Progressive Revenue Sharing in Major League Baseball: The Effect on Player Transfers and Talent Distribution

Major League Baseball’s system of sharing revenue between clubs was altered significantly in 1997. The arrangement progressively redistributes income from the highest toward the lowest revenue-generating clubs. The purpose of the new method was to alleviate growing disparity in revenue generation. However, under the progressive system the lowest revenue producing clubs bear the highest marginal tax rates, and theoretically problems of competitive imbalance may be amplified. Changes in talent distribution are observed by analyzing player mobility; an empirical model of player transfers is developed and tested. Confirmation is obtained that low revenue clubs acted on increased incentives to divest talent.     

The Adverstising Market in a Product Oligopoly

A model is developed in which producers in a differentiated product market compete in prices and informative advertising. The model also includes commercial media, which are linked to producers through the advertising market and to consumers through the media market. We investigate how certain market parameters, such as media market differentiation or product market differentiation, affect the competitive level advertising chosen in the market. The model shows that less product differentiation or more media differentiation leads to a higher market level of advertising. In the case of sufficiently high media differentiation, levels of advertising are in excess of the social optimum.     

论包装企业销售收入审计的风险防范

当前包装企业销售收入的会计核算存在诸多问题，因此在收入审计中审计人员应从固有风险、控制风险、检查风险三方面加强对审计风险的防范。     

Company Competencies as a Network: The Role of Product Development

Product development managers and academics like to assure themselves and each other that new product development is one of the most critical areas of company competence and contributes positively to company success. But does top management agree? Because if they do not, the consequences will heavily influence the resource allocation to product development and career possibilities of new product developments manager. This study examines how top managers view the importance of product development relative to other central competence areas. Although asking managers about their perception is one way of evaluating the importance, its contribution to company success is another important measure. In this study, the impact of product development, relative to other important competence areas, is measured to assess further how critical product development is for overall company success.The authors investigate these matters in a survey of top managers in 513 Danish production companies. Ten areas important for achieving company objectives are identified. These are product development, market intelligence, production management, strategy and vision, sales, market responsiveness, promotion, internal co-operation, image, and supply management. Product development is rated a fairly important competence as it ranks number four, with sales, market responsiveness, and production management ranking numbers one to three. Yet a distressing negative impact on overall company success is found for product development proficiency, whereas success is positively related to production management, image, and differentiation of products. Further analysis reveals that product development contributes positively to success by enabling product differentiation and enhancing promotion proficiency. Influenced by and influencing many other competencies, product development is found to be a central competence.Results support a nonfunctional and broad perspective of how bundles of competences interact and impact on success and establish a positive overall contribution to product development.     

The Fundamental Challenge of Product Design

Product design practice is an evolving art form. We have made tremendous improvement in methods for and execution of the process in recent years. Yet the challenge of environmental sustainability of products is one area where design practice remains largely in the dark ages. This essay argues that we need to embrace the imperative of design for environment and must evolve design practices to address this challenge.     

The Competitive Effects of a New Product Introduction: A Case Study

This paper analyzes the competitive effect of a new product introduction. We break the overall competitive effect into two parts: the effect on the prices of existing products due to increased competition, and the effect of having additional product variety. Using data from both before and after the introduction, we directly estimate the price effects and the additional variety effect. Then, using only the estimated post–introduction demand structure, along with an assumed model of competition, we estimate the price effects indirectly. By comparing the 'indirect' and 'direct' estimates, we assess the validity of alternative models of competition for the industry.     

