Hyperfiliation and cultural citizenship: African American consumer acculturation

The experiences of African American expatriates in South Africa are explored to explain how acculturation in circumstances of hyperfiliation influences cross-cultural consumption for the purposes of performing cultural citizenship. The acculturation sub-processes of revision, restoration, and retroversion are analyzed to examine the ways in which social capital is mobilized in citizenship projects. These aspects of expatriate experiences are unpacked, theoretical implications are identified, and managerial implications are discussed.     

Assessing the Self-service Technology Encounters: Development and Validation of SSTQUAL Scale

Self-service technologies (SSTs) have enhanced the role technology plays in customer interactions with firms, yet instruments that systematically measure the service quality of SSTs from the perspective of customers remain underdeveloped. Based on psychometric scale development approaches, this study conceptualized, constructed, refined, and tested a multiple-item scale that examined key factors influencing SST service quality. Through qualitative and quantitative studies in four separate phases, a 20-item seven-dimension SSTQUAL scale was developed that includes functionality, enjoyment, security, assurance, design, convenience, and customization. The scale demonstrates sound psychometric properties based on findings from various reliability and validity tests as well as vigorous scale replications across industries and consumer traits using several different samples. The utility of the proposed scale is discussed for implications, limitations and future research.     

Antecedents and outcomes of interpersonal influences and the role of acculturation: The case of young British-Muslims

Prior research considers antecedents and outcomes of interpersonal influence without consideration of acculturation. Data collected from 222 young British-Muslims using focus groups, in-depth interviews and questionnaires identifies significant antecedents and outcomes concluding that self-congruity, clothing conformity, need for uniqueness and modesty are major contributors to susceptibility to interpersonal influence. Acculturation moderates the effects of self congruity and susceptibility to interpersonal influence. The paper discusses implications for clothing retailers suggesting that self-congruity, conformity and modesty require closer attention to develop effective promotion and product strategies. The study is first of its kind within the UK ethnic minorities market.     

A more comprehensive understanding and measure of customer helping behavior

We develop a more comprehensive measure of discretionary, extra-role behaviors that customers engage in to help a company. While customer helping behaviors have been studied previously, attempts to develop valid measures have been limited. We use the validation process for the Organizational Citizenship Behavior scale as a model to develop and validate a new scale measuring a comprehensive range of customer helping behaviors. We identify multiple dimensions of customer helping behaviors that are engaged in by the same customers, driven by the same antecedents, and collectively form a helping behaviors scale. Using student samples and customers of a non-profit organization, we demonstrate a consistent scale structure, reliability, and nomological and external validity. We present two variations of the scale, one for for-profit companies and one for non-profit organizations. This scale is intended to be used as a dependent behavioral measure to enable researchers to capture multiple customer helping behaviors.     

Development and validation of a firm-level vertical and horizontal internationalization metric

The lack of valid and reliable measures of firm-level vertical and horizontal internationalization is impeding the development and testing of hypothesized relationships between these respective dimensions of internationalization and a range of important MNE characteristics, actions, and effects. Through a series of qualitative and quantitative studies using data collected from senior MNE executives (total N?=?3,146), we develop and validate a scale to measure both vertical and horizontal firm-level internationalization. Subscales for each type of internationalization prove to be unidimensional, reliable, temporally stable, and to have predictive, cross-cultural, cross-sectoral, and discriminant validity.     

Triple acculturation: The role of African Americans in the consumer acculturation of Kenyan immigrants

The role of a subcultural group in the consumer acculturation of Kenyan immigrants is examined. Our findings demonstrate that particular immigrant consumer behaviors are influenced by triple acculturation forces: dominant; subcultural and original culture. We find that immigrants do not arrive in the United States aware of their need to acculturate to a subcultural group. Critical incidents alert the immigrants of the need to acculturate to the African American subculture in order to fulfill some basic consumer goals such as accessing hair care, nightclub entertainment and church services. Progressively, immigrants begin to incorporate triple acculturation forces in their consumer decision making. The immigrants learn to be innovative as well as to engage in satisficing as they navigate the new consumption environment. This research contributes to acculturation studies by extending the models of Berry (Berry JW. Acculturation as varieties of adaptation. In: Padilla AM, editor. Acculturation: theory, model and some new findings, Boulder, CO: Westview Press; 1980. pp. 9-25) as well as Penaloza (Penaloza L. Altravesando Fronteras/Border Crossings: a critical ethnographic exploration of the consumer acculturation of Mexican immigrants. J Consum Res 1994;2:32-54[June]) by incorporating the role of a subcultural group in this process.     

e-SELFQUAL: A scale for measuring online self-service quality

The measurement of online self-service quality has become increasingly crucial as firms deliver an expanding array of services through their Web sites. Substantial research examines online services using salient scales primarily developed for personnel-orchestrated, face-to-face services; several recently developed scales that target online services focus on important information and/or system characteristics but do not consider e-retailers' fundamental roles holistically. The reported research synthesizes relevant previous research and proposes a conceptual framework to examine the quality of online self-services in e-retailing. The proposed framework then guides a scale development effort that includes a series of pilot and validation studies. The resulting scale, e-SELFQUAL, provides a means for examining the relationships between online service quality and customer satisfaction, as well as loyalty in e-retailing. This study has several important implications for research and business practice.     

