How can I Be as attractive as a Fitness YouTuber in the era of COVID-19? The impact of digital attributes on flow experience,satisfaction, and behavioral intention

In the past decade, the social media platform has dramatically changed individuals’ daily activities in real life and on the Internet, including shopping, socialization, entertainment, study, and even health and fitness. In the era of COVID-19, particularly, consumers tend to rely more on digital attributes of social media platforms for their decision-making process by reducing the physical touchpoint. Responding to this ongoing trend, this study investigates how fitness YouTube channel attributes and fitness YouTuber attributes influence flow experience, satisfaction, and behavioral intention of YouTubers who work out at home via a fitness YouTube channel during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the social media literature and the cognitive appraisal theory, this research formulates a research model that specifies the influence of three dimensions of fitness YouTube channel attributes (i.e., social interaction, information quality, and visual content) and three dimensions of fitness YouTuber attributes (i.e., social attractiveness, physical attractiveness, and attitude homophily) on flow experience, YouTube channel satisfaction, and behavioral intention in the context of YouTube. This study recruited participants in the United States who currently work out via a fitness YouTube channel through three waves of data collection during the COVID-19 era. The empirical results revealed that flow experience was significantly affected by information quality, visual content, and physical attractiveness. Also, YouTube channel satisfaction was significantly affected by social interaction, information quality, and visual content. Lastly, behavioral intention was significantly affected by flow experience and YouTube channel satisfaction. Based on the findings, this study proposes meaningful implications for the extant literature and social media industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

回顾 研判 部署 谱写黑龙江省商务事业新篇章——开拓进取 求实创新 推动商务工作更好更快发展

2011年——"十二五"开局之年,黑龙江省商务事业实现了开门红,成绩斐然。2012年是实施"十二五"规划承上启下的关键一年、是加速发展的一年。2012年,国际环境错综复杂,世界经济增长动力明显减弱;国内经济总体运行态势向好,工业化、信息化、市场化、城镇化、国际化深入发展,区域梯次发展格局正在形成,消费需求增长空间很大;商务领域成本推动价格上涨压力依然存在,自然灾害、市场调控手段和流通设施相对薄弱问题依然突出,扩大消费面临的制约因素仍然较多。基于上述研判,黑龙江省商务事业唯有开拓进取、求实创新、方能实现更好更快发展,谱写新的篇章,方能以商务事业的新跨越推动全省经济社会的大发展。     

Vinyl record: a cultural icon

In this paper, we use the case of the vinyl record to show that iconic objects become meaningful via a dual process. First, they offer immersive engagements which structure user interpretations through various material experiences of handling, use, and extension. Second, they always work via entanglements with related material ecologies such as turntables, speakers, mixers, and rituals of object care. Additionally, these engagements are complimented by a mediation process which emplaces the vinyl historically, culturally, spatially, and also politically, especially in the context of digitalization. This relational process means that both the material affordances and entanglements of vinyl allow us to feel, handle, experience, project, and share its iconicity. The materially mediated meanings of vinyl enabled it to retain currency in independent and collector’s markets and thus resist the planned obsolescence and eventually attain the status of celebrity commodity with totemic power in music communities. This performative aspect of vinyl markets also means that consumers read closely the signals and symbols regarding vinyl’s status, as its various user groups and champions try to interpret its future, protect, or challenge its current position. Vinyl’s future, and the larger expansion of pressing plants and innovative turntable production around it, largely depend on processes of cultural and status mobility. In the current phase of market expansion, vinyl’s status might be challenged by its own success. Neither a fashion cycle phenomenon, nor simple market conditions explain vinyl’s longevity. Rather, cultural contextualization of vinyl as thing and commodity is crucial for avoiding symbolic pollution and retaining sacred aura.     

