崩溃的篱笆——密码、黑客与无奈的信息安全

奇虎360主管手机安全的副总裁李涛和乌云漏洞发布平台的创始人佥0心,有着相同的癖好：从不使用信用卡、从不在网上购物、从不在手机上装任何有LBS功能的应用软件。“这个世界毫无安全可言。”这是两个多年从事信息安全工作的人的共同心声。     

Big data׳s impact on privacy,security and consumer welfare

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the costs, benefits, and externalities associated with organizations׳ use of big data. Specifically, it investigates how various inherent characteristics of big data are related to privacy, security and consumer welfare. The relation between characteristics of big data and privacy, security and consumer welfare issues are examined from the standpoints of data collection, storing, sharing and accessibility. The paper also discusses how privacy, security and welfare effects of big data are likely to vary across consumers of different levels of sophistication, vulnerability and technological savviness.     

Provision of Internet privacy and market conditions: An empirical analysis

Importing insights from an industrial organization model, this study analyzes the relationship between the provision of Internet privacy protection and market conditions. A composite sample of heavily trafficked and randomly selected sites was examined as to their level of privacy protection, as indicated by interface features of Notice and Choice. The analyses showed the limited supply of such functionalities by most websites, far short of the industry's standard of conduct. Logistic regressions demonstrated that domain and website attributes, indicative of market conditions, had minimal impact on the likelihood of high privacy provision. The findings shed critical lights on the market-based FTC Internet privacy principle that has been placed since 1998 and indicate the need for a new set of interface-focused policy proposals in domain-context specific regulations.     

The role of cocreation and dynamic capabilities in service provision and performance: A configurational study

The success of a professional service firm (PSF) relies on its capabilities for leveraging relationships with clients – i.e., cocreation capabilities (CCs) – and adapting to changing environments – i.e., dynamic capabilities (DCs). Previous research shows that the interaction of these two organizational capabilities and the multidimensional configuration of DCs. However, little is known about how CCs and DCs are jointly configured within PSFs and how trade-offs between these distinct capabilities relate to service provision and performance across different firms. This study explores the path dependent nature of higher- and lower- order capabilities and uses data from 279 marketing advisory firms to investigate how different configurations of higher-order CCs and DCs are associated with lower-order service provision capabilities (SPCs) and similar or different performance. We find that CCs can substitute for DCs, and that DCs and CCs can compensate for SPCs in achieving higher levels of customer-based performance. However, the same does not apply for financial performance in which CCs do not appear to overcome deficiencies in DCs and SPCs. Also, firms can have similar SPCs and experience similar financial performance while emphasizing the use of either DCs or CCs; suggesting DCs and CCs may substitute for each other.     

Opportunity costs,industry dynamics,and corporate diversification: Evidence from the cardiovascular medical device industry, 1976–2004

This paper examines how demand conditions across alternative markets impact diversification decisions and firm performance by influencing the opportunity costs of deploying non‐scale free capabilities. Using data within the cardiovascular medical device industry, this study shows that: (1) firms with a larger stock of pre‐entry innovation experience are more likely to diversify; (2) firms in a current market with greater relative demand maturity are more likely to diversify; (3) diversification is associated with a performance decrease in the current market; and (4) diversification is associated with a performance increase at the corporate level. These findings shed new light on the self‐selection process of corporate scope, the conceptualization of firm capabilities, and the connection between industry dynamics and resource deployment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Privacy and security issues in cloud computing: The role of institutions and institutional evolution

Cloud computing is likened and equated to the Industrial Revolution. Its transformational nature is, however, associated with significant security and privacy risks. This paper investigates how the contexts provided by formal and informal institutions affect the perceptions of privacy and security issues in the cloud. This paper highlights the nature, origin, and implications of institutions and institutional changes in the context of cloud computing. A goal of the present work is also to gain insights into the mechanisms and forces that have brought about institutional changes in the cloud industry. Specifically, they investigate how contradictions generated at various levels by the technology, the formation of dense networks and relationships and the changing power dynamics have triggered institutional changes. Since the current analysis of the causes and consequences of institutions and institutional change is mainly concerned with more established industries and markets, this paper is expected to provide insights into institutions surrounding to this new and emerging technological development.     