Measurement of organizational investments in social capital: The service employee perspective

This paper describes the development and validation of a measure of organizational investments in social capital (OISC). The scale development process is carried out over three stages (item generation, scale purification, scale validation), with two separate data collection phases involving a total of 735 working adults from multiple and diverse service-related workplace settings. As such, the data provide evidence for the face, content, discriminant, convergent and nomological validity, dimensionality and reliability of the OISC measure. The OISC measure is a concise, unidimensional scale that has the potential for significant usage in the development and testing of theory, as well as practical application in retail and other service provision contexts.     

The four faces of the Hispanic consumer: An acculturation-based segmentation

This article develops and tests a segmentation scheme for the U.S. Hispanic market based on the extent and nature of acculturation. Acculturation is conceptualized as driven by language preferences and two dimensions of cultural identification, Hispanic and American. Structural equation modeling develops and assesses the proposed scales, and a latent class clustering procedure (latent discriminant analysis) tests propositions on a sample of 403 U.S. Hispanics. Consistent with theory, four clusters of U.S. Hispanics emerge: retainers, biculturals, assimilators, and non-identifiers that vary according to language preference and cultural identification.     

Measuring experienced emotions during service recovery encounters: construction and assessment of the ESRE scale

The role of emotions is increasingly gaining attention as a central element in understanding customer evaluations of service failure and recovery experiences. Despite the importance of emotions for service organizations, however, empirical investigations of customers’ emotional response to service recovery encounters remain scarce. A reason for this has been the absence of a valid and reliable measurement instrument for analyzing and comparing the emotions associated with different recovery experiences. Addressing this issue, the current paper presents the development and validation of a new scale specifically designed to measure experienced emotions during service recovery encounters (ESRE). The results show that the ESRE scale is a valid and reliable instrument, which should be helpful for empirically studying the role of emotional responses to service failure and recovery encounters.

城市基础设施提供的最优规模——MDP税收分配模型的一个运用

城市公共基础设施的规模究竟是否恰当已日益成为关注焦点。而采用何种科学的经济学方法来评价公共品最优规模在现实中一直没有得到有效解决，通过引入MDP税收分配机制，我们能较好地促使经济主体显示其对公共品的真实偏好，从而达到公共品的最优配置规模。根据MDP机制，我们还可以对城市各项公共设施规模进行检验，以促进公共品的有效配置。     

The NEP Scale: A measure of network export performance

The interdependence between varying participants in exporting networks that has resulted from processes of globalization magnifies the inadequacies of using single-item measures and internally oriented perspectives to assess export performance. In order to overcome these concerns, we developed a network export performance (NEP) scale using as a basis network theory, a diversity of network-oriented indicators and different types of respondents. The final multi-dimensional NEP Scale includes 25 items grouped into five dimensions: (a) overall export venture performance, (b) relationship performance with the importer versus competitors, (c) relationship performance with the supplier, (d) product quality performance of the supplier, and (e) importer's satisfaction with the quality of the supplied product. Findings reveal that the flow of communication and interaction within exporting networks is positively and significantly associated with all of the five dimensions of the NEP Scale. Discussion centers on implications of this scale to network theory, international business, and to the managerial development of exporting strategies. The article closes with directions for future research.     

无锡惠山泥人非物质文化遗产保护与开发研究

本文着力于探究惠山泥人这一民间艺术资源,并在此基础上将惠山泥人艺术放在当代文化产业发展的视野中去研究,将区域性的传统泥人文化与当代社会文化情境相联系,分析了当前惠山泥人艺术的发展状况,重点研究了惠山泥人艺术的发展思路与对策,提出将惠山泥人的艺术价值、审美价值、与社会经济价值相联系,从传承泥人艺术、发展泥艺产业、整合泥艺资源出发创新与开发新产品,使中国惠山泥人非物质文化遗产能够原生态地得以传承发展。     

中共三代领导人社会主义文化建设思想的继承和发展

社会主义文化建设是中国特色社会主义现代化建设的重要组成部分。中国共产党三代领导集体非常重视文化建设工作,他们的文化建设思想不仅都有其各自的时代背景,还都有着超越时代的共同点,在重视文化建设、坚持“一元化”和“多样化”、文化综合创新、重视道德建设和科技教育、坚持党的宗旨和与时俱进等方面表现出继承和发展的关系。     