Striking a Balance Between Rules and Principles-based Approaches for Effective Governance: A Risks-based Approach

Several recent studies and initiatives have emphasized the importance of a strong ethical organizational DNA (ODNA) to create and promote an effective corporate governance culture of trust, integrity and intellectual honesty. This paper highlights the drawbacks of an excessively heavy reliance on rules-based approaches that increase the cost of doing business, overshadow essential elements of good corporate governance, create a culture of dependency, and can result in legal absolutism. The paper makes the case that the way forward for effective corporate governance is to strike an optimal balance between rules-based and principles-based approaches. The recent corporate scandals have demonstrated that the ethical ODNA is critical to the driving force and basis of legal and regulatory requirements. Effective governance means adhering to ethical principles, not merely complying with rules, and is a crucial guardian of a firm’s reputation and integrity. It is through an effective corporate governance program (that is, one that optimally captures and integrates the appropriate aspects of rules-based and principles-based approaches, and identifies and assesses the related risks) that an organization can reconfigure its ODNA for improved performance. Focusing on the ethical ODNA as the basis of new governance measures provides an opportunity to develop a competitive advantage as it represents a potential source of differentiation, strengthens the relationship with all stakeholders of the organization by building a culture of trust and integrity, and re-instills investor confidence. This paper employs dialectical reasoning that links the ODNA through principles-driven rules in developing a risks-based approach. A comparison from a risk assessment perspective between rules-based and principles-based approaches is presented. Although there have been few applications employing dialectical reasoning in business research, this methodology can be extremely useful in isolating ethical issues and integrating them into the business process. The risks-based approach captures the benefits of both rules-based and principles-based approaches, and incorporates trust-based principles such␣as solidarity, subsidiarity and covenantal relationships.Sundera Arjoon is a Senior Lecturer in Ethics at the Department of Management Studies, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad, He has served as Head of Department (2002–2005) and as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (1996–2002). His publications have appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Markets and Morality, Global Development Studies, Social and Economic Studies, Applied Financial Economics, and the Journal of Eastern Carribean Studies. His current teaching and research interests include ethical decision-making, corporate governance, virtue ethics and familial ethics.     

From Brighton beach to blogs: exploring food-related nostalgia in the Russian diaspora

This research presents a qualitative exploration of food-related nostalgia experienced by individuals from Russia and the former Soviet Union in the context of diasporic waves. By varying time and space dimensions associated with nostalgia, the analysis is conceptualized around three “locations”: (1) Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, (2) Brighton Beach, New York, and (3) cyberspace. Weblogs, demonstrated here to be objects of inquiry, are analyzed according to their nostalgia content, social connections, and community interaction. Nostalgic evocation through traditional cuisine is evident in all three settings. Personal, interpersonal, and cultural nostalgia are apparent in web content, demonstrating a technological role in the creation, sharing, and dissemination of nostalgia. Implications of the study relate to the sociology of food and interdisciplinary food studies, culinary tourism, online and offline marketing, and product distribution into ethnic and international markets.     

How the Netherlands became a bicycle nation: Users,firms and intermediaries, 1860–1940

In 1925, the Netherlands was a country of cyclists and cycle producers, as all classes cycled and almost all cycles were produced domestically. The bicycle was not a Dutch invention and the country had an open economy, and this raises the question ‘how did the Netherlands become a bicycle nation?’ This article investigates the interactions of users, firms and intermediaries from 1860 to 1940 and how these impacted the bicycle, its production and its use. Furthermore, it analyses knowledge flows and the roles of intermediaries. It illustrates changes in activities and the relevance of interactions between users, firms and intermediaries, and the effects of World War I. It shows how user organisations created an infrastructure and culture which made cycling Dutch. Firms created a cartel which produced bicycles that were wanted and used by all Dutch, as they were made in the Netherlands.     

An emotional economy of mundane objects

This article illuminates the affective potentialities of objects. We examine the circulation of Kurdish music cassettes in Turkey during the restrictive and strife-laden period of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. We find that the practices comprising circulation – recording, hiding, playing, and exchanging cassettes – constituted tactical resistance and generated communal imaginaries. We illuminate the “emotional economy” that is animated by a mundane object: the cassette, through its circulation, becomes saturated with emotions, establishes shared emotional repertoires, and habituates individuals and collectives into common emotional dispositions. Cassettes thus play a part in shaping and reinforcing an emotional habitus that accompanies the emergence of a sense of “us,” the delineation of the “other,” and the relationship between the two. We thus demonstrate the entwinement of materiality and emotions, and examine how this entwinement generates emotional structures that shape and perpetuate the imagining of community as well as the enactment of resistance.     

