The rise of smart consumers: role of smart servicescape and smart consumer experience co-creation

ABSTRACT

Rapid technological advancements have led to the emergence of smart services and smart consumers. This study focuses on smart consumers who voluntarily engage in value creation activities, in order to conceptualise smart experience co-creation (SEC) and the smart servicescape. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework, a model is proposed and tested around the impacts of smart servicescape dimensions (aesthetics, superior functionality, social presence, perceived interactivity and perceived personalisation) on smart consumer experience co-creation. SEC is conceptualised as a second-order construct consisting of cognitive, hedonic, social/personal, and pragmatic/economic first-order dimensions. Results show that the technological environmental cues of the smart servicescape (S) collectively influence smart experience co-creation (O), and this co-created experience eventually influences consumers’ service brand equity and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions (R). A major novelty of this study lies in uncovering the relationship between experience co-creation and service brand equity. Findings have theoretical and managerial implications for smart services.     

河南省农业生态旅游产业可持续发展评价研究

[目的]河南农业生态旅游作为一种可持续发展的旅游形式,为河南的经济发展作为了重要贡献。对河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展进行评价研究,是促进农业生态旅游可持续健康发展的重要保证。[方法]文章通过实地调研构建河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展评价指标体系,运用层次分析法,确定指标权重,结合专家评分法,对各项评价指标打分,并计算河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展的综合得分,结合农业生态旅游产业可持续发展评价标准,得出目前河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展水平。[结果]河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展评价得分为72.45,处于基本可持续发展阶段,并对当前河南农业生态旅游发展现状和存在的农业生态旅游意识淡薄、旅游产品特色不明显、缺少政府资金扶持和缺乏经营管理人才等问题进行了分析。[结论]基于上述问题,提出了提高环保意识、走可持续发展之路;开发特色原生态旅游产品;加强政府支持和引导;加强专业培训,打造专业队伍等对策。     

Assessing cost‐effectiveness when environmental benefits are bundled: agricultural water management in Great Barrier Reef catchments

Using economic analysis to prioritise improvements in environmental conditions is particularly difficult when multiple benefits are involved. This includes ‘bundling’ issues in agricultural pollution management, where a change in management action or farming systems generates multiple improvements, such as reductions in more than one pollutant. In this study, we conceptualise and compare two different approaches to analysing cost‐effectiveness when varying bundles of benefits are generated for a single project investment. Each approach requires data to be transformed in some way to allow the analysis to proceed. The index approach requires the transformation on the benefits side so that the effects of multiple pollutant changes can be combined into a measure for each project which can then be compared to costs. By comparison, the disaggregation approach requires the transformation on the costs side where costs for each project have to be apportioned across the different pollutants involved. The paper provides novel insights with an application to agricultural water quality improvements into the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, demonstrating that while both approaches are effective in prioritising projects by cost‐effectiveness, the disaggregation approach provides more insightful results and values that may be relevant for use as upper value guidelines in future project selection.     

Secrets to design an effective message on Facebook: an application to a touristic destination based on big data analysis

The objective of this research is to identify which are the key variables for designing a message in a social network that can be used by an advertiser to generate Positive/Negative Engagement. The message’s design variables have been classified into four main groups: (i) Message Tools (presence of text, images, video, labels, applications, interactive games and events calendar or others), (ii) Appropriate Message Structure (length and intelligibility), (iii) Informative Cues (links to the brand, orientation towards the product or the brand, topics relevant to the audience, and a remuneration’s promise) and (iv) Persuasive and Emotional Cues (emotional signals, valence, endorsement and influencer mentions). The focus has been a tourist destination: Brand Spain that is advertised through Facebook. A content analysis was carried out and regression analysis with optimal scaling was used on 180 Spain brand’s publications; 57,626 audience reactions to such publications; and 1361 audience comments on the Brand Spain Official Fan Page. According to our results, from the four blocks of predictive variables, only two of them are useful to predict Positive/Negative Engagement: (i) the use of Message Tools (videos), and (ii) the use of informative cues (relevant topics, links on posts, and post’s orientation towards product).     

