CEO regulatory focus and myopic marketing management

This study details the mechanisms on how CEO regulatory focus affects the salience of the gains versus losses involved in myopic marketing decision-making, and how such CEO psychological attributes interact with internal equity-based compensation, external pressure from equity analysts, and environmental turbulence to affect firms’ myopic marketing management propensities. We find that when faced with short-term earnings pressure to meet earnings expectations and when time is no longer a resource, predominantly promotion-focused are more likely to engage in myopic marketing management to benefit from the temporary stock price increase, which comes from meeting or beating earnings expectations. Conversely, predominantly prevention-focused CEOs are less prone to such short-termist actions which results in long-term value loss. For the moderating variables, we find that: (1) equity-based compensation tends to attenuate myopic marketing tendencies of promotion-focused CEOs but have no impact on prevention-focused CEOs, (2) whether equity analysts improve monitoring or aggravate short-term earnings pressure depends on the CEO’s regulatory focus, and (3) environmental turbulence does not increase the myopic marketing management tendencies of predominantly promotion-focused CEOs but rather intensifies the relunctance of prevention-focused CEOs to take short-termist actions. We further find that myopic marketing management mediates the impact of CEO regulatory focus on future firm performance. These findings have important implications for firms and boards when selecting new CEOs and structuring the compensation of existing CEOs. Firms need to simultaneously consider the fit between the CEOs’ regulatory focus, firms’ needs, the business environment, as well as CEO compensation structure.     

Fear appeals and coping appeals for health product promotion: Impulsive purchasing or psychological distancing?

The prevalence of online health communities (OHCs) motivates health product companies to manipulate persuasion-based marketing strategies, including fear appeals and coping appeals, to promote health products. However, whether such a practice is effective remains unclear. Respondents may either impulsively purchase the recommended health products or simply distance themselves psychologically from the information. Building on protection motivation theory (PMT), this study uncovers the mechanisms behind these two coping responses to persuasive messages, namely, the impulsive purchasing and psychological distancing of OHC users. Correspondingly, we evaluated 366 valid questionnaires, and the results reveal that (1) when encountering fear appeals, perceived health threat can evoke cyberchondria, leading to psychological distancing; and (2) when encountering coping appeals, perceived response efficacy leads to product affection, fostering impulsive purchasing. This study provides new insights into the effects of persuasive messages for health product promotion in social commerce. Marketers should design appropriate persuasive messages to foster impulsive purchasing by generating individuals’ product affection and avoiding cyberchondria.     

Chief Audit Executive as Supervisory Board Member and Executive Compensation Contracts

This paper studies a unique phenomenon in China's corporate governance—that chief audit executives (CAEs) sit on supervisory boards (CAE duality)—and examines its effects on executive compensation contracts. Using a sample of listed firms between 2010 and 2018, we find a significant positive relation between CAE duality and pay-for-performance sensitivity, which suggests that the dual position helps integrate monitoring resources and reduces agency costs. This positive relation is more pronounced when companies face a stricter monitoring environment and in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) than in SOEs. In addition, we find that the recent reforms on compensation strengthen the role of CAE duality in SOEs. Further analysis identifies the reliability of performance information (i.e., earnings quality) and reduced executive self-interested behaviours (i.e., perquisite consumption) as the influencing mechanisms that increase the demand for performance-based compensation and thus improve pay-for-performance sensitivity.     

Mitigating panic buying behavior in the epidemic: An evolutionary game perspective

The panic buying behavior under public health emergencies will lead to many adverse consequences, such as material waste, price fluctuation and uneven distribution of epidemic prevention materials, which will pose a threat to the social stability and economic development. In this paper, we construct a tripartite game model to explore the strategic choices of the public, merchants and the government in order to effectively respond to the panic buying behavior in the epidemic. The results demonstrate that: (1) Eight evolutionary stable strategies emerge in the panic buying events. The worst scenario can be improved by adjusting some relevant parameters. (2) The probability of the public choosing the strategy of “not involving in panic buying” depends on the potential benefits and losses of snapping up, rather than the extent of price rising. (3) The probability of merchants choosing the strategy of “not bid up price” depends on the intangible benefits. (4) The probability of the government choosing the strategy of “active supervision” depends on the supervision costs and government credibility, rather than the amount of fines. In addition, strategic suggestions to mitigate panic buying behavior are put forward from the perspective of each stakeholder.     