Service Quality Expectations: Exploring the Importance of SERVQUAL Dimensions from Different Nonprofit Constituent Groups

Given the multiplicity of “customers” in the nonprofit sector, the need for nonprofits to ensure that quality service delivery matches customer expectations is difficult yet paramount. Nonprofit organizations serve several constituent groups: the service recipient, donor, volunteer, and general public at large. While each constituent group may not be perceived as a customer in the general sense, each group is making quality assessments that may affect performance evaluations, donations, volunteerism, and brand equity decisions. Hypothesis support was found, distinguishing between the importance of the different SERVQUAL dimensions and the perspective roles played within the nonprofit scenarios. Respondents playing the role of volunteer rated Empathy and Assurance highest and Tangibles lowest. Respondents playing the role of donor rated Reliability and Tangibles highest and Empathy lowest. Respondents playing the role of recipients rated Empathy and Responsiveness highest and Tangibles lowest. Finally, respondents playing the role of volunteer rated Assurance and Reliability highest and Tangibles lowest.     

中国银行业信息化问题探讨

中国金融业和银行业的发展举世瞩目。中国银行业的信息化之路走过了20年,实现了信息大集中、运营集约化、管理现代化和服务电子化。随着全球经济一体化、金融一体化的深入推进,中国的商业银行必须从银行信息化走向信息化银行,即在银行信息化的基础上真正实现融汇、贯通,促使银行业经营管理产生根本变化。具体说来,就是要集中、整合、共享、挖掘。一要转变为规模化、标准化的作业模式,实现业务集中处理,最终达到经营管理的全面集中和集约,使银行在业务量快速增长、业务复杂性大幅提高的情况下,依然保证业务运营的高质量、高效率,有效降低生产运营成本,控制经营风险;二要按照统一的信息技术架构将银行内部各管理系统全部整合到一个系统管理平台,实现各系统互联互通;三要突破信息传导和查控的限制,提高可用性和易用性;四要对银行或者企业非常需要的管理信息、客户信息、产品信息等进行收集、储存和处理,进行挖掘和归纳性梳理,充分利用有价值的信息,帮助管理者判断市场,发现价格,评估风险,配置资源,提供决策支持。中国银行业应在全球银行业剧变之时,为银行信息化建设走出一条新路。     

新时代我国残疾人社会融合问题研究

社会不同群体间的相互融合是一个复杂的动态过程,要促进残疾人更好地融入社会、实现自我价值,需要充分理解残疾人社会融合的理论界定与实践经验,以此为基础完善新时代残疾人社会融合多领域综合保障机制体系,推动残疾人平等参与和全面融合。通过梳理和分析新时代我国残疾人社会融合的思想渊源,对国内外残疾人社会融合现状、理念、实践进行总结,分析得出应该秉持平等原则、倾斜保障原则、充分融合原则来推进新时代我国残疾人社会融合,并且通过加强制度设计,完善制度框架,构建友好环境,健全设施建设,注重社会引导,实现良性互动,完善社会保障,促进自我认同,推动教育融合,构建全纳教育等方式,将我国残疾人社会融合体制机制建立起来,为我国残疾人对美好生活的向往凝心聚力,彰显大国担当,推动相关研究向世界一流水平迈进。     

Does East Meet West in Business Ethics: An Introduction to the Special Issue

This article introduces and summarizes selected papers from the first World Business Ethics Forum held in Hong Kong and Macau in November 2006, co-hosted by the Hong Kong Baptist University and by the University of Macau. Business Ethics in the East remain distinct from those in the West, but the distinctions are becoming less pronounced and the ethical traffic flows both ways. Gabriel D, Donleavy is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Macau teaching Business Ethics, Business Negotiation and Advanced Management. His work has been published in Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Corporate Governance, the Journal of Business Ethics, Advances in Applied Business Strategy, the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Long Range Planning and the Asian Review of Accounting which he co-founded. Kit-Chun Joanna LAM is Professor in Department of Economics of the Hong Kong Baptist University. She is also Guest Professor in the Centre for Business Ethics of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China. She received her Ph.D. degree in economics from Harvard University. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Labor Economics, Canadian Journal of Economics, Economica, Journal of Comparative Economics, and Labour Economics. Simon S.M. Ho is Dean and Professor at the School of Business and Director for Corporate Governance and Financial Policy, Hong Kong Baptist University. He founded the Asia-Pacific Corporate Governance Conference and the world’s first master programme in corporate governance & directorship in 2004. He published over 40 academic refereed articles in leading journals such as Journal of Accounting, Accounting & Finance, Journal of Accounting & Public Policy, and Journal of Corporate Finance.     

