Online serendipity: The case for curated recommender systems

When used effectively, recommender systems provide users with suggestions based on their own preferences. These systems first showed their value with e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay, which provided recommendations algorithmically. A key drawback of these systems is that some items need personal touch recommendations to spur on purchase, use, or consumption. A recommender system that facilitates personal touch recommendations by enabling users to discover good recommenders as opposed to focusing on recommending items algorithmically addresses this drawback. In this article, we discuss such a system—a curated recommender system. A curated recommender system is optimal for online retailers and service providers, especially those that sell books, stream content, or provide social networking platforms.     

Entry mode diversity and closing commercial deals with international customers: The moderating role of advanced servitization

As the importance of servitization and service-augmented solution delivery grows into a mainstream phenomenon for manufacturers, offering theoretically founded avenues to solve their specific internationalization challenges is necessary. The study addresses the internationalization paradox faced by servitized manufacturers generated by the specific hybrid nature of their product-service offering. As such, this research is meant to understand the entry mode diversity for the internationalization of advanced servitization providers. Our primary research deal-level data follows 1885 potential sales negotiations for servitized products closed in 2018 by a Poland-based multinational high-tech optics firm offering product-service systems. The results of the study support the idea that manufacturers of advanced servitization could benefit from the implementation of entry mode diversity. It is found that the sales deal success when entry mode diversity is implemented in a foreign market is positively moderated when knowledge-intensive advanced servitization is included in the negotiation.     

地区开放因素对我国城镇居民消费影响的实证分析

1999年以来,我国加快了改革开放和建立社会主义市场经济体制的步伐,经济进入高速发展时期,居民消费对市场的导向作用日益增强,通过启动消费拉动经济增长成为了社会关注的焦点。由于我国地域辽阔、地区间资源分布不平衡,对外开放水平与经济发展水平的差距较大,使得居民在消费水平和消费结构上存在很大的差异。因此研究地区差异对居民消费水平以及消费结构的影响,对于进一步开拓国内市场,缓解国内市场需求不足有着积极的作用。本文分别从消费水平和消费结构两个角度来研究地区对外开放水平的差异对我国城镇居民消费支出的影响。     

An improved collaborative filtering approach for predicting cross-category purchases based on binary market basket data

Retail managers have been interested in learning about cross-category purchase behavior of their customers for a fairly long time. More recently, the task of inferring cross-category relationship patterns among retail assortments is gaining attraction due to its promotional potential within recommender systems used in online environments. Collaborative filtering algorithms are frequently used in such settings for the prediction of choices, preferences and/or ratings of online users. This paper investigates the suitability of such methods for situations when only binary pick-any customer information (i.e., choice/non-choice of items, such as shopping basket data) is available. We present an extension of collaborative filtering algorithms for such data situations and apply it to a real-world retail transaction dataset. The new method is benchmarked against more conventional algorithms and can be shown to deliver superior results in terms of predictive accuracy.     

Market and Product Diversification: The Evidence From Retailing

This study explored the number of international regions in which retailers operate, the assortment of product categories they offer their customers, and the effects of these market and product category diversification strategies on retail sales volumes. The analysis used sales data about 246 global large-scale retail stores from diverse industries and countries of origin. We found that both strategies have positive effects on retail sales volumes. The two strategies interact such that the positive effect of market expansion on retail sales volumes is larger for retailers who also follow a strategy of greater product category diversity.     

Familiarity and competence diversity in new product development teams: Effects on new product performance

When developing new products, most firms use cross-functional teams, but research on the effect of functional diversity on new product performance returns heterogeneous results. We propose a measure of competence diversity that is more comprehensive than the common functional diversity proxy. Empirical findings, based on a survey of 142 product and sales managers, support the improved predictive validity of our scale. We further observe a mediating effect of the instrumental use of information in the competence diversity–new product performance relationship. Finally, we discuss the moderating effect of familiarity among team members on the relationship between competence diversity and the instrumental use of information. All authors contributed equally to this article and are listed in random order.     

