加盟餐饮业须知

“如果你没有任何在餐饮企业工作的经历,你如何知道自己是否拥有技能和热情?”     

精心策划客户互动——改进客户体验管理

如果不能付诸行动，根据可靠客户数据、通过最佳预测分析得出的准确客户洞察结果不会产生多大价值。即使再先进的客户细分策略，也只有用于制定客户互动策略才能发挥其重要价值。     

Key account relationships: An exploratory inquiry of customer-based evaluations

The management and retention of key accounts is imperative in facilitating a firm's long-term viability. Previous examinations of key account relationships have revealed valuable insights into the factors facilitating key account management and driving relationship strength. However, account managers often fail to recognize weaknesses within their existing key accounts and the sources of their relationship vulnerabilities. Utilizing an exploratory inquiry of in-depth interviews with 99 executive decision makers across 52 key accounts cases, the authors assess customer relationship evaluations prior to contract expirations for account retention opportunities valued at over $1.3 billion. Unique positive and negative drivers of key account relationship evaluations are identified in a thematic categorization, along with a subsequent content analysis highlighting their patterned associations with positive and negative relationship evaluations, future business intentions, and business referral behaviors. These patterned associations reveal that positive and negative perceptions of relational drivers often affect outcomes in a differential manner, resulting in a classification of conventional constructs, prevention constructs, and promotion constructs. The results indicate that the desire of a supplier to maximize positive relational outcomes or minimize negative relational outcomes is driven by distinct underlying associations and allow for insights into resource allocation strategies within key account relationships.     

Rainwater harvesting in the UK: Socio-technical theory and practice

There is currently a window of opportunity in the UK, with respect to promoting sustainable water management (SWM). Periods of alternating drought and flooding have brought water management issues to the fore of UK media coverage and policy development. Unchallenged reliance on the historic legacy of piped infrastructure is declining, as its resilience and adaptability in the face of climate change become increasingly questioned. Despite its prevalence in other countries and a recent surge in sales, rainwater harvesting (RWH) has yet to transition from niche to mainstream in the UK. This paper provides an overview of the development of a strategic framework for enabling RWH to transition from novel to mainstream, informed by a number of evidence bases and devised using insight gained through the application of a number of theories. Identified strategic areas for action include (i) Technical Relevance (product development); (ii) Social Receptivity (capacity building) and (ii) Institutional Commitment (support services).     

The economic impact of a transient hazard on property values: The 1988 Pepcon explosion in Henderson,Nevada

This article investigates the effect of the May 1988 explosion of a chemical plant in Henderson, Nevada on residential property values (1) before the explosion (anticipation), (2) between the time of the explosion and an announcement of relocation, and (3) subsequent to an announcement in July 1988 that the plant would be rebuilt 100 miles away in Cedar City, Utah. This article uses the conventional hedonic model wherein the real prices of residential houses are related to the characteristics of the property (age, size, and amenities); the timing of the sale; and distance from the site of the explosion, rounded to the nearest mile. A quadratic specification of the model showed that the model was sensitive to the mean distance from the hazard. In a sample of properties throughout the Las Vegas Valley, property values decreased with distance from the explosion, indicating the presence of other hazards. The quadratic specification was stable only for properties within six miles of the explosion site, which included the communities of old Henderson (to the east) and the master planned community of Green Valley (to the west). A discontinuous specification of the model, in which distance was measured by a set of dummy variables (i.e., within two miles, within three miles, etc.) proved to be much more stable. Property within two miles of the hazard were depressed both before and after the explosion, although after the relocation announcement, property values rebounded to reflect the reduction in the number of hazardous plants. This article lends weight to the accumulating body of evidence that real estate markets do behave efficiently.     

Partial Anticipation and the Gains to Bank Merger Targets

We design an empirical model to determine the prior probability of a bank becoming an acquisition target. We find that the probability of a bank being acquired is higher for banks that are larger, have a lower return on assets, a higher capital level, more non-performing loans, higher runup in price, a lower market-to-book multiple, a higher core deposit ratio, and a higher loan concentration. The probability is also higher since the passage of the Riegle–Neal Act of 1994. We also examine whether the full gains to target banks are conditioned on the probability of being acquired. We find that the gains to target banks in the one-year pre-announcement period are more pronounced for banks that exhibit high-logit probability characteristics. The gains are large and significant in the short-term announcement period, but not significantly related to the logit probabilities among banks. Our results suggest that the share price adjustment for the characteristics that make some banks more appealing targets appears to be completed in the pre-announcement period. Thus, studies that estimate the gains to targets using only the announcement period are underestimating the gains.     

Evaluating the employability paradox: When does organizational investment in human capital pay off?

Abstract

The paper explores the notion of the employability paradox which notes that while organizations investing in the career and competency development of their workforce can benefit from higher performance, they also risk losing more employable staff to competitors. Building on contributions from social exchange theory and signalling theory, we develop a model exploring the circumstances under which investment in career development benefits employees and organizations. We test our model in a longitudinal study following graduates entering the labour market. Our results show that when organizations signal that they care about employees by investing in their career development and individuals are receptive to such signals and proactively seek to manage their careers, investment in career development has a positive impact on organizational commitment and intention to stay with one’s employer. Our findings indicate that the idea of the employability paradox is simplistic and lacks theoretical and empirical support.     

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