“99.9% effective”: calculating credibility and consuming trust in antibacterial promises

This article introduces the phrase “99.9% Effective” – the claim brandished on all manner of antibacterial hand sanitizers – as a contemporary marketplace icon. It establishes the contexts of global contagious risk in which antibacterial hand sanitizers' “99.9% Effective” claim proliferates and becomes a marketplace icon. Beginning from the premise that there is no separation between our material consumption of hand sanitizers and our consumption of the cultures of the antibacterial promise, it analyzes the material meaning of this marketplace icon. Situated amid a backdrop of quotidian but potentially catastrophic twenty-first century systemic microbial risk, this article uncovers the relationship between conditions of trust, the cultures of calculation and the work of consuming this marketplace icon.     

关联规则挖掘技术与第三方物流企业营销决策研究

本文在介绍关联规则挖掘技术的基础上,结合实例对关联规则的应用进行了详细论述,实证研究表明,在物流企业信息管理中应用关联规则挖掘技术进行分析,不仅在技术上是可行的,而且有助于第三方物流企业根据挖掘发现的内在关联规律及时进行营销分析并作出科学决策.     

关系型融资、信息生产与担保机构决策

信用担保减少了信贷配给问题,却增加了担保机构风险。对企业及其项目进行意会信息生产的关系型融资能部分弥补当前担保机构只注重财务信息和抵押品所产生的信息缺口,在我国经济转型时期有着阶段性适用特征。因此,关系型融资是担保机构克服与中小企业信息不对称的制度安排。文章通过构建信息生产模型创新性地解释了担保机构进行全面信息生产有利于风险控制与担保决策,与关系型融资相适应的担保机构组织设计可以提高担保决策中的信息准确性。     

企业物流运作模式决策因素及决策标准

企业根据自身的实际情况,在不同的时期可以采用不同的物流运作模式,使物流管理成为其他企业难以模仿的核心竞争力。本文在分析企业物流运作模式内、外决策因素的基础上,提出两个物流运作模式决策标准,一是经济标准,二是战略标准。     

粗糙集决策方法及其在服装消费预测中的应用

本文应用差别矩阵的差别元素的重要度的思想给出了信息系统属性的重要度,然后由该重要度给出了信息系统中属性的权重,再由属性的权重给出了将信息系统转化成决策机构表的方法。在此基础上,利用正区域的大小作为属性选择标准,给出决策树的生成算法,并将该算法运用到服装消费预测,获取了一些较合理的简洁规则。     

Is your C-suite risk literate?

Managing risk effectively is essential for business success, and thus understanding risk is vital for business executives. Effective risk management increases firm value, whereas poor risk management will damage shareholder wealth. In this article, we examine the risk literacy of business executives and find significant variation among the leaders we sample. Our findings suggest that business executives would be well served to evaluate their own risk literacy, and remediate, if necessary; to work to increase risk literacy in the company’s employees; and to include risk literacy as an important and routine part of the firm’s overall culture. Because the importance of risk literacy increases with business complexity, we believe that risk literacy will only become more important in the future.     

基于决策方式的决策成本关系浅析

决策方式与决策成本之间有着极为密切的关系。但不论是理性决策还是感性决策,都应充分考虑决策方式对决策后的影响,体现决策成本的真实内涵。只有依最低决策成本点对应的决策方式进行决策,才能达到理性决策与感性决策的完整结合,做出具有前瞻性的决策。     

实时性空车配货信息系统的交易风险问题研究

以实时性空车配货信息系统在交易过程中所发生的风险为中心,指出了实时性空车配货信息系统中的各种交易风险,对交易风险管理与控制过程进行了分析。     

我国工商企业物流作业决策模式研究

随着经济的全球化,我国工商企业在竞争日趋激烈的环境下,面临的物流决策问题,对自营物流与外包物流两种物流管理模式进行比较,分析传统物流决策标准与Ballow决策标准存在的弱点,给出了我国工商企业物流作业决策的基本模型。     

Sartrean Existentialism and Ethical Decision-Making in Business

A wide range of decision-making models have been offered to assist in making ethical decisions in the workplace. Those that are based on normative moral frameworks typically include elements of traditional moral philosophy such as consequentialist and/or deontological␣ethics. This paper suggests an alternative model drawing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism. Accordingly, the model focuses on making decisions in full awareness of one’s freedom and responsibility. The steps of the model are intended to encourage reflection of one’s projects and one’s situation and the possibility of refusing the expectations of others. A case study involving affirmative action in South Africa is used to demonstrate the workings of the model and a number of strengths and weaknesses are identified. Despite several weaknesses that can be raised regarding existential ethics, the model’s success lies in the way that it reframes ethical dilemmas in terms of individual freedom and responsibility, and in its acceptance and analysis of subjective experiences and personal situations. Andrew West is a Lecturer in the School of Business and Economics at the South African Campus of Monash University, and a doctoral candidate at the University of Pretoria.     

