Environmental factors influencing the management of key accounts in an Arab Middle Eastern context

Within the sales and marketing literature, it is recognised that a range of external factors can influence how companies in the business-to-business field manage business relationships within national and across international borders. However, there have been very few studies that explore the influence of the external environment on key account relationships, especially within the context of emerging economies. This study draws on the network approach and contingency theory to identify and highlight the influence of external environmental factors on the management of inter-organisational relationships with key customers in emerging economies in the Arab Middle East region. It is based on an extensive qualitative enquiry that utilises 50 in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in Jordan with endogenous and Western firms. It concludes that key account practices within an Arab context are shaped by a number of contingencies that are embedded in broader institutional contexts and the business environment, which may challenge the adoption of company-wide universal key account management policies across borders.     

A network approach to modeling the multi-echelon spare-part inventory system with backorders and interval-valued demand

A multi-echelon inventory system implies the existence of a hierarchy of stocking locations, and the dependence and interaction between them. We consider a multi-echelon, spare-part inventory management problem with outsourcing and backordering. The problem is characterized by deterministic repair time/cost, and supply and demand that lie within prescribed intervals and that vary over time. The objective is to minimize the total inventory and transportation costs. We develop a network model for problem analysis and present a network flow algorithm for solving the problem. We prove that the Wagner-Whitin property, known for the lot-sizing problem, can be extended to the spare-part inventory management problem under study.     

网络经济下国际分工的演化及其经济机理研究

自20世纪中期以来,随着电子信息技术与电子商务的发展,互联网正成为国际贸易新的平台。随着网络经济的兴起,企业凭借网络平台跨越了时空对实际交易的束缚,交易范围扩大,交易成本减少,促使了国际分工继续深化,中间品贸易大量出现。本文将应用交易成本理论,对网络经济及电子商务背景下企业由垂直一体化向垂直分离化分工演进及其这种演进对国际贸易的影响进行分析。     

数字网络语音室的设计与布设

虚拟企业的合作伙伴大多来自不同的文化背景,跨文化管理是必然的趋势。对虚拟企业进行跨文化管理,要分析其成员的文化背景及组织内部结构特点,本着相互理解、宽容的态度,在虚拟企业内部建构团队文化,进行信任、沟通和冲突的及时管理,以利于虚拟企业的有效运作。     

基于BP神经网络的老工业基地企业核心竞争力的综合评价

我国对老工业基地进行调整和改造,作为老工业基地主体的企业,有必要了解自己和其他同行企业的核心竞争力水平和状况。为此,运用AHP法构建了老工业基地企业核心竞争力评价指标的递阶层次结构,应用BP神经网络理论对老工业基地企业核心竞争力进行综合评价。实证研究表明,评价结果与实际基本相符合,从而提供了一条对老工业基地企业核心竞争力进行定量评价的途径。     

基于TCP/IP的嵌入式WebServer网络测控系统设计

本文研究基于TCP/IP协议栈的嵌入式系统在网络智能设备中的测控应用设计。以Rabbit2000网络微处理器和Dynam ic C软件开发环境为例,阐述构建嵌入式W ebServer的具体技术及相关的实现方案;详细介绍了实现TCP、UDP报文进行网络通信、串行口数据通信和对网络智能设备的测控技术等,并给出系统硬件原理框图和有关软件实现的程序代码及流程图。     

基于生成矩阵的LDPC/Turbo码的构造及内外迭代译码新技术

美国相关公司在美国对中国维生素C生产企业提起“价格串通”的美国反托拉斯(反垄断)诉讼。这是中国企业第一次面临美国的反托拉斯诉讼的域外管辖。本文分析的案例报告主要涉及中国企业试图从程序方面即根据“国家强迫行为”理论来申请中止证据调查程序。本文在对该案归纳的基础上,还就本案可能涉及的其他问题,如对美国反托拉斯法的域外适用的抗辩理由;美国反托拉斯法上价格串通构成的要素进行了评析。此外,本案还提醒我国行业协会和企业在应对美国反倾销指控的同时,需防止被指控价格串通而触犯后果更为严厉的美国反托拉斯法。     

An empirical investigation of director selection in movie preproduction: A two-sided matching approach

This paper examines how movie producers recruit directors in the preproduction phase as mutual choices in a two-sided matching model. It conceptualizes that movie attributes and filmmaker characteristics determine the matching outcomes (“who directed which movie”) and in turn indirectly affect movie box office. We exploit a dataset of 4,807 feature films from 1990 to 2010 to examine empirically the complementarities between the movie/producer side and the director side in terms of movie budget, filmmaker track records and social relations. A series of simulations suggest that social relations facilitate positive assortative matching. Further simulation analyses are conducted to quantify the financial implications of movie–director mismatches, as well as the indirect effects of production budget and producer characteristics. The simulation results show that: a) the financial implications of having a mismatched director can be substantial; and b) the indirect effect of production budget and producer characteristics affect movie box office in an interactive manner. These findings can help filmmakers to better understand the financial impacts of movie–director choices and make more informed decisions at the early phase of preproduction.     

Exploring the core factors of online purchase decisions by building an E-Commerce network evolution model

With the continuous development of the Internet and information technology, online shopping has become a popular purchase mode. The in-depth analysis of consumer decision-making in online shopping is an important issue. Our purpose is to study how the factors of the shopping web pages corporately affect online purchase decisions and determine which are the core factors that affect consumer purchase decisions. We screen the influencing factors on the shopping webpage and deploy e-commerce network evolution based on various weight combinations of these factors to generate sales distributions of online products. By comparing these simulated sales distributions to the real data, the optimal weight of each factor is obtained. The results show that sales volume and the number of high-quality negative comments are the most important factors influencing consumers' decision-making, the number of comments and the number of comments with pictures are relatively minor factors, store type and video presentation of the products have the least impact. The optimal simulated sales distribution is very close to the real case and verifies that the introduced network evolution technology is applicable. The proposed model can be used as a uniform evaluation platform for correlational study, which is an important link in the purchase research chain.     

Economic corollaries of personalized recommendations

The impact of recommendation systems (RSs) on the diversity of consumption is not transparent or well understood. Available studies, whether experimental or theoretical, show inconsistent and even opposite results, which manifests as debate in the literature. In this paper, we investigate the impact of two main recommender systems, neural collaborative filtering and deep content filtering, on sales diversity via a randomized field experiment. Our results confirm the capability of recommender engines in increasing or decreasing aggregate sales diversity. Nonetheless, they amplify homogenization and reduce individual-level consumption diversity. In conclusion, our research reconciles seemingly contradict previous findings and illustrates that the design of the RS is the decisive factor in homogenizing or diversifying product sales.