Critical Success Factors for Peak Electricity Demand Reduction: Insights from a Successful Intervention in a Small Island Community

This paper examines a successful residential peak electricity demand reduction project which employed a multi-disciplinary approach. The purpose of this study was to examine the critical success factors necessary for reducing peak demand and total energy consumption in a small Australian island community. This case study research is based on qualitative data obtained from semi-structured, in-depth interviews with residents from 22 households. It is proposed that the results of the examined project are transferable to other communities if the utility is able to develop the necessary trust, access, influence, and partnership with residential consumers required to create the environment for electricity demand reduction success. Findings from this research highlight the potential approach for future policymaking aimed at reducing peak electricity demand and total energy consumption in multiple communities, thus helping achieve government low carbon targets while reducing infrastructure spending.     

Building Relationships From the Outside In: A Case Study of Falken Tire's Drift Toward Success

This article explores a unique application of relationship marketing and commitment-trust theory through “outside-in” channel development. Necessitated by market conditions and competitor size and influence, the case company lacked the financial strength and credibility to compete head on to drive awareness from key channel members. Findings demonstrate how out-of-the-box thinking, entrepreneurial risk taking, and creative event marketing allowed a small market player to establish, build, and ultimately extend relationships with both indirect and direct channel partners from the outside in. This case provides guidance for relationship marketing efforts through the use of event sponsorship and social media strategies.     

Success factors in private clubs: A view from the stakeholders

Club managers and members show a remarkable level of agreement in their assessment of the factors that make clubs successful.     

"中国芯"海外市场连爆冷门

国际芯片市场似乎一直是欧美厂商的天下．然而随着国内市场需求的不断增加和技术的迅速提高。“中国芯”市场利好消息不断。     

State-owned Banks Reform：A Three-Step Success

When taking each step, the country had to with- stand various difficulties and risks but received re- markable improvements and progresses. State-owned commercial banks are the major part of China's banking industry.Their growth and devel- opment is in direct relation to the overall economy and financial growth in the country.After the Asian financial crisis at the end of last century,the Chinese government has taken a string of financial measures.To some extent,the financial results have been improved in state-owned     

Volunteerism and Virtual Community Business Success: The Case of the Internet Chess Club

Prior work has identified, in piecemeal fashion, desirable characteristics of virtual community businesses (VCBs) such as inimitable information assets, persistent handles fomenting trust, and an economic infrastructure. To date, researchers have lacked convenient settings to collect participant data to gain insight into VCB governance and success factors. In this work, we addressed this gap and studied the Internet Chess Club (ICC), a successful business that offers a rich and accessible data source for the researcher.

We started with an idealized VCB success framework that stressed the key role of the volunteers. We then used an integrated data collection architecture and performed statistical analysis on the ICC members' attitudes and activities. We identified specific attitude and use segments that represent regular member and volunteer subgroups and we show that these segments and their interplay support the framework we advanced at the outset. In our conclusion, we point out the general lessons that can be taken from this case and applied to other VCBs.     

The Success Factors of Food Events: The Case Study of Umbrian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Gastronomic events are an important part of the “Made in Italy” and a vital tool for rural development. The aim of the study is to identify the complexity of the factors that determine the success of a food event. The authors, after state-of-the-art analysis of the event marketing, formulate the hypothesis of a causal model and form a data collection during the “open oil mills” in the Umbria region. Through in-depth interviews the participants were asked to express themselves about the importance and interest attributed to some aspects directly related to the theme of the event, and finally to indicate the degree of satisfaction and the likelihood of some of their future behavior. Statistical analysis based on structural equation models allowed the authors to highlight which aspects are significant in order to confirm the assumptions made. Results provide guidance for management decisions and organization of food and wine.     

Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce Success: A Supply Network Perspective

DeLone and McLean (2004) have advanced an electronic commerce (EC) success model and suggest that it can be extended to investigating EC success in different contexts. However, the EC success model has not been empirically validated in the context of business-to-business (B2B) EC. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of EC value and success within the B2B environment. Accordingly, we introduce an extended version of DeLone and McLean’s (2004) EC success model, and test hypotheses regarding the associations between various success dimensions using the data collected from 122 supply chain units. In addition to providing support for most of the hypotheses suggested by DeLone and McLean’s (2004) EC success model, our results indicate that other success dimensions, such as EC readiness, must be considered for successful EC in B2B environments. The research findings provide practitioners with clarity on the levers of B2B e-commerce success within the supply chain unit level of analysis. Overall, the study’s results contribute to theoretical development in the area of business value creation and EC success, and present a basis for further research in these fields.     

Social Interaction: A Determinant of Entrepreneurial Team Venture Success

An important issue to explain the success of new ventures is mostly ignored by the research of entrepreneurship: the social interaction within entrepreneurial teams. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of social interaction, which was originally developed for innovation teams in the field of entrepreneurship research and theory.The theoretical discussion proves if an adoption of the social interaction to the field of entrepreneurship is theoretically possible. Using the data of 159 German entrepreneurial teams, the effects of social interaction on new business success are empirically proven. The introduced measurement model, which consists of six dimensions, shows a high quality in the empirical test. The quality of the social interaction within entrepreneurial teams is crucial for the new venture success. An empirical comparison with the frequently used team conflicts confirm that the measurement of conflicts is not a sufficient substitute measurement for social interaction. Overall, the social interaction in entrepreneurial teams could be seen as an important but not only factor of business success.     

