业态战略、企业规模、资本结构与零售企业成长——以零售上市公司为样本

作为零售企业成长中同时存在的两种战略,多业态战略和单一业态战略本身各有其利弊。在企业规模与资本结构的共同作用下,单一业态战略相较于多业态战略对零售企业成长的影响较大;企业规模与零售企业成长显著正相关;资产负债率对零售企业成长有显著的正向作用,而长期负债率对零售企业成长则有显著的负向影响;企业年龄与零售企业成长之间存在负向关系,但关系强度较弱,且在统计上不显著;区域类型对零售企业成长没有显著影响。为了促进零售企业成长,零售企业要发展自己的主力业态,使之成为企业成长的支柱,然后在时机成熟时向多业态的盈利模式转化;要进行适度的规模扩张;要确定资本结构的合理水平,并从根本上降低长期负债率。     

健康体适能视角下高职院校体育普修课程实施探讨

高职院校体育普修课程存在设置缺乏灵活性、开设频率和时间有限、课程设置与专业脱节等弊端.探讨健康体适能在高职院校体育课程中的体现和运用,有利于在高职院校体育课程中提高学生体育锻炼积极性、树立终身体育思想、发展职业特色等.认为应该结合健康体适能的目标,增加高职院校体育普修课程内容形式,进一步发挥健康体适能的功能,转变高职院校体育教学方式,加强体育教师专业培训,提高高职院校体育教学效率.     

Unlocking the padlock: Retail and public policy in Belgium (1930–1961)

Abstract

During the inter-war and post-war decades, until the dawn of the 1960s, the Belgian retail sector remained very traditional and overcrowded. In that context literature usually points to the Belgian law of 1936/1937 restricting the expansion of department stores. This article outlines the history of this so-called Padlock Law (Loi de Cadenas/Grendelwet), and evaluates its effectiveness and impact. It tries to answer the question as to why the public debate on retailing in Belgium was caught in a deadlock and, specifically, why prohibitive measures against big distribution remained intact for such a long period. It demonstrates how the political dossier of the Padlock was interlinked with a much broader societal debate, that of the survival of the independent classes moyennes/middenstand. The Padlock became a highly symbolic issue, pitting small, family enterprises against big, capitalistic businesses, with all this linked to powerful social perceptions and powered by the dichotomy of modernity versus tradition. In the highly segmented and pillarised Belgian society, reaching a consensus on the modernisation of retailing was only possible after clearly incorporating small independent enterprises into the post-war neo-corporatist welfare state and into its structures of collective bargaining.     

Geographical dispersion of consumer search behaviour

This article investigates whether consumer search behaviour differs across zip codes within the U.S. As an application, daily gasoline price data covering virtually all gas stations within the U.S. are employed to estimate the distribution of search costs in each zip code. The results show that there are significant differences across zip codes regarding the expected number of searches achieved before consumers purchase gasoline. In order to have a systematic explanation, such differences are further connected to geographic, demographic, and economic conditions of the zip codes in a secondary analysis. The corresponding results imply several strategies for gas stations in order to maximize profits/markups; suggestions follow for policy makers and regulators to reduce redistributive effects of information barriers across locations.     

Permissible delay period and pricing decisions in a two-echelon supply chain

Suppliers often offer trade credits to their capital-constrained retailers to stimulate more sales. The permissible delay period, as a variable factor, influences almost all decisions in a trade credit contract. In this article, we consider a two-echelon supply chain involving a supplier and a capital-constrained retailer in which the demand is the retail price- and time-dependent. We propose a decision model to determine the optimal delay period and pricing decisions under a noncooperative Stackelberg game with the supplier as the leader. We obtain the analytical-form optimal solutions. Our analysis reveals the influence of the delay period on the wholesale and retail prices. Numerical examples further clarify our theoretical results.     