When consumers can return digital products: Influence of firm- and consumer-induced communication on the returns and profitability of news articles

The news industry is being massively disrupted by the digital distribution of news. Consequently, publishers have revised their business models and integrated pay-per-article options. To reduce pre-purchase uncertainty, consumers can use information from firm-induced (e.g., newsletters), or consumer-induced communication (e.g., likes). These communication activities avoid purchases with poor fit but also increase customer expectations. Consequently, their effect on sales, returns, and profitability is unclear. For digital products, these effects are even less clear because product quality is difficult to evaluate pre-purchase, and products can be returned at almost no cost, even after consumption. In this study, we investigate the effects of firm- and consumer-induced communication on digital returns in the context of news articles on a major online platform (Blendle). We rely on a multi-equation model to quantify the effect of firm- and consumer-induced communication activities (i.e., newsletter promotions sent out by the platform and consumer likes from readers) on sales and returns and calculate their profitability impact. Our results show that newsletters decrease returns but do not significantly affect sales. In contrast, consumer likes have a twofold effect by increasing sales and decreasing returns. A simulation shows that both newsletters and likes increase profitability and that likes have a higher potential. Our results offer much needed guidance for online aggregators of digital products (e.g., audiobooks, e-books or news articles), as well as for online publishers based on pay-per-unit business models.     

To smile or not to smile: The role of facial expression valence on mundane and luxury products premiumness

A smile is an essential professional requirement for sales assistant and endorser as a means to give a stunning impression and to please customers. However, luxury brands, engrained as consumption symbols to create social distance, tend to act oppositely: they prefer endorsers and sales assistants in a neutral face rather than a smiley face. The purpose of this study is to investigate how and why facial expressions valence impact luxury product price estimation. A pilot study and three studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. We first test whether neutral faces combined with luxury goods can make the customer feel distant. Then we conducted an imagination task to assess whether the interaction between the facial expressions of sales assistants and product type affects product valuations. Further, we adopted an experiment to explore the proposed mechanism, social distance. The results show that commercial models and sales assistants' neutral facial expressions increase perceived social distance, further enhancing the valuations of luxury goods. In contrast, they estimated mundane products higher when they saw a smiley face than a neutral or a negative face. These findings contribute to the literature on the impact of facial expressions in advertising and services for luxury and mundane products. Our findings have potential implications for brands to manage their images and convey their value through employees’ facial expressions according to brand positioning.     

Strategic and organisational determinants of sophistication in deployed sales force automation systems within three industry sectors in the UK

Abstract

This paper investigates strategic and organisational context determinants of the sophistication of adopted sales force automation (SFA) systems in three UK industries: financial services, pharmaceuticals, and building/construction. Sophistication of adopted systems is associated with the organisation placing greater emphasis on information orientation, which is itself driven by an increased integration of IT and sales coupled with increased organisational slack. Increased integration of IT and sales is itself driven by increased strategic importance of sales coupled with increased use of internal communication networks. Importantly, a firm's marketing orientation, although also driven by the strategic importance of sales, has no impact on either information orientation or SFA sophistication. We discuss the implications of our findings to aid understanding of SFA implementation failure.     

珠宝企业上市对中国珠宝产业的推动作用分析

近三十年来,我国珠宝产业一直以较快的速度发展,2011年我国珠宝首饰年销售额高达2450亿元.目前,我国黄金、铂金、翡翠等的消费已达世界第一,其他珠宝首饰消费也位居世界前列,可以说我国现已成为世界珠宝首饰消费大国之一.巨大的消费成就了一大批优秀的珠宝企业.现阶段,珠宝企业上市对我国珠宝企业和整个珠宝产业发展具有重大的影响.首先,珠宝企业上市对我国珠宝企业自身发展具有重要推动作用,有利于企业由产能扩张模式转变成产融结合扩张模式,有利于珠宝企业的规范化运营与管理水平的提高,有利于珠宝企业吸引人才和实现品牌发展,有利于珠宝企业获得更多的社会优质资源.其次,珠宝企业上市对我国珠宝产业发展具有重要推动作用,可以优化我国珠宝产业结构,可以提升我国珠宝产业的核心竞争力,可以促进我国珠宝产业的整体发展,可以帮助我国珠宝产业打造民族品牌,可以保障我国珠宝产业的安全.     

