Abundant rarity: The key to luxury growth

Although Western economies have not yet transitioned out of crisis, the luxury sector is growing again, especially at the high end. In emerging countries, the luxury sector's expansion has reached double digits. However, as luxury products continue to penetrate global markets, the prestige of brands like Louis Vuitton has not declined at all. This seems at odds with the concept of luxury being tied to rarity and exclusivity. Thus, how can we reconcile these facts with theory? In order to capture mounting demands—not only from extraordinary people, but also from ordinary individuals—luxury brands enact virtual rarity tactics, construct themselves as art, and adopt a fashion business model while deemphasizing exceptional quality and country of origin. Rarity of ingredients or craft has been replaced by qualitative rarity. Further, the cult of the designer is a potent tool in building emotional connections with a vast number of clients. Today, brands in the luxury sector are actually selling symbolic and magic power to the masses. There exists a culture gap between Asia and the West; namely, Asian consumers feel safer buying prestigious Western brands with which individuals around them are familiar. The insights offered herein provide clues for entrepreneurs attempting to launch luxury brands.     

Employees: The key link to corporate reputation management

Employees and corporate reputation are unique resources that generate positive financial performance and ultimately create sustainable competitive advantage. Corporate reputation is vital to the organization, and employees are the key link to managing it. By recognizing the synergistic role that employees can play in the overall positioning of corporate reputation, management can obtain significant achievements in terms of satisfying corporate strategic objectives. Initiatives essential to gain employee commitment to corporate reputation enhancement are examined, along with the use of the balanced scorecard to integrate corporate reputation metrics into the incentive system.     

Intangible capital: the key to growth in Europe

Intangibles and especially organisational capital are an important source of capital deepening in European countries, albeit with significant cross-country differences. The GDP in the EU27 area is 5.5% higher if certain categories of expenditure, which have until now been considered as current costs, are classified as investments in intangibles. Intangible capital investment markedly improves the profitability of companies, given the productivity-wage gap, and leads to increasing returns in intangible capital intensive countries.     

方寸之间见功夫──让手表陈列科学化

商场内的手表柜台,品牌林立,款式不下数百种,品牌之间既是竞争对手又是朝夕相处的邻居.如何让手表"留住"消费者,此时手表的陈列方法面临考验.     

浅谈对教育管理价值观的认识

教育改革促使我国的教育精英教育转向大众化教育,教育管理人员也面临着教育管理价值观从传统到现代的转变问题.     

浅谈对教育管理价值观的认识

教育改革促使我国的教育精英教育转向大众化教育,教育管理人员也面临着教育管理价值观从传统到现代的转变问题.     

Innovation responses of Japanese firms to Chinese import competition

This paper examines innovation responses of a panel of Japanese firms to the intensified import competition from China in the period 1995–2005. We build a comprehensive firm-level dataset linking patents and R&D merged to cross-industry measures of Chinese import competition. Accounting for a simultaneity bias between innovation and importing and the possible heterogeneous effects across firms, we found that patenting has increased in response to an influx of Chinese imports, but it has adversely affected the quality of innovation, measured by forward citations received. These effects are only observed for globally engaged firms, not for firms focusing on the domestic market.     

人力资源管理与连锁超市核心竞争力

在当代企业的竞争中,比利润更重要的是市场份额,比市场份额更重要的是竞争优势,比竞争优势更重要的是核心竞争力,企业竞争最终是核心竞争力的竞争.根据麦肯锡咨询公司的观点,核心竞争力是指组织内部一系列互补的技能和知识的结合,它具有使一项或多项业务达到竞争领域一流水平、具有明显优势的能力.简单地说,就是企业在经营过程中形成的不易被竞争对手效仿的、能带来超额利润的独特能力.其本质内涵是让消费者得到真正高于竞争对手的不可替代的价值、产品、服务和文化.可以看出,核心竞争力是一个系统的概念,它是对企业各方面能力(技术能力、生产能力和营销能力等)的整合.这种整合只能依靠管理来完成,而人力资源管理以其增值性和难复制性扮演着更为重要的角色.     

