Lean supply: the design and cost reduction dimensions

The objective of this paper is to determine whether the principles of the lean supply model are currently present between an OEM and its key suppliers in the electronics industry. The research focuses on two key dimensions of lean supply – supplier involvement in customer design activities and joint buyer–supplier cost reduction. Although the findings have indicated the presence of some of the principles associated with lean supply in areas such as higher levels of customer and supplier integration in the new product development process and high levels of information exchange in the supply chain, total ‘leanness’ along these dimensions is not currently present. In fact, the research has revealed that considerable barriers currently exist to meeting the requirement of equality between partners and the mutual sharing of benefits. Evidence found here has shown that the majority of benefits accrued from the relationship were obtained by the customer.     

Cybersecurity: Risk management framework and investment cost analysis

As organizations accelerate digital transformation with mobile devices, cloud services, social media, and Internet of Things services, cybersecurity has become a key priority in enterprise risk management. While improving cybersecurity leads to higher levels of customer trust and increased revenue opportunities, rapidly evolving data protection and privacy regulations have complicated cybersecurity management. Against the backdrop of rapidly rising cyberbreaches and the emergence of novel cybersecurity technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, this article introduces a cyber risk management framework, discusses a cyber risk assessment process, and illustrates a continuous improvement of cybersecurity performance and cyberinvestment cost analysis with a real-world cybersecurity example.     

Understanding consumer repurchase intention on O2O platforms: an integrated model of network externalities and trust transfer theory

The purpose of this study is to propose a theoretical model to explain consumer repurchase intentions in O2O commerce context by integrating network externalities theory and trust transfer theory. The model was tested using the data collected from 376 customers of an O2O platform in China. The results showed that different types of trust, direct and peer network externalities, all have impacts on consumer repurchase intentions. Trust transfer processes occur in O2O commerce. Furthermore, three components of network externalities all impact on trust in O2O platform. The implications of this study from both research and practice perspectives are discussed.     

The six phases of cost reduction: Effective use can increase profits

The success of cost reduction (CR) is as tied to the commitment of top management as it is to the sophisticated analysis of problem areas. It is necessary that management prepare the organization for any changes that introducing a CR program might bring about. Management also must provide the impetus for the continuation o f such a project after it has been initiated. Effective use of CR can significantly increase a company's profits. This particular approach includes two basic methods of attacking the problem of cutting costs: prevention and cure. The author delineates six phases of a CR plan for a company to follow in order to achieve tangible results.     

Risk and ex ante cost of equity estimates of emerging market firms

We examine the empirical relationship between estimates of ex ante cost of equity and risk for a sample of individual emerging market equities for the period 1990–2000. The ex ante cost of equity estimates are obtained using the residual income valuation model. As in studies that use mean realized returns on emerging market indexes, a measure of total risk (return volatility) is the most significant risk factor in explaining ex ante expected return estimates. For emerging market equities with substantial investability to global investors, global beta adds some explanatory power.     

冷库建设在施工阶段成本控制的风险管理研究

冷库项目施工是一个动态性的系统工程,成本控制对整个工程项目管理具有至关重要的作用,它决定了整个项目的成功与否,而施工阶段成本控制是整个成本控制的关键.由于受所处环境干扰因素多,所以诸多的不确定性导致具有很大的风险性.本文针对这种情况,立足于施工方的角度,从理论方面分析了冷库施工阶段影响成本的风险因素,评估这些风险对成本的影响,从而最有效地减少潜在风险因素造成的损失,避免冷库在施工中成本超支问题,提高施工企业的经济效益.     

电力工程EPC合同管理模式分析

通过详细论述了EPC合同管理模式的定义,重点阐述了EPC合同管理模式下的管理重点是设计、采购与施工三者间成功的融合,通过实例分析了EPC合同管理模式较为适合电力行业的建设.     

Effect of personal branding stereotypes on user engagement on short-video platforms

The emergence of short-video platforms offers individuals an opportunity to build personal branding. This study selected two personal brandings on Bilibili.com, Li Ziqi and HuaNong Brothers, to explore the differences in the effect of personal branding stereotypes on user engagement on short-video platforms. We first identified the perception of users based on the Stereotype Content Model, then adopted regression models to construct the relationship between personal branding stereotypes and user engagement. The results show that perceived warmth exerts a more significant influence on user emotional engagement, while perceived competence impacts more on user cognitive and behavioral engagement. Moreover, we find the live comments’ sentiment moderates these effects. This research provided references for individuals and managers to benefit from personal brandings.     