How did COVID-19 change what people buy: Evidence from a supermarket chain

This research takes a retrospective view of the COVID-19 pandemic and attempts to accurately measure its impact on sales of different product categories in grocery retail. In total 150 product categories were analyzed using the data of a major supermarket chain in the Netherlands. We propose to measure the pandemic impact by excess sales – the difference of actual and expected sales. We show that the pandemic impact is twofold: (1) There was a large but brief growth at 30.6% in excess sales associated with panic buying across most product categories within a two-week period; and (2) People spending most of their time at home due to imposed restrictions resulted in an estimated 5.4% increase in total sales lasting as long as the restrictions were active. The pandemic impact on different product categories varies in magnitudes and timing. Using time series clustering, we identified eight clusters of categories with similar pandemic impacts. Using clustering results, we project that product categories used for cooking, baking or meal preparation in general will have elevated sales even after the pandemic.     

Impacts of state laws on the consumption of wine per capita

Wines are exempt from the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, as are tobacco and firearms. Each state can regulate the commerce including the taxation, pricing, and authorized sales agencies of such products. This paper examines the impact of taxation levels and other regulations on the consumption of wine per capita in six selected states. Each state is composed of a different set of consumers who react differently to tax levels and retail price levels, as well as product availability. In general, sales tax and excise tax on wine were found to have decreasing impacts on wine consumption. Greater product availability made possible by relaxation of off-sale authorization regulations had an increasing impact on wine consumption.     

Women on boards of directors: Why skirts in seats aren’t enough

Most organizations focus their attention on simply achieving gender diversity on their boards. This approach misses the point. A complex relationship exists between board gender diversity and good governance whereby such diversity can have a negative, positive, or neutral impact on organizational performance, indicating that organizations may only reap the benefits of gender-diverse boards under proper conditions. This article examines which conditions allow gender-diverse boards to flourish and which conditions lead to failure. Organizations usually increase female representation on boards of directors to achieve one of two goals: gender parity or improved governance. Each of these goals is influenced by different circumstances and thus must be approached in a unique manner. Three recommendations are offered herein for organizations trying to achieve each goal. Gender, ethnic, and cultural board diversity all share related justifications and challenges, so organizations that follow the recommendations in this article will be well positioned to benefit from all three sources of increased diversity on their boards of directors.     

体验型产品在线评论与消费意愿及销量的关系——以价格为调节变量

随着网络在线交易的迅猛发展,在线评论等网络口碑传播的重要性日益凸显。以体验型产品为研究对象,以信号理论和"刺激-反应"理论为指导,建立"在线评论-消费意愿-在线销量"模型分析三个要素之间的关系机理,并采用中介效应检验和调节效应检验进行验证,结果显示:在线评论作为一种信息刺激,其数量对体验型产品在线销量具有显著的正向影响,但在线评论质量效价评分对体验型产品在线销量的影响不显著,这与产品的类型有关;在线评论一是直接对在线销量产生影响,一是通过中介变量(即作为消费意愿替代变量的收藏量)传递影响,对在线销量产生作用;商品价格在在线评论和在线销量的直接和间接关系中都起到了正向调节作用,这与体验型产品交易过程中价格质量信号功能强于促销功能有关。实践中,企业可通过一些激励设计提高消费者在线评论参与度;进行更加科学化的网页设计,完善收藏功能,以方便消费者进行筛选和比较;注意防止盲目降价行为给消费者带来的负面影响,发挥好价格的信号作用。     

层叠分布式天线系统混合分集技术

研究了层叠分布式天线系统(CascadeDistributedAntennaSystem,CDAS)空间两层分集的中断概率性能。层叠分布式天线系统包括间隔较远的N个天线簇,每个天线簇包括距离较近的L个天线单元。文中推导了层叠分布式天线系统中断概率的表达式。相比于传统的单天线系统,数值仿真表明采用混合分集的分布式天线系统可以有效抑制快衰落和阴影衰落。     

The impact of MNE cultural diversity on the internationalization-performance relationship: Theory and evidence from European multinational enterprises

