Turning ideas into products: subjective well-being in co-creation

New services, like fabrication spaces, 3D printer rentals and virtual marketplaces, have made it easier for empowered consumers to co-create innovative products without almost any involvement of traditional companies. Adopting a consumer-grounded view, this work takes a step forward from the existing service literature by investigating the link between psychological motives and happiness in co-creation. Specifically, the study measures how community affiliation, personal growth and utilitarian motives are predictors of subjective well-being (SWB). The results illustrate that community affiliation and personal growth motives predict high scores of SWB, while utilitarian motives do not. In addition, empowered consumers who co-create with others are happier than consumers who create alone. This indicates that direct interactions are not only a powerful platform for service co-creation, but are also predictors of SWB. We discuss the implications for traditional companies and for decision makers regarding the benefits offered by digital fabrication services.     

Going global: Turning strategic vision into operational reality

How does a U.S. firm make the quantum leap from a domestic company to a global business? A study of 20 of the most successful U.S. MNCs suggests it's not just a matter of setting new strategic directions or operational plans.     

Private label: Turning the retail brand threat into your biggest opportunity

Avatars are now appearing as online assistants on transactional websites, yet their scope is still limited. This paper explores their potential roles in providing assistance, a friendlier interface and purchase recommendations. As avatars are at early stages of implementation, the conceptual framework draws upon human-computer interaction research, plus cognate literature on salesperson roles and the use of synthetic characters in other contexts.

The empirical study involved two longitudinal panels of online buyers and an international, online survey of 2114 internet users. Following split-sample principal components analysis and k-means clustering, four categories of role preference are identified. The results inform decisions on the appropriateness of avatars, their adaptation to customer needs and buying contexts, and their possible roles. Hypothesised relationships with age, gender and online buying experience are tested, suggesting scope for avatar role segmentation. Suggestions are offered for marketers and website designers, considering deploying avatars, and for future research directions.     

烟台万华公司:迎战跨国化工大鳄

<正> MDI(二苯基甲烷二异氰酸酯)是聚氨酯(PU)的核心生产原料之一,市场需求强劲,发展势头迅猛。业内人士预计,未来十年全球MDI年需求增长率将达7%左右。作为新兴市场,我国MDI市场的需求和潜力更为巨大,将保持两位数以上的增长速度。面对中国MDI市场这个巨大奶酪,德国拜耳(BAYEE)、美国道化学(BOV)等跨国化工巨头觊觎有年。我国入世后,这些跨国大鳄更是加快了进军中国市场的步伐。前不久,德国巴斯夫和美国亨斯曼与中国的氯碱化工联合在上海合资建立的16万吨MDI项目正式启动,预计2004年投产。作为全球6家拥有MDI自主知识产权的化工企业之一、我国唯一的MDI生产企业,烟台万华公司无疑面临着国际化工列强的重拳威胁。在这场民族化工产业与跨国财团的大博奕中,烟台万华公司将如何出牌对局,胜算几何?请看——     

让科技变财富:英国IP Group商业模式分析

科技成果转化是世界上普遍认为技术创新的薄弱环节,本文选取英国一家知识产权投资公司IP Group,IP Group专门与世界顶尖高校合作,建立利益绑定关系,投资高校衍生的科技成果,并服务于新设的衍生公司。本文基于商业模式CET@I方法论分析其商业模式特征,并基于案例分析对国内科技成果转化模式提出建议。     

Turning unplanned overpayment into a status signal: how mentioning the price paid repairs satisfaction

We investigate how mentioning the price paid to others (which we refer to as price-dropping) can be used to assuage the negative experience that occurs when consumers realize they unintentionally overpaid for a product. Specifically, we show that by engaging in price-dropping, consumers re-appropriate the overpayment into a conspicuous consumption signal that improves their satisfaction. Two studies demonstrate that the effect of price-dropping is mitigated when consumers who overpaid have low sensitivity to status cues, and also when the audience of the price-drop is unreceptive to status cues. We discuss how price-dropping has implications for retailer pricing policies and customer experience, along with avenues for future research.     

CDM减排与氟化工产业发展的关系

分析了我国氟化工产业现状,随着国家支柱产业的发展,氟产品进入人民的日常生活,为氟化工产业提供了发展机遇,提出了氟化工产业发展过程中面临的问题,随着氟化工生产所用原料价格的变化,原先高成本的氟产品开始显现出较好的性价比,市场对氟产品的需求大幅增长,加之清洁发展机制（CDM）减排交易的成功,我国氟生产企业参与CDM减排交易可以获得巨大收益。     

Turning small business interns into applicants: The mediating role of perceived justice

Internship is a relatively low-risk approach for entrepreneurs to attract and select prospective employees. But what factors can influence interns' intentions to join small businesses? Based on the model of action phases, realistic job preview theory, and organizational justice theory, I hypothesize that interns' post-internship intentions to join can be predicted by their pre-internship job-seeking goal and their during-internship involvement with the host organization. Perceived organizational justice is hypothesized to mediate the relationship between involvement and post-internship intentions to join. Temporally lagged data from 104 small business interns support most hypotheses. In addition, compared to a group of 175 corporate interns, small business interns are more likely to change their minds after the internship, and justice perception has a stronger effect on their post-internship intentions to join.     

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.     

Turning a liability into an asset of foreignness: Managing informal networks in Korea

Although foreignness can bring both benefits and costs to a business, much of the literature has focused on the liability of foreignness (LOF), while relatively little attention has been paid to the positive side. Despite the presence of LOFs, foreign companies may accrue some unique advantages from their foreign status, which are referred to as assets of foreignness (AOFs). Drawing upon social-capital theory and institutional theory, this article examines the issue of LOFs versus AOFs in the context of the informal networks in Korea and explores how foreign companies can manage their weaknesses in host-country-specific informal networks to create value from their foreignness. We discuss two practical strategies, reactive and proactive strategies, that can be used by foreign companies. While these two strategies can be pursued in parallel, this article suggests that foreign companies should prioritize pursuing proactive strategies. This article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of foreignness in the international business context and provides practical insights into how foreign companies can leverage their foreign status in developing their own informal networks in Korea.     

中国化工领域仍是投资和发展的重点

评述了在西方经济仍处于衰退的情况下，中国化工市场率先复苏的进展，并介绍了跨国公司以中国化工为投资重点的发展策略，中国石化产业将迎来升级调整良机。     

Windows into the future: How lessons from Hollywood will shape the music industry

For several years, new digital technologies and startup companies have put the music industry in a defensive posture by driving innovation and disrupting established format, pricing, and distribution standards. However, with Napster now defanged, the major labels that dominate the industry are reclaiming the spotlight and taking proactive steps to secure their place in the online music arena.