Second‐Mover Advantages with Asymmetric Costs and Information Updates: A Product Life Cycle Perspective

Two firms with asymmetric costs engage in a Stackelberg game under multiple levels of uncertainty with information updating. A product life cycle perspective is employed to reveal when and why a second‐mover may have an advantage. At early stages in the product life cycle, when uncertainty is the dominating factor, the impact of uncertainty may be either positive or negative. As a result, the Stackelberg leader faces the possibility of either overshooting or losing its market leadership position to the second‐mover. In later market stages, when cost is more important, a process‐innovating second‐mover may accrue higher profits. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中间产品竞争的品牌经济策略研究——以莱卡为例

莱卡品牌用成功证明中间产品需要品牌。而品牌策略的正确与否又是决定消费者对该品牌需求的关键因素之一。一直以来莱卡在激烈的市场竞争中处于绝对领先地位,它的成功归因于品牌建设过程中一系列策略的创新运用。本文运用品牌经济学原理对莱卡品牌策略进行分析。莱卡以时尚单一情感利益点为品类,降低消费者选择成本;通过单点策略、占先策略、终点策略及传播策略等策略创新,影响消费者选择行为,确立在整个供应链的掌控力和优势地位,并通过品牌拉力拉动整个产业链物流和资金流的循环。     

Effects of Information Technology Capabilities on Strategic Alliances: Implications for the Resource‐Based View

This paper adopts a contingency approach to the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm and seeks to establish boundary conditions for the value of certain information technology (IT) capabilities. We first identify inter‐organizational alliances as a specific strategy context in which IT capabilities are particularly valuable. We then consider more detailed boundary conditions that can shape the value of these capabilities within the alliance context. Our study shows that firms with better IT capabilities can derive greater value from an alliance, yet this effect also varies across different types of alliances depending on an individual alliance's characteristics. Specifically, IT capabilities are more valuable for alliances with a non‐equity governance structure, as well as those involving a high degree of interdependence between partners. We highlight the implications of our findings for opportunities to advance the RBV.     

Equilibrium Principal‐Agent Contracts: Competition and R&D Incentives

We analyze competition between firms engaged in R&D activities and market competition to study the choice of the incentive contracts for managers with hidden productivity. Oligopolistic screening requires extra effort/investment from the most productive managers: under additional assumptions on the hazard rate of the distribution of types we obtain no distortion in the middle rather than at the top. The equilibrium contracts are characterized by effort differentials between (any) two types always increasing with the number of firms, suggesting a positive relation between competition and high‐powered incentives. An inverted U curve between competition and absolute investments can emerge for the most productive managers.     

The Dynamics of Self-Esteem and Physical Self: Between Preservation and Adaptation

The aim of this study was to model and characterize the psychologicalprocesses that underlie the dynamics of global self-esteem and physicalself over time. Twice a day for 228 consecutive days, seven participantscompleted a short inventory (PSI-6, Ninot et al., 2001) measuring sixsubjective dimensions: global self-esteem, physical self-worth, physicalcondition, sport competence, physical strength, and attractive body.Each series was modeled by means of ARIMA procedures. The resultsshowed that a simple moving average model provided a satisfactoryaccount for the dynamics of all series. This model suggests that acombination of two opposite processes underlies the dynamics ofself-concept: preservation, which tends to restore the previousvalue after a disturbance, and adaptation, which tends to inflectthe series in the direction of the perturbation.     

信息分享对原始设备制造商与其合同制造商竞争的影响

研究了原始设备制造商的预测信息分享对一个原始设备制造商和一个与其同时有合作和竞争的合同制造商组成的供应链系统的影响,建立制造商间信息分享的模型,该模型包括一个原始设备制造商和一个合同制造商。研究发现,原始设备制造商关于市场潜在需求预测信息的分享对其预期利润是不利的,同时需求信息预测的精度对原始设备制造商信息分享的决策也有影响,原始设备制造商没有动机与其供应链成员进行信息分享,但信息分享使得供应链整体利润增加。最后,建立一个信息分享补偿机制分享供应链利润的增加量,以期通过信息分享补偿机制促使原始设备制造商有动机进行信息分享,从而实现其与合同制造商的“双赢”。     

