中国如何提高“思想生产力”？

正确的、深刻的、美好的思想，本身就是生产力。它既可以直接地生产出精神，也可以有效地生产出物质。因此思想生产的能力高低、大小，尤其是能力的实或虚，都代表一个民族、一个社会、一个时代的质量。任何时候中国都需要思想、思想家，尤其需要具有真正社会效应的思想家。这就需要具有较高的思想生产力，而且将思想生产力演变成社会总体生产力的人。     

在法国寻找法国

说到法国,你脑子里会闪现什么?艾菲尔铁塔,夏奈尔,德彪西,拿破仑,还是苏菲·玛索,齐达内,好像每一个名字都富含着艺术气质。而这种气质也深深地融入在法国人的思维里,弥漫在红白蓝三色的国度中。而那从骨子里渗透出的艺术气韵,又使得这种气质的拥有者和传承者有别于任何商业品牌。无论是McDonald's还是SONY,在这种深厚的民族气质面前,任何商业文化都变得如此苍白。自由,人文,浪漫,前卫似乎该算是法国文化的精髓了。正是如此,法国很早以来就成为很多追梦人的天堂,而这个梦想并非实实在在的名或利。看看我们的前人在这个国度里有何收获,我…     

救世也要靠唯心主义

救世要靠唯物主义,这是近几十年来连号称＂忠于革命＂的文盲、半文盲、中小学生,都懂得的常识。对不对呢？当然对。但是认为救世、治世根本用不着唯心主义,甚而认为唯心主义与反动是一回事,那就大错特错了。而且这样的见识不仅浅薄,很有可能是天大的无知、愚昧。     

创新中电：面向明天的握手

握手在今天的世界就像吃饭一样平常,但不一样的是,握手总传递着一种信息,表达或期待着一种信任与合作,在更多的场合,一些人的握手往往成为时代的标志。SOTEC与中国电子器件工业总公司(以下简称中电)的握手也是如此。两家共同成立了创新中电公司,从事SOTEC笔记本在中国的生产与销售。应当说,将生产与销售都放在中国,是一个创新,而SOTEC与中电合作的意义还在于,正如创新中电的总经理矶仟仞所说的:在笔记本领域作为外国知名企业的进入,SOTEC是最后一家。因此,SOTEC与中电的握手既开启了一个时代,也在结束一个时代。握手背后SOTEC(…     

文化·海淀·城市标识

一个国家和民族，最终展现的是文化，文化才是可持续的竞争力，所以我想，世界城市一定是有自己文化特色的城市。我希望我们北京，要坚守文化底线。文化底线就是你要有特质，这是你的灵魂。     

未来中国经济最重要的三件事情

新浪财经等报道：北京大学教授张维迎日前在“中国发展高层论坛2012年会”上发表演讲表示，未来几年，中国在经济领域要做好最重要的三件事情。第一个要做的事情是国有企业的私有化。我们很难想象在国有企业占到如此大的比重、如此重要的地位的情况下，中国能够进入真正的市场经济，国有企业已经成为未来中国进一步成长最主要的障碍之一。希望在5-10到十年内国有企业的比重应该降到10％左右。这件事情本身并不难，它只是一个下政治决心的问题，不存在任何技术性的困难。     

企业创新与大学的生死情节

江泽民同志曾经说过“创新是民族进步的灵魂，是国家兴旺发达的不懈动力，创新的关键是人才，人才的成长靠教育，教育水平提高了，科技进步和经济发展才有后劲”，这段话精辟深刻，意含丰富，既强调了创新对于民族进步、国家兴盛的重大意义，又指出了创新的原动力在于教育。因此，无论是在以经济建设为中心的企业，还是以培养人才为己任的大学，我们都要在继承和光大优良传统的同时，     

瑞友科技：自主创新领航IT服务

经受百年一遇全球金融危机冲击后的中国经济，任何时候都没有像现在这样从上到下对加快转变经济发展方式的认识如此统一。重视程度如此之高。实现经济发展方式的转变和优化经济结构，已经成为经济工作最突出的任务。而自主创新，正是实现我国产业结构调整和经济转型的必由之路。     

中国资源整合的正负效应

中国的种种资源，在世界排行榜上位居前列的太多太多了!粗略地数一数，都可以使世界仰视。比如：历史资源、政治资源、人才资源、理论资源、经济资源、本领资源、疆域资源、民族精神资源、道德资源、意志资源。上述的资源，是中国的财富和至宝。在认识上任何的背叛和淡漠，都是最大的错误和失实。     