Measuring the shopper's attitude toward the point of sale display: Scale development and validation

In Europe alone, marketers invest several hundred million of Euros in marketing activities at the point of sale every year. A prominent role is assigned to display promotions. However, despite their large practical importance, surprisingly, there is no measure to pre-evaluate different displays and their design facets so that the display which reached the best pre-evaluation results may be identified and, if poor rated facets were found, those may be altered before production and rollout of the display in question. Therefore, this paper develops and validates a scale to measure the shopper's attitude toward a point of sale display reflecting all relevant facets of a display from the shopper's point of view. Examination of the scale led to satisfactory results in terms of reliability, validity, and its predictive power for purchase intention. Summarizing, the scale can help to improve display designs prior to rollout, thus, enhancing the efficiency of display promotions.     

The role and relevance of refocused inventory: Supply chain management solutions

Practitioners and academics continue to note that there is no shortage of inventory in many, if not most, supply chains. Rather, the historical notion holds true: the right product is not in the right place at the right time to meet demand. In order to impact supply chain performance positively, it is necessary to re-address inventory's role and relevance with respect to the development, maintenance, and control of product flows. This paper suggests that examining such flows from a three-fold perspective can be beneficial to firms by providing a framework to assess efforts to achieve lowest total cost and expected customer service.     

浅论县级区域旅游优势与发展——以湖南省桂东县为例

旅游业是当今世界发展最快的产业,由于旅游经济的特殊性,不同的区域在规划时一定要与当地的经济协调发展。湖南省桂东县旅游资源丰富,近年来获得了较快的发展。对这个新生商机的出现更需要正确引导激励,积极拓展其发展空间。县级区域的旅游业发展将成为区域经济一个新的增长点。     

A menu of moral issues: One week in the life of The Wall Street Journal

A menu of twelve moral issues that seem to be common to all organizations is described and illustrated. This menu identifies some of the most prominent moral issues requiring individuals to decide where to draw the line between moral and immoral conduct. A review ofThe Wall Street Journal during just one week provided over sixty articles illustrating how moral issues are inherent in almost every business decision. The articles included several illustrations of stealing, lying, and fraud that are immoral, although in some cases not technically illegal. Other articles illustrated conflicts of interest, influence buying, hiding information, divulging personal information, taking unfair advantage, personal decadence, interpersonal abuse, organizational abuse, rule violations, being an accessory to unethical acts, and balancing ethical dilemmas. These illustrations are intended to help individuals identify moral issues and recognize the situations when they arise so they can avoid unwitting immoral behavior.Jay Owen Cherrington is the Coordinator of the Information Systems faculty of the Marriott School of Management at BYU. He is a CPA and participates as a member of the AICPA. He is the author of many research articles and four college textbooks. Dr. Cherrington serves as a consultant and instructor for several major organizations including Ernst & Young and IBM.David Jack Cherrington holds the Nyal D. and Bette McMullin professorship in Ethics and Entrepreneurship. He received a DBA and has taught at the University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin — Madison, Brigham Young University, and BYU — Hawaii. He is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources and serves on the HRCI Board. He is the author of over 40 research articles and five books, including two texts:Organizational Behavior, and The Management of Human Resources.     

The effect of concentration and market power on food prices: evidence from Finland

This research examines empirically the relationship between economies of scale, concentration, and market power in food retailing. With unique, local market data available Finland, the analysis could investigate the impact of both local concentration and industry-wide concentration (which can be interpreted as multimarket contact) are taken into account in the evaluation of grocery retail competitiveness. The results show that the main factor affecting market power is the size of the retail firm. Larger share grocery retailers, for both the local and the national markets, carried higher mark-ups. At the same time, no firm-level scale economies were found from these larger firms. I conclude from these findings that the main purpose of large grocery retail mergers is to gain market power not efficiency.     

国际外包率的测量及行业差异——基于中国工业行业的实证研究

本文利用Feenstra和Hanson计算外包率的方法和中国投入产出表数据,对中国1997-2006年34个工业行业的总体外包率、物质外包率和服务外包率分别进行了测量,然后按照要素密集度、技术水平和对外开放度对工业行业外包率进行了分组计算,最后测算了工业行业中不同类型的服务外包率。实证结果显示:中国工业行业的外包率稳步提升;资本及技术密集型行业外包率增长较快,高技术水平以及高开放度行业外包率明显高于低技术水平和低开放度行业;服务外包率普遍偏低,生产性和分配性服务业外包率高于消费性和社会性服务业外包率。本文在实证分析的基础上,进一步提出了提升我国工业行业外包率的对策和措施。