Business-to-business selling in the post-COVID-19 era: Developing an adaptive sales force

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how salespeople interact with customers and with business-to-business (B2B) organizations. Organizations must confront the shifts in how their salespeople operate. Recent research recommends firms develop an adaptive sales force to address disruptions like a pandemic and be prepared to meet such challenges in the future. Based on interviews with marketing and sales executives, we explore how firms have responded to these interconnected changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and offer insight into best practices deployed across industries.     

老旧小区改造模式化推广探究--西安碑林区老旧小区改造为例

在我国社会建设与发展中,对于城镇老旧小区的改造是一项重大的民生工程以及发展工程,可以有效满足社会人民群众对于美好生活的需要,全面推进惠民生、扩内需,助推城市的更新以及开发建设方式的转型,可以促使我国民生工程取得更加良好的成效。文章首先探讨与分析老旧小区改造的重要意义,老旧小区模式化推广的必要性,文中通过实际案例分析,最后提出相应的建议,希望可以为相关企业老旧小区改造工程全面推进贡献出绵薄之力。     

The legacy of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration

Does the politico–economic system affect preferences for immigration? In this study, I show that individuals exposed to life under state socialism have formed and persistently hold different attitudes toward immigration. By exploiting the division and reunification of Germany, I estimate the influence of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration. Drawing on rich individual panel data, I find that East Germans who lived under state socialism, are 15 percent more likely to oppose immigration than West Germans who spent their entire life in a democratic, capitalist country. This difference in attitudes toward immigration is persistent over time and across space, and largest for cohorts born and raised under state socialism. This gap in attitudes can be traced back to a longer-term deterioration in trust. Evidence from members of a group that opposed the authoritarian system highlights the importance of state socialist ideology for attitude formation.     

Customizing calories: How rejecting (vs. selecting) ingredients leads to lower calorie estimation and unhealthier food choices

Customization of food products has increased substantially in recent years while the desire for healthiness and an emphasis on understanding and providing calorie information continues to dynamically change the landscape of restaurant retail. The authors report four studies demonstrating that different customization routes (i.e., rejecting alternatives from a full product offering versus adding alternatives to a basic product offering) lead to systematic, but predictable, differences in consumers’ estimations of calories. In particular, this research finds that a rejection (vs. selection) customization process leads consumers to persistently estimate lower calories in the final product, which then improves evaluations of the retailer and leads to unhealthier food choices. These findings occur when consumers estimate calories of the exact same final product using the different paths to customization as well as when they create their own customized final product, while accounting for differences in the quantity and type of ingredients selected, suggesting a very general difference in estimations. This research has important implications for consumers who want to manage their weight and for firms that need to manage consumers’ health perceptions.     

Technological character,function type,and the longevity of standardized knowledge

This study seeks to determine the validity of the current de jure standards management system. The de jure standard is an important tool for innovation policy. However, its review interval has been fixed in the management system and maintained without the use of empirical analysis to guide its development. Therefore, this study (1) examines the factors that affect the longevity of the standards, and (2) outlines methods for improving how the de jure standards are managed. Results indicate that design and mark standards influence the longevity of standardized knowledge. This is notable, given that design for innovation is an emerging area of research that is commonly studied through the analysis of design patent data. Taken together, this study’s major findings are twofold. First, different technological categories have significantly different effects on longevity. Because the longevity of some technological sectors is naturally longer than others, there exists a need for a more flexible interval system. Second, the longevity of the mark and design standard is longer than the longevity of other types of standards. Both developing and developed countries utilize the de jure standard, so the policy implications of these findings are widely applicable.     

女性高管对企业研发创新的影响：一个有调节的中介模型

企业创新是企业持续发展的内在动力,也是推动国家产业升级、建设创新型国家的重要举措.近年来女性高管比重不断提高,学术界开始关注女性高管对企业研发创新的影响.以沪深两市2010—2018年A股上市公司为研究样本,实证检验女性高管对企业研发创新投入的影响.结果表明:女性高管负向影响企业研发创新投入;其负向作用以风险承担为中介实现;企业所有制调节了中介过程的后半段路径.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

知识型员工冗余对中小上市公司二元创新的影响：环境特征的调节作用

以277家中小板和创业板上市公司2012-2017年平衡面板数据为样本，利用泊松模型，实证分析知识型员工冗余与企业二元创新的关系，并探讨外部环境特征（要素市场发育程度和市场不确定性）的调节机理。研究表明：企业应保持一定的知识型员工冗余，促进企业二元式创新，过多或过少的知识型员工冗余均不利于企业开展创新活动；不同的环境特征对二者间关系的调节作用存在异质性，要素市场发育程度会减弱知识型员工冗余与探索式创新、利用式创新间关系，而市场不确定性会加强知识型员工冗余与探索式创新、利用式创新间关系。