The differentiated effect of advertising on readership: evidence from a two-sided market approach

In this paper, we empirically analyze the French print media market by modeling the existence of a reciprocal effect between the size of the readership and the amount of advertising. For this two-sided platform, we measure the cross-effects of advertising on the readership and periodical popularity on advertising. By estimating a structural model of simultaneous demand equations, we quantify some crucial elements in designing pricing and product-differentiating strategies. We measure the impact of advertising on reader demand and find in the data that it has opposite effects depending on whether the publication presents informational or entertaining content. By taking into account the market interactions, we compute price and advertising elasticities. Our results show that advertisers targeting a specific category of the audience would choose its corresponding periodicals and would trade off the size of the readership for these periodicals and the advertising insert price changes. Also, advertising campaigns aimed at reaching a broader spectrum of the population should focus on popular titles and on titles for which demand is inelastic to ensure a more consistent impact of the campaign. Finally, for magazines with low price demand elasticity on the readers’ side, editors’ revenues could be improved by increasing prices. These combined effects should allow a publisher to generate positive margins from both sides of the market, for certain content categories.     

Review of studies on digital transaction platforms in marketing journals

ABSTRACT

Digital transaction platforms now intermediate a large number of transactions between end-customers and independent sellers and service providers in many parts of the economy. In retail, for example, Amazon.com now intermediates transactions between end-customers and hundreds of thousands of independent sellers worldwide, while Etsy.com connects artists, crafters, and collectors with buyers of a large range of niche and rare products. The growing popularity of digital transaction platforms, therefore, has significant implications for retail, marketing and distribution scholars as the existing interaction patterns in the value-chain are increasingly replaced by new digital intermediaries. The purpose of this review is, therefore, to examine, through an extensive and rigorous review of research on digital transaction platforms in marketing journals, what we know and what opportunities lie ahead to expand the theoretical and empirical understanding of digital transaction platforms. The review shows that despite increasing multi-disciplinary and managerial interest towards digital transaction platforms and the platform economy, they remain largely unexplored in marketing journals, and the existing research and theorizing attempts remain fragmented. Therefore, there are many opportunities for marketing, retail and distribution scholars to, for example, collaborate with industry and practitioners in order to gain new perspectives and access to novel data sources, and for example, meet the emerging funding requirements of many universities and governmental funding agencies for more rigorous multi-disciplinary research on digital markets and digital business models.     

Winning the new channel war on Amazon and third-party platforms

The top online marketplaces in the world, including Alibaba, Amazon, and eBay, sold $2.7 trillion in 2020, or 62% of global web sales that year. Despite the promise of unfettered access to customers, the reality is that most sellers struggle with unprecedented and unauthorized rogue resellers. These often anonymous, third-party individuals and firms may not provide the quality experiences aligned with customers’ expectations of a brand and often market their goods in competition with trusted partners. This requires a systematic battle plan to effectively protect the seller’s brand equity, service promise, and authorized distribution network. We describe the channel war that is at work and the forces fueling its development. We explain how rogue reseller activities drive down pricing, increase channel competition and conflict, impact the customer experience, and harm brand equity. We recommend revising product policies, procedures, and agreements to begin to differentiate products from those sold by unauthorized parties. We also recommend a legal strategy to complement these efforts. Critical steps include regular and active enforcement as well as implementing services, benefits, and quality controls for the brand’s products that cannot be replicated by unauthorized sellers and requiring authorized distributors and retailers to maintain those benefits and controls.     

Status reinforcing: Unintended rating bias on online shopping platforms

Online shopping platforms have gradually begun to use hierarchical loyalty programs to distinguish customers. Previous studies have focused mainly on the effect of such programs on loyalty and repurchase behavior, and little is known about how customer statuses in hierarchical loyalty programs affect their online product evaluations. Drawing on social status and social conformity theory, this study investigates the impact of customer status on the valence of online reviews. An instrumental variable is proposed to address the endogeneity issue. The results show that a customer's need for status leads to a negative rating bias when leaving online reviews. At the same time, people encounter social pressure from crowds. The need for social conformity can alleviate such rating bias. This study contributes to the understanding of the effect of social status on post-purchase behavior and provides practical implications for both managers and platforms.     

