Leveling the playing field: factors influencing trade show success for small companies

Recent research indicates that trade shows are a place to find prospects and close sales. Yet, many requisites of success found in prior studies may not be available to companies with limited resources. A study that compares the activities of successful vs. unsuccessful exhibitors from small companies was conducted. Results indicate similar budgets, yet very different results. Factors influencing success include strategic factors such as centering responsibility in one position, as well as tactical decisions such as those regarding pre-show promotion.     

创新博弈中政府与企业的互动演化均衡

创新对提高企业的竞争力,促进社会进步和经济发展具有十分重要的意义。由于创新的风险和不确定性,使得创新在很大程度上取决于创新主体——政府和企业的行为。本文以进化博弈的复制动态方法为工具,构建了创新进化博弈模型,分析了在创新过程中,政府与企业的策略互动及其均衡。本文证明:政府的有效激励会促使企业选择创新,而企业的创新热情将促进政府建立和完善创新激励机制,博弈的进化均衡是政府从制度上确保降低企业创新的外部成本以激励企业进行创新,企业则选择持续创新以追逐创新收益。     

联合确定基数合约:对魏茨曼模型的一个改进

本文针对国内外委托代理理论主要局限于理论分析层面而实用性不强的特点,在概要评论有关利润基数确定的相关文献的基础上,通过对美国一家公司委托代理实际案例的研究,提出了旨在能够解决实际委托代理关系的"联合确定基数法"。文章分析了联合确定基数法与棘轮效应模型的区别和联系,以数学方法论证了联合确定基数法的若干命题,描述了公司利润基数确定的利益诱导机制,并对比分析了联合确定基数法与西方教科书中的"激励设计模型"。本文试图以联合确定基数法为核心内容的一次性动态模型,代替蕴含着讨价还价过程的多次性动态模型。     

Encouraging employees to co-operate: the effects of sponsored training and promotion practices on employees' willingness to work overtime

The ‘mutual-investment’ model argues that when employers invest more in the social exchange relationship between them and their employees, their employees will show more effort. In this paper we relate the ‘mutual-investment’ model to training and promotion (possibilities) and examine if these kinds of career-enhancing measures influence the willingness of employees within organizations to work overtime. To test this hypothesis, a vignette experiment was conducted in five organizations (N = 388; 1,531 vignettes). Multilevel analyses show that employees are more willing to work overtime when their employer has provided for training, when the employee recently was promoted, when the supervisor was supportive in the past and when co-workers approve of working overtime and behave similarly. But we did not find that future promotion chances affect willingness to work overtime.     

基于零售商促销的渠道协调及数量折扣契约设计

定量研究当零售商具有促销策略时的渠道协调。在此种情形下，渠道成员独立决策时线形契约无法促成渠道协调，通过博弈模型分析，给出一种协调数量折扣价格契约，并对渠道协调后的利润分配作了初步探讨。结果表明，制造商促使该类渠道达成协调的数量折扣有无穷多个，在一定条件下渠道成员双方利润均会增加，并给出了算例分析。同时根据数量折扣形式，对传统的“入场费”问题进行了再讨论，得出了“入场费”与渠道协调之间的关系，进而揭示出“入场费”在实践中深层含义。     

关于我国高校后勤企业人力资源管理的探讨

人力资源的竞争已成为高校后勤企业竞争的关键,因此,加强人力资源的管理与开发已成为我国高校后勤企业取得竞争优势的重要法宝。本文分析了我国高校人力资源管理面临的问题,并提出了相关的优化措施。     

China's health care reform: A tentative assessment

China has recently unveiled an ambitious new health-care reform plan, entailing a doubling of government health spending as well as a number of concrete reforms. While the details of the plan have not yet been completely announced, we offer a preliminary assessment of how well the reform is likely to achieve its stated goal of assuring every citizen equal access to affordable basic health care. The reform is based on three fundamental tenets: strong role of government in health, commitment to equity, and willingness to experiment with regulated market approaches. Within this framework, the reform offers a number of laudable changes to the health system, including an increase in public health financing, an expansion of primary health facilities and an increase in subsidies to achieve universal insurance coverage. However, it fails to address the root causes of the wastes and inefficiencies plaguing China's health care system, such as a fragmented delivery system and provider incentives to over-provide expensive tests and services. We conclude that China should consider changing the provider payment method from fee-for-service to a prospective payment method such as DRG or capitation with pay-for-performance, and to develop purchasing agencies that represent the interests of the population so as to enhance competition.     

Mixed up? that’s good for motivation

We show that career concerns can arise in the absence of ex ante uncertainty about an agent’s type, if his unobservable actions influence future productivity. Implementing effort in mixed strategies allows the principal to endogenously introduce uncertainty about the agent’s ex post productivity and generate reputational incentives. Creating such ambiguity can be optimal for the principal, even though this exposes the agent to additional risk and reduces output. This finding for an environment with imperfect commitment contrasts with standard agency models, where implementing mixed strategy actions typically is not optimal if pure strategies can also be implemented.     

Procurement auctions with entry of bidders

In procurement auctions with a fixed number of bidders there is a tradeoff between cost efficiency and rent extraction. An optimal mechanism, therefore, entails distortions of effort (Laffont and Tirole, 1987). If potential suppliers must sink an entry investment before they can participate in the auction, then decreasing the firms' rent may imply reduced entry. We show that if potential bidders are uninformed before entry, commitment to a plain, nondistortive auction is optimal. In contrast, if potential bidders learn all their private information before entry, the optimal mechanism entails the same distortions as in Laffont and Tirole's static model.     

Incentive effects and overcrowding in tournaments: An experimental analysis

This study reports experiments that examine outcomes when agents choose between a payment scheme that rewards based on absolute performance (i.e., piece rate) and a scheme that rewards based on relative performance (i.e., a tournament). Holding total payments in the tournament constant, performance is higher when the tournament option is winner-take-all compared to a graduated tournament (i.e., second and third-place performers also receive a payment). Performance is higher in the winner-take all tournaments even among participants that choose the piece-rate option. While there is a modest amount of overcrowding, there are no significant differences in overcrowding across conditions. Entry rates into the tournament and the relative ability of tournament entrants (compared to non-entrants in the same condition) are higher in the graduated tournament condition than the winner-take-all conditions. Consequently, the winner-take-all tournament is more efficient than the graduated tournament (incentive effects are stronger and the overcrowding is about the same), but the graduated tournament provides a more effective mechanism to identify the most capable performer in a talent pool. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . JEL Classification D8 · J3 · L2