The Atlanta Experience Re‐examined: The Link Between Agenda and Regime Change

In recent years, Atlanta appears unable to move from diffuse problem recognition to the framing of a broad program of action, despite major problems associated with a high level of poverty. With its exceptionally fragmented structure of local government, a tradition of business wariness of a strong governmental sector, and continued reliance on personal and informal collaboration, the city has failed to put together a plan to address the city's social‐investment needs. Atlanta's once‐vaunted biracial coalition shows signs of a declining ability to adapt to emergent issues and frame purposes accordingly. Récemment, Atlanta s'est révélée incapable de passer de la reconnaissance d'un problème plus ou moins identifiéà la conception d'un programme d'action d'envergure, malgré d'énormes difficultés liées à un niveau de pauvretéélevé. Compte tenu de la structure exceptionnellement fragmentée de son autorité locale, d'une tradition de défiance des milieux d'affaires à l'égard d'un puissant secteur public local, ainsi que d'une confiance persistante dans une collaboration personnelle informelle, la ville n'a pas réussi à mettre sur pied un plan capable de répondre aux besoins locaux en matière d'investissement social. La coalition biraciale d'Atlanta, autrefois si célèbre, montre des signes de défaillance quand il s'agit de s'adapter aux problèmes émergents et de définir des objectifs en conséquence.     

The Performance Implications of Financial and Non‐Financial Rewards: An Asian Nordic Comparison

This study empirically investigated culture's consequences on employee perceptions of the performance implications of financial and non‐financial rewards. Using a sample (n = 568) drawn from the banking industry in Finland and Hong Kong, we found that although the effects and predictive capability of culture (i.e. masculinity–femininity, individualism–collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance) offered some important insights, a range of other contextual factors (i.e. organizational, institutional, economic) wielded influence over and shaped reward–performance values, preferences, and behaviours. The emergence of these new paradigms necessitates that the US centric economic and behavioural theories (e.g. exchange) that underpin reward–performance be revisited and extended if they are to be applicable in the international context. Understanding the influence of a range of contextual forces is therefore critical to multinational organizations attempting to implement effective reward strategies aimed at achieving a diverse set of performance priorities. In addition to these novel theoretical and practical contributions, this study also paves the way for future research in this promising area of management studies.     

The Political Uses of Some Economic Ideas: The Trade‐Off Between Efficiency and Equality

The notion of a trade‐off between efficiency and equality is pervasive in many disciplines across the social sciences. Moreover, an imprecise notion of this well‐known dilemma is an integral part of the discourse of politicians and policy‐makers. The scientific status of the idea of a trade‐off between efficiency and equality is, however, a matter of contention. Philosophical dissections of the idea have already deflated the analytical cogency of most of its versions, while the economic literature trying to assess the empirical relation between growth and equality has shown contradicting results. This article, by focusing on the role this idea plays both in the discourse and strategy of social‐democratic parties, and in the social science explanations of their trajectories, argues that the pervasiveness of the notion of the trade‐off between efficiency and equality is best explained in terms of the political functions it can fulfill.     

The Relative Price of Non‐traded Goods under Imperfect Competition*

We consider the role of imperfect competition in explaining the relative price of non‐traded to traded goods within the Balassa–Samuelson framework. Under imperfect competition in these two sectors, relative prices depend on both productivity and mark‐up differentials. We test this hypothesis using a panel of sectors for 12 OECD countries. The empirical evidence suggests that relative price movements are well explained by productivity and mark‐up differentials.     

When Necessity Becomes a Virtue: The Effect of Product Market Competition on Corporate Social Responsibility

We test whether Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is driven by strategic considerations by empirically studying the link between competition and firms' social performance. We find that firms in more competitive industries have better social ratings. In particular, we show that (i) different market concentration proxies are negatively related to widely used CSR measures; (ii) that an increase in competition due to higher import penetration leads to superior CSR performance; (iii) that firms in more competitive environments have a superior environmental performance, measured by firm pollution levels; and (iv) that more product competition is associated to a larger within‐industry CSR variance. We interpret these results as evidence that CSR is strategically chosen.     