Prior work has established the importance of degree of internationalization for understanding the performance of multinational enterprises. Despite all efforts, however, the relationship between degree of internationalization and firm performance (I-P) is still the subject of ongoing debate following inconclusive findings. We suggest that the international business literature has largely overlooked MNE cultural diversity as an essential determinant of the I-P relationship. We argue that the impact of the degree of internationalization on MNE performance is contingent on MNE cultural diversity. The impact of the degree of internationalization on performance is positive for MNEs that operate in culturally similar countries and negative for MNEs that operate in culturally diverse countries. Our study is among the first to examine the impact of MNE cultural diversity on the I-P relationship with a unique panel dataset from European multinationals. The results provide convincing support for our approach to the study of the degree of internationalization and MNE performance.     

Diversity,tokenism, and comic books: Crafting better strategies

This article examines aspects related to diversity and inclusion in the context of media products. Specifically, it looks at key issues surrounding strategies to increase diversity and inclusion in comic books that come up short because of problems of implementation and execution. Using the context of Marvel Comics’ “All-New, All-Different” strategy, whereby the firm created a myriad of new characters from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, we explain how diversity strategy can backfire. In our analysis, both netnographic and interview data show how issues of perceived tokenism and of content creation without appropriate depth can thwart consumer acceptance of diversity and inclusion strategies. Consumer rejection of these strategies can harm both sales and brand equity. Implications for marketing managers and content creators are discussed.     

An Assessment of When,Where and Under What Conditions In-Store Sampling is Most Effective

In-store product sampling is a commonly used promotional technique designed to give prospective consumers an opportunity to experience a product prior to purchase. While prior research has documented a positive relationship between short-term sales and perceptual measures of the customer shopping experience, little is known about the long-term impact of sampling or factors that moderate its success. In this paper, we develop an empirical approach that allows us to study the short-term and long-term effects of in-store sampling on both own and competitive products. We apply our approach to six store-level scanner data sets across four different product categories and show that in-store sampling has both an immediate (short-term) and sustained (long-term) impact on sales. We also show that the impact of sampling on sales is moderated by the characteristics of the store conducting the event, and that repeated sampling for a single product leads to a multiplicative increase in its long-term sales performance. We find that, unlike many types of in-store promotion, sampling results in a category expansion effect as opposed to a pure substitution effect. We contrast the immediate and long-term sales patterns for in-store sampling to those of product displays and discuss managerially relevant differences. Finally, we demonstrate incremental profit implications and store selection scenarios for different incremental costs of conducting the in-store events using constrained optimizations.     

基于门限分位数回归的网上商品销量影响因素探析

网上商品销售与线下商品销售存在较大不同,为探索其消费模式,需要研究各影响因素对网上商品销量的作用机制。文章基于心理抗拒、贝勃定律、卢因人类行为理论等,对网络消费行为进行系统分析;综合运用分位数回归和门限回归方法,建立了门限分位数回归模型,揭示商品价格、商家信誉评分、商家信誉等级、保障标记数量、商品收藏人气、口碑数量和口碑分数等对销量的非线性异质影响。以受众广泛的iPad air2网上销售为研究对象,实证结果表明：提高商家的信誉等级、增加口碑数量能使高销量商家的销量更高,而保障标记数量的增加对热销有阻碍作用;在非热门商品转向热销品的过程中,增加收藏人气、增加口碑数量和一定价格范围内的提价对低销量商家的销量有促进作用。     

产品多样性对RCEP成员出口贸易的影响研究

2020年签署的RCEP是全球规模最大的自由贸易协定,其成员国的要素差异和产品多样性将在一定程度上推进贸易发展。本文利用生物多样性的概念计算2000-2019年RCEP成员国的产品多样性,并建立多元回归模型研究产品多样性对出口贸易的影响。结果表明:产品多样性对出口额有着负向抑制作用,这种抑制作用在非东盟国家更为显著。进一步的分析表明,由于各国专业于生产某类产品,导致产品多样性下降,但专业化又推动出口贸易的发展,从而使两者负相关。基于此,本文提出了创新贸易方式,打造对外贸易新高地,推动产业链价值链合作等促进RCEP成员国贸易发展的对策建议。