生产性服务效率、中间投入变化与中国制造企业生产率

通过使用中国服务企业的微观数据,分服务行业从投入效率与投入变化两个角度对制造业投入服务化影响制造企业生产率问题进行研究,结果显示:生产性服务投入效率的提高对中国制造企业生产率均产生正向促进效应(除教育服务外);生产性服务投入对较高生产率制造企业所产生的生产率促进效应更明显;随着高技术生产性服务投入的增加,其对制造企业生产率的正向促进效应增强,而随着中低技术生产性服务投入的增加,其对制造企业生产率的影响并不明显或者被削弱;生产性服务投入的增加提升了东部和中部地区制造企业生产率,却抑制了西部地区制造企业生产率。     

中国制造业企业利润决定机制研究——基于异质性生产率的视角

基于异质性生产率角度提出决定企业利润的数量模型,使用中国制造业企业样本数据研究企业的利润状况,并且提出衡量企业利润状况的两种利润率,即销售利润率与投资利润率,最后实证检验生产率对企业利润的决定作用。研究结论显示:中国制造业企业的投资利润率具有逐渐提高的趋势,而销售利润率却具有逐渐下降的趋势;企业生产率与其利润规模呈显著的正相关关系,并且具有相同生产率的企业选择进入出口市场会获得更高的利润。     

TMT社会网络、公司创业与企业绩效关系研究

拥有大量内外部信息资源的高管团队(TMT),其社会网络不但可以提供公司创业的机会来源,也是企业现在绩效和未来绩效的影响因素。TMT的社会网络只有通过公司创业机制才能转化为企业绩效的价值创造过程。中国背景下的实证研究显示:TMT社会网络、公司创业都与企业绩效正相关,对于企业而言,要高度重视通过管理手段激励整个高管团队的所有成员去构建有效的内外部社会网络;公司创业的价值增值中介作用也得到证实,公司创业发挥着重要的资源整合作用,有价值的TMT内外部社会网络只有充分融入企业的产品或服务创新,以及深层次的战略更新过程中,为企业的价值增值服务,才能转变为企业绩效。     

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.     

Consumers’ response to weak unique selling propositions: Implications for optimal product recommendation strategy

We use a multi-method approach (analytical model and behavioral experiment) to investigate product recommendations based on less-important attributes (weak unique selling proposition, USP). We consider multiple scenarios in which a recommender’s level of expertise (knowledge about product attributes and their importance) and bias (preference for the firm as opposed to consumers) operate as cues for consumers to evaluate the recommender’s message.Results show that optimal messaging behavior is a function of an interactive process involving recommender characteristics and the relative importance of product attributes to consumers. The results identify conditions that determine when weak USPs are likely to increase or decrease a consumer’s propensity to buy the recommended product and when a recommender might optimally communicate weak USPs or avoid sending such a recommendation.     

Exploiting ICT potential in service firms in transition economies

Service industries are the most intensive users of information-communication technology (ICT) and some developed countries have already displayed noticeable productivity gains due to ICT use in services. The pattern of intensive use of ICT in services tends to be replicated in transition economies, however the evidence of ICT impacts on growth and productivity is lacking at the aggregate and industry level owing to deficient data and methodological problems. To overcome some of the problems in estimating the effects of ICT use we pursue firm-level analysis and apply production function approach to estimate the impact of ICT on the performance of service firms in Slovenia. The results suggest that service firms are more intensive ICT users than manufacturing firms and that ICT use significantly influences the productivity of service firms. The positive impact of ICT use on productivity applies to all service firms irrespective of their size. The links are stronger for service firms with above average ICT use. Due to the absence of data on complementary expenditures for training and organisational change related to ICT adoption the results might overemphasise the effects of ICT investment.     

Understanding the user satisfaction and loyalty of customer service chatbots

The artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot is emerging as a significant corporate customer-facing application, potentially increasin customer service efficiency while reducing costs. However, little work has sought to assess the quality of service they provide consumers. This study applies the e-service quality by incorporating conversational AI quality to predict users' satisfaction and loyalty to customer service chatbots. The proposed model was empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 219 users responding about their perceptions of customer service chatbots. The findings indicate that AI chatbot service recovery quality and AI chatbot conversational quality significantly influence user satisfaction. On the other hand, core AI chatbot service quality and satisfaction significantly influenced chatbot user loyalty. This study contributes to researchers and practitioners by proposing and evaluating a more comprehensive chatbot e-service quality that combines both fundamental (core service and service recovery qualities) and human-like (conversational quality) aspects of e-service. The results are of value in devising future AI chatbot services and related strategies.     

