Corporate foresight: Its three roles in enhancing the innovation capacity of a firm

In the last three decades much knowledge has been produced on how best to conduct foresight exercises, but little is known on how foresight should be integrated with the innovation effort of a company. Drawing on empirical evidence from 19 case studies and 107 interviews, we identify three roles that corporate foresight should play to maximize the innovation capacity of a firm: (1) the strategist role, which explores new business fields; (2) the initiator role, which increases the number of innovation concepts and ideas; and (3) the opponent role, which challenges innovation projects to increase the quality of their output.     

货币冲击与中国经济波动——基于DSGE模型的数量分析

基于1993~2008年的季度数据,本文在一个包含Calvo价格粘性的新凯恩斯主义模型中,讨论了中国货币冲击与经济增长的关系。在假定货币政策通过调整货币供给增长实施的前提下,本文根据模型模拟和实际数据的对比以及脉冲响应函数分析得出以下结论:(1)货币并非我国经济波动根源,实际产出对货币供给具有一定反馈作用。(2)通货膨胀的顺周期性和领先增长表明中国经济周期存在总需求拉动的特性。物价波动在中短期主要由货币供应量波动引起。(3)货币政策对实体经济有效但效果有限,货币供给变动对投资的作用效力更大,对消费需求刺激有限。     

二氧化碳排放强度下降目标的动态分解研究——基于“十二五”规划目标的分析

针对十二五规划中二氧化碳排放强度下降17%的目标,设定两种分解路径——等比路径和等差路径,采用数理经济学理论,将之分别对应到二氧化碳排放强度和人均国内生产总值两项指标的幂函数路径和对数函数路径。根据1990~2007年全球主要地区和中国的历史经验数据,对上述两个函数的参数进行模拟,并对二氧化碳排放量路径进行预测。研究发现,幂函数最优路径比国际经验对应的最优路径更为激进;幂函数最优路径比对数函数最优路径更为灵活,但后者减排潜力更大。若走对数函数路径,在远期保持国内生产总值年均7%增长速度的前提下,到2038年我国将达到二氧化碳排放量的峰值,之后便逐步下降。     

Technology competencies in competitive environment

Although prior studies suggest that technology competencies play a significant role in firm innovation and competitiveness, what and how technology competencies interacted with competitive environment affect firm innovation has not been fully understood. This paper fills this research gap through a questionnaire survey of 165 firms together with a number of interviews drawn from the Taiwan's information and communication technology (ICT) industry. The results suggest that capabilities of exploring or exploiting technological opportunities, core technology capability, and autonomy of R&D decisions are particularly important to firm innovation in a highly competitive environment, whereas over commitments to existing technologies may constrain a firm's innovation especially in such environment. Moreover, different types of competitive environment require different types of technological competencies to enhance firm innovativeness. This paper contributes to the existing theory by examining the joint effect of technology competency and competitive environment on a firm's innovation.     

I Have Paid Less Than You! The Emotional and Behavioral Consequences of Advantaged Price Inequality

This study examines the emotion blends and the subsequent customer reactions that occur in advantaged price inequality situations, that is, when consumers learn that retailers charged them a lower price than what the same retailers charged another customer. Drawing on the appraisal theories of emotion and on social comparison theory, an experiment (n = 272) and a field study (n = 261) are conducted. The results reveal that in advantaged price inequality situations, customers experience a host of positive and negative emotions depending on two factors: the quality of relationship that the customer has with a disadvantaged other customer (neutral, positive, or negative) and the attribution of agency for the price advantage (situational attribution to competition, external attribution to store policies, or internal attribution to customer abilities). Positive emotions include happiness, gratitude, pride, and malicious joy; while negative emotions include pity, outrage, and guilt. These emotions are shown to mediate the occurrence of customer reactions (i.e., customer satisfaction, loyalty, WOM referral, and WOM activity). The article concludes with theoretical implications and recommendations for retail practitioners on how to use dynamic pricing.     

基于动态AHP的企业信息化水平评价——江苏沙钢集团信息化水平案例研究

文章运用动态AHP方法研究企业信息化的发展过程,并结合江苏省沙钢集团企业信息化发展的案例,根据信息化五阶段模型,判断该企业信息化所处的发展阶段,继而对沙钢集团信息化发展提出战略性建议。希望不仅对沙钢集团有指导和推动作用,对其他企业的信息化发展也有启示和帮助。     

Dynamic routing of time-sensitive air cargo using real-time information

The route planning of time-sensitive air-cargo is becoming more important with the growing air-network congestion and delays. We consider a freight forwarder’s routing of a time-sensitive air-cargo in the presence of real-time and historical information regarding flight availability, departure delays and travel times. A departure delay estimation model is developed to account for real-time information inaccuracy. A novel Markov decision model is formulated and solved with online backward induction. Through synthetic experiments and case studies, we demonstrate that dynamic routing with real-time information can improve delivery reliability and reduce expected cost.     

Immigration and international inbound tourism: Empirical evidence from Australia

Immigration can potentially influence tourism flows. However, in spite of the vast number of studies on tourism demand modelling, the immigration-tourism linkage has not received much attention in the empirical literature. This paper seeks to address this gap. A dynamic demand model is developed and estimated using data from 1980 to 2008 for the 15 main markets of Australia. The explanatory variables included are income, own price, price of a substitute destination, airfare and immigration. The estimation results empirically establish the connection between immigration and inbound tourism. The short run and long-run immigration elasticities generated are 0.028 and 0.09 respectively. Additionally this paper demonstrates that omission of prices of substitutes affects the value of the own price elasticity of demand. The results have implications for future research and for stakeholders who can improve the efficiency of their planning exercises by taking into account additional information on immigration trends.     

Self-reinforcing effects between housing prices and credit

The financial crisis has brought the interaction between housing prices and household borrowing into the limelight of the economic policy debate. This paper examines the nexus of housing prices and credit in Norway within a structural vector equilibrium correction model (SVECM) over the period 1986q2–2008q4. The results establish a two way interaction in the long-run, so that higher housing prices lead to a credit expansion, which in turn puts an upward pressure on prices. Interest rates influence housing prices indirectly through the credit channel. Furthermore, households’ expectations about the future development of their own income as well as in the Norwegian economy have a significant impact on housing price growth. Dynamic simulations show how shocks are propagated and amplified. When we augment the model to include the supply side of the housing market, these effects are dampened.     

Expropriation risk and technology

This paper develops a unified framework to analyze the dynamics of firm investment in countries with poor legal enforcement. The firm's technology edge over the government generates endogenous property rights. Industry variation in the technology gap predicts a sectoral pecking-order of expropriations. Long-run investment distortions may be Pareto superior relative to persistent investment at the static optimum. The dynamics of investment and transfers depend on whether incentives (backloading) or efficiency (frontloading) concerns dominate at the initial division of surplus. An increase in government efficiency may reduce its welfare. The model provides a technology-driven rationale for the widespread use of conglomerate structures in emerging market countries.