Measuring expectations: forecast vs. ideal expectations. Does it really matter?

Consumer's participation in service delivery is so central to cognition that it affects consumer's quality evaluations. The study presented in this paper investigates the ways that visitor expectations change as a result of first hand experience with a service in the context of a major art exhibition. The research design allowed for two operational definitions of expectations, namely forecast and ideal expectations, in order to investigate differences between respondents’ pre- and post-experiences with a service. A total of 550 respondent visitors were interviewed during a major art exhibition, using two questionnaires delivered to two sub samples of respondents. The primary questionnaire was designed to capture recalled expectations after visitation while the parallel questionnaire captured forecast expectations prior to visitation and perceptions in the post-experience phase. The findings suggest that forecast expectations were different to ideal expectations in both qualitative and quantitative ways and that these differences had important implications for perceptions of service quality. These differences can be explained, at least in part, by the way that expectations are formed and by the way that expectations are shaped by the actual visitation experience. For market researchers, the question of when and how to measure expectations has important implications for research design.     

Ethics vs. IT Ethics: Do Undergraduate Students Perceive a Difference?

Do undergraduate students perceive that it is more acceptable to ?cheat’ using information technology (IT) than it is to cheat without the use of IT? Do business discipline-related majors cheat more than non-business discipline-related majors? Do undergraduate students perceive it to be more acceptable for them personally to cheat than for others to cheat? Questionnaires were administered to undergraduate students at five geographical academic locations in the spring, 2006 and fall 2006 and spring, 2007. A total of 708 usable questionnaires were returned including 532 from students majoring in business-related disciplines and 139 from students majoring in non-business related disciplines (37 were undecided). It appears that in terms of intellectual property violations, undergraduate students in general find cheating using IT more acceptable than cheating without the use of IT. It also appears that undergraduate students perceive that it is relatively more acceptable for them to personally cheat when using IT than for others to cheat when using IT, although this is reversed when IT is not involved. No significant differences on these issues were found between undergraduate students having business discipline-related majors and those having non-business discipline-related majors.     

The persuasive impact of reported group opinions on individuals low vs. high in need for cognition: Rationalization vs. biased elaboration?

A laboratory experiment examined the extent to which the reported opinions of others influence persuasion in individuals low vs. high in need for cognition (NFC). Reported opinions influenced the attitudes of high‐ and low‐NFC respondents in the direction of the majority position. However, for high‐NFC respondents, the effect was entirely mediated by the evaluation of topic‐relevant arguments (i.e., biased elaboration). On the other hand, the influence of reported opinions on the attitudes of low‐NFC respondents was not mediated by the argument ratings. Instead, their evaluations of the topic‐relevant arguments were actually mediated by their attitudes toward the proposal (i.e., rationalization). These results are discussed in terms of the multiple‐roles postulate of the elaboration‐likelihood model (ELM) and the “consensus implies correctness” inference of the heuristic–systematic model (HSM). © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Shopping online for goods vs. services: where do experiential features help more?

This study investigates how the type of offer sold online (goods vs. services) moderates the relationships between perceived experiential values and customers' attitudes towards the website. A sample of 107 e‐shoppers of services and 110 e‐shoppers of physical goods responded to a survey on their most recent e‐shopping experiences. Results support the majority of hypotheses. It was found that although offering experiential values on the site improves customers' attitudes for both physical goods and services websites, the impact is much stronger in the case of services. Theoretical and managerial contributions are discussed.     

IPR protection vs. innovation subsidy: What is the choice for the emerging South?

In this paper, we use a classical variety-expanding growth model to analyze the policy or institutional-arrangement choice for the Southern government who faces the tradeoff between imitating Northern innovation without cost and encouraging domestic innovation. We assume that the Southern government fully respects the principle of non-discrimination and hence treats both imitations, i.e., imitation of Northern innovation and imitation of domestic innovation, equally. For a given state of the economy, we explicitly and uniquely establish an optimal degree of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection for the South. Then, we find that there is a complementary relationship between optimal IPR protection and the innovation subsidy policy, which implies that they form an effective policy mix, hence offering a useful insight for avoiding ineffective policy conflicts widely occurred in real-world economies.     

来就有礼:重庆美食北京推广中心成立

<正>古都重庆,素来享有"美食之都"之美誉。近年来,除重庆火锅外,发源于重庆的烤鱼、石锅鱼、麻辣烫、串串香、酸辣粉等美食亦风靡全国。为扩大重庆餐饮在全国的影响力,助推重庆餐饮连锁企     

郭夏:选美赛事为何丑态百出?

最近,中国各地选美赛事风波不断。7月6日,第52届国际小姐中国大赛重庆赛区总决赛完美落幕,最终决出的冠、亚、季军随着照片的曝光却遭到网友无情的吐槽。7月10日,2012环球比基尼小姐大赛山东赛区决出的前三强则再次被网     

Long- vs. short-term performance perspectives of Western European,Japanese, and U.S. countries: where do they lie?

This paper examines the differences between Eastern and Western companies regarding long- vs. short-term orientations. Utilizing Hofstede’s long-term orientation index, this study scrutinizes both long- and short-term performance measurements for companies from Western Europe, Japan, and the United States. The findings suggest that Western European companies place an equally higher priority on both long- and short-term measures of performance compared to companies from Japan and the United States. Additionally, Japanese companies were postulated by the literature to employ a long-term orientation toward company performance greater than U.S. companies. However, our results do not support this statement, as U.S. and Japanese companies were not statistically significantly different.     