解析女裤装板型检验法的运用

裤装的造型根据臀围的不同放松量分为:超宽松裤、宽松裤、较贴体裤、贴体裤、紧身裤五种类型。五种造型的主要区别集中在上档各重要部位的比例分配上,裆部以下属于设计区,受流行趋势的影响较大,因此对于裤装上裆部位的板型分析属于核心部位。本文在采集人体数据的基础上,对板型重要数据进行检验并参考俄罗斯裤装检验方法原理,为板型的检验提供一种便利的方法,同样对板型设计师具有一定的参考价值。     

宪政视野下我国税收立法权制度之完善

税收立法权问题是税法基础理论中的一个重要问题。税收是政府存在的根据,税收立法权的出现是民主宪政的根据,税收立法权的配置与协调是税收宪政的核心和主题。本文从宪政的视角深入剖析了当前我国税收立法权(横向立法和纵向立法)存在的主要问题,从完善税收立法权体系、提高税收立法权民主化水平的角度提出完善我国税收立法的系列建议。     

裤子的性别——浅析西方女式裤装发展史

西方女式裤装的发展并非只是简单的时尚进程,它是社会前进的折射。服装除了具有实用功能以外也具有象征功能。曾几何时的西方世界,裤装只是男人的专属,是权力的象征。西方女士裤装在最初只是贵族女性的运动穿着;二战的爆发使大量女性穿上裤子顶替男人的工作岗位;60年代,第三次科技革命风生水起,女权运动也随之活跃起来,使女性完全拥有了穿着裤装的自由。百年来的社会变迁,以及女权运动的持续抗争,终于使裤装丢掉了其传统意义上对于性别和权利的象征作用,从男性专属着装变成为现如今女性们的普通穿着之一。     

An Approach for Determining Optimal Product Sampling for the Diffusion of a New Product

Free samples are an effective means for introducing and promoting a new product. However, product sampling is also expensive. As a result, careful consideration must be given to the question of how many samples should be distributed. To encourage product adoption in any target market, a company needs to determine the “right” amount of sampling. In other words, a firm needs to determine the optimal number of samples that must be available for trial by the innovators, early adopters, and other key consumers who influence the adoption rate of the new product. With too few samples, the product might not reach enough of these key consumers to generate the word-of-mouth recommendations necessary for market success. On the other hand, offering too many free samples is a waste of a company's resources. Dipak Jain, Vijay Mahajan, and Eitan Muller propose a framework for determining the optimal levels of product sampling. In addition to identifying the upper bounds for the sampling levels of both durable and nondurable products, their model identifies the optimal size of product sampling based on such parameters as the coefficients of innovation and imitation, market potential, discount rate, and gross margin. Several observations are made regarding the relationships between the optimal sampling level and the various parameters used in the model. For example, a high sampling level is not appropriate for a product with a high coefficient of innovation. On the other hand, if a product has a high coefficient of imitation, the sampling level should be high because a significant number of trials are necessary for word of mouth to be effective. High sampling levels are also indicated by a high discount rate or gross margin. For durable goods, the optimal level of neutral sampling (i.e., sampling that does not specifically target innovators and early adopters) rarely exceeds 5%, and the maximum level is 7%. The optimal target sampling level is always higher than the corresponding neutral case, but, in most cases, only marginally so. For the parameter ranges chosen in this article, the maximum level for target sampling is approximately 9%. However, it is important to note that the theoretical upper bounds are no more than benchmarks for the maximum possible level of sampling. In practical situations, the optimal level may be considerably lower than these upper bounds. In such cases, the actual values will depend on the values for the various parameters used in the model.     

The Hidden Costs of Accelerated Product Development

Rarely has a strategic management option captured American industry as has the thrust of accelerated product development. When accompanied by the goals of lowered cost and increased new product quality, it seems almost unstoppable. However, industry may have been swept up in the enthusiasm. Any strategic option so tempting (with long lists of advantages and no suggested limitations) needs to be viewed critically. Merle Crawford reveals several "hidden costs" of accelerated development. He does not oppose the new strategy, and indeed endorses it highly, but urges that it be considered carefully before application. His analysis suggests that acceleration is far more widely applied than is good for any industrialized economic system.     

