Modelling real-time online information needs: A new research approach for complex consumer behaviour

Abstract

A major challenge for online vendor website operations is serving information that meets visitor needs at a given point in their purchase process. The problem arises from the complexity of human behaviour, as well as changing needs with the evolution of consumer knowledge and skills through the purchase process. The most difficult element, however, is determining the effects of information provided on the site, as well as from other sources that the consumer may access, and anticipating resulting consumer needs. This paper discusses the contributions and limitations of current modelling techniques and utility studies of online consumer information to model consumer needs in real time. An alternative basis for real-time customer need appraisal is proposed using clickstream and customer input data combined with online information utility to enable more effective information serving. This requires further academic research and changes in practitioner online marketing operations.     

Value Creation and Category Management through Retailer–Supplier Relationships

Abstract

This article discusses category management interactions in supplier–retailer relationships based on conceptual insights about value in business markets. Much category management literature has studied supplier–retailer relationships, but despite value creation being central to category management the conceptual approach is often the power-trust controversy. Based on value concept, category management and supplier–retailer relationship literature this study develops a model and hypotheses of retailer perceived benefits and sacrifices from category management collaboration. The article proposes that closer supplier-retailer interactions through the category management process hold the potential for increased value creation through application of complementary information resources, an improved coordination of tactical efforts, and an alignment of category aims and strategies explicitly linked to retailers' value systems. Further, the perceived necessity of trust in these relationships meshes with retailers' perceived sacrifices regarding negotiation power and full control of category marketing variables, thus establishing a trade-off for retailers between benefits and sacrifices.     

Farmers,institutions and technology in agricultural change processes: outcomes from Adaptive Research on rice production in Sulawesi,Indonesia

International agricultural research centres use approaches which aim to create effective linkages between the practices of farmers, introduced technologies and the wider environment that affects farming. This paper argues that such new approaches require a different type of monitoring as a complement to conventional approaches that tend to favour a quantitative assessment of adoption and impact at the farm level. In this context, we examined monitoring data from an Adaptive Research (AR) project highlighting complementary qualitative analysis. Our emphasis is to capture the improvisational capacities of farmers and to reveal social and institutional constraints and opportunities in a broader innovation system. Our approach provided clear insights into how rice farmers adjusted their practices and how actors involved linked (or not) with others in the innovation system. We also demonstrated how institutions such as policies, religious rituals or service provider arrangements pose conditions that establish or constrain practices aligned with introduced technologies. A broader perspective in monitoring AR therefore provides important additional insights into the factors which shape outcomes in farming communities. To expand outcomes, AR projects should also pay attention to designing and testing new institutional arrangements that create enabling conditions for agricultural innovation.     

Using design science to improve web search innovation in real estate

We analyze 14 leading real estate websites, seven residential and seven commercial. They exhibit limited demographic and geographic information systems (GIS) data display capability. They exhibit economic data display capability except one, and lack demographic, economic, and GIS data search capability. Real estate web searching is inefficient, time consuming, and inflexible. To overcome these limitations, we use design-science to create three search modes (Sc2, Sc3, and Sc4). Sc2 uses demographic data, Sc3 economic data, and Sc4 GIS data.     

Testing mean reversion in target-zone exchange rates

This study applies a multinomial logit model of human-capital migration to examine the factors influencing the movement of physicians within Canadian provinces between 1976 and 1992. The empirical investigation covers general practitioners and specialists (it excludes interns/residents) between seven regions (Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia). The results suggest that differences in real income have a positive and significant effect on a physician's decision to migrate form one province to another. Provinces with the highest after tax income, highest expenditure per physician, and highest fee-per-service rates have the highest net rate of in-migration. Income differences are however, not the only factor influencing a physician's choice to move. Working conditions within a province, which we proxy with the number of hospitals beds and health expenditures per capita, are also important factors. Likewise, the ratio of rural to urban population, distance between the major city in each province and provincial population all have a negative impact on a physician's migration choice. Finally, a dummy variable is used to allow for language differences between Quebec and the rest of the provinces and find that language differences have a significant and negative impact on a physician decision to migrate.     

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE, POLITICAL RESPONSIVENESS, AND CHILD SURVIVAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY

Women's choices appear to emphasize child welfare more than those of men. This paper presents new evidence on how suffrage rights for American women helped children to benefit from the scientific breakthroughs of the bacteriological revolution. Consistent with standard models of electoral competition, suffrage laws were followed by immediate shifts in legislative behavior and large, sudden increases in local public health spending. This growth in public health spending fueled large-scale door-to-door hygiene campaigns, and child mortality declined by 8-15% (or 20,000 annual child deaths nationwide) as cause-specific reductions occurred exclusively among infectious childhood killers sensitive to hygienic conditions.     

从经济低迷中起飞

经济的低迷似乎就要过去.但展望前景的时候已经到了,机会来临,你的公司准备好了吗? 要赶在竞争者之前发现和抢占这些先机,你需要一个全心全意、有能力以及准备充足的队伍帮助你迎接在低迷的经济环境中起飞的挑战.但知易行难.一些顺利渡过销售大幅滑落和经历大幅裁员的公司,往往发现很难为启动生产、迎接繁荣做好准备.也许,你手下最得力的员工灰心丧气、满腹牢骚,更糟糕的是他们已经准备另谋高就.有道是,失败导致众叛亲离.     

Optimal Input Use When Inputs Affect Price and Yield

Input use has been shown to impact the variance of output and therefore risk. When inputs affect both output level and the price of the output, the variance of revenue and profit depend on each effect and their interactions. We analyze the effect of nitrogen (N) use rate applied to wheat on the variance of yield, revenue, and the price of wheat, when protein premiums (discounts) are applied. We find that N use rate increases the variance of yield, but reduces the variance of price. The net effect of N use rate on revenue and profit is variance increasing, but the variance effect is less than for yield alone. Optimal rates of N are about 60% higher with protein payments compared with a constant wheat price over all protein levels. Risk-averse producers apply less N than risk-neutral producers but, because revenue and profit risk is lower with protein payments, the reduction in N is less than if based on a constant price over all protein levels.     

Globalisation versus de-coupling: German emigration and the evolution of the Atlantic labour market 1870–1913

The decline of German emigration to the United States after 1895 was precipitate to a degree not matched by other “old immigration” sources. The paper considers possible reasons for this: the effect of land availability, relative growth rates of the US and German economies, and the impact of the so-called “new immigration” from southern and eastern Europe. It concludes that German immigration was unusually affected by competition from newer migrant sources, due to skill similarities and similar patterns of settlement. However, the more rapid growth of the German economy after 1895 and the movement of the land frontier into areas less suited to German agricultural skills also played a part. It shows that the skills possessed by migrants were an important factor in migrant earnings. The arrival in the US of large numbers of immigrants with similar skill endowments and lower reservation wages made emigration to the United States a less attractive option for potential German migrants after 1895.