Privacy,confidentiality and computers: National and international implications of US information policy

The author assesses what the USA has been doing or not doing in recent years to develop information policies for personal record information to deal with the rapidly changing record-keeping world of public and private organizations. He reviews how well these policies have been implemented and enforced in the context of the US system of government, and compares the experience of European countries with US efforts, especially in the light of the serious debate which is emerging over restraints placed on transborder data flows by the privacy protection efforts of various countries.     

Configurations of resources and capabilities and their performance implications: an exploratory study on technology ventures

As one of the most widely accepted theoretical perspectives in strategy, the resource‐based view (RBV) suggests that a firm's resources underlie its ability to achieve competitive advantage. However, much of the extant work in this stream has examined the characteristics that resources must have in order to yield rents, while efforts to specify the crucial link between resources and value creation have been sparse. As a consequence, current theory is not sufficiently clear on how different kinds of resources and capabilities contribute to performance, nor does it clarify how firms can combine different resources and capabilities to achieve superior performance outcomes. Analyzing data obtained from 230 technology ventures with partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling and cluster analysis, this study seeks to improve understanding of the resource‐performance link in two main ways. Based on a careful measurement of resources and capabilities in a well‐defined functional area (sales and distribution), we first show how these resources and capabilities contribute to performance in that functional area. Second, we identify four clusters of firms that deploy different configurations of resources and capabilities. Among the four configurational solutions, two are associated with superior (equifinal) performance outcomes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mortgage Shoppers: How Much Do They Save?

Survey evidence suggests that many U.S. and European consumers do not spend a lot of time comparing mortgage products. We show, however, that mortgage shopping is associated with a substantial monetary payoff, using a unique data set from a website where borrowers (not the lenders) can post their complete set of received mortgage rate offers. A borrower who shops for five mortgage offers is able to save 7,078 euros in net present value on average. The potential savings suggest suboptimal mortgage shopping as the opportunity cost of time to renegotiate additional quotes is unlikely to be that high.     

企业电子商务集群模式与销售绩效的促进关系——以台州企业为例

为了研究电子商务集群模式与销售绩效间的关系,通过调查分析企业进行电子商务集聚的方式对其进行模式划分,主要为第三方电子商务平台、电子商务行业协会、电子商务产业园区、区域电子商务品牌、自建网站等模式;以集聚模式为因子,以销售量为绩效目标,建立绩效分析的指标结构模型,以台州地区110家企业的调研数据为样本,借助AMOS结构模型分析软件对样本数据进行回归分析。结果表明:第三方电子商务平台、区域品牌、行业协会、产业园区对销售量呈正向影响,影响程度依次减弱,而自建网站对销售量的影响不大。研究结果可为优化企业电子商务集群模式,促进销售绩效的提高提供参考,有助于企业采取相应策略以提高经济效益。     

The Impact of Seasonality on the Launch of Infrequently Purchased Products

Few published articles have dealt with the unique problems associated with the management of new, infrequently purchased products that exhibit seasonal patterns of demand. Marvin Berkowitz demonstrates how seasonality influences the performance of a new consumer durable good, a new brand of battery-operated lights, during a 2-year period following its launch. The data presented support four hypotheses: (I) the newest brands in a product category, when compared to dominant brands, will be subject to higher seasonal variation in consumer awareness, advertising recall, product attribute positioning, and purchase intent; (2) the relationship between seasonal effects and brand share within a product category will not be linear; (3) differences between product attributes for competing brands will be most apparent to consumers during periods of peak seasonal activity; and (4) perceptions of product attributes that are most important in the buying decision are subject to the least seasonal variation. The article also demonstrates how seasonal variations may be charted and discusses how this analysis contributes to the overall management of the new product.     

