The Impact of Power Distance Belief on Consumers' Brand Preferences

Five lab studies and a field study explore how power distance belief (PDB) influences consumers' preference for mass-market versus niche brands, the underlying mechanisms, and boundary conditions. We find that high (vs. low) PDB consumers are more likely to prefer mass-market over niche brands because they tend to be risk averse, which in turn increases preference for widely used brands. Consequently, the relationship between PDB and brand preferences is mediated by risk aversion. Further, when product usage contexts are risky, low (but not high) PDB consumers' preference for mass-market brands increases, whereas offering an extended money-back guarantee increases high (but not low) PDB consumers' preference for niche brands. In addition, we find that when choosing service providers (versus choosing physical goods), low (but not high) PDB consumers are significantly more likely to prefer mass-market brands over niche brands. We conclude with the implications of these findings for marketers, such as for their segmentation and targeting endeavors. We also provide specific tools that marketers could use, both inside and outside the store, to influence consumers' preference for mass-market versus niche brands.     

合作管理视角下的税收征管权限划分研究

为了进一步提高政府的效率和效能,适度分权的合作管理已成为各国政府改革的主要方向。本文将合作管理理论引入我国税务管理改革之中,提出基于“受益性、经济合理性、法定性、课税权与政府职能相结合、注重税基属性”等原则的中国税收征管权限改革建议：加快税收征管体制立法进程;规范国、地税的税收征管范围;梳理归并地方公共财政非税收入的征管权,推行部分税收征管业务和权限的私人化,并健全部门间的协调配合机制。     

Sustainable Tourism: A View from Accommodation Businesses

This article presents the results of an investigation into the attitudes of tourist accommodation managers to the principles of 'sustainable development'. The survey of accommodation managers in a major British city assessed the interest, understanding, and perceived opportunities and barriers to the adoption of 'sustainable development' within a range of tourist accommodation businesses. The main findings show that the widespread adoption of such practices is constrained by a degree of inertia based on barriers of time, cost and expertise. The results have implications for future strategies attempting to promote sustainable practices within the service industries.     

East Asian Scholarly Research: A View from the 94th Floor

This article examines both applied and academic research relating to East Asia published during 1994 in terms of its applied relevance and its contributions to existing theory. In recent years the volume of research related to East Asia has expanded rapidly, and this review looks at the hightlights of that literature. Research from each of the functional business areas is examined, both in terms of its current and future contributions. In addition, special attention is paid to the areas of strategic management and entrepreneurship, which had a large amount of important research published during this period. Finally, there is an overall assessment of the impact of this research.     

A View on the United States from Europe

The recent behaviour of the U.S. economy poses two conundrums: short-term interest rates are much lower than would normally be expected, and the yield curve is flat. These suggest to many European observers that U.S. economic prospects are not as rosy as often depicted. In particular, deficits in the federal budget and the current account are not sustainable in European eyes; and significant Fed tightening will be necessary, thus causing a significant deceleration of U.S. growth.JEL Classification E200,E600     

Pioneering Modern Corporate Governance: A View from London in 1900

Around 1900 Britain was exceptionally suited to pioneering largescale enterprises because of the precocious development of itsequity markets and London's experimentation with a more eclecticrange of corporate governance techniques than the world's smallerand less cosmopolitan financial centers. Information dissemination,incentives, and reputation—developed by a serendipitousmix of legal compulsions and flexible voluntarism—setthe scene for the growth of large, UK-based, national and internationalcorporations in the twentieth century. "The investment business is not with us as well developed oras well understood as it is in England." W. H. Lyon, Capitalization (Boston, 1913), 207.     

Antecedents of Belief in Global Citizenship: A Two-Country Empirical Investigation

ABSTRACT

This research contributes to the existing literature by investigating the antecedents of belief in global citizenship. Previous literature in global brand management has provided strong evidence of the importance of perceived quality and social prestige of global brands in influencing consumers’ evaluations of global brands. Accordingly, the authors’ model focuses on the perceived quality and social prestige of global brands as antecedents of consumers’ belief in global citizenship. In addition, they examine the direct and indirect effects of consumer ethnocentricity and cultural openness on consumers’ belief in global citizenship. They empirically examine this framework within a rich cross-cultural context using samples from the United States and India (developed and developing countries). The proposed model suggests that perceived quality and social prestige of global brands are mediators of the relationship between ethnocentricity and cultural openness and consumers’ belief in global citizenship. They followed Gerbing and Anderson's two-step approach to develop a measurement model with an acceptable fit to the data and then conducted a structural model to test the hypothesized relationships. The authors conducted χ² difference tests to examine the structure of their hypothesized relationships across the United States and India. The results support partial mediation for perceived quality and social prestige of global brands on the relationship between ethnocentricity and cultural openness and consumers’ belief in global citizenship. Furthermore, they demonstrate some interesting differences in the relationships in the model across the two samples.     

