Toward a new business model of retail industry: The role of brand experience and brand authenticity

While the customer-to-manufacturer (C2M) business model has received increasing attention as a new business model for e-commerce and retail industry, little is still known about it and the effect of its approach. This study aims to understand how brand-related stimuli in C2M environments affect customer responses as the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The outcomes reveal that the Sensory, affective, and intellectual aspects of brand experience positively influence brand authenticity. Brand authenticity has a positive effect on behavioral intention, such as reuse intention and word-of-mouth. Additionally, this research finds that social presence moderates the association between the sensory aspect of brand experience. Thus, this study can suggest a C2M business model as a means of sustainable operation of the retail industry to both researchers and practitioners in relation to the retail industry.     

Enhancing environmental information transparency through corporate social responsibility reporting regulation

This research aims to contribute to the scientific debate about the lack of interlinkages between mandatory non-financial reporting and sustainable business models. For our purposes, a counter-accounting analysis was conducted on the non-financial reports of a sample of 145 Italian firms interested by the Directive 2014/95/EU effects. Specifically, the study adopts an empirical approach to evaluate environmental information transparency, which represents one of the main critical issues concerning the non-financial declarations prepared by European Italian Public Interest Entities (PIEs) to comply with Directive 2014/95/EU. The results highlight that corporate governance and report characteristics affect environmental transparency. Furthermore, the results confirm the overall attitude to avoid the disclosure of unfavourable or unavailable environmental information through impression management strategies. Finally, the analysis underlines the opportunities for policymakers to rethink mandatory non-financial reporting to sustain the ecological transition of European PIEs.     

Business-to-business selling in the post-COVID-19 era: Developing an adaptive sales force

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how salespeople interact with customers and with business-to-business (B2B) organizations. Organizations must confront the shifts in how their salespeople operate. Recent research recommends firms develop an adaptive sales force to address disruptions like a pandemic and be prepared to meet such challenges in the future. Based on interviews with marketing and sales executives, we explore how firms have responded to these interconnected changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and offer insight into best practices deployed across industries.     

Digital marketing communication in global marketplaces: A review of extant research,future directions,and potential approaches

Digital marketing communication, that is, communication through digital or electronic media among businesses and consumers, is growing rapidly, especially during the COVID-19 era. We propose a framework for analyzing digital marketing communication along four major dyads, business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and consumer-to-business (C2B). We review and summarize, for researchers and practitioners, the literature during 2000–2021 in these dyads along four major components: goals; channels, media, and platforms; content; and responses. We find that extant research in digital marketing communication pertains mostly to a specific, national level rather than a global level, despite the porousness of national boundaries for digital marketing. We derive important insights, identify key research gaps and questions in each of the dyads along these dimensions. We suggest approaches to address these research questions under three major components: substantive issues, data, and methods. These approaches can offer the insights that managers need to better formulate digital marketing strategies in local and global contexts.     

The impact of research collaboration on academic performance: An empirical analysis for some European countries

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of internal and external research collaborations on the scientific performance of academic institutions. The data are derived from the international SCOPUS database. We consider both quantity (the number of publications) and quality indicators (the field-weighted citation impact and the share of publications in the 10% most-cited articles) to evaluate universities' performance in some European countries (Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Russia). To this end, we develop a non-overlapping generations model to evidence the theoretical idea of research externalities between academic institutions. Moreover, we implement an empirical model to determine the extent to which the impact of internal and external collaborations on universities' performance is sensitive to the geographical dimension of the data.     

Relationship Quality as Predictor of B2B Customer Loyalty in the Pharmaceutical Sector: Evidence from Jordan

This article aims to investigate the impactful effect of relationship quality dimensions (i.e., trust, satisfaction, and commitment) on aspects of loyalty represented by attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. A quantitative survey method was employed to achieve the objectives of the study. Furthermore, a convenience sampling technique was adopted to select a representative sample from physicians working in the public healthcare sector in Jordan. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, and 408 questionnaires were used in the statistical analyses. The data were analyzed by applying structural equation modeling to test the study model, and hypotheses were constructed and tested quantitatively and discussed qualitatively. The results revealed that both aspects of customer loyalty (i.e., behavioral and attitudinal) were affected positively by the overall dimensions of relationship quality (i.e., trust, satisfaction, and commitment), providing a recommendation for pharmaceutical companies in Jordan to focus on improving the relationship quality between their medical representatives and physicians due to the importance of such a factor in improving customer loyalty, which will reflect positively in managing their customers effectively and enhancing future business opportunities.     

On the asymmetric impact of macro–variables on volatility

We extend the GARCH–MIDAS model to take into account possible different impacts from positive and negative macroeconomic variations on financial market volatility: a Monte Carlo simulation which shows good properties of the estimator with realistic sample sizes. The empirical application is performed on the daily S&P500 volatility dynamics with the U.S. monthly industrial production and national activity index as additional (signed) determinants. We estimate the Relative Marginal Effect of macro variable movements on volatility at different lags. In the out-of-sample analysis, our proposed GARCH–MIDAS model not only statistically outperforms the competing specifications (GARCH, GJR-GARCH and GARCH–MIDAS models), but shows significant utility gains for a mean-variance investor under different risk aversion parameters. Attention to robustness is given by choosing different samples and estimating the model in an international context (six different stock markets).     

Impact of modern communication infrastructure on productivity,production structure and factor demands of US industries: Impact revisited

This study investigates the contribution of modern communication infrastructure characterized by high speed broadband access network on the productivity growth, production structure and factor demands for US industries and for the aggregate economy. To evaluate such contribution, we modify the traditional cost function by incorporating communication infrastructure as input in production process in conjunction with other public infrastructures. The network externality and spillover effect of broadband access technology are captured by introducing broadband penetration rate as a shift factor in industry level production function. Empirical results show that the increased use of modern communications infrastructure increases the productivity of all industries with wide variations across industries. Estimated impacts on input demands show that increase in use of communications infrastructure service saves labor and materials and increase the demand for private capital. Finally, aggregate social rate of return on such investment has been estimated for policy implications.     

互联网金融规制与市场有效性改善*——来自中国网络借贷行业的证据

中国的互联网金融经历了一个先创新发展后监管规制的过程，本文通过对网络借贷行业的实证研究，分析监管规则的出台实施对新型互联网融资市场有效性的影响。实证结果表明，网络借贷平台资金的银行存管、持有ICP证等强制性规定缓解了投资者、平台企业与借款人之间的信息不对称，对克服早期平台间通过竞相承诺高回报率来吸引投资者导致的“柠檬市场”问题、对解决网贷市场上缺乏平台风险性高低有效信号的问题都起到了正向作用，有助于互联网融资市场的有效性提高。