Sensory Aspects of Retailing: Theoretical and Practical Implications

Sensory elements are an important aspect of both offline and online retail stores and can non-consciously influence consumer judgments and purchase behavior. In offline settings, ambient factors like scent, lighting, and music have been shown to influence customers’ shopping experiences and their buying behaviors. For online retail outlets, sensory factors related to color, display patterns, and layouts can have significant effects on consumer behavior. Sensory elements have strong managerial relevance since they can non-consciously influence behaviors and because they are relatively easy to change; for example, it requires minimal effort to change the lighting or the music at a physical retail store or the display pattern for an online store. The eight papers in this special issue address theoretical and practical issues related to how different sensory elements can strongly influence retail practices. These papers focus on underexplored topic areas and also on emerging technologies, which stimulate thoughts for further research in these areas.     

系统性金融风险的历史考察与防范对策

深入学习习近平在中国共产党第十九次全国代表大会上的报告，在考察20世纪以来的12次金融危机的基础上，对系统性金融风险发生的根源进行了研究，并结合我国当前系统性金融风险面临的形势，提出了防范系统性金融风险的对策建议。研究表明，将过去100多年引发金融危机的系统性金融风险的根源与我国当前的金融形势进行比较分析，可以发现我国面临的系统性金融风险形势十分严峻，必须在党的领导下，采取打击金融腐败、适当收紧货币政策、完善金融监管体系、维护币值稳定、加强金融科技监管等相关政策来防止系统金融风险的发生。     

智慧居家养老服务协同供给的优化路径研究——以广西钦州市智慧居家养老项目的实践经验为例

智慧居家养老服务的协同供给可以形成社会联动效应，降低公共服务成本。运用公共服务协同供给分析框架，通过交叉分类方法从协同主体的利益与目标两个变量的耦合性出发分析广西钦州市智慧居家养老项目中养老服务主体间不同种类的协同关系，可以从加强政府领导、形成合作联盟、建立市场标准、创新扶持政策4个方面完善政府、企业、社会组织之间不同类型的协同供给，实现社会资源的高效利用以及向智慧居家养老服务的发展和转变。     

Examining artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in marketing via a global lens: Current trends and future research opportunities

Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured substantial interest from a wide array of marketing scholars in recent years. Our research contributes to this emerging domain by examining AI technologies in marketing via a global lens. Specifically, our lens focuses on three levels of analysis: country, company, and consumer. Our country-level analysis emphasizes the heterogeneity in economic inequality across countries due to the considerable economic resources necessary for AI adoption. Our company-level analysis focuses on glocalization because while the hardware that underlies these technologies may be global in nature, their application necessitates adaptation to local cultures. Our consumer-level analysis examines consumer ethics and privacy concerns, as AI technologies often collect, store and process a cornucopia of personal data across our globe. Through the prism of these three lenses, we focus on two important dimensions of AI technologies in marketing: (1) human–machine interaction and (2) automated analysis of text, audio, images, and video. We then explore the interaction between these two key dimensions of AI across our three-part global lens to develop a set of research questions for future marketing scholarship in this increasingly important domain.     

Introduction to symposium: Smallholders in communist and postcommunist societies

The primary contributions of smallholders during the communist and early postcommunist periods have been food production and labour for large farms. Those conditions are changing, however, as modern farms require less labour and food supply may be imported. For most smallholders in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries, the postcommunist neoliberal environment has not brought significant improvement, and strong arguments can be made that land grabbing, social and economic exclusion, and rural poverty are worse than regime bias during the communist period. Cooperatives, which have empowered smallholders in other parts of the world, have not been as well developed in postcommunist nations.     

