Hook vs. hope: How to enhance customer engagement through gamification

Many digital service providers have adopted gamification to promote customer engagement. Critical questions, however, remain about the most effective way to enhance customer engagement and increase sales by applying gamification. With a research design that combines qualitative and quantitative methods, including the use of objective sales data from a large field study and replication of the findings across different contexts, this study explores how gamification fosters customer engagement. Both field study results and a simulation study reveal gamification principles (i.e., social interaction, sense of control, goals, progress tracking, rewards, and prompts) that promote hope and consequently increase customer engagement and digital sales. Furthermore, we find that hope is more strongly associated with customer engagement than the psychological condition of compulsion, which even exerts a negative impact. This research thus explores how gamification creates value for customers and provides actionable insights for managers to foster hope through gamification as opposed to get customers hooked.     

Defining the “global” in global leadership

While scholars have begun to develop the conceptual foundations of global leadership, few attempts have been made to unify the plethora of existing definitions. We argue that the lack of a precise, rigorous and commonly accepted definition of global leadership limits the field's conceptual and empirical progress. Building on recommended practice for construct definitions, we first review and critique existing definitions of global leadership. Second, we specifically focus on explicating the global construct encompassed by the global leadership phenomenon and propose three dimensions along which this sub-construct can be analyzed: complexity, flow, and presence. Finally, we offer a revised construct definition and conclude with implications for research and practice.     

Does Marketing Activity Contribute to a Society’s Well-Being? The Role of Economic Efficiency

Does the level of marketing activity in a country contribute to societal well-being or quality of life? Does economic efficiency also play a positive role in societal well-being? Does economic efficiency also moderate or mediate the marketing activity effect on societal well-being? Marketing activity refers to the pervasiveness of promotion expenditures and number of retail outlets per capita in a country. Economic efficiency refers to the extent to which the economy is unhampered by corruption, burdensome government regulation, and a large informal economy. We used secondary data from the World Bank and other statistical sources to answer these questions. Our study findings suggest that both marketing activity and economic efficiency contribute positively to societal well-being, and that economic efficiency plays more of a mediator than moderator role between marketing activity and societal well-being. The public policy implication of this study is that increases in marketing activity and economic efficiency in countries characterized as low on both dimensions should significantly increase the quality of life in those countries.     

Entrepreneurial activity and regional competitiveness: an introduction to the special issue

An important goal of this special issue is to gain a better understanding of the linkage between the entrepreneurial activity of a region and its level of competitiveness. Comparative studies across countries abound in the literature, but much still remains to be investigated on the role played by entrepreneurship in transforming local economies. The set of papers included in this special issue aims to fill this conceptual and empirical gap. In general, besides acknowledging the existence of a bi-directional relationship between entrepreneurship and regional competitiveness, the papers shed some light on the endogenous process of wealth creation in local economies.     

Corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage: A developing country perspective

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted wider research interests over recent decades. While some studies have examined the impact of CSR activities on firm competitive advantage (CA), the findings so far remain contradictory. Moreover, the role of export orientation, firm strategy, and structure on the association between CSR and CA has not been explicitly examined. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the moderating role of export orientation, firm strategy, structure, and firm size on the association between CSR and CA. Using a sample of 179 responses from management staff in organizations across five sectors in a developing country context of Ghana, the study found positive effects of CSR on CA. The study contributes to the resource‐based view (RBV) scholarship by confirming the important complementary effect of export orientation and organizational structure as important resources and capabilities on the CSR–competitiveness relationship. However, no evidence of a moderating effect of firm strategy, or firm size on the CSR–CA relationship was found. These findings are instructive, impactful, and enrich the existing literature on CSR and strategy. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.     

Sensibler Umgang verhindert Retraumatisierung

Traumatische Erfahrungen begleiten Betroffene ein Leben lang - Wird bei einer Krankenhauseinweisung oder beim Umzug in ein Pflegeheim die Posttraumatische Belastungsst?rung nicht erkannt, kann es leicht zu Traumareaktivierungen kommen, die auch juristisch bedeutsame Entscheidungen nach sich ziehen k?nnen.     

为什么中国的汇率要钉住美元：基于日元的历史分析

从1994年到2005年7月21日，中国把其汇率固定在1美元兑换8．28元人民币的水平。此后的人民币汇率机制改革使得人民币汇率在严格控制下开始小幅升值。由于中国的劳动生产率增长相当迅速，贸易盈余持续增长，并积累了大量美元外汇储备。这引发了美国的“排华风潮”，并强烈要求人民币进一步升值。尽管人民币升值并不能降低中国的贸易盈余，但人民币升值的威胁将降低中国的名义利率——1978—1995年的“排日风潮”和日元升值就是如此。日元过度升值引起的通货紧缩，加之零利率的流动性陷阱，造成了20世纪90年代成为日本的“失去的十年”，在新千年里，这同样可能在中国重演。     

Interpreting cross-section and time-series tests of convergence: the case of labor productivity in manufacturing

This paper investigates whether a disaggregated measure, labor productivity in manufacturing, is converging across eight OECD countries during the period 1950–1998 using both cross-section and time series tests of convergence. The evidence indicates convergence using either test for the full sample, but tests over subperiods suggest that the dynamics of the underlying series change from economies in transition in the early years to economies in balanced, but parallel, growth paths in the later period. The results confirm that the appropriate test for convergence depends on the underlying structure of the data.     

The Foreign Exchange Origins of Japan's Economic Slump and Low Interest Liquidity Trap

Japan's macroeconomic problem has yet to be properly diagnosed. Throughout the 1990s, policy makers could not decide on the proper macro economic measures to combat the country's severe economic slump. We propose a unified explanation, with deep historical roots, of why aggregate private demand failed to recover after Japan's stock and real estate bubbles burst in 1991 and deflationary pressure continues. The problem is not purely ‘made in Japan’. It arises from Japan's unbalanced mercantile relationship with the United States. Starting in the early 1970s, numerous trade disputes between the two countries created tensions that were (temporarily) resolved by the yen going ever higher against the dollar up to 1995. In the last two decades, this persistent pressure for the yen to rise was further aggravated by Japan's large current‐account (saving) surpluses as the counterpart of America's large current account (saving) deficits. The legacy is the expectation that trade and financial tensions will recur so that the yen will be higher 10, 20, or 30 years from now –with Japan's (wholesale) price level forced correspondingly lower and nominal interest rates on yen assets remaining more than four percentage points less than those on dollar assets. This fear of yen appreciation, whose timing is erratic and unpredictable, now inhibits private domestic investment by both Japanese firms and households. Our theory also explains why, in the late 1990s, nominal interest rates on short‐term yen assets were compressed toward zero so as to destroy the normal profit margins of the banking system. In this liquidity trap, the Bank of Japan –whose monetary policy has been quite ‘expansionary’–is powerless to stimulate the flagging economy. To spring the liquidity trap, eliminate deflationary pressure, and restore macro economic balance in Japan, the American and Japanese governments must act jointly to quash the expectation that the yen will be higher in the future than it is today.