Linking customisation of ERP systems to support effort: an empirical study

The amount of customisation to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system has always been a major concern in the context of the implementation. This article focuses on the phase of maintenance and presents an empirical study about the relationship between the amount of customising and the resulting support effort. We establish a structural equation modelling model that explains support effort using customisation effort, organisational characteristics and scope of implementation. The findings using data from an ERP provider show that there is a statistically significant effect: with an increasing amount of customisation, the quantity of telephone calls to support increases, as well as the duration of each call.     

环境与耕地约束下的城镇化效率及其发展模式探因

[目的]考虑环境和耕地约束,构建了城镇化效率测算指标体系,测算并分析我国2000~2014年区域城镇化效率,并且从城镇化发展模式与产业结构分布形态2个角度探索区域城镇化效率差异的机理。[方法]以"工业三废"和耕地面积减少量作为非合意产出,构建了由11个指标组成的投入—合意产出—非合意产出指标体系,进而利用优化ISBM模型测算了2000~2014年我国区域城镇化效率,并利用谱系聚类方法分析了其梯队层次特征。[结果]我国各省域城镇化效率总体较低,绝大多数省域处于效率缺损的状态;各省域城镇化效率表现为明显的5个梯队层次,不同区域、不同梯队省域城镇化效率存在明显差异,总体呈现出东、中、西依次递减的格局,并且省域之间城镇化效率差距自2000年以来呈不断缩小的趋势;东部地区城镇化效率较高,总体上城镇化与产业结构之间相互协调,城市群发展程度高而使得城市之间的分工合作程度高;中西部地区城镇化效率相对较低,产业结构对经济的支撑作用相对较弱,城市体系断层明显,城市群带动作用弱。[结论]我国区域城镇化效率总体较低且不平衡,这在很大程度上取决于城镇化模式和演进机制,区域之间的城镇化效率差异体现在产业结构层次、城市集聚方式以及劳动力转移方式等方面。     

Does oligopsony power matter in price support policy design? Empirical evidence from the Thai Jasmine rice market

In the oligopsony market, farmers may receive low prices and policy analysis assuming perfect competition can yield serious bias results. In this paper, we estimate oligopsony power between processors and farmers and evaluate the welfare impact of the paddy pledging program (PPP), a generous price support program in the Thai Jasmine rice market, with an imperfect competition model. We develop a model that consists of rice supply equation and derived demand equation. We then simultaneously estimate these equations using system estimation methods to recover oligopsony power parameters. Finally, we use these parameters to assess the welfare impact of the price support program. Using annual panel data running from crop marketing year 2001/2002–2015/2016 and exploiting the institutional feature of the PPP, we find strong evidence of some oligopsony power, a moderate level of oligopsony price distortion, and a negative relationship between price support and oligopsony power. We also find that the PPP is inefficient but effective in income redistribution. Moreover, the program benefits both farmers and consumers. With better policymaking decisions, the PPP can be efficient by setting a suitable support price. Therefore, our results show that in the case of the Thai Jasmine rice market, the generally accepted “wisdom” about agricultural price support policy does not necessarily hold, and price support can be designed to improve the efficiency of the market.     

Theoretical analysis and model design of search for ecological conservation redlines based on the sensitivity assessment of ecosystem services

Most small-scale social economies are characterised by their deficiency, lack, and/or difficulty in matching natural data. Against this backdrop, this paper builds a relatively uniform theoretical framework and designs a more economical and objective method for demarcating ecological conservation redlines (ECR) based on sensitivity assessment of ecosystem services. The results show that the sensitivity assessment model designed in this study can identify sensitive zones effectively, and that the ECR in Hubei Province are well within the sensitive zones so identified. The delimited areas based on the sensitive assessment of ecosystem services have great similarities (95%) with the actual ECR areas in Hubei Province. The most ecologically important functional zones (EIFZ) can also be identified using the regional ecological sensitivity coefficient. When the threshold of EIFZ is set higher, the probability that it falls within the ecologically sensitive areas is greater and the ECR delimited by the method proposed in this study will be more reliable. Theoretically, the delimitation of ECR can be inserted at any evaluation level with a grid resolution higher than that of the land use data, which can be used as a supplement to the ECR delimitation method in ecology or geography.     

