Environmental Governance of Enterprises and their Economic Upshot through Corporate Reputation and Customer Satisfaction

Drawing on resource‐advantage and signalling theories, we investigate two mechanisms, namely corporate reputation and customer satisfaction, by which the environmental governance of enterprises can benefit their economic performance. Based on secondary data from the 500 largest US enterprises compiled from multiple sources, our findings contribute to the literature by establishing the link between corporate reputation and green reputation. We also establish the economic performance paths of environmental governance via corporate reputation and customer satisfaction. This study expounds on why ‘green’ matters and identifies the performance roles of two corporate strategic resources extractable from the environmental governance of enterprises. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The influence of religious commitment on consumer perceptions of closed-on-Sunday policies: an exploratory study of Chick-fil-A in the southern United States

Many businesses operate long hours that often include nights and weekends to accommodate consumers. However, a few businesses maintain a closed-on-Sunday policy and do so while still operating successfully although closed-on-Sunday policies mean forgoing potential sales hours. As most Christian faiths consider the Sabbath as a day of rest, an oft-used rationalization for the success of businesses maintaining this policy is that they must be supported by consumers with strong religious beliefs, who appreciate the message sent by the company and as a result perceive the company favorably. The purpose of this paper was to investigate whether consumers' religious commitment influences their ethical judgment of a company's closed-on-Sunday policy and to determine whether this ethical judgment impacts a company's corporate or brand image and consumer loyalty intentions. The results suggest that consumers with higher levels of intra-personal religious commitment are more likely to hold favorable ethical judgments of closed-on-Sunday corporate policies. In addition, favorable ethical judgments of closed-on-Sunday corporate policies are likely to positively influence corporate image. A more positive corporate image ultimately results in higher consumer loyalty intentions.     

A neural network based reputation bootstrapping approach for service selection

With the concept of service-oriented computing becoming widely accepted in enterprise application integration, more and more computing resources are encapsulated as services and published online. Reputation mechanism has been studied to establish trust on prior unknown services. One of the limitations of current reputation mechanisms is that they cannot assess the reputation of newly deployed services as no record of their previous behaviours exists. Most of the current bootstrapping approaches merely assign default reputation values to newcomers. However, by this kind of methods, either newcomers or existing services will be favoured. In this paper, we present a novel reputation bootstrapping approach, where correlations between features and performance of existing services are learned through an artificial neural network (ANN) and they are then generalised to establish a tentative reputation when evaluating new and unknown services. Reputations of services published previously by the same provider are also incorporated for reputation bootstrapping if available. The proposed reputation bootstrapping approach is seamlessly embedded into an existing reputation model and implemented in the extended service-oriented architecture. Empirical studies of the proposed approach are shown at last.     

Modeling e-loyalty: a moderated-mediation model

ABSTRACT

This work proposes a research model that elaborates upon the development of e-loyalty based on the signaling theory and attachment theory. In the model, e-loyalty is indirectly related to both visual appeal and an e-tailer’s service reputation through the full mediation of trust and affection. At the same time, the relationships between trust and e-loyalty and between affection and e-loyalty are hypothetically moderated by an e-tailer’s service reputation. The proposed hypotheses of this research were empirically tested using data from working professionals in high-tech firms in terms of online retailing. This study surveyed the same research participants at two different time points, one month apart, to verify the theoretical inferences. The empirical findings herein complement the previous literature by presenting how visual appeal and an e-tailer’s service reputation simultaneously influence e-loyalty through various mediating and moderating mechanisms.     

Information direction, website reputation and eWOM effect: A moderating role of product type

This article examines how the electronic word of mouth (eWOM) information direction (positive vs. negative) and a website's reputation (established vs. unestablished) contribute to the eWOM effect. The article describes a study focusing on the moderating role of the product type (search vs. experience). The results of the experiment show that the eWOM effect is greater for negative eWOM than for positive eWOM, greater for established websites than for unestablished websites, and greater for experience goods than for search goods. The results support the moderating effects of product type on the eWOM information direction-website reputation-eWOM effect relationship. The impact of negative eWOM on the eWOM effect is greater for experience goods than for search goods. Similarly, the impact of website reputation on the eWOM effect is greater for experience goods than for search goods. The findings provide managerial implications for an Internet marketing strategy.     

工程建设企业虚拟化运营与管理

文章认为虚拟化运营是我国工程建设企业增强整体竞争力的有效方法。工程建设虚拟企业具有临时性、动态性、虚拟性、合作企业间的相关性大、合作企业间的可替代性小的特征。建立信任关系是保证工程建设虚拟企业正常运转的基础,加强协调及建立激励和约束机制是合作企业相互信任的有效保障。     

How professional service firms compete in the market: an exploratory study

Abstract

This study investigates how professional service firms (PSFs) compete in the market. Drawing on strategic marketing literature, a managerial rather than customer perspective is adopted. The study investigates the competitive positions sought by professional service providers and the specific marketing activities actually undertaken to achieve these positions. Thirty-seven depth interviews with senior management from a range of PSFs indicate that firms seek to differentiate themselves by developing long-term relationships, providing better service quality and greater value, and developing brands with strong reputations. Organisations typically seek such interrelated competitive positions simultaneously. A list of marketing activities used by the PSFs to achieve these competitive positions offers practical insights into the specific activities needed to achieve the various competitive positions sought.     

药价虚高博弈分析

药价问题是关系能否顺利建设和谐社会的大事，“药价虚高”已引起各方高度关注，如何才能根治这个问题呢？本文发现医药定价改革的关键是解决医患之间严重的信息不对称问题，为此本文建立了一个序贯均衡博弈模型，给出了解决医患信息不对称的方法：进行医院专业化及建立医德机制。     

企业社会责任对消费者满意度的影响——基于国产乳制品行业的实证分析

基于消费者视角，对企业社会行为与消费者满意度的内在影响机制进行了研究，研究企业声誉、感知质量和感知价值在两者之间的作用。以国产乳制品行业为例构建了企业社会责任-消费者满意度模型，并进行实证分析。结果表明：企业社会责任对消费者满意度呈现显著的正向影响；企业社会责任对企业声誉存在显著的正向影响；企业社会责任、企业声誉对感知质量均存在显著的正向影响；企业社会责任、企业声誉、感知质量对感知价值有显著的正向影响；感知价值对消费者满意度存在显著的正向影响。企业社会责任除了直接作用于消费者满意度外，还能够通过企业声誉等变量间接地对消费者满意度产生影响。     

Auditor Concentration: A Replication and Extension for the UK Audit Market 1991–1995

This paper examines the issue of auditor concentration in the UK during the period from 1991 to 1995. It shows that in 1995 the Big Six held 75% of the total number of audits and collectively earned 92% of the total audit fees. There was only a small increase in auditor concentration during the five year period, resulting from companies switching from small audit firms to Big Six and newly listed companies choosing a Big Six firm. The paper also examines auditor concentration within industries. Finally, the study assesses the measurement methods most commonly used in auditor concentration studies.