人力资本竞争优势与战略成本管理

战略成本管理的精髓在于保持企业的竞争优势,竞争优势的保持要求企业在其所处的价值链上拥有核心竞争力。企业的核心竞争力由企业的人力资本状况所决定,人力资本是战略成本管理实施成功与否的关键因素。     

Japanese popular art as text advertising's clues to understanding the consumer

We must be concerned with our choices of methodology when we are trying to understand a culture. Art, because it is a way of expressing collective values and norms, is available for researchers attempting to gain an understanding of a culture. Thus art becomes text — conveying a message regarding the culture. Japanese art is used to assist in the understanding of the often surprising phenomenon of a greater than expected use of sex and violence in Japanese advertising and other popular visual art forms. It is posited that, consistent with what is reflected in the woodblock printings of the Tokugawa period, there is still a frustration with the restrictive political and social system, that is reflected in present day popular visual arts and advertising.     

The Korean electronics industry: the Japanese role in its growth

Korea's electronics industry has developed to the point where it accounts for an increasing share of output, exports and employment. Its spectacular growth can be largely attributed to its rapid expansion to become the dominant export, accounting for more than a quarter of the total. To determine the causes of this performance, this contribution will look at both ‘internal’ (government policy regimes, incentives) and ‘external’ factors. It argues that domestic policies were only efective in so far as they were supported by external factors. Such export-orientated industrialization includes a cycle between investment, imports competitiveness and exports.     

Internet与提升零售企业核心能力

企业是一系列资源的集合体,企业能力表现为整合一组资源从事经营活动的有效性和效率.当企业所拥有的资源和能力成为企业核心能力,才能由此形成一个企业超越对手的竞争优势.信息时代,Internet的运用能极大提升这种核心能力,为处于传统竞争弱势地位的中国零售企业在加入WTO后提供了一个生存和发展的机遇.     

The trouble with Japanese management systems

Because of Japan's astounding success in exporting goods to American markets, many managers have taken the myth of Japanese superiority in productivity and quality control as the answer to American industry's ills. This author indicates that the Japanese system is being viewed too simplistically, and that Japan, too, has problems with employment, productivity, and profit.     

对决策支持系统的认识

管理的核心是“决策”。决策支持系统作为一种新兴的信息技术,能够为企业提供各种决策信息及诸多问题的解决方案,从而减轻了管理者从事低层次信息处理和分析的负担,专注于最需要决策的工作,提高决策的质量和效率。决策支持系统主要应用于销售支持、客户分析、财务分析、企业分析和市场研究等方面,对企业决策至关重要。     

对牧区桥梁养护管理的认识

多年来公路桥梁重建设、轻养护的现象特别突出,公路养护的缺失是公路使用品质下降的最主要的原因,特别是在牧区的公路管养部门必须对公路养护管理加强认识,做好公路桥梁的养护工作.     

Pathways to entrepreneurial growth: The influence of management, marketing, and money

Business growth is considered a worthy goal for firms and a measure of entrepreneurial success, as well as important for economic development. Why some firms grow and others do not, though, remains a subject of debate. Of the small proportion of firms that do grow, it is often assumed that they follow a similar growth trajectory and/or encounter certain stage thresholds; however, the evidence base on this is wanting. The new study of business growth presented here provides an in-depth analysis of 19 New England-based firms. Our findings reveal that fast-growing companies exhibit different rates and patterns of growth: some display rapid growth trajectories (Rapid Growth Pattern); some, slower, more measured rates (Incremental Growth Pattern); others, episodic periods of quick growth followed by sharp retrenchment (Episodic Growth Pattern); and, while no firm actively chose to stop growing, some reached points of stagnation (Plateau Growth Pattern). We found that three key factors—management, marketing, and money—affected company growth across these patterns. While not every factor was critical at each moment of growth for each firm, every entrepreneur cited the relative importance of each factor at some time during the growth of their firm. Thus, fast-growing firms do not grow in the same manner, at the same rate, or with the same outcomes. This article has implications for those seeking to understand the processes of development and patterns of fast-growth businesses.     

供应链管理──沃尔玛的核心竞争力

供应链管理是近年来在国内外逐渐受到重视的一种新的管理理念与模式.所谓供应链,就是围绕核心企业,通过对信息流、物流、资金流的控制,从采购原材料开始,制成中间产品以及最终产品,最后由销售网络把产品送到消费者手中,将供应商、制造商、分销商、零售商直到最终用户连成一个整体的功能网链结构.根据整个供应链的主导企业不同,将供应链分成4种形式:即厂商与零售企业合作经营型;信息武装的批发业主导型;厂商与批发业合作经营型;大型零售业主导型.