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.     

Doing more and doing better are two different entities: Different patterns of family control and environmental performance

Family firms bear two types of agency costs, including type I and type II agency problems, in corporate environmental practices: (1) Outside executives at family firms hesitate to engage in environmental strategies, which can lead to drops in profits; (2) Controlling families employ opportunistically environmental management to achieve their interests. We argue that a primary cause for the agency problems lies on ineffective internal corporate governance at family firms, which can cause loss of managerial (or power) balance between outside executives and family executives. Our findings show that family firms with ownership and strategic control (FSC), which family executives and outside executives monitor and constrain each other, can achieve the highest environmental performance. Moreover, external controls, including product market competition and provincial environmental regulations, substitute effective internal control of FSC. The environmental performance premium of FSC is more prevalent when the production market competition is lower. Family firms with ownership, operational, and strategic control (FOSC) can achieve higher environmental performance within a province with more stringent environmental regulations.     

Do goodwill impairments affect audit opinions? Evidence from China

There has been a steady growth of goodwill impairments in the Chinese stock market since the adoption of the impairment approach in accounting. The influence of goodwill impairments on a firm’s financial position and profitability give reason to doubt its current and future performance. We examine whether auditors, as a crucial external monitor, identify the information risks of goodwill impairments and express their concerns about financial reporting quality in their audit opinions. Using a sample of firms listed on China’s A-share market from 2007 to 2017, we test the association between goodwill impairments and the type of audit opinion received in the same financial period. Our findings are as follows. First, the probability of receiving a modified opinion increases with the amount of goodwill impairments. Second, the positive association between goodwill impairments and modified audit opinions is driven primarily by earnings management risks. Third, this positive association is more salient when auditors are industry experts and there is no auditor–client mismatch. Fourth, auditors are more sensitive to the amount of goodwill impairments than to their mere existence. Overall, we document that auditors perceive goodwill impairments as a signal of information risks and communicate their concerns to investors to avoid litigation.     

Talent management of skilled migrants: propositions and an agenda for future research

This paper unpacks the dominant conceptualizations of talent management (TM) in contemporary academic publications, and considers these in relation to the increasingly important workforce population of skilled international migrants. It postulates that TM approaches are generally built from a relatively narrow human capital-based perspective wherein organizations focus on readily accessible and immediate skills, ignoring the longer term strategic potential of the international workforce of skilled migrants, particularly for multinational enterprises and other international organizations. Through a series of propositions, the paper highlights how organizations, in strategically using a more comprehensive TM lens rather than a human capital lens in approaching the TM of skilled migrants, could benefit from improved HRM performance over time. It also proposes a research agenda, by which future studies might test, explore, and further develop understanding on a more strategic utilization of skilled migrants in organizations.     

改进高阶容积粒子滤波的系统状态估计算法

传统粒子滤波（PF）直接采用状态转移先验分布作为重要性密度函数来近似后验概率密度函数，使得后验概率密度函数未包含量测信息。针对此问题，提出了一种改进高阶容积粒子滤波(CPF)的系统状态估计算法。算法采用七阶正交容积卡尔曼滤波（7th-CQKF）对PF的粒子进行传递，使得先验分布更新阶段融入最新量测信息；通过7th-CQKF设计重要性密度函数，提高对状态后验概率密度的逼近程度；通过反比例函数计算粒子权重，突出大噪声粒子与小噪声粒子权重差别，提高粒子有效性。仿真结果表明，改进高阶容积粒子滤波的估计精度高于容积粒子滤波（CPF）。     

Inequality and entrepreneurial thresholds

We explore the relationship between inequality and entrepreneurial activity. Drawing on cross-sectional data from a largescale survey of the economic conditions of individuals across India, we develop a number of dimensions of inequality to explore empirically how inequality interacts with entrepreneurship, operationalized as self-employment or as employing other people. We find compelling evidence that there are thresholds to becoming self-employed, and even more so to assembling the combinations of resources and personal attributes required to become an employer. Greater inequality leaves more people unable to make the transition to self-employment, leaving casual laboring as the occupation of necessity. At the same time, inequality increases the number of employers in a society, by concentrating resources - particularly land and finance - enough for significant numbers of people to be able to cross this higher threshold. Lastly, greater differentiation into social or religious groups curtails the ability to cross either entrepreneurial threshold, presumably by limiting the extent and benefits of social networks of value for entrepreneurship.     

Demystifying residents' walking behaviors: Active transport in South East Queensland,Australia

This study investigates the correlates of a resident's walking behaviors and aims to shed light on mechanisms through which walking may be encouraged. The results of this investigation paint a complex and nuanced picture of the residents’ walking behaviors in South East Queensland, Australia. The results suggest that sociodemographic characteristics separately may contribute greatly to whether or not one engages in walking behaviors. Further, cumulatively these differences might be greater for some groups of residents compared to others. One of the most prominent findings of the study is that the purpose, the characteristics of the origin, and the characteristics of the destination of a trip tended to be similar in the heterogeneity they exhibit over the distribution of time spent walking. For example, pick something up, undertake work, or engage in personal business, move to or from a workplace, shop, or social place are activities that tend to be associated with walking as a main mode of transport and a higher number of walking episodes. However, these trips tended to be short.     

城市土地利用与交通相互作用（LUTI）研究进展与展望

研究目的:基于对国内外大量研究成果的梳理,对城市土地利用与交通相互作用(LUTI)的复杂机理展开系统回顾与述评,并尝试提出未来亟需重点关注的研究领域与方向。研究方法:文献资料法,对比分析法。研究结果:国内外实证研究领域及空间尺度表现出明显分异,部分研究结果亦呈现出差异化特征;国外热衷于引入多学科理论与方法构建LUTI一体化模型,而国内所引入的数学规划模型多停滞在理论分析与模拟层面,应用性相对有限,但近年来国内学者逐渐加强LUTI协调性评价,研究领域呈现出新特征。研究结论:全球可持续发展背景下,LUTI研究为实现城市土地利用与交通的协调发展提供了良好基础,未来应加强对LUTI模型方法与互馈机理的研究,并深入探讨现代交通发展对土地利用的影响机制,环境、社会因素亦应引起重视,国内学界则应注重本土性与应用性研究。