Expected Returns and Idiosyncratic Risk: Industry-Level Evidence from Russia

We explore a relation between expected returns and idiosyncratic risk in Russia. Investors in the Russian stock market cannot fully diversify their portfolios due to transaction costs, information gathering and processing costs, and shortcomings in investor protection. This implies that investors demand a premium for idiosyncratic risk. We estimate the price of idiosyncratic risk using MIDAS regressions and a cross section of Russian industry portfolios. We find that idiosyncratic risk is economically significant and commands a negative (positive) premium, on average, of 10.0% (8.0) per year before (after) the global financial crisis in 2008. The results remain unaffected after controlling for global pricing factors and return reversal.     

Consuming nostalgia? The appreciation of authenticity in local food production

Many consumers consider local food a more sustainable choice than conventional food because of the shorter transport distances involved as well as the support provided to local economies. In addition, consumers value the perceived safety benefits, ethical associations and improved taste of local food. In this study, we focus on the cultural meanings of locally produced food among Finnish consumers. Based on interviews with 22 consumers, our analysis suggests that, besides consumers valuing sustainable, healthy and tasty locally produced food, they perceived self‐produced, self‐processed items, including those they have gathered, hunted and fished themselves, as the most authentic local food. Furthermore, local food is associated with craftsmanship and artisan production. We also found that interviewees tended to historicize their relationship to food through local production. Thus, consumers seem to be in search of ‘real’ or ‘true’ food that is embedded in their personal and shared social histories.     

The impact of economic downturns on marketing

The Great Recession of 2008–2010 affected the global and U.S. economies and its companies more universally than any economic downturn since the Great Depression. This study explores how the Great Recession influenced the marketing decisions of firms and the resulting long-term effects on marketing within business-to-business companies. Empirical evidence from previous recessions suggests that companies should focus on their customers and increase their marketing efforts during a recession. However, many companies typically slash their marketing budgets during economic downturns. Authors found that during the Great Recession, companies reacted differently than in previous recessions with their marketing responses. Authors conclude their analysis by proposing that the Great Recession will have three long-term effects on marketing in business-to-business companies.     

How value and trust influence loyalty in wireless telecommunications industry

Despite making significant investments in enhancing the customer service experience, long-term customer loyalty remains an elusive dream for many service providers. Particularly in the telecommunications industry, switching providers even from within continuous contract relationships is easy and companies struggle to retain their customers. Trust and value are considered cornerstones of long-term relationships, so it is perhaps surprising that previous research on how relationship age and usage level actually affect value, trust and loyalty is inconclusive. The current research is set in the telecommunications services field and draws on a large-scale survey undertaken in Finland. The findings support the contention that perceived value relates positively to loyalty, and that trust mediates that relationship. Surprisingly, in the telecommunications industry, increasing relationship age and usage level strengthen neither value and loyalty nor the links between trust and loyalty. The results may be explained by the unique characteristics of the highly competitive mobile telecommunications sector, and confirm the view that loyalty does not pay without strategies that value long-term customers and thereby build trust with new customers.     

Fluidity of places in everyday food consumption: Introducing snackscapes

Snack consumption encompasses the repetitive habits of consumers in various everyday life spaces. Despite the pervasiveness of snack consumption worldwide, the phenomenon of snacking has not been given extensive attention, unlike other areas of food consumption research. Yet, snacking shows certain distinctive features, such as fluidity of places. This study leans on foodscape literature and introduces the concept of snackscape, which enables us to showcase the multiplicity of places in snacking culture. While prior foodscape studies are located in certain tangible places, such as urban surroundings, festival sites or particular geographical areas, snackscapes demonstrate how snacks may be consumed, for instance, on the move from one place to another, or in a variety of places that are not part of one's ordinary routines, such as on a picnic or a holiday trip to a foreign country. The findings show how places of habitual snack consumption vary from time to time—or are even on the move. This is a powerful demonstration of how a routine‐like consumption practice takes place in everyday life. This study also highlights important consumer policy issues, especially in regard to young consumers and their snacking habits. Thereby, the study brings forward the agentic capacity of snackscapes having implications on engaging in healthier snack consumption.     

Managing knowledge assets under conditions of radical change: The case of the pharmaceutical industry

There is no industry where firms link their search for competitive advantage more closely to intellectual property (IP) than those in the pharmaceutical industry. Yet a major paradigm change is occurring in this industry. New technological developments are increasingly being driven by advances in biology, nanotechnology, and the computational sciences. In this paper, we investigate how this radical change in the investigation, discovery, and manufacture of pharmaceuticals has affected intellectual property management practices.Large pharmaceutical firms, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and public institutional knowledge generators have recently started to respond by developing new IP management techniques born from the use of consortia to manage the complexities of knowledge generation. Hence, we leverage innovation and knowledge management literature, and use the innovation journey and case study methodologies to investigate both traditional pharmaceutical IP practices as well as emerging strategies. We distil from this effort an IP model—the transition point model—designed to assist firms to effectively manage both knowledge assets and the associated intellectual property in the current paradigm.     

探讨XHTML设计标准下CSS+DIV布局技术

本文首先介绍了XHTML设计标准与HTML、XML语言之间的关系,分析了CSS技术和DIV技术的特点,将传统的HTML标准下的TABLE布局的特点与CSS+DIV布局方式进行了对比,通过实例给出了一个使用CSS+DIV布局的方法,同时解决了实例中如何设置层高度自适应的问题。     

Spousal Effect and Timing of Retirement

The retirement decisions of individuals are strongly influenced by spousal retirement, financial incentives and institutional constraints such as access to early retirement benefits. In the European Union (EU), farm retirement is encouraged by early retirement provisions for farmers. As exit from farming determines the characteristics of structural change in agriculture, it is important to find out how spousal retirement and economic incentives affect the timing and type of retirement decisions among elderly farmers. This paper analyses the timing of early retirement decisions of farming couples using duration analysis and different exit channels. The empirical analysis is based on Finnish farm‐level panel data for the period 1993–1998. The results suggest that an expected pension particularly advances farm transfers. Farming couples are found to co‐ordinate their early retirement decisions. However, farmers are not found to co‐ordinate their early retirement according to spousal retirement under other pension schemes.     

农村社会养老保险制度存在的问题及解决思路

随着我国人口老龄化进程加速.建立农村社会养老保险制度.是建设社会主义新农村发展的需要,是让农民享有国民待遇的具体体现,也是解决"三农"问题、实现城乡及经济和社会协调发展的一个重要途径.本文探究了农村社会养老保险制度中存在的主要问题,并有针对性地提出了解决的思路.     

基于旅游资源整合目标的现代旅游物流管理

以现代物流发展促进旅游资源整合为研究内容,分析论述了现代物流整合旅游资源的必要性与目标,最后提出了现代旅游物流管理整合旅游产业资源的具体策略。