The impact of customer experience on consumer purchase intention in cross-border E-commerce——Taking network structural embeddedness as mediator variable

This study investigates the mediator effect of network structural embeddedness between customer experience and consumer purchase intention in the context of cross-border e-commerce. 321 copies of online questionnaires unfold cross-border online shopping experience. The structural equation model is built to analyze the mediator effect of network structural embeddedness. Network density, Network centrality separately plays a mediating role between website ease of use, website relationship service and consumer purchase intention. In contrast, both of them play a mediating role between customer cost and consumer purchase intention. The research suggests developing the relationship between consumers and e-commerce websites for cross-border e-commerce platforms from a network standpoint, but not only marketing.     

“城居保”对中国农村家庭消费支出异质性实证研究

[目的]全面分析城乡居民基本养老保险制度对农村家庭各项消费支出现状的影响,就进一步完善该项政策和稳定农村消费市场提供重要的理论参考。[方法]文章以消费和储蓄生命周期理论为分析框架,通过选取合理的样本面板数据,运用系统GMM回归分析方法探究了城乡居民基本养老保险制度对农村家庭消费支出水平的影响。[结果]财产性收入是影响农民参与城乡居民基本养老保险制度的主要因素以及投保档次的制约因素,作以存量财富为基础的财产性收入要比流量形式存在的财富具有更强抵御风险的能力,即财产性收入在很大程度上可以增加农村家庭对养老保险的依赖程度。另外,城乡居民基本养老保险制度对农村家庭消费能力表现出异质性影响。其中,城乡居民基本养老保险制度对农村家庭生活消费支出、食品性等日常性支出、文体消费支出水平明显要高于对医疗消费支出水平。[结论]国家要加大宣传城乡居民基本养老保险制度的积极和辐射作用,让广大农村家庭能够真正了解这项政策的意图。同时,要逐步破解城乡二元结构等制度性障碍,让更多农村家庭能够享受到与城镇居民相同的养老待遇。     

畜牧产业结构变动对我国粮食安全的影响分析

［目的］改革开放40多年来，我国畜牧产业结构不断调整和优化，其生产供给结构与消费需求结构的变动与我国粮食安全问题息息相关。［方法］文章基于改革开放40多年来畜牧产业发展历程，从供给与需求两个维度分析我国畜牧产业结构变动的特征，并进一步探究畜牧产业结构变动与我国粮食安全间的作用机理，最后运用灰色关联度分析法实证其关联影响度。［结果］我国畜牧产业结构由耗粮型为主向节粮型转变，畜产品供给结构趋于合理，但不同区域间存在较大差异； 我国居民对畜产品消费需求量增加，但城乡居民畜产品消费结构及变动存在一定差异性； 畜牧产业结构变动与粮食安全有重要联系，畜牧业发展同保障国家粮食安全并不矛盾，畜牧产业结构变动主要通过耕地、基于口粮替代的食物需求结构变化及饲料粮需求3个方面作用于粮食安全； 具体来看，粮食播种面积、耗粮型畜产品比重和耗粮型畜产品饲料转化率对粮食安全水平的关联影响较大，节粮型畜产品比重与节粮型畜产品饲料转化率对粮食安全水平的关联影响小于耗粮型畜产品的影响。［结论］不断提高不同畜产品的饲料转化率，加大非粮型饲料资源开发利用度，推广非粮饲料应用技术，加快畜牧产业转型升级，满足消费者需求和保障国家粮食安全。     

Digital Platforms and the Nature of the Firm

Abstract:

Digital platforms turn traditional approaches of the firm, which relied on the wage relation to explain the major difference between firm and market, upside down and underline the advantages of coordination through organization over coordination through market. This study aims to propose a definition of the firm able to integrate, besides the integrated firm, also hybrid forms such as networks of subcontractor/subcontracting firms as well as atypical forms such as digital platforms. By reactivating the firm-boundary problem, this article suggests putting valorization by labor at the heart of the firm’s decisions concerning integration. It suggests therefore a general definition of the firm as a techno-institutional center of capital valorization, provided that firms make profits by means of the appropriation of labor incorporated into their (productive, structural, intellectual) capital through institutional arrangements. By stressing the relation of production between the owners of the means of production and the direct producers, the approach of the firm supported here should allow to cover the different existing models of the firm, from the classical firm to hybrid models, around which the boundary debate has revolved, to digital platforms.     

Welfare Policy and Precarious Lives: “Welfare Reform” Revisited

Abstract:

Although welfare reform has not been one of the most highly visible policy agendas for the Trump administration, restricting access to public assistance programs has been a part of proposals and actions in a number of areas. The Trump administration’s overall approach to welfare reform was articulated formally in 2018 in an Executive Order and a Council of Economic Advisers Report. To provide some context for a discussion of these two documents, the article begins with a discussion of the different meanings of “welfare reform” identified in institutionalist literature, and a brief overview of some important findings on the impacts of the 1996 welfare reform. It then highlights some key aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to welfare reform and responses from the poverty research and advocacy community.     