高外贸依存度：是喜是忧？

据商务部最新统计，伴随着外贸进出口总值的大幅攀升，我国外贸依存度超过了80％，中国由此成为世界上外贸依存度最高的国家。如此之高的外贸依存度，反映了中国参与全球经济一体化进程的加速，也表明中国经济与世界经济已经形成了相互依赖的伙伴关系，两者彼此支撑的新局面已经出现。     

Facebook e-Portfolios for Career Education Focused on Japanese Employment Practice: A Case Study

The authors propose the effectiveness of Facebook functions in the promotion of career education. In recent years, career education in Japanese universities has differed slightly from that in other countries. Japanese students are trained to be competitive in the job-hunting process; they need to obtain the technical skills and knowledge necessary to pass a company entrance examination or a university oral interview. This practice is in stark contrast with the intrinsic meaning of vocational/career education, which is the process by which students acquire the abilities and independence required by a certain industry. This meaning is manifested in the purpose of the career education program of Hokkai-Gakuen University’s Faculty of Business Administration. The program’s purpose is to foster independence in its students rather than the acquisition of skills for the job-hunting process. The professional independence of every student is important to their career development after graduating from the university. On the other hand, it is known that e-portfolios generally encourage students to record and assess their activities. To promote the activities that students tackle in the program, we introduced an e-portfolio using Facebook. This study shows the characteristics and achievements of our e-portfolio.     

Contributions of Econometrics to Public Policy Analysis in the Information Age

In this paper we model U.S. economic growth over the next 25 years. Despite the anticipated aging of the population, moderate population growth will provide growing supplies of labor well into the 21st century. Improvements in labor quality due to education and experience will also continue for some time, but will eventually disappear. Productivity growth for the U.S. economy will be below long-term historical averages, but labor-using technical change will be a stimulus for growth of labor demand. Year-to-year changes in economic activity will be primarily the consequence of capital accumulation. However, the driving forces of economic growth over the long term will be demography and technology. This is a revised version of the keynote speech that I delivered on 16 January 2009 at the 6th International Conference of Socionetwork Strategies, at Kansai University, Japan.     

The Role of Cross-Border Networks of Skilled Labor in Offshore Outsourcing: Empirical Evidence Based on the Network Theory

This study investigates the determinant role of the cross-border movement of skilled labor in the expansion of service trade between the US, and both developed and developing countries. For this purpose, we employ the key concepts of network theory as an analytical framework and conduct panel data analysis and graphical modeling analysis for 31 countries from 1999 to 2008. In this decade, offshore outsourcing in the service trade took off worldwide. We use data for each country’s service exports to the US, number of H-1B visas issued, GNI per-capita, network readiness index, and an English dummy for the official language. We illustrate the trajectory and interactions between these factors. These analyses yield three observations. First, service trade with the US is more intensive among higher income countries. Second, the number of H-1B visas issued has a positive effect on service exports to the US. Third, individuals in lower income countries tend to desire H-1B visas and create intensive skilled labor networks with the US, the path through which developing countries such as India expanded their service exports to the US.     

Subcontracting Structure and Productivity in the Japanese Software Industry

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the factors determining the productivity of the software industry in Japan, using individual data from the Survey of the State of the Information Service Industry conducted in August 2006 by IPA (Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan). This paper focuses on the relationship between the subcontracting structure and productivity in the Japanese software industry. Software enterprises are classified as prime contractors, intermediate subcontractors, end-contractors, and independent enterprise. A comparison of their productivity levels reveals that intermediate subcontractors are the least productive. However, it is observed that the intermediate subcontractors possessing a high quality of human resources measured the proportion of employees passing the Information Technology Engineers Examination (ITEE), or the intermediate subcontractors adopting the IT skill standard which defines the skills for IT human resources clearly and systematically, has a high productivity level. It can raise the productivity in software industry as a whole.     

Globalization of Information Services and the Industrial Structure of the Japanese Economy

Since the late 1990s, ICT has rebuilt organizational networks by connecting value chains and providing communication networks. This made certain types of services tradable, including information services. This change raised the public concern in terms of the effect on employment and innovation capacity in developed economies. The fragmentation of the production network of information services has been led by US firms, but is spreading to East Asia, typically in outsourcing from Japan to China, India and the ASEAN countries. This study empirically assesses the effect of offshore outsourcing on employment in Japan, specifying trading partners. The results show that information services outsourcing affects employment in the manufacturing sector in Japan, but the effect is different depending on trading partners. This study discusses the implications from the viewpoint of industry policy, relating the results to outsourced business processes.     