网上购物对城市零售业空间的影响:以书店为例

通过对高校学生的购书行为调查,比较了网上购物对不同规模传统书店产生的影响效应,从一个侧面反映了在新技术环境中城市零售业空间演化的趋势。结果表明:由于网上购物影响消费群体的特定性、网购商品种类的局限性以及传统购物环境的不可替代性等原因,网上购物方式更多的是作为传统购物方式之余的一种补充形式。当然,网上购物也会替代部分传统的购物行为。对于不同规模的传统书店而言,网上购物对中等规模书店的影响最大。     

零售企业海外市场扩张模式研究

扩张模式是零售企业经营战略的重要组成部分,影响其未来的生存与绩效。将扩张模式分为扩张顺序、扩张规模以及扩张速度三部分,通过对扩张模式影响因素的分析,建立了零售企业海外市场扩张模式选择的数学模型。利用模型定量研究了4家跨国零售企业在华经营的扩张模式,得到了和实际情况较为一致的结果,并与以往定性研究成果相符合,实证检验了模型的实用性。该模型的建立,可为定量研究零售企业海外市场扩张模式提供新的思路和方法。     

Population and economic growth with human and physical capital investments

We present a two-sector endogenous growth model with human and physical capital accumulation to analyze the long-run relationship between population growth and real per capita income growth. Formal education and investment in physical capital are assumed to be two separate components of human capital production. Along the balanced growth path equilibrium, population change may have a positive, negative, or else neutral effect on economic growth depending on whether physical and human capital are complementary/substitutes for each other in the formation of new human capital and on their degree of complementarity.

Wal-Mart: Supplier performance and market power

This research seeks to further the understanding of the relationship between Wal-Mart and its suppliers. 1988-1994 demonstrates Wal-Mart's market power in relation to manufacturers [Bloom PN, Perry, VG. Retailer power and supplier welfare: the case of Wal-Mart. Journal of Retailing 2001; 77( 3): 379-396.]. Wal-Mart suppliers for that period had lower profits than non-suppliers, which indicate a dependency model of market power when suppliers give concessions to a stronger retailer in order to obtain or maintain the relationship. Wal-Mart's dramatic growth and increasing marketing power since the 1988-1994 period offer an opportunity to retest previous findings and further the understanding of a major retailer's strategy for managing suppliers through the use of the strategic profit model. Initial results indicate that gross margin is significantly less for Wal-Mart suppliers than non-suppliers indicating pricing concessions and a dependency model of market power. However, a fixed-effects model controlling for unobservable firm characteristics such as strategic choice suggest that Wal-Mart suppliers are self-selecting or are implicitly pre-screened such that Wal-Mart suppliers have a low-cost strategy and choose lower returns as a market strategy. Findings indicate that small firms do experience a dependency model in that they have lower gross margin, lower operating income, and higher turnover. However, considering fixed-effects for these firms, small manufacturers experience only higher turnover as a result of doing business with Wal-Mart, thus indicating more of a partner-type model of market power.     

Human appropriation of aboveground net primary production in Spain, 1955-2003: An empirical analysis of the industrialization of land use

The human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) is an indicator of the human domination of ecosystems that measures to which extent human activities alter the amount of biomass available each year in ecosystems. This paper analyses the development of aboveground HANPP (aHANPP) in Spain for the period from 1955 to 2003. During this period, Spain's agriculture underwent a transition from a largely pre-industrial to a highly intensified production system. Changes in land use patterns include a reduction of cropland area and an expansion of forest area. Results show that aHANPP declined from 67% of potential aNPP in 1955 to 61% in 2003. Biomass harvest strongly increased from 68 million tons dry matter biomass per year (Mt/yr) to 106 Mt/yr, with nearly all of this increase occurring on cropland. Productivity losses due to human-induced land conversions dropped significantly from 112 Mt/yr to 63 Mt/yr, mainly as a result of the surge in cropland productivity and the increase in forest area. Despite its decrease during the last decades, aHANPP in Spain is still at a remarkably high level in comparison with the global average or other industrialized countries.