城市低保制度在邵阳市区的实施情况调查——以对212户低保受助者的调查为例

为了解城市低保制度的实施情况,从中发现存在的问题以及解决这些问题的方法,相关研究机构组织了由大学生组成的调查员对邵阳市城区内多个社区两百余户低保受助者进行了走访调查。调查结果显示,低保制度能发挥居民最低生活保障的作用,是一项完成了基本任务的顶层设计;自谋生计是大部分低保受助者的主要经济来源,而低保制度不具备"养懒汉"的经济可能性。     

Hong Kong's growth synchronization with China and the US: A trend and cycle analysis

This paper investigates the synchronization of Hong Kong's economic growth with mainland China and the US. We identify trends of economic growth based on the permanent income hypothesis. Specifically, we first confirm whether real consumption in Hong Kong and mainland China satisfies the permanent income hypothesis, at least in a weak form. We then identify the permanent and transitory components of income of each economy using a simple state-space model. We use structural vector autoregression models to analyze how permanent and transitory shocks originating from mainland China and the US affect the Hong Kong economy, and how such influences evolve over time. Our main findings suggest that transitory shocks from the US remain a major driving force behind Hong Kong's business cycle fluctuations. On the other hand, permanent shocks from mainland China have a larger impact on Hong Kong's trend growth.     

高职教育服务地方经济的政策支持研究

经济要发展教育必须先行。办好高职教育是为地区经济发展培养人才最有效的途径。大力发展高等职业教育应得到政府和社会的广泛重视和重点支持。要使高职院校人才培养健康有序地发展,更好地为地区经济发展服务,必须以改革的思路去办职业教育。     

Multilevel model of management support and casino employee turnover intention

This study proposed and tested a trickle-down model that manager support at the functional department level affect frontline employees' attitudes toward supervisor support at the operational level and subsequently influence leader-member exchange (LMX), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and turnover intentions. Three mediators were identified from the cross-level analysis, namely, supervisor support, group trust, and OCB. A survey collected valid responses from 336 line level casino employees who represent 112 work groups from 39 departments nested in 17 casinos. The hierarchical linear model (HLM) results indicate that (1) supervisor support mediates the relationship between departmental support and individual level LMX, (2) group trust mediates the relationship between supervisor support and hence employee turnover intention, and (3) OCB mediates the relationship between LMX and employee turnover. Our findings have important implications for casino management and operators by developing an efficient management support system to reduce the intention of frontline employees to quit.     

A novel decision support model for satisfactory restaurants utilizing social information: A case study of TripAdvisor.com

Decision support models for satisfactory restaurants have attracted numerous researchers' attention. Many extant models do not consider the active, neutral and passive information in online reviews all at once. Moreover, they ignore the effect of interdependence among criteria on tourists' decision-making. To cover these defects, this study proposes a restaurant decision support model using social information for tourists on TripAdvisor.com. The model introduces fuzzy sets to denote online reviews and utilizes Bonferroni mean to consider interdependence among criteria. Furthermore, it uses a novel similarity measurement which can handle sparse data in fuzzy environments. To validate the model, we conduct a case study of TripAdvisor.com which compares the proposed model with four other models. The performance of each model is evaluated by the metric called the mean absolute error. The study shows that the proposed model can effectively support tourists' decision-making and it performs better than the other four models.     

中小型高新技术企业初创期融资风险评价——基于模糊支持向量机融资风险评价方法

本文提出了基于模糊支持向量机的融资风险评价方法。该方法能够对融资风险进行有效地评价,从而为防范和规避融资风险提供依据。