Multidimensional brand equity and asymmetric risk

The authors investigate the extent to which central customer-based brand equity dimensions (Differentiation, Relevance, Esteem, Knowledge, and Energy) influence a firm’s systematic risk (i.e., beta) during both market upturns and downturns. The results demonstrate that aggregating upside and downside beta or different dimensions of brand equity masks the true associations which can be seen only in the disaggregate analyses. The authors find that Relevance and Knowledge play roles as stabilizers, showing negative relationships with both upside gains and downside risk, while Esteem plays the role of protector, showing a negative relationship with only downside losses and not influencing upside gains; Energy acts as a booster, being positively associated with a firm’s potential gains in a period of market growth without increasing the firm’s expected losses during a bad market. The positive relationship of Energy with aggregate risk could be misleading as it hides the beneficial effect of Energy as a booster. The authors also find that Relevance is the most important consideration when people make choices in bad market situations, while Energy becomes the most crucial deciding factor in good market situations. Taking advantage of the multidimensional constructs of brand equity while allowing for the asymmetrical characteristics of risk enables managers to capture the differential role of each brand equity dimension in influencing firm risks, which leads to more sophisticated strategic decisions regarding risk management. In addition to general brand strategy, the authors provide tailored brand strategies to firms from different industries or with different financial characteristics.     

南京江北新区新型城镇化发展质量评价与提升路径

文章构建了由31项指标组成的新型城镇化综合发展质量评价指标体系,运用AHP层次分析法和熵值法,选择19个国家级新区中2018年经济总量排名前十的新区进行定量对比分析,并结合民生幸福建设群众满意度问卷调查分析,对南京江北新区新型城镇化发展质量进行综合评价。研究表明:(1)南京江北新区新型城镇化整体发展处于中上游水平,与发达新区相比存在一定差距,产业结构亟需优化;(2)发展增长方式、资源利用率、环境保护类指标明显落后;(3)科教文卫、居民生活等指标具有比较优势。文章最后提出新型城镇化提升路径为加快生态环境和公共服务建设,积极提升科教和生态示范效应,做大做强主导产业,促进城乡特色均衡发展和推进以人为核心的新型城镇化。     

Ideological taboos,entry barriers,and FDI attraction: Evidence from China

Developing and transitional countries often impose a wide variety of entry barriers on foreign direct investments (FDIs). One important reason behind these entry barriers is ideological taboos. However, do these taboos actually affect the inflow of FDIs? With the help of China’s “cultural system reform,” this study uses a panel data of 283 prefecture-level cities in China for 1994–2017 and the difference-in-differences method to evaluate the effect of the cultural system reform on regional FDI. We found that the cultural system reform remarkably promoted the inflow of FDIs by deregulating institutions and removing entry barriers, and the attraction of FDI has slowly increased along with the deepening of the reform. Our conclusions still hold after performing several robustness tests, thereby highlighting ideologies as important barriers to the inflow of FDIs into less developed countries.     

Antecedents and consequences of hotel customers’ psychological ownership

This study aims to broaden the current knowledge on the antecedents and consequences of customers’ psychological ownership (CPO) from new perspectives in the hotel context. Specifically, this study investigates how self-image congruity and functional congruity affect CPO through impression in memory based on self-congruity theory and also examines two types of customer engagement—customers’ social influence engagement and knowledge-sharing engagement—as new CPO outcomes. Using survey data collected from 433 Chinese hotel customers, this study finds that self-image congruity positively predicts CPO partially through impression in memory, whereas functional congruity positively influences CPO fully through impression in memory. Moreover, the findings indicate that CPO significantly drives customers’ social influence engagement and knowledge-sharing engagement. This study contributes theoretically to the CPO literature by further developing its linkages with congruity perceptions and customer engagement. Practical implications of the findings can help hotel managers effectively promote CPO and customer engagement.     

新形势下高职后勤党建与社区党建共驻共建模式探讨

论文对高职后勤党建与社区党建共驻共建模式的背景及基础进行综述,分析加强社区党建的重要性以及社区党建工作的现状,论述高职后勤党建工作的基础、优势与促进社区共驻共建的重要性,提出高职后勤党建与社区党建共驻共建模式,并对这种共驻共建的模式提出优化思路,以期为现代党建工作提供思路,以供参考。     

Social media and sustainable purchasing attitude: Role of trust in social media and environmental effectiveness

The role of social media in promoting sustainable attitudes is currently understudied. Underpinned by social learning theory, this study unveils the effect of social media usage and browsing on sustainable purchasing attitude, the underlying mechanism, and the boundary condition. Drawing on a sample of 693 experienced respondents analyzed using structural equation modeling, this study reveals that social media usage and browsing have a significant positive association. Both constructs significantly impact sustainable purchasing attitudes with complementary partial mediation of the drive for environmental responsibility. Further, trust in social media and perceived environmental effectiveness significantly moderate the relationships belongs to the browsing and drive for environmental responsibility. Contrary to the theorization, moderating constructs cannot substantially impact the proposed associations of social media usage. In this manner, the present research is innovative and provides valued knowledge to comprehend social media's role in encouraging sustainable attitudes.     

The benefits and implementation of performance transparency: The why and how of letting your customers ‘see through’ your business

While some organizations swear by the benefits of transparency and are eager to learn and implement transparency practices, many managers are still reluctant or even afraid to use them. Our research reveals that only a few innovative companies have taken steps to leverage a potentially useful form of transparency: the provision of accessible and objective information to customers (e.g., sharing unbiased benchmark data, publishing unfiltered customer comments, or providing candid product reviews that may praise but also criticize the company’s products). Our study also shows that many companies remain wary and view greater calls for transparency as a challenge to be managed rather than an opportunity to be traded upon. This is partly due to limited research into the performance benefits of giving customers access to objective information, and lack of practical guidelines on how to actually implement it. This article addresses these shortcomings. First, we investigate whether performance transparency leads to customer outcomes that can be profitable for an organization and, second, we analyze the characteristics of successful transparency initiatives in a wide range of industries. Our research shows that customers exhibit more trust and are willing to pay a premium to deal with transparent businesses. Also, it uncovers seven effective strategies to leverage transparency. This article provides convincing empirical evidence for the benefits of performance transparency and the ways in which management may implement it successfully.     

Non-stationary additive utility and time consistency

Within a continuous time life cycle model of consumption and savings, I study the properties of the most general class of additive intertemporal utility functionals. They are not necessarily stationary, and do not necessarily multiplicatively separate a discount factor from “per-period utility”. I prove rigorously that time consistency holds if and only if the per-period felicity function is multiplicatively separable in $t$, the date of decision and in $s$, the date of consumption, or equivalently, if the Fisherian instantaneous subjective discount rate does not depend on $t$. The model allows to explain “anomalies in intertemporal choice” even when the agents are time consistent and various empirical regularities. On the other hand, the model allows to characterize mathematically the “effective consumption profile” of naive, time-inconsistent agents.     

Cultural distance and international trade in services: A disaggregate view

In this paper, we estimate the effect of “cultural distance” on bilateral trade in services. The measure of cultural distance we use is based on scores that reflect country averages of individuals’ attitudes towards inequality, self-orientation, competition, uncertainty, traditions, and indulgence. Controlling for standard ingredients of gravity equations, we show that an aggregate measure of cultural distance has a significantly negative effect on total bilateral services trade. Once we take a more disaggregate view, we find that the strength of this effect differs across various types of services and various aspects of cultural distance.