How to measure company productivity using value-added: A focus on Pohang Steel (POSCO)

How should the performance of a manufacturing company be assessed, relative to firms making similar products, at home and abroad? This paper shows how company-level productivity measures can be developed from public financial data to provide a more comprehensive gauge of firm performance than profit rates alone. As a specific example, we focus on the Korean steelmaker, POSCO. Founded four decades ago, POSCO is commonly regarded as the world’s most efficient and profitable integrated steel producer, and our analysis documents POSCO’s superior record of profitability and labor productivity. We find, however, that a broader assessment of POSCO’s performance is tempered by the firm’s high capital intensity relative to producers in Japan and the United States.     

Efficiency outcomes of market concentration and managed care

The paper examines how hospital cost efficiency has reacted to extensive horizontal integrations of hospitals and rapid growth of managed care in the US health care industry. Cost efficiency is estimated by using panel data approaches to relax the assumptions for the hospital effects imposed in earlier studies. The paper shows that higher managed care penetration over time is associated with greater hospital efficiency, and higher market concentration is positively associated with efficiency when markets are highly competitive or highly concentrated.     

Indicators of technical intensity and international competitiveness: a case for supplementing quantitative data with qualitative studies in research*

The author provides evidence, derived from his own published research, to justify his claim that all the commonly used indicators of technical intensity of innovation suffer from severe limitations. The paper consists of a critique, as indicators of innovativeness, of increase of value-to-weight ratios of finished products, R&D expenditure, the number of QSEs employed, patent and licensing activity and the rate and direction of the flow of technology. He shows that technical change can increase value added-to-weight of a product but that differences in the ratio do not necessarily reflect different technical performance; that in-house formal R&D is not the only way in which technical change is brought about in a firm; that one must know not only how many QSEs are employed by a firm but also how they are distributed over the firm's operations; that patent and licensing information need very skilled interpretation to produce valid conclusions and that outward flow of technology, though perhaps a necessary criterion of innovativeness is not a sufficient one. The paper concludes with some suggestions for an alternative approach, the key to which is to combine quantitative data derived from the above indicators with qualitative in-depth studies of how innovation actually occurs in the economic sector under study.     

The evolution of the internet of things industry and market in China: An interplay of institutions,demands and supply

This paper seeks to provide some explanation as to how demand-, supply- and institutions-related factors in China have affected the creation and diffusion of Internet of Things (IoT)-related products and services. Concerning demand side factors the paper demonstrates how potential market size and existing technology trajectory work in favor of IoT diffusion. As a related demand side factor the paper argues that, in terms of the technological trajectory, China has started farther from the frontier than most industrialized countries. The degree of incremental benefit from the IoT is thus higher in the country. As to the supply side factors, the article promotes an understanding of how Chinese technology companies have capitalized on a huge user base to develop IoT-based applications. It also suggests that technologies and expertise provided by foreign multinationals have also played crucial roles. Regarding formal institutions, the government's proactive policies have been a major factor in the IoT's evolution. It is also in the Chinese government's interest to develop IoT products to make censorship and surveillance more effective. Regarding informal institutions, Chinese consumers are less concerned than Westerners about being tracked and monitored, which provides a favorable condition for the adoption of IoT-enabled devices. Nonetheless, this condition is changing due to increasing abuse of consumer privacy. China and the U.S. are compared in terms of diffusion, key determinants, performance indicators and impacts of the IoT in order to understand the areas that China outperforms—and underperforms—the U.S. Some indicators are proposed to gauge the IoT-related performance and the impacts of the IoT.     

The information value of online social networks: Lessons from peer-to-peer lending

We examine whether social networks facilitate online markets using data from a leading peer-to-peer lending website. We find that borrowers with social ties are consistently more likely to have their loans funded and receive lower interest rates; however, most borrowers with social ties are more likely to pay late or default. We provide evidence that these findings are driven by lenders not fully understanding the relationship between social ties and unobserved borrower quality. Overall, our findings suggest caution for using online social networks as a signal of quality in anonymous transactions.