“Sensing” the destination: Development of the destination sensescape index

Despite the increasing academic interest in the sensory dimension of the tourist experience, the quantitative empirical research in the field is limited by a lack of measurement instruments for evaluating the sensory stimuli perceived by tourists during a destination visit. The study addresses this gap by developing a composite index to assess the sensory destination panorama, termed as “destination sensescape”. The construct is conceptualised as a formative multidimensional variable with 5 dimensions (visualscape, smellscape, tastescape, soundscape, and hapticscape). The psychometric validity and reliability of the 17 items integrating the formative index were established by a rigorous multi-step procedure based on three empirical studies. The instrument was tested with data collected from visitors of a Mediterranean urban destination. The operationalisation of the destination sensescape construct not only paves the way for future quantitative sensory studies, but also yields a useful tool for Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs).     

Exploring an in-store customer journey for customers shopping for outdoor apparel

The omni-channel shopping phenomenon creates major challenges for brick-and-mortar stores to remain relevant and appeal to customers. A way to counteract these challenges is to offer customers a journey where in-store experiences enable them to encounter numerous physical and virtual touchpoints evoked by affective, cognitive, physical, relational, sensorial and symbolic responses. This study ascertained the customer journey activated by the experiences causing value and resulting in intentions to revisit a retailer specializing in outdoor apparel. Our web-based survey collected 300 valid responses for analyses. The statistical analyses confirmed a positive relationship between the customer in-shop experience factors and the shopping trip value experienced, which in turn mediated the relationship with intention to repatronage. Some conclusions are made and various suggestions for future research are recommended.     

Optimal investment with vintage capital: Equilibrium distributions

The paper concerns the study of equilibrium points, or steady states, of economic systems arising in modeling optimal investment with vintage capital, namely, systems where all key variables (capitals, investments, prices) are indexed not only by time but also by age. Capital accumulation is hence described as a partial differential equation (briefly, PDE), and equilibrium points are in fact equilibrium distributions in the variable of ages. A general method is developed to compute and study equilibrium points of a wide range of infinite dimensional, infinite horizon, optimal control problems. We apply the method to optimal investment with vintage capital, for a variety of data, deriving existence and uniqueness of equilibrium distribution, as well as analytic formulas for optimal controls and trajectories in the long run. The examples suggest that the same method can be applied to other economic problems displaying heterogeneity. This shows how effective the theoretical machinery of optimal control in infinite dimension is in computing explicitly equilibrium distributions. To this extent, the results of this work constitute a first crucial step towards a thorough understanding of the behavior of optimal paths in the long run.     

一般竞争战略理论论战、观点流派与研究展望——从割裂到融合

一般竞争战略理论对企业战略决策具有广泛而深远的影响。学者们对一般竞争战略的割裂观和融合观一直争执不休，众多研究呈现出多角度、多证据、结论矛盾和研究混乱的局面。文章通过对相关理论回顾和梳理，揭示出一般竞争战略理论割裂观存在的问题和困境，呈现融合观的理论与实证证据，提炼出混合战略的三个流派，并揭示混合战略研究的脉络和趋势。文章揭示出融合是竞争战略的趋势，实现不同战略类型的融合和竞争战略的多维体系构建，有助于厘清竞争战略研究的混乱和矛盾，打破根深蒂固的“骑墙战略”禁区思维，为企业的战略决策提供系统和多维的视角，并推动一般竞争战略从割裂化向融合化演进，特别是对现阶段的中国企业战略制定具有重要意义。     

新形势下高职后勤党建与社区党建共驻共建模式探讨

论文对高职后勤党建与社区党建共驻共建模式的背景及基础进行综述,分析加强社区党建的重要性以及社区党建工作的现状,论述高职后勤党建工作的基础、优势与促进社区共驻共建的重要性,提出高职后勤党建与社区党建共驻共建模式,并对这种共驻共建的模式提出优化思路,以期为现代党建工作提供思路,以供参考。     

