Social media affordances in entry‐level employees’ socialization: employee agency in the management of their professional impressions and vulnerability during early stages of socialization

This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affordances of social media. Findings are discussed with regards to employees’ exertion of agency in managing their professional impressions and coping with high levels of uncertainty and vulnerability during early stages of socialization.     

The financialization of the non‐financial corporation. A critique to the financial turn of accumulation hypothesis

One aspect in which non‐financial corporations (NFCs) are said to be financialized is that they have been increasingly engaged in financial accumulation from which they derive a growing proportion of financial income. This is what we call the financial turn of accumulation hypothesis. In this article, we show that the evidence used to sustain it, in the U.S. setting, has to be reconsidered. Our findings show that, contrary to the financial turn of accumulation hypothesis, financial income averages 2.5% of NFCs’ total income since the 1980s, oscillating since the beginnings of the 1990s until 2005 and then declining. In terms of assets, some of the alleged financial assets might actually reflect other activities in which NFCs have been increasingly engaged, such as tax avoidance, internationalization of production, activities refocusing and M&As.     

价值共创行为分析框架构建 ——基于赋能理论视角

通过文献调查并结合案例的描述性分析,提出数字技术时代价值网络中不同行为主体之间的赋能内涵、关键维度以及基于赋能跨层次效应的价值共创行为分析框架。将"赋能氛围""主体赋能"分别作为价值网络中赋能的宏观维度和微观维度进行概念化。界定了两个维度的关键组成要素,分别包括信息共享、开放性结构、协同规则以及主体关系、资源整合和影响。构建了赋能的跨层次效应模型,分析了赋能的宏观-微观跨层次效应及其对价值网络生态和主体价值创造的影响。     

Challenges of Doing Business in Africa: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a systematic review of challenges to doing business in Africa. It complements the extant literature by answering two critical questions: what are the linkages between the ease of doing business and economic development; and what are the challenges to doing business in Africa? In providing answers to these questions, the nexus between the ease of doing business and economic development is discussed in six main strands, namely: wealth creation and sharing; opportunities of employment; balanced regional and economic development; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita; standards of living and exports. Moreover, challenges to doing business are articulated along the following lines: (i) issues related to the cost of starting a business and doing business; (ii) shortage of energy and electricity; (iii) lack of access to finance; and (v) high taxes and low cross-border trade.     

多层级视角下京津冀科技创新政策府际关系研究

府际关系协调有利于实现创新资源、要素的有效汇聚与整合，进而提升政策有效性。以京津冀为例，构建中央-地方多层级府际关系模型，分析中央政策主体合作网络特征与政策扩散特征、地方政策主体合作网络特征与政策执行特征的相关性。研究发现，中央政府部门间形成了以科技部为核心的核心—边缘网络结构特征；北京市政府部门间呈现出以中关村科技管理委员会为核心的核心-边缘网络结构特征；天津市政府部门间呈现出以天津市科学技术委员会为核心的星型网络结构特征；河北省则没有形成稳定的网络关系。中央政策主体合作网络中的度中心性与政策扩散广度具有相关性；地方政策主体合作网络中介中心性、度中心性与政策执行强度具有相关性。     

The Use of Different Endorser Types in Advertising: A Content Analysis of Magazine Advertisements

Most of the literature assumes that endorsements, particularly by celebrities, are a frequently used advertising strategy. However, no study has yet investigated the use of the different endorser types identified by academic literature. This study seeks to close this research gap by analyzing German print advertisements. It finds that endorsement strategy in general is used much less than academic literature assumes, and that the relative significance of the different endorser types is incongruent to expectations. Moreover, the data suggest that, contrary to the literature's assumptions, credibility is not the most important underlying construct for endorsement advertisements, the endorser type used is frequently determined by the product category that is being advertised, and campaigns based on authenticity and similarity are gaining considerable importance in advertising practice.     

Fuel consumption for various driving styles in conventional and hybrid electric vehicles: Integrating driving cycle predictions with fuel consumption optimization*

Improving fuel economy and lowering emissions are key societal goals. Standard driving cycles, pre-designed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have long been used to estimate vehicle fuel economy in laboratory-controlled conditions. They have also been used to test and tune different energy management strategies for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). This paper aims to estimate fuel consumption for a conventional vehicle and a HEV using personalized driving cycles extracted from real-world data to study the effects of different driving styles and vehicle types on fuel consumption when compared to the estimates based on standard driving cycles. To do this, we extracted driving cycles for conventional vehicles and HEVs from a large-scale U.S. survey that contains real-world GPS-based driving records. Next, the driving cycles were assigned to one of three categories: volatile, normal, or calm. Then, the driving cycles were used along with a driver-vehicle simulation that captures driver decisions (vehicle speed during a trip), powertrain, and vehicle dynamics to estimate fuel consumption for conventional vehicles and HEVs with power-split powertrain. To further optimize fuel consumption for HEVs, the Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) is applied. The results show that depending on the driving style and the driving scenario, conventional vehicle fuel consumption can vary widely compared with standard EPA driving cycles. Specifically, conventional vehicle fuel consumption was 13% lower in calm urban driving, but almost 34% higher for volatile highway driving compared with standard EPA driving cycles. Interestingly, when a driving cycle is predicted based on the application of case-based reasoning and used to tune the power distribution in a hybrid electric vehicle, its fuel consumption can be reduced by up to 12% in urban driving. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.     

The Effectiveness of Brand- and Customer-Centric Content Strategies at Generating Shares, ‘Likes’, and Comments

Brands are constantly competing for user attention on Facebook and are trying to encourage fans to share, click ‘like’, and comment their posts. Yet, it remains unclear what content strategies are successful at encouraging those behaviors. Noting that the effectiveness of brand content strategies still remains an uncharted research area, this study adopts a discovery-oriented approach and employs workshops, quantitative content analysis, and episodic interviews, to link desired user responses (namely clicks share, ‘like’, and comment) to brand content strategies. This study reveals that customer-centric content strategies are the most effective at encouraging user responses. Managers can use provided recommendations to engage their customers by adopting content strategies that result in desired behavioral reactions.     

Always best or good enough? The effect of ‘mind-set’ on preference consistency over time in tourist decision making

Where a lengthy period is available for the choice of tourist destination, people’s tendency to change their minds can be pronounced. This makes the investigation of preference (in)consistency of great interest. Here, we integrate construal level theory (CLT) with mind-set theory, for the first time, to explore the moderating effect of an internal factor (i.e. mind-set) on preference shifts from desirable to feasible attributes over time. The results of four choice experiments suggest that, compared with people with a satisficing mind-set, people with a maximizing mind-set are reluctant to sacrifice desirability for feasibility, which counters the inclination to alter preferences as the decision time approaches. Furthermore, we found that different preference patterns between maximizers and satisficers are not connected to desirability but result from maximizers’ consistency in placing less importance on feasibility. Implications for future studies and destination marketers are outlined.     

特许权价值、最优关闭策略和存款保险定价

随着存款保险制度的推出以及金融机构退出机制的完善，国家声誉将逐渐退出银行无形资本。在激励相容的金融监管趋势下，特许权价值等市场约束力量会显著影响到商业银行的风险承担。在此逻辑基础上，以我国16家上市商业银行为研究对象，一方面探讨特许权价值影响下不同产权结构的商业银行的最优救助机制，另一方面通过最优救助临界指标，利用银行重组模型，推导合理的存款保险风险差别费率。