The influence of user-supplier relationship on innovation dynamics of Oil & Gas industry

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the role of user-supplier relationships in the innovation dynamics of the Oil and Gas (O&G) industry, from an analysis supported by R&D and patent application data. This paper points to some recent interesting phenomena in the O&G sector, such as: (i) the remarkable advancement of two Chinese oil companies; (ii) the significant growth in O&G companies’ technological engagement in exploration and production (E&P) from the 2000s; (iii) the non-negligible increase in the application of O&G companies’ patents for renewable energy. Moreover, by working with the oil and gas chain complete, we show that the performance of the companies oil and gas equipment and services industry (O&GES) is restricted to the upstream activities. Finally, we bring up some arguments that have as objective relativise the typology of R&D intensity adopted by OECD.     

财政分权对全要素生产率的影响--基于“省直管县”改革的准自然实验

"省直管县"改革一改以往"省-市-县"的管理模式,有助于提高县级政府的财政分权水平。为缓解内生性,将"省直管县"改革视为一项准自然实验,构建双重差分模型检验了财政分权对全要素生产率的因果效应。研究发现:①财政分权对全要素生产率的正向促进作用高于负面阻碍作用,但不同形式的分权影响有异质性,具体来说财权的下放有利于全要素生产率的提高,经济社会事务管理权限的下放则不利于。②当地方政府自主权提高时,其"重生产、轻服务"的支出偏好,使得当地基础设施供给增加,而能够增强地方软实力、加快创新要素集聚的公共服务供给相应减少,造成了全要素生产率的损失,导致在经济高质量高效益增长中政府"有形之手"的作用发挥不够。③随着改革的推进,财政分权对全要素生产率的正向作用逐渐减弱,并不再显著。据此,从合理划分省以下政府的事权与支出责任,充实基层政府财力;提高公共服务类指标在政府官员政绩考核中的权重,加强各县(市)政府间的合作,实现各自为政的地方经济向统一市场整合等方面提出政策建议。     

Recognition in India’s new service professions: gym trainers and coffee baristas

ABSTRACT

How do employees in “new services”, such as coffee baristas and gym trainers in India, see their jobs? In this paper, we build on extensive fieldwork in gyms and coffee chains that cater to the emerging Indian middle classes. Our research highlights the importance of respect and recognition in making service interactions more meaningful for new service workers. Generally hailing from the lower middle classes, new service work offers important opportunities to interact with and learn from English-speaking upper middle-class customers and clients. Besides the opportunity to interact and learn, the acknowledgement they receive for their skills and (bodily) accomplishments make such professions attractive as well. Even if this holds the potential for upward socioeconomic mobility, our findings also point at the resilience of social hierarchies. Drawing on literature on service interactions and new middle-class formation in India, this paper provides important insight into how young Indians navigate and negotiate the opportunities and pitfalls that come with the country's changing socioeconomic landscape.     

Can gamification increases consumers’ engagement in fitness apps? The moderating role of commensurability of the game elements

Many app firms have adopted gamification, aiming at making consumers more engaging and loyal. Given the ambivalent evidence on the effectiveness of gamification, this study proposes that the effectiveness of gamification is moderated by the types of game elements, i.e., commensurate and incommensurate. Commensurate elements, such as points, are directly associated with performances such as step counts, and may be perceived by consumers as external incentives to their efforts; whereas incommensurate elements, such as “likes”, are not directly related to performances, and may be considered as avenues to satisfy psychological needs, leading to stronger intrinsic motivation. Results from a longitudinal field study confirm that compared with apps using commensurate elements, apps using incommensurate elements can better help increase intrinsic motivation and further enhance engagement and loyalty.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Seizing the opportunity of demanding customers by means of frontline service behaviors

Service businesses are increasingly facing more demanding customers as a result of a shift in power from the service providers' side to the customers' side. Related literature predominantly examines the negative side of this ongoing trend, while overlooking the positive side. The major aim of this paper is to examine how frontline employees — investment account managers — deal with the ongoing increase in customer demandingness. To address this, we draw on adaptability performance theory to test the facilitating effect of frontline employees' post-transaction service behaviors (SBs) — diligence, inducements, information communication, sportsmanship, and empathy — as a means of adaptation to higher levels of customer demand. Findings indicate that frontline employees adapt most of their SBs' intensities to match customers' demands. The results show that some SBs actually increase the effectiveness and efficiency of frontline employees' service performance, leading to an increase in customer value and satisfaction. Customer value is found as a mediator in some of the relationships between SBs and customer satisfaction. Contrary to the conception of the negative outcomes of customer demandingness, service firms need to consider taking advantage of customer demandingness by stressing the role of frontline employees in adapting to customers’ demands.     

