Direct marketing in the financial services industry

This article presents empirical research findings on the use of direct marketing by a representative sample of UK financial services institutions. A number of similarities and differences between banks, building societies and insurance companies are identified in relation to direct marketing programmes and the use of particular direct marketing techniques. While acknowledging some exceptions the research concludes that there is scope for a greater appreciation of the strategic value and workings of direct marketing. Institutions could usefully focus attention on achieving fuller integration of direct marketing with other marketing and communication activities and securing improvements in testing, database quality and timing.     

Intellectual capital and new product sale performance of the financial services industry in Taiwan

This research considers the financial services industry in Taiwan and investigates the effect of intellectual capital – namely human capital, organization capital and information capital – on new product sale performance based on cross-functional integration and co-production. The results indicate that intellectual capital, cross-functional integration and co-production have a positive effect on new product sale performance. Also, the results confirm the positive mediate effect of cross-functional integration and co-production on intellectual capital and new product sale performance.     

The future of the global financial services industry

There are three fundamental technological shifts that are defining the competitive landscape of the early 21st century in financial service provision. First and foremost is distributed service provision: both deposit taking and credit provision are becoming more and more dispersed geographically, with less and less need for service providers and service users to meet face to face. The principal enabling technology is in advanced telecommunications, which allows for operation of widely dispersed automatic teller machines, videoconferencing, and internet operations. The second huge technological change that is underway concerns internal management information systems. Financial institutions are now able to put relevant data from affiliates and activities around the world into real-time globally accessible form. The third technological change is financial engineering, which involves creation of new financial products, often derived from existing credit or deposit-type instruments. This article explores the implications of these dramatic changes in the competitive landscape of financial service provision and suggests strategies for survival into the 21st century.     

黑龙江省金融服务业现状研究

随着黑龙江省经济市场化和金融化的进一步发展,市场需求对经济增长的约束程度越来越强,金融业在经济运行中所起的作用日益增强。因此,大力发展金融业对于促进黑龙江省经济快速增长,提高综合经济实力,建设和谐稳定、繁荣富强的社会具有十分重要的意义。为此,要促进金融服务业的均衡发展,提升金融服务业水平,构筑和谐人才发展环境,建立完善的内部监管体系,强化政府政策导向,重塑良好金融环境。     

Islamic financial services industry: Aspirations and achievements

Islamic Financial Services Industry (IFSI) crosses the age of 40 years, and sufficient empirical evidence exists to evaluate in light of the distinctive aspirations. This study fills the gap in the literature by evaluating the performance of IFSI in light of Islamic finance objectives—financial stability, equitable distribution of wealth and social responsibility; Shari’ah principles, and professional practices. Our investigation documents the achievements based on real accounting data from 23 countries, and the suitability of tools in practice to achieve the stated objectives by promotors of IFSI. Findings suggest that the objectives of IFSI have been achieved to an extent. However, visible contribution to the achievement of socio-economic justice is yet to emerge. Practical application of tools shows divergence (in spirit) from the original design, primarily to achieve integration and coherence with the prevailing conventional financial system. IFSI needs collaborative efforts to overcome the challenges at hand.     

Assessing performance in services: the travel agency industry

The aim of this article is to compare different approaches to the evaluation of economic performance in tourism. For the first time in tourism, this article simultaneously applies traditional productivity measures as well as parametric and non-parametric techniques to estimate efficiency and compares the results obtained. The empirical application is carried out on a sample of 567 travel agencies operating in Spain in 2004. The results reveal important differences depending on the methodology employed. Overall, none of the methodologies can be said to be better than the rest. These results highlight the importance of considering different approaches when evaluating performance in tourism.     

Assessing corporate demand for sponsorship: marketing costs in the financial services industry

Despite increased interest in nontraditional marketing activities such as sponsorship, the ability of brand marketers to quantify the return on investment from such approaches is a continued challenge. Given their proprietary nature, investigations of sponsorship costs are particularly sparse. Therefore, this study utilizes a dataset of more than 700 sponsorships undertaken by competitors in the financial services industry to investigate the influence of a variety of factors on costs. Results indicate that costs are not simply reflective of firm size, and costs of title and naming rights sponsorships are significantly higher. Evidence of agency conflicts are found in increased costs for sponsorships of events, organizations, and venues residing within the marketers’ home market. Sponsorships of sport organizations are significantly more costly than those of arts, entertainment, and nonprofit organizations, presenting a challenge for marketers seeking to engage today’s consumer via sport sponsorships in an increasingly competitive environment.     

Developing a brand performance measure for financial services brands

With no universal approach for measuring brand performance, we show how a consumer-based brand measure was developed for corporate financial services brands. Churchill's paradigm was adopted. A literature review and 20 depth interviews with experts suggested that brand loyalty, consumer satisfaction and reputation constitute the brand performance measure. Ten financial services organisations provided access to their consumers. Following a postal survey, 600 questionnaires were analysed through principal components analysis to identify the consumer-based measure. Further testing revealed this to be a valid and reliable brand performance measure.     

Profiling under conditions of ambiguity—An application in the financial services industry

Profiles inform decision making and impact both on the individual being profiled and the organisation acting on the information. When there is no universal empirical support for the profile, decisions are made under conditions of ambiguity. This paper analyses the decision-making process for reporting money laundering suspicions using a framework that highlights the role of technical, formal and informal sub-system elements. We conclude that, in the absence of certainty regarding technical, economic and legal parameters, informal factors play a key role in determining whether systems are adopted and how much is spent.     