External pressure or internal culture? An innovation diffusion theory account of small retail businesses’ social media use

COVID-19 put unprecedented external pressure on small businesses to adopt or increase use of social media while not all small businesses are internally ready for this rapid change. This study investigated the roles of external pressures and organizational culture of openness and learning in driving small retail business owners'/managers' social media use decisions by impacting their perceived usefulness and barriers, based on the innovation-decision process model from the diffusion of innovations theory and the theory of reasoned action. An online survey with structured measurements was administered to 411 U.S. small retail business owners/managers. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that external pressures positively influenced small business owners'/managers’ perceived usefulness and barriers and social media use intention. In addition, the culture of openness and learning positively influenced the perceived usefulness while mitigating the perceived barriers, thereby directly and indirectly influencing the social media use intention. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Cross-national differences in stakeholder management: Applying institutional theory and comparative capitalism framework

Drawing upon the research in institutional theory and comparative capitalism, the present study investigates how cross-national differences in the political, business, and economic institutional contexts of the United States, Italy, and Japan are associated with the ways in which companies in each of these countries prioritize and engage in their stakeholder engagement activities (SEAs). Using Porter and Kramer's framework, which classifies corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities as falling into four categories (good citizenship, mitigating harm from value chain, transforming value chain activities, and strategic philanthropy), we investigate how companies in the United States, Japan, and Italy prioritize and engage in these four SEAs. An analysis of data collected from 340 companies across these countries reveals that while companies in each of these three countries undertake the four types of SEAs, the prioritization and prevalence of the four types of SEAs vary from one country to the other, in ways that align with the prevailing institutional contexts of each country. The results contribute to a more nuanced understanding of why and how companies' approaches to CSR differ across countries. From a practitioner's perspective, the findings highlight the cultural specificity of CSR, implying that despite the global nature of CSR, the implementation of CSR needs to be tailored to a country's context.     

Crisis leadership in economic recession: A three-barrier approach to offset external constraints

An economic recession is a type of crisis originated from external factors that may imperil an organization’s survival depending on the intensity and duration of the crisis. In peripheral European countries, such as Portugal, the recent financial crisis had devastating effects on various business activities. As a result, Portugal represents an important case study in examining how some corporate leaders have handled the economic recession successfully. I interviewed 20 corporate managers to capture their perceptions of the leadership traits and behaviors exhibited by their CEOs in guiding their companies through the recession. In economic recessions, negative constraints do not affect the most effective leaders, who instead erect barriers against the high-pressure conditions to create a supportive, positive work environment. In order to achieve maximum effectiveness, leaders must act as blocking agents against the negative social impacts of the economic crisis, including the fragility of trust in organizational life (i.e., a barrier against distrust), uncertainty of the future (i.e., a barrier against uncertainty), and toxic emotions (i.e., a barrier against toxic emotions).     

阿莫西林克拉维酸钾片含量测定方法的改进

为解决实际应用中克拉维酸钾峰与后相邻杂质的分离度达不到要求的问题,建立了一种同时测定阿莫西林克拉维酸钾片中阿莫西林和克拉维酸钾含量的新方法,采用反相高效液相色谱法(RP-HPLC),Ultimate AQ-C_(18)色谱柱(4.6mm×250 mm,5μm),以pH值为4.4的0.05 mol/L磷酸二氢钠缓冲液为流动相,柱温为35℃,流速为1.0mL/min,检测波长为220nm。结果表明:阿莫西林和克拉维酸钾两主峰与相邻杂质得到完全基线分离,分离度大于1.5;克拉维酸钾对照品溶液质量浓度为0.050 0~0.500 1mg/mL时与峰面积的线性关系良好(r=0.999 8),平均回收率(n=9)为100.14%,RSD值为0.24%;阿莫西林对照品溶液质量浓度为0.100 0~1.000 1mg/mL时与峰面积的线性关系良好(r=0.999 9),平均回收率(n=9)为100.45%,RSD值为0.17%。与原有的《中华人民共和国药典》方法相比,新的阿莫西林克拉维酸钾片含量测定方法专属性好,准确度高,操作简便快捷,结果可靠,可作为一种质量控制方法。     

创新战略下的英国研发组织创新——Catapults的组织管理模式研究

Catapults（弹射中心）作为一种新型研发组织形式，在英国创新发展战略的实施中扮演着重要角色。精准的组织功能定位、高效的组织管理运作模式和紧密的网络化组织关系，是Catapults组织管理模式创新的重要三大重要内容。为我国新型研发机构的培育和发展提供了良好的参考样本。