Examining artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in marketing via a global lens: Current trends and future research opportunities

Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured substantial interest from a wide array of marketing scholars in recent years. Our research contributes to this emerging domain by examining AI technologies in marketing via a global lens. Specifically, our lens focuses on three levels of analysis: country, company, and consumer. Our country-level analysis emphasizes the heterogeneity in economic inequality across countries due to the considerable economic resources necessary for AI adoption. Our company-level analysis focuses on glocalization because while the hardware that underlies these technologies may be global in nature, their application necessitates adaptation to local cultures. Our consumer-level analysis examines consumer ethics and privacy concerns, as AI technologies often collect, store and process a cornucopia of personal data across our globe. Through the prism of these three lenses, we focus on two important dimensions of AI technologies in marketing: (1) human–machine interaction and (2) automated analysis of text, audio, images, and video. We then explore the interaction between these two key dimensions of AI across our three-part global lens to develop a set of research questions for future marketing scholarship in this increasingly important domain.     

The Human Development Approach: An Overview

The human development (HD) approach puts the improvement of people’s lives as the central objective of development. This paper provides an overview of major aspects of the approach. It shows how it emerged with the evolution of development thought and a widening of development objectives The paper explores the two-way relationship between HD and the rival objective, economic growth, is explored and broad characteristics of countries that have been exceptionally successful or unsuccessful , countries with three country cases considered in greater depth. The paper identifies major dimensions of HD, beyond the three elements included in the Human Development Index (HDI) and shows they are poorly captured by the HDI. An overview of global change on HD dimensions from 1980 to 2015 gives a mixed picture with progress on basic HD, uneven trends in some areas, and notable worsening on the environmental dimension. In conclusion, the paper discusses some outstanding issues which need more attention.     

Bridging the great divide? Making sense of the human rights-CSR relationship in UK multinational companies

Human rights (HR) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are both fields of knowledge and research that have been shaped by, and examine, the role of multi-national enterprises in society. Whilst scholars have highlighted the overlapping nature of CSR and HR, our understanding of this relationship within business practice remains vague and under-researched. To explore the interface between CSR and HR, this paper presents empirical data from a qualitative study involving 22 international businesses based in the UK. Through an analysis based on sensemaking, the paper examines how and where CSR and HR overlap, contrast and shape one another, and the role that companies’ international operations has on this relationship. The findings reveal a complex and multi-layered relationship between the two, and concludes that in contrast to management theory, companies have bridged the ‘great divide’ in varying degrees most notably in their implementation strategies.     

Accumulation and distribution of human capital: the interaction between individual and aggregate variables

The paper analyses the joint evolution of accumulation and distribution of human capital in an OLG framework. Dynamics arises from the interplay between human capital distribution and individual variables—inherited human capital and inborn ability. Such interaction drives individual investment in human capital and accumulation in the economy. According to initial distribution the model provides different dynamical behaviours linking growth and inequality; in general economies with a more equal initial distribution grow faster but other cases are possible. Moreover, since the model provides an endogenous threshold for investing in human capital, the distribution is characterised by multi-modality.     

Leaving state sector employment in Russia

I analyse the reallocation of labour and human capital from the state sector to the non‐state sector and non‐employment in Russia. I use a nationally representative household dataset, the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, to study sectoral mobility in early transition using summary measures of mobility and multivariate discrete choice models. The results show that sectoral mobility varies between different skill groups, and in particular that those with university education, with supervisory responsibility and in white‐collar occupations are less likely to leave state jobs for both non‐state employment and non‐employment. The results suggest that in the early stages of transition in Russia mismatch of skills across state/non‐state employment was significant and that non‐state employment consisted mostly of low skill, ‘bad’ jobs.     

The Importance of Sectoral Differences in the Application of Complementary HRM Practices for Innovation Performance

Recent theoretical and empirical analysis in the field of economic organization has focused almost exclusively on identifying organizational practices and complementarities between such practices, without regard for the type of activity in question. However, organizational theory suggests that more knowledge-intensive production activities often involve higher degrees of strategic uncertainty for firms and performance ambiguity in relation to individual employees. Therefore, the 'organic' or 'clan' form of organization - involving the application of 'new' HRM practices - is expected to perform better within knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy, as compared to other sectors. A sample of 726 Danish firms with more than 50 employees in manufacturing and private services is studied. The results show that HRM practices are more effective in influencing innovation performance when applied together, as compared with situations in which individual practices are applied alone. In other words, organizational complementarities obtain. Moreover, the application of complementary HRM practices is more effective for firms in knowledge-intensive industries ('high' and 'medium' knowledge-intensive industries).     

Changing composition of human capital The Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland1

We show that business education/occupations have expanded and that technical education/occupations have contracted in the Czech Republic and Poland since 1990. We interpret these changes as an adjustment necessary for their transition to a market economy. We do not find the same pattern in Hungary, which we attribute to the earlier timing of its transition. We construct an aggregate model in which labour reallocates in response to changing demand structure. When calibrated with the Czech and Polish data, the model generates a large movement of workers with technical education and experience into business occupations in the early 1990s. The discounted sum of output loss due to the gap between the demand structure and the composition of existing human capital amounts to between 8 and 40 percent of 1990 GDP.     

The Returns to Education: Microeconomics

In this paper we focus on education as a private decision to invest in "human capital" and the estimation of the rate of return to that private investment. While the literature is replete with studies that estimate the rate of return using regression methods where the estimated return is obtained as the coefficient on a years of education variable in a log wage equation that contains controls for work experience and other individual characteristics, the issue is surrounded with difficulties. We outline the theoretical arguments underpinning the empirical developments and show that the evidence on private returns to the individual is compelling. Despite some of these issues surrounding the estimation of the return to schooling, our evidence, based on estimates from a variety of datasets and specifications, is that there is an unambiguously positive effect on the earnings of an individual from participation in education. Moreover, the size of the effect seems large relative to the returns on other investments.     

试论人力资本的投资回报路径

人力资本与物质资本虽然在生产经营过程中关系密切,但由于两者的投入性质和方式不同,投资回报的性质和路径也不同。研究和区分人力资本与物质资本的不同投资回报路径,把握人力资本投资回报路径的特性,有利于政府在公共管理中推动人力资本的生成,有利于完善激励机制,发挥人力资本的潜能。