A COOL Effect: The Direct and Indirect Impact of Country-of-Origin Disclosures on Purchase Intentions for Retail Food Products

Retailers recently became required to provide specific country-of-origin information for muscle cuts of beef, chicken, pork, lamb, and goat. Drawing from the consumer inference and activation theory literatures, hypotheses are offered regarding how consumers use country-of-origin labeling (COOL) to draw inferences related to specific product attributes and how these inferences, in turn, lead to differences in mediation effects for purchase intentions. Results from a pilot study and two experiments reveal that consumers are more likely to purchase meat when it is identified as a U.S. product. Furthermore, the relative strength of the mediating effects of perceived food safety, taste, and freshness differs as expected. The authors show how the direct and indirect effects of the country-of-origin disclosure are attenuated by the presentation of objective information about the meat processing systems of competing countries. Given the recently mandated COOL disclosures, results have important implications for food retailers, members of the supply chain, and consumers.     

Learning About Computers: An Analysis of Information Search and Technology Choice

We estimate a dynamic model of how consumers learn about and choose between different brands of personal computers (PCs). To estimate the model, we use a panel data set that contains the search and purchase behavior of a set of consumers who were in the market for a PC. The data includes the information sources visited each period, search durations, as well as measures of price expectations and stated attitudes toward the alternatives during the search process. Our model extends recent work on estimation of Bayesian learning models of consumer choice behavior in environments characterized by uncertainty by estimating a model of active learning—i.e., a model in which consumers make optimal sequential decisions about how much information to gather prior to making a purchase. Also, following the suggestion of Manski (2003), we use our data on price expectations to model consumers’ price expectation process, and, following the suggestion of McFadden (1989a), we incorporate the stated brand quality information into our likelihood function, rather than modeling only revealed preference data.Our analysis sheds light on how consumer forward-looking price expectations and the process of learning about quality influence the consumer choice process. A key finding is that estimates of dynamic price elasticities of demand exceed estimates that ignore the expectations effect by roughly 50%. This occurs because our estimated expectations formation process implies that consumers expect mean reversion in price changes. This enhances the impact of a temporary price cut. Finally, while our work focuses specifically on the PC market, the modeling approach we develop here may be useful for studying a wide range of high-tech, high-involvement durable goods markets where active learning is important.JEL Classification: C15, C33, C35, C42, C51, C52, D83, D84     

Perceptions of Organizational Ethicality: Do Inflated Perceptions of Self Lead to Inflated Perceptions of the Organization?

Scholars have suggested that the tendency for an individual to perceive him- or herself as more ethical than others might influence the individual's perceptions of his or her organization's ethics. The purpose of this study is to consider if and/or when such a relationship exists. A thorough consideration of the nature of perceptions of relative ethicality suggests that a positive self-bias would negatively influence perceptions of organizational ethicality. The results of an empirical study involving working managers and employees of a hospital support that argument. Furthermore, the results indicate that organizational identification, perceived organizational cohesion, and an individual's insulation also influence individual perceptions of relative organizational ethicality. The findings illuminate this particular phenomenon and further our understanding of the relationship between the individual and the organization, more generally.     

一种基于地理信息系统的异构网络多目标算法

地理信息系统（Geographic Information System,GIS）和多目标算法为异构网络基站部署问题带来新的突破。ArcGIS系列是GIS专业化的管理软件,采用ArcGIS软件对包含学校、医院等场景的中国某市密集城区进行建模分析,并且提出基于目标权重因子的多目标离散粒子群算法（Multi-objective Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm based on Target Weight Factor,MDPSO/TWF）,基于多个目标函数整体最优研究异构网络基站部署问题。仿真结果表明,所提的MDPSO/TWF算法具有可行性和先进性,可以综合考虑网络负载和网络能效多个优化目标,将业务需求与实际基站选址相结合,在满足业务需求的基础上尽可能达到节能的目的。     

Choice in Interactive Environments

In the early 21st century, firms are thinking seriously and practically about an interactive marketing paradigm—one that integrates mass scale with individual responsiveness. The focus of this paper is on how this interactive environment is changing the customer decision-making process. With the increased amount of information available, the existence of sophisticated decision aids such as intelligent agents, and more latitude in how to interact beyond the basic desktop and laptop computers (e.g., personal digital assistants, cellular phones, tablet computers), customers have more choices than ever about how, when, and how much to interact with companies and each other. In this paper, we attempt to cover a few of the major areas of research on how customers make decisions in these environments.     

TOPSIS法及其QBasic编程实现

文章给出了一种基于TOPSIS的多属性决策方法,并通过实例检验了该方法的有效性。同时利用QBasic语言进行编程,得到通用程序。它可以适用于任意有限个评价对象和多属性类型的评价指标的综合评价。