论物权法中"担保物权"与担保法的新旧增替

《中华人民共和国担保法》颁行以来的实践表明,现行的担保法存在着诸多缺陷。即将施行的《中华人民共和国物权法》在原有的担保法及其相关司法解释的基础上,根据实践中出现的新情况、新问题,对担保物权制度做了补充、修改和完善,其中增加了担保债权的实现情形、适用范围、第三人担保责任免除情形,增加了代为物的范围和提存代为物的规定,以及物保和人保的行使顺序;在抵押权方面扩大了抵押物的范围,新增"浮动抵押"的规定及不动产抵押权效力的规定。     

Two Contrasting Phenomena in Textile Exports

As the two traditional markets for China＇s tex- tile and clothing exports, the U.S. and Europe have recently shown a huge contrast.     

外商投资、市场分割与收入差距——基于我国省级面板数据的经验研究

文章基于我国1995-2010年省级面板数据,对外商投资、市场分割与收入差距之间的关系进行了实证检验。结果表明：首先,近年来我国各地区基尼系数均有所增加,收入差距显著扩大;其次,外商直接投资（FDI）通过技术溢出效应、就业结构效应、经济增长效应和国际贸易效应来影响东道国收入差距,FDI的收入分配效应呈先升后降的倒U型,并存在区域差异;再次,地方政府对各产业的保护程度不同,因而市场分割因素将对收入分配产生影响,其收入分配效应同样存在区域差异。同时市场分割通过限制劳动力、资本和商品的流动以及技术溢出,抑制FDI的收入分配效应。     

Market Cultures,the Middle Classes and Islam: Consuming the Market?

In discussions of Islam and consumer practices, there is a tendency to focus exclusively on the “clash of cultures”, particularly that between Islam and the “west”. In Islamic societies, consumer culture is often portrayed as a threat, harmful to religion as it privileges hedonism, pleasure, individualism and an expressive lifestyle. To counter the influences of the market and “deislamisation”, Islamic fundamentalists and revivalists have posited Islam as an innoculative pill against decadent western values. Such analyses, however, do not add very much to our knowledge of contemporary modernist Islamic societies undergoing rapid social and economic transformation. In examining the case of Malaysia, the paper seeks to shed some light on how the various interpretations of Islam impacts on modern Malaysian Muslims.

The paper starts with an examination of the central concept of Islam as a discursive tradition and its continuing legacy in the Malaysian social and political formation. The paper next examines the role of the state and how its ability to affect a national vision of high‐modernist development and growing affluence has created a new Malay middle class. Increasing wealth and a growing middle class have seen an intensification of new consumption patterns and practices. At the same time, there is a growing Islamisation, and culturally and politically the urban Malay middle classes are split as they are both sympathetic to the Islamic revivalist tradition and are active consumers of middle‐class lifestyle. These contradictions played themselves out in the public sphere and percolate down into everyday life and practice, affecting power structures and discourses. Classes, identities, entrepreneurship, the nature of capitalism, civil society and dissent are consequently all affected. The paper therefore argues that the differing interpretations in Islam enable different understandings of consumption and identity formation and that such analysis can engender richer and greater analytical insights in the context of Islamisation, modernity and consumption.     