重庆市农业科技创新资源配置效率及影响因素研究

[目的]通过分析重庆市农业科技资源配置效率及影响因素,以期对重庆市的农业科技资源的合理配置提出参考建议。[方法]构建评价指标体系,以农业科技创新资源配置环境、农业科技资源经费投入、农业科技人才储备和农业科技创新成果4个方面构成综合层,向下分16个具体指标,运用层次分析法和模糊评判综合评价重庆市农业科技资源配置效率及影响因素。[结果]重庆市农业科技创新资源的配置效率综合得分为81.08,为2级水平,其中农业科技人员流失比例较大,投入产出效率较低成为主要制约因素。[结论]重庆市农业科技创新资源的配置效率处于中等水平,合理配置农业科技人员和经费投入以及提高资源配置环境是提高重庆市农业科技协同创新资源的配置效率的关键;农业科技资金投入浪费严重和农业科技活动成果的转化率较低、农业科技人才结构和农业科技创新资源配置方式的不合理以及农业科技市场机制尚不完善是影响农业科技资源配置效率的主要因素。     

Enhancing customers’ brand loyalty via branded hotel apps

Many hotels have launched their own branded mobile applications to develop relationships with customers. Yet, research examining the benefits of branded hotel apps on brand loyalty is scant. The current research investigates the role of branded hotel apps on brand loyalty through customer engagement and brand trust in the hotel industry, based on uses and gratifications theory. Results identified cognitive and social benefits of the branded hotel apps positively influenced customer engagement and brand trust. Hedonic benefits positively influenced customer engagement and they indirectly influenced brand trust through customer engagement. Both customer engagement and brand trust positively influenced brand loyalty. Moreover, mediation effects of customer engagement and brand trust were identified. Results highlight how branded hotel apps serve as a facilitator of brand loyalty, providing theoretical and managerial implications.     

Three decades of productivity change in French beef production: a Färe‐Primont index decomposition

The Färe‐Primont index is used to evaluate total factor productivity (TFP) change and its components for a sample of French suckler cow farms in grassland areas in 1985–2014. The results reveal an increase in TFP of 6.6 per cent over the whole observation period, with technological progress being the major source of productivity growth. Meanwhile, efficiency decreased. Farms experienced great technological progress from 1991 to 2000. From a methodological point of view, the comparison with results obtained with Malmquist indexes shows similar trends but different magnitudes, with the Malmquist index overestimating the TFP and technological changes compared to the Färe‐Primont index. In addition, the use of a sequential approach that restricts technological change to being positive or null allows for the precise calculation of technology changes, disregarding the effects of external conditions that are captured in efficiency changes. Finally, the estimation of full dimensional efficient facets (FDEFs) that guarantees the positivity of all shadow prices used to assess the mix efficiency component of TFP change is promising.     

The Impact of Public Expenditure and International Trade on Agricultural Productivity in China

The “industry nurturing agriculture” reforms and World Trade Organization accession led to dramatic growth in public expenditure and international trade in China’s agricultural sector. This article aims to estimate the effects of public expenditure and trade on agricultural productivity in China for 2004–2015. A semi-parametric production function with shape constraints is introduced to derive more accurate productivity before the productivity determinants are analyzed with an emphasis on public expenditure and trade. The empirical result shows that public expenditure and exports can effectively improve agricultural productivity, while imports have no significant effects. Policy implications are discussed in the context of supply-side reforms.     

基于农业发展方式转变的江苏省农业产业升级发展研究

[目的]从定量方面对江苏省农业发展方式转变对农业产业升级贡献结果进行研究,以准确把握江苏省农业发展方式转变进程。[方法]构建基于农业发展方式转变的江苏省农业产业升级评价指标体系,以2007—2016年江苏省10年的年度数据为研究对象,采用熵值法计算各年度每个指标权重以及各准则层和农业发展方式转变综合得分值。[结果](1) 2007—2016年江苏省农业产业方式转变取得了一定成效,处于良好的发展势头;(2) 2012和2014年江苏省基于农业发展方式转变的农业产业升级增长最快,2016年出现大幅下跌,导致该下跌的原因是同时期农业集约型效益的大幅下降;(3)集约型升级和高效型升级对基于农业发展方式转变的江苏省农业产业升级带动作用最大;结构合理型升级发展滞后。[结论]江苏省基于农业发展方式转变的农业产业升级还处于不断探索阶段,加速农业产业结构升级对于江苏省加快转变农业发展方式尤为重要。