Strengthening the voice of mental health service users and carers in Wales: a focus group study to inform future policy

Improving the mental health of the people in Wales lies at the heart of the Welsh Assembly Government's public health agenda and the current reforms of the National Health Service in Wales. However, relative to its importance as a health problem, spending on mental health is disproportionately low. Statutory authorities in Wales highlight the importance of listening to, and learning from, service users and carers. This is seen as a way of improving services within the limited funding that is available. The aims of this study were to describe the ways in which mental health service users and carers are currently involved in mental health services across Wales; and to consider the need for an all‐Wales mental health service user and carer ‘national mechanism’ to promote genuine partnership. Eight focus groups were held across Wales attended by mental health service users and carers. There is a clear picture of the level and nature of participation, evidence of good practice and user and carer based aspirations for future participation. There is an untapped source of energy and experience that could help transform mental health services for the good of all. To ignore this would be to miss an opportunity to improve the quality of care for all those dependent upon these services, both patients and carers.     

MEASURES OF TECHNICAL CHANGE AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN SERVICES IN THE USA: WAS THERE A RESURGENCE OF PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN SERVICES?

Traditional measures of productivity growth show very low gains made by most service industries since 1980s in the USA. However, other indices of ‘technological activity’, such as computerization, education, and occupational change, show that service industries were more technologically active than goods producers over this period. I first distinguish among three types of services: standardized like communications, customized like recreation, and hybrid like retailing. Using output, employment, and capital stock data for 43 industries over 1960–2000, I find that in terms of productivity standardized services behave like goods producers, customized services have had virtually zero productivity growth, and hybrid services fall in between. These results show up in historical data as well as in econometric analysis.     

When gig workers become essential: Leveraging customer moral self-awareness beyond COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic intensified economic reliance on gig workers that perform essential tasks such as health care, personal transport, food and package delivery, and ad-hoc tasking services within the developed and developing world. As a result, workers who provide such services are no longer perceived as low-skilled laborers but as essential workers who fulfill a crucial role in society. These workers’ newly elevated moral and economic status increases consumer demand for corporate social responsibility toward this stakeholder group, specifically for practices that increase worker freedom and rewards. We provide algorithmic tools for online labor platforms to meet this demand, bolstering their social purpose and ethical branding while better protecting themselves against potential reputational crises. To do this, we propose a managerial strategy rooted in moral self-awareness theory that leverages customers’ self-perceived virtuosity to increase gig-worker freedom.     

新生人口、家庭再分配与地区的文化服务消费——基于直接比例税视角的经验分析

文章利用30个省级行政单位2003-2010年的面板数据,运用固定效应回归模型展开分析,研究了新生人口对地区文化服务消费的影响。结果发现：在控制收入、政府文化支出、人口素质、老年人口负担、社会保障支出等变量后,新生人口数量对文化服务消费有显著的消极影响。这说明当年的新生人口越多,该地区的文化消费越有可能显著减少。文章对此现象的解释是：新生人口对家庭而言,具有类似于直接的比例税效应,新生儿出生即意味着税收的增加,由此带来的家庭内部收入再分配会促使父母首先减少收入弹性大的文化服务的消费。因此文章的研究意味着,在发展文化服务产业时,除了“就文化产业谈文化发展”的思路外,其他思路也需要考虑,而就文章研究本身而言,减少新生子女父母的负担将有助于增加对文化服务产业的消费,并促进文化服务产业的发展。     

Relationship between Inflation and the Comparative Evolution of Wages in Industry and Services within the Spanish Economy

A large body of empirical literature ascribes a high degree of responsibility by the service sector for the difficulties in lowering inflation in the Spanish economy in the 1980s and early 1990s. Despite the fact that most of the branches in this sector are characterised by their lower ability to increase productivity, service wages have increased at a similar rate to those of other activities that, however, have been able to generate constant growth in productivity. On the other hand, tertiary activities have been able to transmit the growth in wage costs to prices without this having significant repercussions on the amount demanded as they are more protected from international competition. In this context, the reasons why service growth is accused of being one of the key causes of price growth are understandable. Nevertheless, throughout the1990s, important changes have taken place due to the technological revolution of modern economies that have created a doubt that services are still for the most partly protected from competition. This article makes a comparative study of the evolution of wages in industry and services, finding initial evidence that tertiary wages are presenting in their evolution the lowest productivity of most of tertiary activities pressurised by greater competition, which is lowering the incidence on inflation of the sector and of the economy in general.     

Quality and productivity: role conflict in the service context

This article presents a qualitative study exploring service employees’ experiences of quality–productivity tensions in the workplace, and how they cope with such conflicts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 50 service employees. Content analysis suggests that organization-level conflict derives from the different channels that service organizations use to convey the importance of quality (e.g. training) and of productivity (e.g. rewards) to employees. During service interactions, employees experience conflict when standardization is violated and productivity is threatened. Our results demonstrate and explain employees' strategies for coping with the conflict between productivity and quality and with the ‘double message' they receive about these two goals. Many of these strategies are intended to ensure quality while maintaining productivity. We discuss the study's contribution to service science, and explain existing organizational mechanisms and processes for communicating the importance of quality and productivity to employees. Implications for service management are discussed.     