When is Effort Contagious in New Venture Management Teams? Understanding the Contingencies of Social Motivation Theory

Consistent with social motivation theory, prior research on managerial motivation suggests that effort is contagious across management team members. In this study, we draw on belongingness theory to develop a model on important boundary conditions to social motivation theory in the management team context. The model predicts that new venture managers react to their teammates’ higher effort levels by investing higher effort levels themselves primarily when they are confronted with a threat – namely, low venture performance and high environmental hostility – but that effort is less contagious when managers face little threat. We test our model with a sample of 103 new venture managers nested in 51 management teams in a longitudinal setting capturing managerial effort over 26 weeks. While we do not find a direct relationship between teammates’ effort and a new venture manager’s subsequent effort, we find support for the crucial role of threat in triggering the contagion of managerial effort. We discuss the contributions of our study for research on management teams, performance feedback, and entrepreneurial effort in new ventures.     

Thriving in the New Normal: The HR Microfoundations of Capabilities for Business Model Innovation. An Integrated Literature Review

Firms need to respond to the increasing competition and change of the current New Normal environment by being more innovative, and especially in developing new business models. This paper seeks to explore how microfoundations, particularly with respect to human resource management, play a key role in facilitating innovation in business models through the development of key needed capabilities. Four themes are identified with respect to business model innovation (BMI) in the New Normal: BMI as an enabler to create and operate across industries and product-markets; BMI as a mechanism for firms to better navigate changing institutional landscapes; BMI as giving rise to business model portfolios; and concurrent and cumulative innovations that can lead to BMI. This paper also develops a conceptual framework that presents a synoptic view of the five essential capabilities for BMI, which include analogical reasoning, sensemaking, dynamic capabilities, organisational ambidexterity, and organisational learning. Finally, it is shown how the microfoundations of a bespoke, development-oriented BMI HR architecture can support the advancement of these capabilities and thus contribute to the strategic HR literature.     

Managing Technological,Sociopolitical, and Institutional Change in the New Normal

A New Normal environment for business has emerged in the years after the 2008 financial crisis based on numerous changes in the world's economic, technological, demographic, and sociopolitical factors. This combination of changes has created a New Normal environment for firms with major implications for managers, strategists, and entrepreneurs alike. It has resulted in an environment with new challenges and opportunities that are considerably different from what firms had to contend with in the years previous. In this paper, we present the main changes that characterize the current New Normal business environment and highlight some key implications for strategy and management. Then, we present the nine articles in this special issue dealing with different dimensions of this new environment for firms. Subsequently, we outline some future research questions that could help to advance our knowledge of the New Normal environment and its implications for firms and management theories. In examining the New Normal, it is important to be reminded that the world is indeed round and even small actions on one side of the globe can have a major impact on organizations on the other side of the globe.     

Packs,Troops and Herds: Prosocial Cooperatives and Innovation in the New Normal

Prosocial organizations are emerging to tackle the effects of a New Normal. As they navigate its fragile and liquid institutional membranes, they prioritize cooperative forms of governance. These forms allow for collaboration and democratic decision-making necessary for the development of innovative solutions in this new context. At the same time, the high coordination costs of cooperatives lead to significant market pressures. Therefore, understanding when and under what conditions these new cooperatives innovate and strive is important as it provides insight into whether and how these ventures can become a viable alternative in this changing landscape. Using configurational analyses of organizational enablers leading to innovation in 40 entrepreneurial cooperatives, we identify three approaches: Attentive Pack, Eclectic Troop, and Wandering Herd, showing that innovative outcomes can indeed emerge under traditional cooperative features emphasizing collectivism. However, the pursuit of higher novelty requires a shift to more individualistic, business-as-usual, approaches. The New Normal does indeed enhance entrepreneurial activity, but of a different kind comprising novel sets of antecedents and outcomes, which we show can easily become the new dominant form of venturing required in this new context.     

Workforce diversity and firm performance: Relational coordination as a mediator and structural empowerment and multisource feedback as moderators

Workforce composition in organizations has become increasingly diverse. As an important step in determining how workforce diversity leads to firm performance, we proposed relational coordination as a mediator through which diversity in age and education indirectly affects firm performance. We also highlighted two human resource management practices (structural empowerment and multisource feedback) as critical contingencies that moderate the effects of workforce diversity on relational coordination and firm performance. We conducted hierarchical multiple regression on multisource data (including responses from senior directors, department directors, managers, and employees, as well as financial performance) from 189 Korean firms in the manufacturing sector, which yielded support for our hypotheses. These findings offer novel theoretical and practical insights into the effective management of workforce diversity.