Private label shoppers between fast fashion trends and status symbolism – A customer characteristics investigation

The question who the private label prone consumer is has received a lot of attention in research. While we so far have a good understanding of the private label shopper in the grocery industry, there is limited research in other industries. We assess private label shopper characteristics as a driver of private label choice using a unique data set of an online only fashion retailer covering 68,147 women shoes consumers in Germany. Fashion consumers are faced with a tradeoff between price and seasonality of fashion items as discounts are used to sell last season's stock. We find that private label choice is positively influenced by price orientation and less by discount proneness. Thus, private label shoppers are rather a fashion savvy segment focusing on buying more in season but at a lower price.     

Sustainable growth for the self-employed in the retail industry based on customer equity,customer satisfaction,and loyalty

In Korea, traditional retail districts face a serious situation whereby businesses in downtown areas face collapsing as local population declines: resulting in a decrease in self-employed sales and a declining local economy. Traditional retailers use ambiguous accounting and are reluctant to use credit cards, and thus, the overall reliability of their customer data is low. This paper solves this problem by applying the concept of customer equity (CE). We conducted an empirical analysis through questionnaires to identify differences in CE between traditional and new retail formats. The questionnaire consisted of questions related to CE (value equity, brand equity, relation equity), satisfaction, loyalty, and demographic characteristics. CE and satisfaction were measured on a 5-point Likert scale. A total of 400 surveys were completed, resulting in 391 usable returns for analysis in this study. In the regression analysis between CE and customer satisfaction, both old and new retail firms showed statistically significant effects. In the traditional retail industry, value equity and brand equity were statistically significant, while relation equity were not.     

政府补贴、国际知识产权保护与企业创新——来自战略性新兴产业上市公司的证据

政府补贴对企业创新的影响存在争议,在美国重点打击中国战略性新兴产业的背景下,补贴这一产业政策的有效性再次引起热议。本文以2012-2017年沪深A股战略性新兴产业上市公司为样本,研究在国际知识产权保护加强的背景下政府补贴对战略性新兴产业创新绩效的影响。研究发现:中国政府实施的补贴政策有利于促进战略性新兴产业创新,但国际知识产权保护加强约束了中国政府补贴的规模和空间,从而抑制了补贴政策对战略性新兴产业创新的激励作用;此外,基于企业和产业异质性视角,国际知识产权保护的加强主要抑制了补贴对国有企业、内资企业和新材料产业创新的促进作用。进一步完善补贴政策和国内的知识产权保护制度,有利于提升中国在构建国际经济新秩序中的话语权。     

“三链对接,双元协同,多方共享”的产教融合育人平台的搭建与实践

针对目前职业教育产教融合综合指数不高、学生硬核实力与实际岗位脱节、教师四大职能与行业企业实践脱节以及育人目标与产业需求存在“隐形壁垒”等问题,对接产业链、人才链和创新链,校企双方从专业组建、基地建设、课程开发、技术创新、团队打造、人才培养等方面协同共建,构建了多方共享的产教融合育人平台,打造产教融合型的命运共同体。     

医疗器械产业创新集群的现状及路径研究——以宁波市为例

产业集群能提高企业、区域和国家竞争力。当前以产业创新集群为代表的新一轮产业集群正在各地兴起。通过行业融合、知识外溢和集体行动，产业创新集群促进相关企业和支持性机构紧密互动而加速创新。医疗器械产业科技含量高，创新性强，是当前少数几个涉及学科最多的产业之一。以医疗器械产业为研究对象，从集群和区域创新发展的要义出发，挑选宁波地区的医疗器械行业，测算其行业集中度和产业集群效应，提出提升医疗器械行业集群度，激发产业创新集群活力的对策建议。     

Challenges in the Portuguese textile and clothing industry: a fight for survival

The Portuguese textile and clothing industry thrived after 1960, when Portugal joined the European Free Trade Association, and it has been an important industry in Portugal in terms of value added, employment, and exports. Nevertheless, the industry has experienced significant challenges with the final integration of the apparel and textile industry into GATT on 1 January 2005, as well as the admission of relatively low-wage Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union in 2007. This paper describes recent trends in the industry between 1995 and 2016, including a substantial decrease in output after 2005 and recovery in recent years. In addition, a translog cost function is used to examine the existence of economies of scale, the relationships among inputs, and the effects of the 2005 GATT entry on the industry’s costs. The findings include strong evidence of economies of scale, consistent with the many small and mid-sized enterprises in the Portuguese textile and clothing industry. The results are also consistent with capital and labour being complementary inputs, while other input pairs are substitutes. The entry into GATT may have had a negative impact on cost, though the evidence for that effect is weak.     