Success Factors for Mass Customization: A Conceptual Model

Mass customization entails the ability to provide customized products and services to individual customers using technology (information) at optimal production efficiency and cost levels. The concept is gaining prominence because the marketing literature is increasingly focused on delivering superior customer value. Although the mass-customization literature provides many insights into its origins, formats and approaches, it does not provide a coherent framework to assess the viability of a successful mass-customization strategy. Based on the premise of customer perceived value, we have developed a conceptual framework to address this need. We present a series of hypotheses that serve to encourage other authors and direct future research.     

累积经验与并购绩效:从成功和失败中学习

本文基于组织学习理论和资源依赖理论,从累积经验角度,分析成功和失败经验对并购公司经营绩效的作用机制及边界条件.通过对2004～2017年间A股上市公司并购数据的实证研究发现:(1)先前的成功经验会改善并购绩效,相比于失败经验,成功经验的促进作用更大,资源诅咒效应会弱化国有企业中经验的影响;(2)并购经验存在贬值现象,新常态时期经验对绩效影响更大;(3)进一步研究发现失败经验的影响与损失程度有关,中小型程度损失的累积经验有助于绩效改善,而大型程度损失的累积经验会抑制学习.本文拓展了并购经验中成功和失败经验的不同作用机制,强调了学习成功经验和重视经验贬值的必要性,对公司提升并购能力、优化并购决策与整合效率具有启示意义.     

网络营销──现代企业制胜之术

网络营销作为一种新兴的营销方式,越来越被现代企业所重视,并成为21世纪的营销趋势。网络营销与传统的营销方式相比具有显著的优势。然而由于我国网络营销的发展总体水平较低,网络营销还属于起步阶段,网络对企业营销的巨大优势与潜力没有被挖掘出来。因此,要解决好我国网络营销中注意的问题,加大力度发展我国的网络营销。     

山西农村老年照料的个案研究

利用“社会照料”的理论,通过对永济市农村老年照料模式的个案研究,从三个维度分析了农村老年照料传统模式的特点,指出了传统模式的优势和面临的挑战。     

Liberalising Trade in the Agriculture Sector of a Small Island State: The Case of Fiji

This paper uses Fiji as a case study to investigate the impacts of three trade liberalisation policies – removal of sugar price subsidies, unilateral trade liberalisation and multilateral trade liberalisation, implied by the successful completion of the Doha Round. Removal of the sugar price subsidies has an adverse effect on real output, real national welfare and employment, but promotes growth of non‐agricultural exports in the long run. Unilateral trade liberalisation, in the form of tariff cuts in the agricultural sector, increases real output, real national welfare and non‐agricultural exports in the medium term. However, this growth is not sustained in the long term. The best outcome for Fiji is multilateral trade liberalisation which increases real output, real national welfare, non‐agricultural exports and employment. It is argued that reform of trade policies in less developed countries could come at a cost, therefore highlighting the need for compensating mechanisms to deal with the adverse impacts. Other measures to assist farmers to expand output in response to a rise in prices could include measures to reduce transport, storage and packaging costs, as well as institutional measures to enhance the functioning of input and factor markets.     

山西农村老年照料的个案研究

利用"社会照料"的理论,通过对永济市农村老年照料模式的个案研究,从三个维度分析了农村老年照料传统模式的特点,指出了传统模式的优势和面临的挑战.     

Secrets of Success from the Heathrow School of Management

Books reviewed in this article:
Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman, Act on It! Solving 101 of the Toughest Management Challenges
Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in YourLife
Joel Brandon and Daniel Morris, Just Don't Do It! Challenging Assumptions in Business
Harold Geneen with Brent Bowers, Synergy and Other Lies: DownsizingBureaucracy and Corporate Culture Debunked     

The Impact of Violent Humor on Advertising Success: A Gender Perspective

Recent academic research has focused on the use of novelty and shock in advertising executions. One manifestation of this approach in American television advertising is the use of aggressive humor; a dramatic change in the way humor has historically been employed. This investigation examines two studies of the responses of men and women to violence in humorous advertising. The results of both studies reveal differences in the responses of men and women suggesting there may be a risk in coupling humor with high physical violence in ads targeted toward female audiences. The second study examines in a path model the role of perceived violations of social norms and perceived humor on the attitudes of men and women toward the ad and the brand. The poor response of women to more violence with humor ads is closely related to their perceived violations of social norms; for men, their more positive response to such ads is related to their perception of humor in the ads with humor and stronger violence.     

Entrepreneurial Signaling via Education: A Success Factor in Innovative Start-Ups

Unlike traditional start-ups, innovative start-ups and their respective market partners are faced with severe problems of asymmetric information due to their lack of prior production history and reputation. Here, we study whether and how entrepreneurial signaling via education can help innovative entrepreneurs signal their abilities to banks and prospective employees. We argue that innovative entrepreneurs signal their quality by means of certain characteristics of their educational history. In particular, we expect potential employees to use an entrepreneur’s university degree as a quality signal when deciding whether to accept a job at an innovative start-up, and we expect banks to use a more precise indicator, namely the actual length of study in relation to a standard length, as a signal when deciding to extend credit to an innovative founder. By contrast, traditional start-ups are not faced with the same problems of asymmetric information, so we do not expect employees or banks to require the same signals from them. We empirically test our hypotheses using a dataset of more than 700 German start-ups collected in 1998/99. All hypotheses are borne out by the data.