The Effects of Proposals for Basic Pension Reform on the Income Distribution of the Elderly in Japan

The aging of the population in Japan is a serious problem, and the reform of the public pension scheme is a major political issue. Although the 2004 pension reform was enforced to ensure a sustainable pension system in such an aging society, people remain quite apprehensive about the pension system. Consequently, various sectors have created new proposals for pension reform to overcome these problems, and it has become a recent policy debate. The objective of this article is to prepare projections for the income distribution of households containing elderly people using the Japanese microsimulation model, INAHSIM (Integrated Analytical Model for Household Simulation), and to evaluate the effect of the proposals on the living standards of the elderly. According to the simulation results, the problem of very low pension amounts for the elderly does not appear to be growing. However, changes in co-resident families of the elderly, such as the increase in the number of people living alone, may cause a decline in their standard of living. The author points out the problems of the previously proposed reform plans and proposes an alternative reform plan based on the perspective used in this paper.     

Impact of Online Customer Reviews on Sales Outcomes: An Empirical Study Based on Prospect Theory

This study examines the influence of the valence of online customer reviews on sales outcomes based on prospect theory. Numerous studies have revealed the importance of customer reviews in online marketing. However, only few studies have explored the impact of online customer reviews on sales outcomes in the dynamic process. Prior studies in behavioral economics literature have indicated that people differently value gains and losses and that losses have more emotional impact than an equivalent amount of gains. This study verifies whether prospect theory applies to the relation between online customer reviews and sales outcomes. Relevant data were collected from Amazon.co.jp, and three statistical models were employed to investigate the relation between the two factors. Major findings confirm that negative customer reviews considerably impact online sales than positive reviews. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the marginal effects of positive and negative reviews decrease with the increase in their volume. The results of this study will enable marketers to compare the relative sales effects of different types of customer reviews and improve the effectiveness of customer service management.     

An Advertising Strategy Using Consumption Externality and Forgetting in the Case of Japanese Electronic Books

We construct a two-period model in which a consumer recognizes the existence of goods after advertised by firms, and total sales of the first period affect the utility of each consumer’s purchase in the second period, indicating a consumption externality. Some consumers see advertisements in the first period and remember the product, whereas some forget the product in the second period. We show that the advertising volume changes given the differences in the forgetting rate. In particular, we apply our method to the data on Japan’s electronic books obtained through a conjoint analysis survey to clarify that a better strategy is to sell a product to a small number of people at a low price or to lower the price to a certain level during the early period, and then to sell the product to a specific consumer segment at a higher price after reflecting the externality.     

Research Note: The Paradox of Cloud Computing in Japan

Cloud Computing is defined as computer usage delivered as a service over the Internet. This cloud computing is classified as public computing, private computing, or hybrid computing. Public cloud computing is open to any customer who pays service charges. On the contrary, private cloud computing is used by a member of a company who has constructed a cloud computing system over a restricted domain on that company's information infrastructure. Hybrid cloud computing is a mix of both the public and private. Which type of cloud computing is popular in Japan? To answer this question I mailed questionnaires to 2,284 enterprises listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Market in 2012 and 2013. I analyzed the relationship between these answers and financial indexes using a multinomial logistic regression model. I concluded that the total assets was the most effective factor in the decision to introduce the public cloud, and the accumulated profit was one of the most effective factors in the decision to introduce the hybrid cloud. These findings are not consistent with orthodox price theory.     

Data Mining Approach for Direct Marketing of Banking Products with Profit/Cost Analysis

Nowadays, many businesses, such as banks, use direct marketing methods to reach customers to minimize the campaigning cost and maximize the return rate. To achieve this, huge customer data should be analyzed to determine the most appropriate product offer for each customer and the most effective channel to reach her/him. However, since only a very small amount of responses collected from the customers are positive to the offers, the dataset is very imbalanced. This decreases sensitivity ratio of prediction results and makes it difficult to make a successful product and channel selection for the offer. In this paper, we propose a hybrid system, which first classifies the customers to decide if s/he is interested in the offered product, and then clusters them for product and channel suggestions. Experiments with real life banking data show very promising accuracy results for predicting the proper product and channel for the customers. Moreover, cost-profit analysis is also added to this problem. Our experiment results show that the proposed method decreases a fraction of the total profit, but since the decrease in the total cost is very large, there is a huge increase in the overall profit/cost ratio.