区域耕地生态价值补偿量化研究——以新疆为例

[目的]在耕地保护形势日趋严峻的情形下,开展耕地生态价值补偿量化研究对了解耕地外部性价值的大小及深化耕地生态价值的量化方法和思路具有重要意义。[方法]文章以新疆为例,从14个地州市的耕地生态服务价值出发,将生态超载指数作为耕地生态服务价值与生态足迹在各地州市转移的测度,同时综合考虑各地州市的经济发展状况,通过构建市域生态价值补偿量化模型分别测算各地州市耕地生态价值补偿量。[结果](1)2015年新疆耕地生态服务价值整体上有盈余输出,全疆共可获得生态补偿费103.31亿元;(2)2015年新疆南北疆耕地生态服务价值比为1:1.7,生态足迹总量比为1:2.2,生态超载指数北亏南盈,表明南北疆耕地生态足迹和耕地生态服务价值间呈"空间异位"格局;(3)新疆北疆乌鲁木齐市、克拉玛依市、吐鲁番市及哈密市共需支付耕地生态补偿费55.67亿元,北疆(乌鲁木齐市、克拉玛依市、吐鲁番市及哈密市外)和南疆地区分别可获得生态补偿费为96.59亿元和62.39亿元。[结论]该文可为新疆各地州市构建耕地生态价值补偿路径提供新思路,也可为以耕地生态价值量确定耕地保护指标和构建耕地生态补偿机制提供参考。     

Endogeneity in survey research

Endogeneity is a crucial problem in survey-based empirical research on marketing strategy (MS) and inter-organizational relationships (IORs); if not addressed, it can cause researchers to arrive at flawed conclusions and to offer poor advice to practitioners. Although the field is increasingly cognizant of endogeneity-related issues, many authors fail to properly address it, particularly in survey-based research. Emphasizing the role of essential heterogeneity, this article develops an overarching framework to help improve the understanding of endogeneity problems and how to tackle them when researchers use cross-sectional survey-based data. The authors provide explanations of and advice for how MS and IOR researchers can address six “painful” and sometimes hidden decisions: 1) Do you have an endogeneity problem? 2) What technique/estimator is appropriate? 3) What instrumental variables (IVs) should be chosen? 4) How should IVs be evaluated empirically? 5) How should the results be interpreted and evaluated? and 6) What results should you report? The authors provide a practical flowchart to guide researchers in their efforts to address endogeneity-related concerns.     

Understanding innovation

While innovation has become a pervasive term, many of today’s organizations still find innovation elusive. One reason may be that much of what is being said about innovation contributes to misunderstanding. To truly manifest innovation and reap its benefits, one must recognize that innovation is three different things: innovation is an outcome, innovation is a process, and innovation is a mindset. Innovation as an outcome emphasizes what output is sought, including product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation, business model innovation, supply chain innovation, and organizational innovation. Innovation as a process attends to the way in which innovation should be organized so that outcomes can come to fruition; this includes an overall innovation process and a new product development process. Innovation as a mindset addresses the internalization of innovation by individual members of the organization where innovation is instilled and ingrained along with the creation of a supportive organizational culture that allows innovation to flourish. Such an understanding defines necessary elements, considerations, and vernacular surrounding the term so that better decisions can be made, thereby enabling innovation and having a greater propensity to succeed.     

陕西农村居住地生态环境影响因素分析

[目的]随着农村城镇化进程的加快,由此引发的农村居住地生态环境恶化已成为制约农业和农村经济可持续发展的瓶颈,加强农村居住地生态环境保护和治理,是目前亟待解决的重要问题。研究分析农村居住地生态环境影响因素,为有效改善居住地生态环境提供重要理论依据。[方法]以陕西省为主要研究区域,采用层次分析法,构建矩阵模型,研究影响陕西省农村居住地生态环境的农民因素、生产活动和政府因素3个层次,包括周边乡镇企业废物排放、农用投入品的使用、畜禽养殖业废物排放、人均消费支出、农村人均家庭纯收入、农村家庭恩格尔系数、环保意识、政府监管力度、环境保护财政支出,相关政策法规等10个因素所占权重,得到不同因素的重要性排序。[结果]乡镇企业废物排放、农用投入品的使用、农村人均家庭纯收入和农村人均消费支出是影响农村居住地生态环境的主要因素,且重要性排序为乡镇企业废物排放农用投入品的使用农村人均家庭纯收入农村人均消费支出。[结论]加强乡镇企业废物排放管理和农用投入品的生产和使用审查,降低不必要的消费支出,同时为农民提供更多的就业机会,提高人均家庭村收入,是目前改善农村居住地生态环境的有效措施,为农民提供一个安全舒适的居住场所,这也将有利于农村经济的可持续发展。