kundenbindung, der Kundenpotenzialaussch?pfung und der Neukundengewinnung zu erm?glichen. In dem folgenden Beitrag wird — exemplarisch am Beispiel des Lebensmittel- und Textileinzelhandels — analysiert, inwieweit und in welcher Form sich Multi-Channel-Systeme in Deutschland etabliert haben. Zudem werden Implikationen für die Ausgestaltung und die Optimierung des Multi-Channel-Managements im deutschen Einzelhandel herausgearbeitet.     

New challenges in professional cleaning: hygiene quality and monitoring of surfaces in private domestic homes

In many countries, changes in the pattern of working lives and ageing of the population increases the need for professional cleaning in private domestic homes. The objective of this study was to obtain basic knowledge concerning professional home cleaning. The study consisted of two parts. First, cleanability of surfaces contaminated with microbiological and organic soils was examined in the laboratory using cleaning cloths, detergents and rapid detection methods with potential for use in conjunction with professional cleaning in private homes. Second, hygienic conditions in three households were screened using the same rapid detection methods as in the laboratory experiments. According to the laboratory study, the cleaning efficiency of the non‐woven cloth was clearly poorer than that of the cleaning cloths containing microfibers. There were differences between the efficacy of the cleaning agents in removal of protein and microbiological soils. Despite the differences between surface topography observed with scanning electron microscopy, differences between the cleanability of the three examined surface materials (steel and two plastic surfaces) were small. In hygiene monitoring, the highest levels of total aerobic bacterial counts were detected in the plughole of the sink, on the eating table in kitchens and along the edge of the toilet washbowl and the cover of toilet seats. Low amounts of Enterobacteriaceae indicating faecal contamination were detected in the toilet and bathroom after cleaning. Moulds were not detected in any of the three households, and the amounts of yeasts were low. Detection methods, microbiological dipslides and the protein test, were well suited to the laboratory study. Furthermore, they complemented each other in the hygiene monitoring. The information obtained will be used for development of better practices in professional home cleaning. Good quality management in professional home cleaning and the cleanliness of surfaces in homes are important factors affecting comfort and safety.