Bank of England: a View from Frankfurt

The 1998 Bank of England Act made the Bank independent to set interest rates in pursuit of its objective as defined in the same Act: to deliver price stability. Ten years on, Hans-Helmut Kotz of the Deutsche Bundesbank presents a personal view of developments at the Bank of England over the past decade. paper originally written – in a purely personal capacity – for the Royal Economic Society's “Newsletter”, July 2007. The author would like to thank Ben Friedman (Harvard) and Peter Howells (Bristol) for very helpful comments.     

Corporate Social Responsibility in the 21st Century: A View from the World's Most Successful Firms

This investigation is motivated by the lack of scholarship examining the content of what firms are communicating to various stakeholders about their commitment to socially responsible behaviors. To address this query, a qualitative study of the legal, ethical and moral statements available on the websites of Forbes Magazine's top 50 U.S. and top 50 multinational firms of non-U.S. origin were analyzed within the context of stakeholder theory. The results are presented thematically, and the close provides implications for social responsibility among managers of global organizations as well as researchers interested in business ethics.     

Joint Ventures in Russia: The View from the Russians

This article, detailing research on Russian joint ventures with foreign partners far to the south east of the capital, focuses on Russian business people who are not playing the GKO market or trying to stash money away in Swiss bank accounts. The findings of this research suggest that some Russians may be growing as disenchanted with the experience of doing business with foreigners as some foreigners have become at doing business with Russians.     

国际贸易中出口结构对经济绩效的影响——基于国家空间的社会网络分析

新兴的产业国际竞争力结构观认为,国家的贸易地位受出口结构的制约和影响。本文在此基础上运用出口优势产业组合的数据构建反映国家之间竞争态势的国家空间地图,通过分析其分布特征和结构参数证明竞争效应的存在,即国家可以依靠优势产业组合而非单个优势产业参与国际竞争,调配出口篮子从而改变自身在国际贸易中的位置,进而影响经济绩效。本文通过可视化技术呈现了2002-2013年国家空间的主体演变过程,展示了国家空间稳定性和动态性的双重特征;并通过社会网络分析和实证分析证明了单个国家在国家空间中的位置特征与经济增长的倒U型曲线关系。本文进一步研究了中国在国际贸易中的贸易结构和贸易地位,并针对研究发现的中国的"新常态",提出现阶段中国应更重视优势产业的质量而非数量等相关政策建议。     

谦卑研究的前沿探析:基于资源观的企业竞争优势

基于谦卑的以往研究,首先梳理了"谦卑"概念的发展、内涵以及与相近概念的区分;然后基于资源观理论视角,指出谦卑是企业竞争优势的源泉,分析了谦卑作为战略性资源的特性;并进一步剖析了谦卑资源是如何通过组织学习、服务以及组织弹性发展的过程为企业创造价值;最后进行了总结和研究展望,以期为后续研究提供参考。     

Distance Sensitivity of Export: A Firm-Product Level Approach

Recent literature suggests that the extent to which exports of a product is influenced by distance depends on the product characteristics. Differentiated products with non-standardised attributes are typically claimed to be more distance-sensitive as transactions should involve interactions between buyers and sellers. But the empirical evidence still finds conflicting results. Previous studies have examined the effect of distance on export values across different product groups. This paper employs a gravity model on Swedish firm-product level export data to analyse the effect of distance on the export decisions as well as export values, respectively. The focus is on how the influence of distance varies across differentiated and non-differentiated products. For both export participation and intensity decisions, the results are not in line with the network/search view and suggest that homogeneous products are more sensitive to distance than differentiated products when controlling for annual shocks and industry heterogeneity. Moreover, I find evidence of a learning effect from past trade experience.     

Regulative Distance,Cultural Distance,Host Country Risk,and the Choice of Subsidiary Activity: Evidence from Brazilian Multinationals

This study examines the relationship between regulative distance, cultural distance, and host country risk, as well as the choice of production or distribution activities by emerging country multinationals when establishing a subsidiary abroad. The study uses a sample of 280 subsidiaries of 133 Brazilian firms in 39 countries. Binary logistic regression was used to test the research hypotheses. The impact of regulative distance on the decision on subsidiary activity follows the predictions in the literature. However, findings on cultural distance and host country risk showed an inverted sign, suggesting that Brazilian firms tend to establish production facilities in countries with higher cultural distance and higher cultural risk.     

A Model of Value Creation: Strategic View

Value creation has long been hailed as the major objective of business firms by many management researchers. Some authors state that a firm must create value for its shareholders; some insist that value must be created not just for shareholders but also for all stakeholders. However, most discussions of value creation do not address an important question: "For whom the value is created?" The purpose of this paper is to take a first step to fill this void and propose a model of value creation along three dimensions: financial, nonfinancial, and time. It is hoped that the model will contribute to a better understanding of how strategic and operational decisions of managers may create value for some stakeholders while destroying it for others.