E-commerce sellers' ratings: Is user feedback adequate?

The literature on the theory of public procurement points out two well-known informational problems arising out of information asymmetry: (i) adverse selection and (ii) moral hazard. To reduce these issues and foster credibility and trust in the procurement process while maintaining quality and efficiency in public procurement, e-procurement platforms have turned to reputation or rating systems. Therefore, the research and design of such rating systems are crucial. In this study, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of procurement and employ the information-theoretic, regression analysis, artificial neural network and principal component analysis (PCA) approaches to estimate the weights of the variables entering the rating system. Using real data from Government e-Marketplace, a business-to-business public e-commerce portal, we empirically determine the weights of the rating variables derived from the transaction-level and user feedback data for sellers. The weights obtained from the PCA are the most applicable compared with the other three methods. We compare the old rating system with the newly proposed design using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. This results in a statistically significant difference between the two ratings. The canonical correlation and Wilks' trial reveal that the ratings derived from transaction-level data and user feedback are uncorrelated to a great extent. Hence, considering only transaction-level data or user feedback is unlikely to divulge sellers' intrinsic worth. E-commerce platforms can use this approach to quickly implement methods to obtain rating scores on a real-time basis for sellers on online platforms.     

Information,motivation, and control in decentralized planning: the case of discretionary managerial behavior

A simple piecewise-linear managerial incentive scheme is analyzed in a decision-making environment in which a manager is allowed some discretionary activity (effort). Initially, he must report to the planner a target that will be used subsequently to evaluate his performance. If managerial effort is chosen after the random production components are realized, this predicted target will be more realizable than one reported in the absence of such discretionary adjustment. The sensitivity of target and performance to the parameters of the incentive scheme and the manager's utility function is examined to study the planner's ability to both acquire information and motivate performance. J. Comp. Econ., Sept. 1979, 3(3), pp. 235–253. Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.     

大型工程移交管理中的组织与效率——对大亚湾核电工程和岭澳核电工程的案例研究

工程项目建设中的移交过程由于其阶段性和相对于项目进度关键里程碑的“隐蔽性”而往往不被重视,但它对工程项目的质量和今后营运业绩有潜在的非常重要的影响。本文以大亚湾核电站和岭澳核电站工程移交为例,应用组织行为理论和X效率理论,研究了大型工程移交管理中的组织与效率问题。案例研究结果表明,第一,工程移交的复杂性要求移交组织应当是一个能够进行良好沟通的、扁平化的网络型组织,并应当给予足够的授权,以高效率处理工作中的各类管理和技术问题,保证工程移交的进度和质量;第二,良好的信息管理系统的应用、必要的协调会议是解决沟通问题的良好途径,而良好的企业文化、管理理念是保证良好沟通的关键;第三,工作过程的设计必须以提高效率和质量为原则,并要努力发现影响效率和质量的主要方面,进行持续改进;第四,由于工程的阶段性,普遍存在一种“退出效应”,特别是在工程后期这种效应更加突出,必须充分加以重视。     

Social marketing: an approach to planned social change

This article examines the applicability of marketing concepts to social causes and social change. Social marketing is defined as the design, implementation, and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution and marketing research. Wiebe examined four social advertising campaigns and concluded that their effectiveness depended on the presence of adequate force, direction, adequate and compatible social mechanism, and distance (the "cost" of the new attitude as seen by message's message"s recepient). A marketing planning approach is not a guarantee for the achievement of social objectives; yet, it represents a bridging mechanism linking the knowledge of the behavioral scientist with the socially useful implementation of that knowledge.