Men as consumers of maternity services: a contradiction in terms

Research and policy on the consumers of maternity services have tended to focus on women, with service provision directed to meet their needs. It is, after all, women who get pregnant and give birth. However, since the 1970s, men have been encouraged to take up an active role in childbirth and, to a lesser extent, pregnancy. This has resulted in fathers becoming participatory in maternity services. In recent years, there has developed a greater focus on paternity and an awareness of the father’s experiences. This has led to an evaluation of maternity services and a desire to better address the ‘needs’ of men as consumers. This article examines some of the factors that have facilitated paternal participation during the antenatal period and birth, and some of the roles and responsibilities assigned to men. The recent debates regarding fathers within childbirth discourses, and what impact this will have on their experience of pregnancy, childbirth and status as maternity service users, are also discussed.     

依托电子商务扩展农村服务业产业链——以四川地震灾区为例

电子商务应用的深化是发展现代农村服务业的有效途径。本文以四川地震灾区农村服务业为研究对象,采用服务业内在推动力理论,在分析构建现代农村服务业集群是一个可行的区域经济发展方式的基础上,提出依托电子商务拓展现代农村服务业的模式。分析了建设农业信息体系、农村流通体系、农业服务业集群分区,以及培养具有信息素养的新型农民的具体举措,重点阐述了发展乡村旅游和以区域特色农产业基地带动配套的服务业集群,集群发展与联动发展相结合以及培育农业生产性服务外包企业,扩展农村服务业的产业链,是利用电子商务实现农村服务业产业升级的一个有益探索。     

New perspectives on gray sheep behavior in E-commerce recommendations

With the exponential rise in the size of data being generated, personalization based on recommender systems has become an important aspect of digital marketing strategy of E-Commerce companies. Recommender systems also help these companies in cross-selling, up-selling and to increase the customer loyalty. However, presence of certain users, known as gray sheep users, with eccentric taste, minimizes the overall efficiency of the recommender systems. Hence, their identification and removal from the computation system is critical for more efficient recommendations. This work presents psychographic models-based approaches for gray sheep user identification with improved performance. It also studies gray sheep behavior across different domains and contexts, apart from introducing the idea of gray sheep items.     

50 Jahre Baumol‘sche Kostenkrankheit

The year 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of William J. Baumol’s “Cost Disease”, which posits that services with low productivity growth become more expensive relative to goods while aggregate productivity growth slows down in the process of tertiarisation. The authors present the basic structure of Baumol’s model and discuss several attempts to refute the concept or to cope with its consequences. One of them is the important observation by Nicholas Oulton that business services — unlike personal services — can contribute to higher aggregate productivity growth. A major precondition is that the productivity growth of business services is positive. However, an empirical test shows that this is not the case in Germany and other major advanced economies. Some economic policy conclusions are drawn.     

Customer behavioural intentions towards mobile money services adoption in Ghana

This study examined the determinants of mobile money service usage intentions and assessed the effect of social influence (SI) on mobile money services adoption and behavioural intentions (BIs). The sample of the study comprised 300 mobile money service users in Ghana. Guided by the conceptual framework and two theories identified to have an effect on technology adoption and consumer behaviour, eight hypotheses were developed and tested using Structural Equation Modelling Techniques. It is discovered that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived trust and perceived cost of use have a strong influence on mobile money service usage. The study found SI to have a significant effect on the adoption and BI. Providers ensure that their mobile application services are simple to operate, fulfil specific consumers’ needs, protect consumers’ accounts to ensure trust and are affordable, hence positively influencing consumers’ adoption of services.     

How socially derived characteristics of technology shape the adoption of corporate Web 2.0 tools for collaboration

Socially derived characteristics (perceptions of individuals about technology-related characteristics) of Web 2.0 tools are not generally taken into account when decisions are made about which systems to use for collaboration in corporate settings. This exploratory research studies the influence of these characteristics—perceived compatibility, social presence, and group supportability—in the adoption of corporate blogs and validates a theory-grounded model with data from 73 employees. The results show that social presence and users’ values influence perceived usefulness of corporate blogs and play an important role in their adoption, while existing work practices, prior experience and group supportability do not.     

中国服务贸易补贴现状及绩效研究

中国服务贸易正处于高速发展阶段,也遇到了诸多问题,如长期贸易逆差和结构性失调。服务贸易补贴作为政府宏观调控的手段,已经成为全球普遍用来促进服务贸易发展、提高服务贸易竞争力的方式。但目前对服务贸易补贴的研究大部分还不够深入,国际组织对服务贸易和补贴的定义也存在分歧。本文首先对中国的服务贸易概况、服务贸易补贴政策环境与情况进行梳理,然后通过宏观和微观数据对中国服务贸易补贴的效果进行描述性评估,构建面板数据计量模型进行统计评估,最终指出中国服务贸易补贴存在体制不完善、方式较单一、效果不显著等问题,并提出需在世贸组织规则框架下,建立有效的补贴政策、完善立法并丰富补贴方式的建议。