A conceptual analysis of brand intimacy on social media platforms

The nature of brand intimacy in the context of social media-based brand communities (SMBBCs) remains unclear. This paper aims to explore whether reciprocal factual and emotional self-disclosure can lead to brand intimacy in such a community; whether brand intimacy generates valued marketing outcomes, including attitudes, intentions and behaviours; and what external and internal factors motivate and enable reciprocal factual and emotional disclosures on social media platforms. A review of the relevant literature suggests that reciprocal disclosure may lead to brand intimacy in this context. For marketers, brand intimacy is important for strengthening resistance to negative information, and enhancing positive word-of-mouth, loyalty intentions, purchase intentions and brand passion, as well as developing effective marketing strategies. The degree of anonymity and the special interactivity features of SMBBCs are key external enablers of disclosure. In situations where community members internally seek relations and/or emotional support from other members, they tend to disclose their emotions. Members who internally seek social validation and/or self-expression tend to both disclose, factually and emotionally. Such a conceptual understanding of the importance of brand intimacy, paired with a number of propositions for empirical work, can serve to guide future research into this important field.     

Family firms and debt: Risk aversion versus risk of losing control

This study examines the effect of family management, ownership, and control on capital structure for 523 Colombian firms between 1996 and 2006. The study finds that debt levels tend to be lower for younger firms when the founder or one of his heirs acts as manager, but trends higher as the firm ages. When family involvement derives from direct and indirect ownership, the family–debt relationship is positive, consistent with the idea that external supervision accompanies higher debt levels and reduces the risk of losing control. When families are present on the board of directors (but are not in management), debt levels tend to be lower, suggesting that family directors are more risk-averse. The results stress the tradeoff between two distinct motivations that determine the capital structure of family firms: risk aversion pushes firms toward lower debt levels, but the need to finance growth without losing control makes family firms to prefer higher debt levels.     

Celebrity versus Company President as Endorsers of High Risk Products for Elderly Consumers

Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of a celebrity endorser vs. a company president as an endorser for a high financial/performance risk product, supplemental health insurance, with a sample of 280 senior citizens (65+) drawn from six geographically dispersed markets. The results show significant differences between a celebrity and a company spokesperson in initial interest in the product and likelihood of seeking additional information but no differences in belief of claim or likelihood of enrolling in the insurance program.     

试论成本核算工作信息化的实施途径

成本核算工作信息化对提高企业生产技术和经营管理水平,以及正确处理企业与国家和其他投资者之间的分配关系,都有十分重要的意义.本文就成本核算工作信息化的实施途径进行初步探讨.     

The effect of language use on the financial performance of microfinance banks: Evidence from cross-border activities in 74 countries

This multi-year study examines the relationship between financial performance and language use, observing 405 partnerships between microfinance banks and their international financial partners in 74 countries. Drawing on language research in international business, we find that microfinance banks based in English-speaking, French-speaking, and Spanish-speaking countries have higher performance. Furthermore, the linguistic distance between the home country of a microfinance bank and the home country of its international partner(s) is negatively related to its financial performance. Our large-scale study confirms the effect of language use on organization-level financial performance and extends research on language in multinationals from intra-firm to inter-firm relationships.     

试论强化企业成本控制与管理

通过对企业成本控制的探讨,提出实现有效的成本控制的办法,最终提高企业的竞争力.     

How attachment affects user stickiness on live streaming platforms: A socio-technical approach perspective

User stickiness is an important factor in the development of live streaming shopping platforms, which describes the degree of users' attention to the platforms. Although some e-commerce websites have provided live streaming services to improve the purchase experience of consumers, few people know how the services affect user stickiness. Building upon attachment theory and socio-technical approach, we developed a theoretical model to understand how live streaming service affects the user stickiness through users' attachment, which is tested by using 425 live streaming shopping platform's users. The results showed that technical factors (synchronicity and vicarious expression) and social factors (interaction and identification) positively affect emotional attachment to streamers and platform attachment respectively, which in turn increase the user stickiness.