WHY do YOU care about me? The impact of retailers’ customer care activities on customer orientation perceptions and store patronage intentions

The present research conceptualizes customer care activities as the process through which retailers satisfy consumers' needs by means of a set of interconnected services and address the role of warmth and competence perceptions, as well as consumers' inferred motives, in determining the downstream effects of care management activities on consumers' perceptions and intentions. The results from two experiments show that the number and framing of customer care activities affect customer orientation perceptions (Study 1) and that their fit with the overall retailer's image and the level of professionalism required to carry them out affects store patronage intentions (Study 2).     

What drives college-age Generation Y consumers?

Generation Y (individuals ages 14-31 in 2008) are in the marketplace with the numbers and the purchasing power to have an unprecedented impact on the economy. Despite the potential of this group as a whole, especially the middle-aged members of this generation (ages 18-22) who are in the highly coveted college-student market, much is unknown about the motivations behind these individuals' consumption behavior and preferences. This study attempts to address this gap in the literature by exploring the antecedents of the consumption behavior of college-aged Generation Y individuals. The findings indicate that issues relating to socialization, uncertainty reduction, reactance, self-discrepancy, and feelings of accomplishment and connectedness drive Y consumers' product purchases and retail patronage. This article discusses these issues as well as their theoretical and managerial implications.     

初探我国高校志愿服务的专业化

中国高校青年志愿者的活动始于1993年,随着社会的发展,志愿者服务在内容和形式上不断拓展,并日益向专业化方向发展。本文试从志愿者服务专业化的时代背景,高校志愿者的特点以及浙江大学城市学院的实践等方面,对高校志愿者服务的专业化进行初步的探究。     

Introduction

No abstract available for this article.     

Nonprofit Board Members’ Reasons to Join and Continue Serving on a Volunteer Board of Directors

By expanding understanding of individuals’ reasons to serve on nonprofit boards, practitioners will be able to improve recruitment and retention of quality board members. This study explores board members’ reasons for joining and continuing to serve on a volunteer nonprofit board of directors. A survey of nonprofit board members shows similarities in reasons for initially serving and continuing to serve on a board, but analysis of group means reveals significant differences on 20 of 27 dimensions examined. Organizational-level reasons are reported as more important as a result of board service, whereas individual- and community-level items decline in importance after board service. Latent factors that appear to be important for both joining and continuing to serve on a nonprofit board include organizational commitment, personal growth, recognition, and socialness.     

Motives for service sabotage: an empirical study of front-line workers

Although researchers have called for a greater understanding of front-line employee behaviour during service encounters, few studies have been directed at the topic of service sabotage in general, and at the motives of such behaviours in particular. This paper presents systematic empirical insights into the motives of employee sabotage in the service sector. The evidence suggests varying motives for forms of service sabotage ranging from the benign, to the recalcitrant, to the, significantly less common, malicious. The findings of the study indicate the necessity for studies of employee work-based behaviours to incorporate a more complex but more comprehensive conceptualization of employee motivations for both sabotage and resistance-related activities.     

我国公司交叉上市行为研究

公司基于诸如融资需求、提高公司治理和管理水平、提升公司国际知名度和品牌价值等多种因素的考虑,纷纷进入国际或国内资本市场。而各大主要证券交易所出于自身利益的考虑,不断吸引优质潜在上市公司到海外上市,从而推动国内公司交叉上市。深入分析国内公司交叉上市的动因及现状,对我国潜在的交叉上市公司吸取历史经验和教训、进而提升这些企业的价值具有非常重要的现实意义。     

外资并购的动因、趋势与监管

作者分析了外资并购的动机和历史背景 ,预测了未来外资并购的六大趋势 ,阐明了建立和完善外资并购监管体系的必要性 ,提出了以政府监管为核心 ,其他社会监督力量为补充的新观点。     

FDI in Bulgaria

ABSTRACT

This article examines aspects of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Bulgaria. The article considers propositions relating to the location and own-company motives for engaging in FDI in Bulgaria, the performance of the foreign ventures, and challenges in the management of the ventures. The article also reviews the lessons for potential investors in Bulgaria. The article is based on the analysis of in-depth interviews with senior expatriate managers of nine foreign ventures in Bulgaria. This analysis serves to better understand the nature of FDI in Bulgaria and highlights the issues facing potential investors. Relatively few studies have been conducted on FDI in Bulgaria which is one of the least researched transition economies. This article therefore sheds new light on some important issues concerning FDI in Bulgaria and serves as a case study of a transition economy that is little reported on and little known in the West.     