基于特征分析的逆向供应链激励机制设计研究

逆向供应链是我国重点发展的回收再制造产业的重要组成,是解决资源紧缺和环境污染双重难题的重要途径。首先,研究针对我国逆向供应链中存在非正规回收商充斥市场的结构不合理现象进行研究,发现主要是由于逆向供应链的信息不对称、产品异质性、环境外部性和资产专用性等特征。其次,在特征分析基础上构建理想状态和逆向供应链特征影响下的均衡模型,研究发现低回收再制造水平的非正规回收商是非最优均衡的结果。再次,研究以逆向供应链前端、中端和后端为逻辑顺序,设计了信息甄别传递、提前延迟、违约惩罚和集聚合作四种激励机制,以激励约束逆向供应链的正规回收再制造行为。     

Factors Associated with Opinion Seeking

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between opinion seeking and cultural values and individual characteristics in the context of electronic products by surveying cosmopolitan adults of 15 nationalities, namely, American, Australian, British, Dutch, Filipino, German, Hong Konger, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Malaysian, New Zealander, Singaporean, Swedish, and Thai. It finds (i) positive correlation between opinion seeking and power distance, category knowledge, category purchase intention, category innovativeness, opinion giving, market maven, brand loyalty, and susceptibility to interpersonal influence, (ii) negative correlation between opinion seeking and the masculinity and uncertainty avoidance cultural dimensions, category ownership, self-esteem, education, and age, and (iii) no correlation between opinion seeking and individualism, long-term orientation, and risk taking. It then discusses the managerial implications of the findings.     

Book Reviews

In-migrants played an important role within port-city merchant communities, but the contribution of German-born merchants to Liverpool's development in the nineteenth century has been largely ignored. This article has four interrelated objectives. First, it establishes the size and composition of the German merchant community in terms of the place of birth, occupational classification, length of residence, and relative wealth of German-born merchants. Secondly, it measures the degree of acculturation and integration based on a range of indicators including choice of bride, child- and house-naming practices, the employment of fellow nationals, and the acquisition of British citizenship. Thirdly, it analyses their role within Liverpool society, focusing on their involvement in the city's associational networks, their participation in voluntary and charitable associations, and their entertainment profile. Finally it assesses how the growth of German nationalism after 1871 and the institutional role of the German Protestant Church reinforced ethnic identity, influenced decisions relating to citizenship and settlement, and affected business networking.     

Trade Liberalization, Corruption, and Software Piracy

As multinational firms explore new and promising national markets two of the most crucial elements in the strategic decision regarding market-entry are the level of corruption and existing trade barriers. One form of corruption that is crucially important to firms is the theft of intellectual property. In particular, software piracy has become a hotly debated topic due to the deep costs and vast levels of piracy around the world. The purpose of this paper is to assess how laissez-faire trade policies and corruption affect national software piracy rates. Using invisible hand theory, as well as literature from the fields of international strategy and ethics, formal research hypotheses are posited and tested. Results suggest that corruption mediates the relationship between economic freedom and software piracy. Implications for multinational managers and researchers are also addressed. Christopher J. Robertson (B.S. University of Rhode Island; M.B.A. and Ph.D., Florida State University) is an Associate Professor in the International Business and Strategy Group at Northeastern University. He has taught in Virginia, Florida, Spain, Peru and Ecuador and is a two time Fulbright Scholar. Professor Robertson’s Primary research stream is cross-cultural management with a focus on ethics and strategy. His work has been published in journals such as the Journal of World Business, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, Management International Review, Organizational Dynamics and Business Horizons. K Matthew Gilley (B.A and M.B.A University of North Texas; Ph.D., University of Texas at Arlington) is the Bill Greehey Endowed Chair in Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility in the Greehey School of Business at St. Mary’s University. His primary research explores issues of executive compensation, governance, international ethics, and outsourcing. His work has appeared in the Strategic Management Journal, the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Management, the Journal International Business Studies, and other outlets. William F. Crittenden, Senior Associate Dean, Dean of Faculty and Professor, General Management Group. A consultant and advisor to various private, public, and nonprofit organizations, Professor Crittenden has worked with such U.S based organizations as Boston Beer Company, BAE Systems, EG&G, Intronics, Lotus Software, Wal-Mart Stores, Boston Management Consortium, Head Start, Jefferson Hospital, Nazareth, the new England Association of Quality Clubs, and The Professional Council, and with Funducion CANE in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior of Monterrey, Mexico. He is a member of numerous professional organizations including the Strategic Management Society, the Academy of Management, and the Academy of Marketing Sciences. He is a former Chair of the Public & Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management. Professor Crittenden holds a BA from the University of Michigan, an MBA from Aubum University, and a PhD from the University of Arkansas.