The Impact of Product Innovativeness on Performance

While many writers and strategists maintain that innovation is important, research has often demonstrated that product innovativeness does not have a major impact on the rate of success in the marketplace. Elko Kleinschmidt and Robert Cooper demonstrate that the relationship between product innovativeness and commercial success is U-shaped. That means that both high and low innovativeness products are more likely to be more successful than those in-between. The authors suggest that past research has not allowed for this non-linear relationship and that their data show that moderately innovative, middle-of-the-road products are less likely to succeed when measured by a number of performance criteria. They explore a number of implications of these results.     

The Impact of a Creativity‐supporting Work Environment on a Firm's Product Innovation Performance

Many scholars and practitioners have suggested that a creativity‐supporting work environment contributes to a firm's product innovation performance. Although there is evidence that such an environment enhances innovative behavior at individual level, very few studies address the effect of a creativity‐supporting work environment on product innovation performance at firm level, and the results are inconsistent. This paper examines the relationship between a firm's creativity‐supporting work environment and a firm's product innovation performance in a sample of 103 firms. For measuring a firm's creativity‐supporting work environment, a comprehensive and creativity‐focused framework is used. The framework consists of 9 social‐organizational and 12 physical work environment characteristics that are likely to enhance employee creativity. These characteristics contribute to the firm's overall work environment that supports creativity. The firm's product innovation performance is defined by two distinct concepts: new product productivity (NP productivity), which is the extent to which the firm introduces new products to the market, and new product success (NP success), which is the percentage of the firm's sales from new products. In most firms, different knowledgeable informants provided the data for the variables. The results show that firms with creativity‐supporting work environments introduce more new products to the market (NP productivity), and have more NP success in terms of new product sales (NP success). NP productivity partly mediates the relationship between creativity‐supporting work environment and NP success. The mediation model shows that the two paths from a creativity‐supporting work environment to NP success are about equally important: the direct path between creativity‐supporting work environment and NP success has a coefficient of .22, and the coefficient of the indirect path via NP productivity is .23. The creativity‐supporting work environment framework can be used in managerial practice to enhance employee creativity for product innovation. It allows applying a flexible and broad approach by influencing both social‐organizational and physical characteristics of the work environment.     

Perspective: The Emergence of Product Design as a Field of Marketing Inquiry*

The authors present findings from an analysis of articles related to product design published in eight leading journals important to marketing thought. Based on this analysis, which covers the fourteen‐year period 1995–2008, the authors propose a conceptual model of product design and offer definitions for (a) product design and (b) the product design process. In addition, the authors provide insights into the nature of product design research during this time period, including analyses of publication trends and the relationship of product design research to related marketing topics. The essay concludes with suggestions for future research on product design.     

The Impact of Product Portfolio Strategy on Financial Performance: The Roles of Product Development and Market Entry Decisions

Innovation is one of the most important issues facing business today. The major difficulty in managing innovation is that managers must do so against a constantly shifting backdrop as technologies, competitors, and markets constantly evolve. Managers determine the product portfolio through key decisions about product development and market entry. Key strategic questions are what portfolio strategies provide the greatest reward. The purpose of this study is to understand the relative financial values of each component of a product portfolio. Specifically, the paper examines the short‐term and long‐term financial impacts of product development strategy and market entry strategy. These strategies reflect two critical tensions that must be balanced in product portfolio decision making and essentially determine a firm's product portfolio. In doing so, the paper also investigates how a firm's capabilities drive each component of a product portfolio. From the empirical analyses in the context of the biomedical device industry, the paper found important insights regarding product portfolio strategies. First, a large product portfolio helps a firm's financial performance. In particular, the pioneering new products have strongest impacts on short‐term performances, and nonpioneering mature products do not provide significant contribution. Second, the results indicate a persistent first‐mover advantage. The first‐to‐market new products yield not only an immediate effect, but also persistent long‐term effects, suggesting that it is important to be first in the market even though there may be short‐term losses. Third, the results suggest the need to balance between “mature” and “new” products. Also, firms need to balance “first‐to‐market” and “late‐entered” products. Because a new or pioneering product requires more resource, it may hurt other products in the portfolio. Thus, without support from mature or follower products, new products and pioneering products alone may not increase firm sales or profit. Fourth, from a long‐term perspective, the paper found that the financial market only rewards a firm's overall capability to deliver new products first in the marketplace. Thus, short‐term performance is mainly driven by product‐level innovativeness, whereas firm‐level innovativeness enhances forward‐looking long‐term performance. Fifth, the paper also found that pioneering new products are driven by integrating both primary and complementary technological capabilities. And nonpioneering new products are mainly driven by the capabilities in primary technology domain. These results provide important insight into the relative value and timing of return on investment in radical versus incremental innovation and alternative market entry strategies. By understanding the performance trade‐offs of these different factors in the short and long term, one can develop better guidelines for optimizing innovation strategies, and their dependence on both external and internal environmental conditions.     