Demographics,Personality Traits,Roles, Motivations,and Attrition Rates of Hospice Volunteers

ABSTRACT

The authors conducted a review of prior research on hospice volunteering. The results show that, in most cases, the hospice volunteer is a white, married, middle-aged, financially comfortable, unemployed, female who has some college education, strong religious beliefs and has experienced the loss of someone close (see Tables 1 and 2). The results also show that hospice volunteers tend to share certain personality traits reflecting compassion, tolerance, empathy and sensitivity among others. Volunteers tend to fulfill four roles: direct patient support, education, clerical assistance, and professional services (Bunn 1985). Motivations for volunteering and for continuing one's work as a volunteer appear to be for both personal and altruistic reasons. Primary reasons for discontinuing volunteer service include burnout, communication problems, unrealistic expectations, and insufficient use of the volunteer staff. Gaps in this area of research are identified and topics for further research are presented.     

Volunteer Brand Equity? Exploring the Adoption of Employee Brand Equity (EBE) Dimensions to Understand Volunteers’ Contributions to Build Nonprofit Organizations’ Brands

ABSTRACT

Given the importance of volunteers as key assets of formal volunteering organizations, this paper explores the adoption and adequacy of Employee Brand Equity (EBE) models to understand volunteers’ contributions to Nonprofit Organization (NPO) brand equity. Methodologically this research embraces a mixed-methods approach by combining data from exploratory interviews with experts from the NPO context and from a survey to 227 Portuguese volunteers from 28 formal volunteering organizations. This paper adds to the literature by applying for the first time EBE dimensions to the context of formal volunteering institutions. Hence, it provides a first step to the development of a Volunteer Brand Equity Model, by characterizing each dimension and validating its importance in the context of NPOs. From a practitioners’ viewpoint, this paper calls attention to the importance of embracing internal marketing strategies to attract and retain volunteers in a sustainable way and provides a practical tool for Volunteer Brand Equity analysis in NPOs.     

企业惯例演化的动因、路径及其模型构建

惯例是可以演进变化的,外部环境和组织成员的认知学习是惯例演进的主要原因,惯例的演进是作为惯例代理者的行为人与组织情景的互动过程。企业惯例有较高顺序的惯例和较低顺序的惯例之分,决定企业惯例演进的是较高顺序的惯例与企业所处环境的变化组成的情景关系。企业惯例演化是一个循环演进的过程,具有与环境变化产生敏感型情景关系惯例的企业,更能进行适应性学习。以此为基础,文章尝试建立了一个企业惯例循环演进的模型,最后得出了一些结论,并指出了研究的不足和未来的研究方向。     

Bidder motives in cause-related auctions

We study cause-related auctions where a percentage of the dynamically determined purchase price of an item is donated to charity. Little is known about the effectiveness of such auctions. Bidders who value donations to charity have an incentive to bid more aggressively in such auctions. Regardless of whether they win or not, these bidders can significantly affect prices. The purpose of this paper is to study bidders' willingness to pay a premium in charity auctions and the drivers that affect the charity premium. We use a carefully designed field experiment involving simultaneous pairs of auctions that are identical in all respects but percentage of the proceeds donated to charity. This design gives us the ability to look at bidder choice among auctions based on charitable considerations. We use a mixture model approach to allow for different types of individual preferences. We find that individuals fall into three segments: two altruistic segments and a selfish segment. The altruistic segments, which drive up the charity premium, can be classified as warm glow bidders who derive pleasure from the act of giving and other-regarding bidders who give for selfless reasons. Results show that the difference in donation percentages is the major factor influencing the charitable premium. However, bidders differ considerably in their responses to donation percentages. While other-regarding bidders tend to seek auctions where a greater percentage of revenue is donated to charity, warm glow bidders only contribute when the charity premium is sufficiently low. Thus, managers should focus their marketing efforts on appealing to these different segments, depending on the percentage donated to charity.     

农产品流通组织创新:动因与方向

随着改革开放的发展和社会主义市场经济的不断深入,原有的农产品流通组织已不能适应现阶段农村经济的发展,农产品流通组织创新势在必行。本文通过对我国农产品流通组织创新的内涵、现状进行分析,指出农产品流通组织创新的动因(内部、外部)及制约因素,继而提出农产品批发商规模化、建立合作竞争关系、树立品牌意识、连锁经营将是我国农产品流通组织创新的方向。