Industry Dynamics and Competition from Low‐Wage Countries: Evidence on Italy

This article analyses the effect of competition from low‐wage countries on domestic activity, using data on 230 Italian manufacturing sectors between 1995 and 2007. It finds that low‐wage import penetration is negatively related to employment and other measures of activity. The effect is significantly smaller in more skill, capital and R&D‐intensive sectors and in more vertically differentiated sectors. There is also evidence of significant effects of low‐wage competition through inter‐industry linkages: employment is negatively related to low‐wage import penetration in downstream sectors but positively related to low‐wage import penetration in upstream sectors.     

The Sales Process of Information Systems: Implications for Project Execution and Business Benefits

This inductive case study research examines the sales cycle of eight information systems (IS) providers situated in Australia, Hong Kong, Europe, and the United States. The study found that the IS sales cycle provides a restrictive covenant for ensuing projects with contractual constraints, having consequences for fundamental project factors such as benefits, scope, and cost. The process also impedes solution design, schedule, extent of customizations, and training. There are many implications for improvements to practice, in particular there should be more focus placed upon business benefits and increased awareness of life cycle cost during the sales process.     

Differences Between Short‐ and Long‐Term Risk Aversion: An Optimal Asset Allocation Perspective

This paper studies the long‐term asset allocation problem of an investor with different risk aversion attitudes to the short and the long term. We characterize investor's preferences with a utility function exhibiting a regime shift in risk aversion at some point of the multiperiod investment horizon that is estimated using threshold nonlinearity methods. Our empirical results for a portfolio of cash, bonds and stocks suggest that long‐term risk aversion is higher than short‐term risk aversion and increases with the investment horizon. The exposure of the investment portfolio from stocks to bonds and cash increases with the degree of risk aversion.     

军用通信产品设计与物流成本关系研究

对物流成本产生影响比较大的主要是产品的外观造型设计和包装设计。通过适当的产品设计手段,有效地控制物流成本,可以增加军工企业利润,用于提高军用通信产品自身的质量,更好地增强我国军事实力。     

The Construction of a Low‐Cost Airline Network – Facing Competition and Exploring New Markets

The paper investigates the construction of a low‐cost airline network by analyzing JetBlue Airways' entry decisions into non‐stop domestic US airport‐pair markets. Adopting duration models, we find that JetBlue consistently avoided concentrated airports and targeted concentrated routes; network economies also affected entry positively. For non‐stop entry into routes that have not been served directly before, our analysis reveals that the carrier focused on thicker routes and secondary airports. Non‐stop entry into existing non‐stop markets, however, shows that JetBlue concentrated on longer‐haul markets and avoided routes already operated by either other low‐cost carriers or network carriers under bankruptcy protection. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Relationships Between MBO System Strength and Goal‐Climate Quality and Strength

We adopted Bowen and Ostroff's ( 2004 ) HRM system strength concept so as to test it within the context of a management by objectives (MBO) system, which was utilized by six independent firms owned by a large, diversified family business group in Turkey. For this purpose, we surveyed the middle managers to measure 10 context‐specific metafeatures of the MBO system. By using aggregated scores at the functional group level (N = 47), we captured the distinctiveness, consistency, and consensus dimensions of this HRM practice. We tested and compared three alternative theoretical models of HRM strength where the three dimensions have compensatory, additive, and distinctiveness mediated effects on climate quality and strength. Results support the compensatory model and indicate that the strength of the MBO system (as a reflective latent variable representing the shared variance of the system's distinctiveness, consistency, and consensus) is positively related to business units’ quality and strength of goal climate. In addition, distinctiveness—but not consistency and consensus—of the MBO system appears to be particularly critical for the emergence of a strong and high‐quality goal climate. Lastly, implications and limitations of the study as well as possible future research directions are discussed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.