Weathering consumer pricing sensitivity: The importance of customer contact and personalized services in the financial services industry

In a low-cost switching environment, certain firm actions undertaken by service employees can improve consumer loyalty, satisfaction and reduce price sensitivity. Interestingly, consumers' satisfaction levels can actually increase when experiencing a price increase. Counterintuitively, when consumers experience a price decrease, their loyalty decreases, suggesting that it might be in the firm's best interest to not offer such pricing discounts as these customers may be hypersensitive to price. Overall, it appears much easier for service employees to positively influence customer satisfaction than customer loyalty; satisfied consumers do not necessarily become loyal consumers.     

Tracking the relationship between environmental management and financial performance in the service industry

Attention to the relationship between environmental management and financial performance has been growing. Research in this area has, however, tended to focus primarily on manufacturing industries. Our goal in this study is to analyze the relationship between environmental management and financial performance in the context of the service industry. Using a cross-sectional sample of 1,228 service organizations spanning a wide range of business activities, we test a series of five hypothesized relationships using both univariate and multivariate analyses. The results are robust across the dataset and show conclusively that environmental management does indeed positively affect financial performance in the service sector.     

Motivating managers with money: How to assess and reward performance

Does money motivate managers? Many current compensation programs are merely annual bonuses or profit-sharing plans. Seldom is an executive rewarded for actual improvement in performance. The author looks at the situation from two angles: salary administration and incentive bonus administration. First, there must be equality between salary earned and salary received. Second, a company has to establish criteria for evaluating an employee's earned income. The author suggests that an employee's evaluation be based on his observable daily performance, rather than on vague concepts such as his willingness to cooperate or his loyalty to the firm. When a company does award bonuses it should give them for performance that exceeds the daily criteria, and it should pay the bonus immediately.     

How management control and job-related characteristics influence the performance of export sales managers

Despite the plethora of studies examining the influence of behavior-based sales management control on salesperson characteristics and performance, limited empirical evidence exists with respect to its relevance and importance in an export sales context. This study expands the existing literature by investigating the influence of behavior-based control and job-related characteristics on the performance of export sales managers. The article offers a conceptual model and an empirical test using data from 210 UK exporters. The findings support the positive influence of behavior-based control on certain export sales managers' characteristics and behavioral performance. The results also indicate that: specific export sales managers' characteristics enhance behavioral performance; behavioral performance is positively related to outcome performance; psychic distance moderates the relationship between behavior-based control and behavioral performance. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for export executives and suggestions for future research in the field.     

加强成本控制保证财务管理目标的实现

随着我国经济体制改革的不断深入,企业管理以财务管理为核心已成为企业家和经济界人士的共识.我们应从成本控制入手把财务管理目标推向一个新阶段,这是企业目前财务管理中的一项重要工作目标.通过对成本控制的再认识及企业财务管理目标的确立,从成本控制入手来保证财务管理目标的实现.     

International trade in financial services

International trade in financial services is a topic of some importance both to the financial services sector itself and in international trade negotiations. Unfortunately, intrinsic problems in defining and measuring trade in services, combined with a lack of data in many countries, have made empirical analysis of trade in financial services difficult. Recent improvements in data, although still providing only a limited coverage, do now provide a basis for analysis. In this paper, we use data from the OECD International Trade in Services Statistics 2001 database to conduct an analysis of trade in financial services based on standard theories and empirical techniques for international trade. Our results suggest that the key concepts of international trade are of use in understanding international trade flows in financial services. In particular, we find evidence of significant volumes of intra-industry trade in financial services, as well as significant volumes of inter-industry trade for some countries, including the UK. Using Balassa's ‘revealed comparative advantage’ index, the most highly ranked countries are Belgium-Luxembourg, Italy, Switzerland, the UK, the USA and Greece. Using the ‘net export ratio’, the countries that are ranked highest include Germany, Switzerland, the UK, the USA and Belgium-Luxembourg.     

Total quality management,institutional isomorphism and performance: the case of financial services

This article concentrates on the relationship between the number of years that the firms have been implementing total quality management and the impact its practice can have on performance. The literature provides studies revealing that the last firms to introduce total quality management fail partly due to the fact that they imitate the implementation strategy used. Based on a sample of 77 Spanish financial companies, this paper provides evidence of the concept of institutionalisation as a process by which different management practices are generalised. The conclusion reached is that the process differs depending on the moment in which the total quality management system is introduced.     

如何保证家庭装修安全

文章论述了当前家庭装修过程中出现的一些隐患及对居住安全的影响,并就存在的问题提出了相应的对策.具有一定的借鉴意义.     

完善财务风险预警机制保证体育事业顺利开展

大庆体育运动学校始建于1987年,校园占地面积260亩,总建筑面积81550平方米,现有教职工240余人,学生近千人,开设田径、武术、举重、游泳、摔跤、柔道、射击等专业,多年来,学校重视体育工作,重视财会管理工作,本文就此进行论述.     

The value relevance of brand equity in the financial services industry: an empirical analysis using quantile regression

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it attempts to explore the factors contributing to the brand values of Taiwan??s financial service companies. Second, it aims to examine the value relevance of their brand equity. Our empirical findings from OLS regression show that advertising expenditure in banking firms have positive significant effects on brand evaluation and that the brand equity of banking firms is positively related to their market value. The general findings remain valid when we apply conditional quantile regressions to re-examine these relationships. Moreover, the quantile estimates indicate that the factor of brand loyalty could bring benefits to the banks with lower levels of brand equity. However, brands do not offer insights into the banks that have extremely low market capitalization.