华为28年来为何不上市?任正非回应

<正>任正非和华为公司,堪称当代商业史上的传奇。1987年,年满43岁的任正非和5个同伴集资2.1万元成立华为公司,利用两台万用表加一台示波器,在深圳的一个烂棚棚里起家创业。28年后,华为公司由默默无闻的小作坊成长为通信领域的全球领导者:2015年营收3950亿元人民币,净利润369亿元,增速均达30%以上。作为华为领军人物,任正非从一名中年创业者成为全球知名企业家,深深影响了许多人……     

下篇:谁来监管?

我国石油产业的管理体制随着石油工业的发展,经历了多次变革,但总的看来,历史上主要以中央集中统一管理为主,直到20世纪90年代我国市场经济 体制确立后,石油工业管理体制才发生深刻的转变.     

零售业:谁来承担风险?

<正> 买断经营 买断风险 1998年3月25日,上海两家经营规模最大的中资连锁超市集团华联和联华超市公司相继宣布引进买断制进货方式,放弃国内商业企业长期固守的商品代销制经营方式。事     

巨人之殇:索尼为何衰落?

曾经有一家可以和苹果比肩的公司:它热卖的电子设备一度占据了我们中国人几乎所有的碎片时间。它创造了Walkman随身听、PlayStation游戏机,和特丽珑彩电,而本月将不得不面对29亿美元的全年亏损。经过连续     

Grocery pickup creation of value: Customers’ benefits vs. spatial dimension

This article examines an Internet grocery shopping model very frequent in the UK and in France: the grocery pickup system. It strives to answer this research questions: does this system create value for consumers? The methodology relies on in-depth interviews with retailers and data from French retail grocery industries. The exploratory approach through experts’ interviews concerning the content of retailers’ selling propositions for consumers reinforces the theoretical framework related to customers’ value and grocery pickup. It appears that long term value could exist through the satisfaction of functional, experiential and relational benefits responsible for the uniqueness of the retailer's positioning. Given the asymmetry between retailers approach and consumer's one, the second part is focused on a particular aspect of the functional benefit: closeness in retailing. Then, an entropy measurement in a French context from two large samples of 1576 hypermarkets and 1473 grocery pickups are conducted. Results show that grocery pickup locations fulfill this sine qua non successful condition. Nevertheless, it is made evidence that this new channel is most of the time developed in overstored areas.     

企业家的困惑:满意度,向前走vs向后退?

<正>老罗是一家生产手机、电脑等电子消费品的民营企业老总。在激烈的市场竞争中,他的企业也通过长达10年的发展,逐步实现了由区域品牌向全国品牌,由不足100人的小企业向当地颇有影响的中型企业的转变。企业在发展过程中也遇到一些问题,比如产品质量投     

邱林:百姓为何对GDP大跃进嗤之以鼻?

在2011年全国国内生产总值(GDP)数据公布前夕,各地已开始陆续发布GDP预期值,许多省份对全年地方经济发展"成绩单"显得信心满满,至少有6个省份有望新入围"万亿俱乐部"。31个省份中,经济"领头羊"广东将成为国内首个地区生产总值迈入5万亿元     

邱林:百姓为何对GDP大跃进嗤之以鼻?

在2011年全国国内生产总值(GDP)数据公布前夕,各地已开始陆续发布GDP预期值,许多省份对全年地方经济发展"成绩单"显得信心满满,至少有6个省份有望新入围"万亿俱乐部"。31个省份中,经济"领头羊"广东将成为国内首个地区生产总值迈入5万亿元     

陈金富:大陆人为何钟情台湾饭店业?

从二月农历年起,经清明节长假,再到刚刚过去的五一劳动节黄金周假期,笔者有限人脉就接待了十组以上朋友自大陆各地来的朋友,而且几乎都会谈到在台湾购买房地产资产的话题。确实,今年开春以来亚太地区的房地产市况,台湾地区算是相当好的热区。四月下旬新闻媒体上的标题多是刺激消费者购房的标题:桃园地区二年涨32%、新北市双和     

新媒体系列论丛:PDF vs Flash阅读器网络杂志孰执牛耳?

网络杂志,也有人称之为电子杂志。有的是传统杂志直接数字化翻版,也有的是电波媒体或网络媒体资讯以杂志的形式发布,再有就是多媒体互动杂志。简言之,通过互联网方式传播,以计算机文件的形式作为杂志的信息载体,供在线或下载阅读的电子杂志,我们都可以称之为网络杂志。回顾网络     

程序化购买:蛋糕 谁来掌控?

正代理机构应该面对现实,通过与广告主合作来证明,它们的确能为广告主带来信心和透明度,否则,它们将眼睁睁地看着很大一部分数字化业务被独立机构夺走。程序化购买的概念从提出至今只有短短几年,但已经迅速获得业内的认可,呈燎原之势。早在2012年,业内还对RTB(Real-Time Bidding)到底是不是不入流争论不休,到2014年,许多品牌已经将程序化购买作为自己未来数字化的战略。