The role of relationship quality in raising organizational change acceptance: The case of the Greek hotel industry

This study examines whether the quality of an employee's relationships, within the context of the hotel industry, has an influence on their behavioral intention towards organizational change. The researchers suggest that the quality of relationships is an important element of an individual's social capital and can be evaluated using five key dimensions: the extent to which relationships are tangible, responsive and reliable, as well as the extent to which they offer empathy and assurance. Furthermore, this research examines whether organizational commitment and job satisfaction have an effect on the association between relationship quality and an individual's behavioral intention towards organizational change. The data collected from a sample of 100 hotel employees in Thessaloniki, Greece, show that relationship quality has a positive association with an individual's behavioral intention towards change. Additional results highlight the roles of job satisfaction and organizational commitment as mediating variables. Managerial implications relevant to the findings and pathways for further research are also discussed.     

The Emergence of Proto-Institutions in the New Normal Business Landscape: Dialectic Institutional Work and the Dutch Drone Industry

In the current business landscape, in which technology-enabled entrepreneurship is part of the New Normal, regulatory institutional structures are in constant flux. Previous studies have framed the challenges facing entrepreneurs in mature organizational fields as avoiding the power of overbearing regulators long enough to establish the legitimacy of their ventures. In fields typified by New Normal conditions, however, regulatory frameworks for evaluating new technology-enabled ventures are often still lacking. Regulators may choose to actively reach out to entrepreneurs to arrive at a better understanding of the radical technological changes and high-frequency entrepreneurial behavioural adaptations that occur in these settings. To grasp how novel regulatory institutional structures come about in the New Normal business landscape, we conducted a processual study of the emergence of a new technology that is the Dutch remotely piloted aircraft systems (drone) industry between 2000 and 2018. Our findings show that regulatory proto-institutions result from dialectic institutional work in the form of structured interactions between entrepreneurs and regulators. Specifically, we present a process model that reveals how new regulatory structures evolve in contexts where high levels of technological and behavioural change induce systemic uncertainty, and enlarge the interdependence between entrepreneurs and regulators. We suggest that our process theory of proto-institutional emergence generalizes towards other organizational fields in which technology-enabled entrepreneurship has become the main driver of growth. Theoretically, our findings speak to the literatures on institutional work, proto-institutional emergence, and the New Normal business landscape.     

Measuring destocking performance of the Chinese real estate industry: A DEA-Malmquist approach

This paper aims to measure the evolution of destocking performance of the Chinese Real Estate Industry based on a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis)-Malmquist approach, which is seldom used in this industry in existing literature. In 2016, the Chinese government introduced a unified national destocking policy to reduce real estate inventory to save the downturn in the real estate market, but the effect was less than expected and led to soaring house prices in first-tier cities. By analysing the destocking performance over the period from 2005 to 2015, we find the following: (1) It is impossible to use a unified policy to effectively address the national destocking issue because of the difference of DMUs' destocking efficiency, input redundancy and total factor productivity score changes. (2) With the current destocking performance and investment status, the government is still ignoring the existing commercial real estate problems. (3) The redundancy of firm assets and staff indicates that zombie firms may exist and risk future unemployment in the real estate industry. (4) Despite the recently repeated government interventions in this industry, destocking performance remains falling since 2008, and problems in other regions is more severe than in central cities. (5) The financial crisis triggered by the US subprime mortgage crisis has had a great impact on China's real estate industry. The destocking performance dropped sharply in 2008, forcing the Chinese government to introduce policies to stimulate the real estate market. Policy recommendations are also put forward based on the findings.     

审计师行业专长对审计重要性水平的影响——基于股权性质的调节作用研究

审计师行业专长意味着在特定领域较强的专业胜任能力,对于防范审计风险和提高审计质量都有显著影响。围绕审计师行业专长影响审计重要性水平这一主题，结合股权性质的调节作用，选取2016—2018年沪深两市A股上市公司作为研究对象，进行实证检验。结果表明，审计师行业专长对重要性水平有正向影响，如果被审计单位是国有控股上市公司，审计师行业专长与重要性水平的正相关关系更显著。这对审计机构人力资源配置、监管部门完善相关制度及监督工作具有参考价值。