标准问题是产品质量检测工作中的一个瓶颈

技术标准是检测所有产品质量的根本依据 ,长期以来 ,技术标准中存在的问题一直是制约产品质量检测工作正常进行的一个核心问题。笔者自从事这项工作以来 ,始终被此类问题所困扰 ,下面就把笔者近几年遇到的这方面的一些问题提出来 ,与大家探讨。标准管理方面的问题90年代后期以来 ,我国各行各业在标准的管理方面都有了明显的改善 ,特别是石油行业 ,在标准的制定和审批工作中做出了很大的努力 ,也取得了明显的成绩。但不可否认 ,尽管如此 ,有些错误和问题还是客观存在而不能轻易忽略的。比如 ,对标准进行等级排列时 ,国家标准—行业标准—地方…     

Toward a Model of New Product Preannouncement Timing

For products and services ranging from software to the latest motion picture, the use of new product preannouncements (NPPAs) has become commonplace. In the weeks and months (and perhaps years) before the release of a new product, a company may share information with various groups, including customers, competitors, and producers of complementary products. These prelaunch communications serve various purposes—for example, building interest for the new product, obtaining feedback from customers, or encouraging consumers to delay purchases until the new product becomes available. Despite the key role that NPPAs play in the successful release of new products, however, almost no research has been conducted to explore the proper timing for such communications. Bryan Lilly and Rockney Walters provide a starting point for these investigations, by describing the elements of an NPPA and presenting a model of the factors that influence NPPA timing. Drawing on existing research and interviews with managers from firms in a wide range of industries, they offer insights into the nature and the timing of NPPAs, and they provide recommendations for improving the effectiveness of NPPAs. Their conceptual model lists four sets of factors that affect NPPA timing: expected reactions of competitors; product-related factors, such as the product's complexity and innovativeness; buyer-related factors, such as the length of the buying process; and firm-related factors, including final determination of the product's feature set. The relative strength of these effects depends on the objectives and the audience for the NPPA. For example, a late NPPA—that is, one close to the product's release date—effectively shields a new product from rapid competitive responses. On the other hand, an early NPPA allows channel members and customers to gain familiarity with complex or innovative products. Their findings suggest that early NPPAs are most appropriate for complex or highly innovative products as well as those that carry high, but avoidable switching costs for buyers. Late NPPAs are recommended if the firm expects sales of the new product to cannibalize those of existing products. Late NPPAs are also appropriate if a product's feature set is not yet frozen. To improve the effectiveness of NPPAs, managers must clearly define their objectives and carefully match the timing and the content of the NPPA to the target audience.     

"中国价格"探索--以MP3音乐播放器为例

“中国价格”（The China Price）最引起很多人的关注。对中国出口的商品为何拥有如此强大的竞争力,西方国家一直解释不清楚,贸易摩擦也不断发生。MP3音乐播放器案例阐明,在全球价值网络的背景下,中国价格的构成关系及其核心因素．产品知识价值投放的地理位置、知识含量程度对价格效应的不均匀分布。以及产业模块集聚等要素对价格的影响,引发超大规模产业集群、蝗虫工业现象的“中国价格”的系统效应。