Governance of ecosystem services trade-offs in peri-urban landscapes

Peri-urban landscapes (PULs) are specific transitional forms of urban landscapes undergoing dynamic land-use changes. PULs’ transformations are driven by close and significant influence of an urban core, cross-administrative boundary character, and diversity of governance actors. PULs have significant potential to provide ES and respond to the urban and peri-urban demand for ES, but they are also particular contexts where significant and different ES trade-offs can occur. Majority of existing forms of governance are not able to deal and address such trade-offs, which thus call for more innovative and effective governance approaches and mechanisms, aimed at achieving ES synergies and reducing ES conflicts.This paper discusses the characteristics of PULs in the context of governance questions related to the management of ES trade-offs in the urban peripheries. The drivers of ES trade-offs are presented and different trade-off relationships between and within the main ES types are analyzed. The paper drafts a way forward from the current state-of-the-art related to governance of peri-urban ES trade-offs by providing recommendations for more effective governance that would address these trade-offs. Due to the very dynamic character of PULs, it is difficult to manage land-use changes and ES trade-offs. Hence, the governance approaches need to be adaptive and integrative at multiple levels, while engaging diverse actors to balance ES trade-offs that have mixed urban and rural character.     

Forest governance and economic values of forest ecosystem services in Vietnam

Forest ecosystems deliver valuable services to humanity. However, many forests are being degraded and their services have been undervalued. The main problem lies in the inadequate institutional arrangements for forest governance. This paper aims to assess the effects of alternative forest governance arrangements on the provision and economic values of forest ecosystem services (FES) in Vietnam. The study presents a framework for mapping land use and land cover (LULC) change stemming from actual and hypothetical changes in forest governance regimes, quantifies the resulting changes in the provision of FES, and estimates the associated economic values. In the context of the study site in the North Western uplands of Vietnam, we test three alternative forest governance scenarios: business as usual, with a dominant government role; a community-based governance regime; and a private, individual-based forestry governance regime. Scenarios are based quite closely on the way these regimes are (or might be expected to be) implemented in Vietnam. For each forest governance scenario, we map LULC changes based on land suitability analysis and transition likelihood for the period 2010 − 2020. The resulting maps are used as inputs into the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs) model, which is used to estimate the quantity of three specific FES: carbon storage/sequestration, sediment yield, and water yield. We apply economic valuation methods to value these services: the social cost of carbon is used to estimate the economic values of carbon storage/sequestration; the cost of removing sediment deposited in reservoirs is applied for valuing the reduction of sediment yield, and the residual value of water supply for hydropower generation is used for valuing water yield. The results show that forest governance regimes have a significant effect not only on forest LULC, but also on the quantity and values of FES derived from forests. The FES are differentially affected by alternative forest governance regimes: some FES increase in quantity and value under some governance regimes and decrease under others. Of the three forest governance regimes examined, there is no one regime that will always be ‘better’ than the others in terms of provisioning all considered FES. For the specific context of Vietnam, we find that the private forest governance scenario is inferior to the community-based governance scenario, as an alternative to the current state-based governance. Because our results pertain to the scenarios as constructed, rather than generally to broad categories of governance regimes, there remains the possibility that regimes can be constructed that outperform all of those examined here.     

L'innovation dans les services à forte intensité de connaissances (SFIC)†

This article examines the determinants of innovation in knowledge intensive business services (KIBS), generally hypothesizing that differences in the effect of the determinants of innovation depend on the type of innovation developed within KIBS. The study results are based on estimates of two econometric models using data from a survey of 392 firms in the province of Ontario, Canada.     

虚拟品牌社区顾客体验会带来其价值共创行为吗--基于手机虚拟品牌社区的实证研究

本文以顾客体验为切入点,基于价值共创理论、心理所有权理论和互惠规范理论,并运用于S-O-R理论框架,构建了虚拟品牌社区下,顾客参与价值共创行为产生的影响路径模型,通过问卷调查与实证分析得出:第一,顾客信息体验和娱乐体验越强,其参与价值共创的意愿程度越高,心理所有权部分中介了二者的促进关系;互动体验强化了社区顾客的心理所有权,并经由心理所有权的完全中介提高其参与共创意愿。第二,顾客参与共创意愿程度越高,其价值共创行为就越容易出现,社区的互惠规范正向调节了二者的关系。