“I will survive”: Online streaming and the chart survival of music tracks

Digital streaming has had a profound effect on the commercial music sector and now accounts for 80% of industry revenues in the United States. This study investigates the consumption of music on digital streaming platforms by analyzing the factors affecting the chart survival of individual music tracks. Our data are taken from the Spotify Global Top 200 between January 2017 and January 2020, containing observations on 3,007 unique tracks by 642 artists over 1,087 days. We identify a number of unique consumption traits applicable to online streaming services, which we use to explain variations in chart longevity. We find a positive association between the amount of time a track spends in the chart and the involvement of a major label. We also find that the level of competition from other chart entries, as well as some elements related to the pattern of diffusion, associates significantly with the likelihood of chart survival. The study highlights several important managerial implications for key industry stakeholders.     

ISO order imbalances and individual stock returns

I examine the relation between intermarket sweep order (ISO) order imbalances and the daily returns of individual stocks. First, I show that ISO order imbalances are positively related to contemporaneous returns. Second, I find that price pressures emanating from ISO imbalances are persistent and predict cumulative abnormal returns up to 2 months. The predictive power of ISO order imbalances on contemporaneous and future abnormal returns is strongest for firms in the smallest firm size quintile. Finally, I analyze herding among ISO order imbalances and find strong commonality. My results indicate that ISOs contribute to both short‐ and long‐term return formation.     

Variety in the video game industry: An empirical study of the Wundt curve

This study analyzes the effect of variety on consumer utility using historical behavioral information for 1,397 consumers participating in 729,049 unique rounds of play. We show that consumers generally exhibit a preference for variety as part of their gameplay utility. The relationship between variety and utility is nonlinear and follows, at least for some types of variety, an inverted u‐shape as predicted by the Wundt curve. Our results represent the first such evidence on the importance of variety in video gaming, which has significant implications for consumption through optimization of gameplay utility to satisfy the demand for variety.     

Foreign Ownership and Firm Innovation: Evidence from Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examines whether foreign equity investment promotes domestic firms’ innovation activities. Using panel data on the Korean firms during the 1999–2013 period, we find that foreign ownership has a positive effect on firms’ innovation activities. Furthermore, we also show that, as compared to non-chaebol firms, chaebol firms’ innovation activity becomes much greater with the increase of foreign ownership. Finally, we investigate industry-level spillover effects of innovation. Specifically, we find that foreign ownership promotes innovation activities via forward linkage, the effect of which is also more pronounced in chaebol firms.     

Adaptation and Mitigation amid the Consequences of Failure

Societies once could choose between changing direction or dealing with climatic disaster; now it is necessary to do both at once. The best-laid plans for mitigation would be hard enough to fulfill in a stable climate, but they will be vastly harder in the climate chaos ahead. If simultaneous mitigation and adaptation are still achievable, such a difficult balance cannot also take on the burden of supporting unrestrained economic growth. The failing efforts so far have been dominated by a search for synergistic ways to mitigate, adapt, and grow economies at the same time, while wishing away the predictable trade-offs between these goals. Wealthy polluting countries have enforced this optimistic spirit in international climate debates, in part to counter the language of loss and damage, which they have seen as a direct challenge. Key to their effort has been a reframing of adaptation that flips the focus from the vulnerability of exposed populations to their resilience. However, the reality of implementing plans for resilience is running into problems, and those populations are instead taking up the banner of climate justice. Debt- and disaster-plagued Puerto Rico illustrates the failure of both adaptation and mitigation through growth and the promise of climate justice as a means to articulate other forms of balance.     

Antecedents of attitude towards online mediation

While the majority of studies so far have examined the effectiveness and benefits of electronic settlement applications, this study explores factors that affect the adoption and use of online mediation services. To this end, structural equation modeling analysis was applied to data obtained from users and mediators involved in an online mediated dispute. Subject perceptions regarding an overall mediation system including information technology and a human mediator were assessed. The findings suggest that while perceived usefulness of the information system explains the variance in attitude towards online mediation, the perceived usefulness of the mediator does not shape this attitude. Thus, mediators are being conceptualized as external to the service and their characteristics do not affect attitudes towards online mediation services, nor the intention to adopt it. This phenomenon is explained using biases in attribution.     

Tensions Arising from Imposing NPM in Australian Public Universities: A Management Perspective

This study seeks to identify the characteristics causing tensions in the move towards a corporate culture in Australian public universities. The findings reveal ongoing structural, competency and behavioral issues contributing to the tensions. Two theoretical propositions have emerged regarding the status of the change process. First, the change to a corporate culture is slow but continuing. Second, universities have accepted that public sector, collegial and corporate cultures have to co‐exist, thus adopting an adapted version of new public management (NPM). These findings provide avenues for further research to confirm both the characteristics and theoretical propositions.     

Chinese relationship management: a qualitative study of banking in New Zealand

This study investigates the relational factors and motivations of Chinese migrant consumers towards financial service providers in New Zealand. Using convergent interviews, a deeper understanding is developed of immigrants’ relational behaviour with service providers. These relationships with service providers are significantly influenced by traditional Chinese values and guanxi and relational embeddedness plays an important role in how they are developed. The research contributes a better understanding of the interplay between Eastern and Western cultures in service relationships among immigrant groups. A general theory of the Chinese perspective of customer relationship management is developed. The implications for how marketing practitioners manage their relationships with migrant customers are explored.