Exploiting old customers and attracting new ones: The case of bank deposit pricing

Recent theoretical contributions suggest that deposit interest rates should be higher in geographic areas characterized by greater in-migration and lower for depositors at banks with greater shares of existing (or so-called “locked-in”) depositors. These hypotheses are tested using a rich data set obtained for the Spanish banking industry. Results confirm that, all else equal, banks offer higher deposit rates in territories characterized by greater in-migration, and also that they tend to offer lower rates, the larger the number of their locked-in depositors. These findings confirm the existence of the trade-off between exploiting old customers and attracting new ones.     

成功的公司必须首先学会管理过程

在过去的50年里,质量工作者努力将质量体系应用于企业,政府和学术领域．但效果不尽如人意。尤其是．人们认为质量控制、全面质量控制,零缺陷和全面质量管理等方法都不奏效．六西格玛也趋于失效。     

The views of key stakeholders on an evolving food risk governance framework: Results from a Delphi study

Evidence of a decline in public trust associated with food risk governance over recent years has called into question the appropriateness of the current dominant risk analysis framework. Within the EU-funded SAFE FOODS project a novel risk analysis framework has been developed that attempts to address potential shortcomings by increasing stakeholder (including consumer) input, improving transparency, and formally incorporating benefit and non-health aspects into the analysis. To assess the viability of this novel framework, the views of food risk experts from the EU and beyond were sought using a distributed online questionnaire process called Delphi. In this paper the main results of this survey are described, revealing varying levels of support for the key innovations of the novel framework. Implications of our results for the new and old frameworks, for the future of risk analysis, and for the policy community more widely, are discussed.     

Line by line,part by part: collaborative sketching for designing

While sketching has an established role in professional design, its benefits and role in design education are subjects that invite research and opinions. We investigated how undergraduates studying to become design educators and textile teachers used sketching to generate and develop design solutions in a collaborative setting. The students were given an authentic design assignment involving three detailed tasks, one of which was 2D visualisation by sketching. Adopting a micro-analytical approach, we analysed the video-recorded visualisation session to understand how teams used sketching to collaborate and to generate and develop design solutions. To that end, we set three research questions: (1) What ways of collaborative working are reflected in actions of sketching? (2) In what ways do sequences of collaborative sketching contribute to designing? (3) What kinds of collaborative sequences of sketching advance designing? Our analysis identified three collaborative ways of sketching (co-ordinated, collective and disclosed) and confirmed that sketching is an important facilitator of mutual appropriation, adaption and adoption. Next, we identified three ways of contributing to designing, as well as three functions and six capacities for advancing designing. Our analysis shows that sketching can lead to invaluable advances in designing, although each team had its own way of using and benefiting from sketching. We further consider that the teams’ diverse sketching processes and rich content owed, at least in part, to the task structure and imposed constraints. We continue to see sketching as an important design tool, one among many.     

The impact of the internet on students’ enhancement of cultural aspects in design projects: a case study on interior design graduation projects,University of Dammam,Saudi Arabia

The paper explores the impact of the internet on students and their enhancement of their Identity and culture in the world of globalization. It is based on two stages; a theoretical background in the literature that provides criteria for examining the issue of the study. Then, the analytical study is done to the collected data. The paper incorporates two methods of data collection; a questionnaire survey to measure the instructors’ perception of how students should reflect the identity and local culture in their projects in the internet era, and statistical analysis of students’ implementation of cultural knowledge and identity features in their graduation projects in the new millennium before the usage of internet in the design education in the interval of 2001–2007 and after the usage of internet the interval between 2008 and 2015. Consequently, the paper is designed to generate both statistical quantitative and qualitative data. Despite the apparent impact of Globalization and internet based education on abandoning individual identity, yet it might lead to opening new horizons in front of dealing with cultural identity and heritage with a contemporary vision that integrates with nowadays architecture and at the same time refer to the unique identity.     

基于交易成本理论的工程合同类型与交易成本探讨

工程合同类型选择问题在工程实践中研究较为广泛,然而对于该问题的更深层次的探讨,特别是在经济学领域的探索却相对较少。在经济学理论影响社会显著发展的当今,应用经济学理论探讨社会经济问题是十分必要的。论文以新制度经济学中交易成本理论研究成果为基础,通过对交易成本的重新理解,分析其与不同合同类型问的联系,得到具有一定指导性的结论,有助于进一步研究和探索。     

Implementing high performance HR practices in Asia: HR practice consistency,employee roles,and performance

High performance HR (human resources) practices are well understood to positively impact employee behavior and performance. However, much is still not known about the implementation of effective HR practices and their specific impact on employee behaviors. In this regard, this study identifies the significance of HR practice consistency, develops direct measures of that consistency, and examines the impact on employee role performance. This study also explores how consistency affects shared perceptions of procedural justice and employees’ role performance by employing a cross-level research design. The data in the study were collected from 355 employees of 42 companies within the manufacturing and service industries in Taiwan. This study makes theoretical and methodological contributions by identifying the significance of HR practice consistency, and provides empirical evidences for its potential influences. It also offers practical suggestions that can be used as important reference points by organizations, particularly those in Asia seeking to implement high performance HR practices.