Organization,technology and management innovations through acquisition in China’s pork value chains: The case of the Smithfield acquisition by Shuanghui

This paper reviews the changes in Shuanghui’s operations after the Smithfield acquisition as well as transformations in China’s pork industries. As income grows and diets change, there has been an increasing demand for high-quality pork and more processed pork products. However, China’s swine and pork industries are still at an early stage of development as evidenced by the low market concentration, intensive use of labour, a proliferation of intermediaries, and low levels of technology. Bounded by the established consumer preferences for freshness and the status quo in the midstream and upstream segments, Shuanghui is in a slow process of upgrading its domestic operations with Smithfield’s leading brands, import of chilled and frozen pork, advanced technologies, and the vertically integrated business model after this acquisition. In particular, it remains unclear whether Shuanghui can follow Smithfield’s experience to establish stable and safe hog supplies by multiplying self-owned hog farms, maintain and expand its current contracts with large-scale commercial hog farms, or rely more on global sourcing of pork primarily from the U.S.     

基于新知识生产函数的青海高新技术企业创新驱动力研究

基于新经济增长模型,通过岭回归实证检验,分析了青海省高新技术企业创新产出的影响因素。实证结果显示企业内部研发投入和人力资本对创新产出有积极作用,集聚知识溢出水平对创新产出的贡献较大,政府支持力度对创新产出的作用不稳定。最后,结合高新技术企业调研现状和实证结果提出了高新技术企业提高创新产出的对策建议。     

中国集体林产权制度改革回顾与展望

采用历史产权制度研究方法,利用详实的历史数据与信息,系统地分析改革开放以来中国集体林产权制度改革每个重要时期的改革内容与进程以及集体林地林木流转制度演化历程,发现改革开放四十年中国集体林所有权和家庭经营的基因没有变,变的是集体林地承包经营权的实现形式;指出集体林产权制度变迁道路中的困惑;提出未来集体林产权制度的选择路径。     

Ketchup with your fries? Utilizing complementary product displays to transfer attention to a focal product

Does placing a display of complementary condiments (e.g., ketchup, mustard, buns,etc.) next to a display of hamburgers make shoppers more likely to attend to the hamburgers? Prior work has established that in-store marketing strategies play an important role in drawing attention to products in a retail setting. Building on this research, the present study develops a framework to better understand how shoppers in a natural retail environment attend to displays of complementary products, and how this attention transfers to a focal product. The results suggest that assortment complexity of a display positively affects initial attention capture.. Further, initial attention capture leads shoppers to spend longer evaluating the complementary products in the display, which, in turn, increases evaluation and choice of the focal product. As such, our framework indicates that complementary product displays can be effective at increasing attention to and choice of an associated focal product.     

Information and Knowledge as Antecedents of Consumer Attitudes and Intentions to Buy and Recommend Fair-Trade Products

The authors propose and empirically test a causal model to understand how the availability of fair-trade information and consumer knowledge about this issue affect consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward fair-trade products. The model is built upon the attitude-behavior paradigm and the premises of agency theory. It is tested through structural equation modeling with a sample of 292 Spanish consumers. The findings are that consumers do not have good knowledge about fair trade and that this is significantly determined by the lack of information about this in the market. It is also observed that consumers’ perceptions about the availability of fair-trade information have negative effects on their concern about this issue and that such information as is available is not effective in reducing consumer skepticism. The research represents an extension of previous fair-trade literature because the role of information and communication in improving consumer attitudes and buying intentions has rarely been explored in the case of ethical products.     

Application of collective knowledge diffusion in a social network environment

ABSTRACT

We present a group dynamics model that shows knowledge integration as a process occurring over time. As each individual in the group contact others, his own knowledge changes, and over time the collective knowledge is obtained. This allows modeling knowledge diffusion in a social network and while the models presented in this paper are not competitive in that area, they approach the problem from previously unconsidered direction. We test the behavior of the model in a multi-agent simulation and we test a simple advertisement campaign in a social network. We provide discussion of elements needed for making model more competitive.     

Organizational versus Market Knowledge: From Concrete Embodiment to Abstract Representation

Synopsis In contrast to the neoclassical economic presumption in favor of markets, we argue that organizations, not markets should be taken as our default assumption. We do so on information processing grounds. We distinguish between Zen and market Knowledge. The first is embodied and hard to articulate and the second abstract-symbolic. In human evolution, the first type of knowledge came first, and, on any pragmatic definition of knowledge, it still incorporates most of what we mean by the term. We take codification and abstraction as the two data processing activities that lead to the articulation of knowledge into an abstract-symbolic form. We develop a conceptual framework, the Information-Space (I-Space) to show how far the articulation of knowledge leads to its being shared. Whereas an unlimited sharing of information and knowledge leads to market-oriented outcomes, a more limited sharing leads to organizational outcomes. A market-oriented economics has tended to look to physics for its models; the field of organization theory has tended to look to biology. A more organization-oriented economics would thus look more to biology for its models.     

专利技术转让的产权关系研究

随着科学技术的不断创新和提高,专利技术的交易越来越频繁,其交易所占贸易的比重也越来越大。文章指出,在专利技术交易发生前后对被交易技术进行必要的产权研究,理顺交易双方的产权关系,明确交易双方的权利和义务,对于交易双方避免交易错位和发生法律纠纷有着重要的指导意义。     

辐射迁移方程--一个K-辛空间上的正则方程

说明了均匀、轴对称、无源介质是一个K-辛空间上的Hamilton系统，Hamilton函数是系统的守恒量；数值计算辐射强度角分布的合理途径是将辐射迁移方程离散成以离散Hamilton函数为守恒量的有限维K-辛空间上的正则方程，并采用保离散Hamilton函数守恒的K-辛算法数值求解．