Multidimensional brand equity and asymmetric risk

The authors investigate the extent to which central customer-based brand equity dimensions (Differentiation, Relevance, Esteem, Knowledge, and Energy) influence a firm’s systematic risk (i.e., beta) during both market upturns and downturns. The results demonstrate that aggregating upside and downside beta or different dimensions of brand equity masks the true associations which can be seen only in the disaggregate analyses. The authors find that Relevance and Knowledge play roles as stabilizers, showing negative relationships with both upside gains and downside risk, while Esteem plays the role of protector, showing a negative relationship with only downside losses and not influencing upside gains; Energy acts as a booster, being positively associated with a firm’s potential gains in a period of market growth without increasing the firm’s expected losses during a bad market. The positive relationship of Energy with aggregate risk could be misleading as it hides the beneficial effect of Energy as a booster. The authors also find that Relevance is the most important consideration when people make choices in bad market situations, while Energy becomes the most crucial deciding factor in good market situations. Taking advantage of the multidimensional constructs of brand equity while allowing for the asymmetrical characteristics of risk enables managers to capture the differential role of each brand equity dimension in influencing firm risks, which leads to more sophisticated strategic decisions regarding risk management. In addition to general brand strategy, the authors provide tailored brand strategies to firms from different industries or with different financial characteristics.     

Perception value of product-service systems: Neural effects of service experience and customer knowledge

Digital trends in product-service system (PSS) development focus on developing win-win solutions for both companies and customers, particularly when considering human behavior issues. It is useful for the PSS provider to know the PSS value creation mechanism when customers are buying and utilizing a PSS, particularly in the service-dominant logic (SDL) and cognitive neuroscience perspective. This study solved the PSS implementation that satisfied the demands of both customers and manufacturers and the value cocreation mechanism during product and service configuration with the impacts of consumer learning and the service experience. The proposed neuroscience methodology is based on an ERP (event-related potential) experiment using PSS stimuli, representing the perception value creation process during customer decision making and the PSS configuration process. The effectiveness of the service experience is more important than customer knowledge during PSS value perception due to positive emotions with pleasant memories for the service experience and the conflicting cognition process of customer learning. The combination of service science and neurology may measure and observe human behavior and psychology through the brain science method and effectively solve the human factors in service science. The findings suggest a more objective and personalized understanding of PSS value perception, particularly the practical requirements of a resulted-oriented PSS and an application-oriented PSS.     

Herding behaviour in P2P lending markets

We explore lender behaviour on Renrendai.com, a leading Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P) crowdlending platform. Using a sample of around five million investor-loan-hour observations, and applying a high-dimensional fixed effect estimator, we confirm evidence of herding behaviour: the investors in our sample prefer assets that had attracted strong interest in previous periods. The herding behaviour relates to both the experience level of the investor and the length of time of an investment session on the platform. We also provide evidence of significant herding behaviour in the first hour of experienced investors’ sessions. Our results are robust to the use of alternative specifications.     

A Bayesian examination of the relationship of internal and external touchpoints in the customer experience process across various service environments

Customer experience (CX) is an aggregate of consumer touch points that can be brand-owned (completely controlled by the firm), partner-owned (collectively controlled by the firm and one or more of its partners), customer-owned (where the firm or its partner cannot exert any control or influence) or represented by social/external touch points that account for the importance of the roles of others in the customer experience process. Although the concept of CX is widely used, not much has been examined about how external touch points impact customer perception of experience. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to examine the role and impact of internal and external touchpoints as dimensions of customer experience and how CX can impact consumer word-of-mouth intention. Service outcome and peace of mind were used to represent internal experience touchpoints and peer to peer quality (PTP) was used to represent an external experience touchpoint. A total of 293 usable surveys were used for analysis using a Bayesian model developed for this study instead of the more traditional SEM approaches. Results showed that an external experience touchpoint has a similar impact to those of internal experience touchpoints in the experience process. CX was also found to have a strong effect on customer word of mouth intention. These findings make various contributions to the literature on CX, especially to research differentiating internal from external experience touchpoints. On the practical side, this study provides recommendations to retailers about how to manage an external touchpoint.     

Here Today,Gone Tomorrow? Mapping and modeling the pop-up retail customer journey

Pop-up retail and customer journey mapping are widely adopted in the retail industry, yet they have received modest coverage within academic literature to date. Through a qualitative field study of five marketplace-based pop-ups (MBPUs), this research defines and identifies differences and similarities between marketplace-based pop-ups (MBPUs) and brand-based pop-ups (BBPUs), seeks to understand how marketplace-based pop-ups fit within the customer journey and experience, and explores how touchpoint ownership and influence illuminates the understanding of the marketplace-based pop-up customer journey. Further, this research extends an existing conceptual customer journey framework to visually map and model the purchase stages, touchpoint categories and types of marketplace-based pop-up customer journeys. As a result, this research presents and discusses three emerging themes (here today gone tomorrow; high-touch low-tech; and ownership and influence) to further the understanding of MBPUs. Pop-ups are more than a single encounter; they are a complex customer journey process, whereby the customer travels through pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase stages, and across multiple touchpoints.