Importance Performance Competitor Analysis (IPCA): A study of hospitality companies

Although Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) is a popularly used method in many research areas, academics mainly criticise it because of its relative structure and lack of consideration of competitors. In the present study, the author proposes an extended version of IPA, which is called Importance Performance Competitor Analysis (IPCA), to address these shortcomings. The proposed method considers the GAP score, which is obtained by the comparison of an attribute’s importance and the focal company’s performance in the same attribute. Moreover, it uses focal and competing companies’ performance differences score. IPCA offers different strategies for each attribute depending on the quadrant that it is positioned in. Absolute structure and consideration of competitors are the advantages of IPCA. Another characteristic of the IPCA is its simplicity, like IPA, there is no necessity to have advanced level statistical knowledge.     

Low carbon transport strategy in Europe: A critical review

ABSTRACT

The purposes of this article are to depict ongoing trends regarding the transport system in Europe, to introduce readers to the challenges that Europe (and the rest of the world) will face in the future, to show which strategies Europe plans to deploy to mitigate the negative impacts the transport system imposes on the overall system, and finally to discuss the potential of these suggested strategies to contribute to the objectives of the European Union in the long run.     

Factor substitution and taxation in a finance constrained economy

In this paper, we examine the effects of constant-rate factor taxation on macroeconomic stability in the Woodford (1986) model. Our focus is on how the degree of factor substitution, as measured by the elasticity of factor substitution (EOS) in production, affects different balanced-budget tax rules. Analytically, we show that indeterminacy can occur under capital income taxation only when the EOS is very low, whereas indeterminacy under labor income taxation is not subject to the EOS restriction. This finding is robust when we tax all of the factor incomes with equal rates. Thus, in terms of macroeconomic stability, taxing capital income is preferred to taxing labor income.     

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。     

An Analysis of Mood System of Narrative Rock Song Lyrics and Its Interpersonal Functions

This thesis takes narrative rock song lyrics as the target of texts analysis from the perspective of mood and its realization of interpersonal functions. Song lyrics texts have the quality of both oral and written text and can be regarded as oral text written for the purpose of singing. Among all kinds of songs, subject with rock is probably the most common genre of song lyrics. Therefore this study focuses on rock song lyrics, specifically narrative rock song lyrics.     

基于FAST的医院文化的功能分析

本文基于价值工程(Value Engineering,VE)的原理和方法,对医院文化的功能体系开展了分析,认为医院文化的最终功能一是促进医院的健康发展,二是促进社区的和谐。其基本功能包括显性文化的功能和隐性文化功能二种。在此基础上,探讨了医院文化的实现手段和基础需求。     

海外高层次人才创新创业政策研究:政策工具与创新创业过程视角

在全球人才流动加速的知识经济时代，中央和地方政府相继颁布了一系列鼓励海外高层次人才创新创业的政策。通过构建政策工具—创新创业过程二维框架，以浙江省“九五”至“十三五”期间颁布的海外人才政策为研究对象，采用内容分析法和扎根理论编码进行统计分析。研究发现：浙江省海外高层次人才政策数量增长迅速，从“十五”至“十三五”开局之年政策数量呈明显上升趋势;政策发文主体较多，但协调性较弱，浙江省财政厅是重要联合发文主体;从政策工具维度而言，供给类和环境类政策过溢、需求类政策偏少;创新创业准备阶段缺乏环境型政策，起步阶段缺乏供给型政策，发展阶段缺乏需求型政策。最后，提出优化海外高层次人才政策的对策建议。     

A comprehensive evaluation of macroeconomic forecasting methods

We employ datasets for seven developed economies and consider four classes of multivariate forecasting models in order to extend and enhance the empirical evidence in the macroeconomic forecasting literature. The evaluation considers forecasting horizons of between one quarter and two years ahead. We find that the structural model, a medium-sized DSGE model, provides accurate long-horizon US and UK inflation forecasts. We strike a balance between being comprehensive and producing clear messages by applying meta-analysis regressions to 2,976 relative accuracy comparisons that vary with the forecasting horizon, country, model class and specification, number of predictors, and evaluation period. For point and density forecasting of GDP growth and inflation, we find that models with large numbers of predictors do not outperform models with 13–14 hand-picked predictors. Factor-augmented models and equal-weighted combinations of single-predictor mixed-data sampling regressions are a better choice for dealing with large numbers of predictors than Bayesian VARs.     

Configurations of business strategy and marketing channels for e-commerce and traditional retail formats: A Qualitative Comparison Analysis (QCA) in sporting goods retailing

This article applies a configurational approach to study the fit between retail format, business strategy, and multi-channel setup. Its empirical material consists of five case studies, and a data set of 74 sporting goods retailers in Sweden. Our results show that a retailer can create strategic advantages when its multi-channel setup fits with its business strategy, and that retail format is important for explaining differences in growth and profit, the former being assigned to e-commerce and the latter to physical stores. Moreover, the study reveals that to some extent online channels also have positive performance implications for physical store retailers.     

Health and cosmetics: Investigating consumers’ values for buying organic personal care products

In investigating consumers’ intentions to re-purchase organic personal care products (PCP), this study extends the theory of planned behaviour by including perceived value dimensions as the antecedents of attitude in the model. The findings revealed that most of the hypothesised relationships linking the consumer perceived value constructs (namely, health, safety, hedonic and environmental) with attitude towards the rebuying of organic PCP, were supported. Also, better product knowledge about organic PCP would lead to more positive attitudes towards re-purchasing the product. In contrast, social value was not important in predicting attitude. Similarly, the influence of subjective norm on rebuying intention was not supported. In terms of ranking of importance with regards to prediction of re-purchasing intention, attitude was the most important predictor followed by perceived behavioural control, product knowledge, hedonic value, environmental value and safety value.