Gamified interactions: whether,when, and how games facilitate self–brand connections

Firms increasingly use games to interact with their customers. Yet, surprisingly little is known about whether, when, and how such “gamified” interactions engage consumers with a firm’s brand, thereby facilitating self–brand connections. Building on flow theory, we show that gamified interactions that are highly interactive and optimally challenging facilitate self–brand connections, because such games lead to emotional and cognitive brand engagement. A field study and three experiments across various product domains and game designs support our theory. We also identify conditions under which consumers do not become engaged with a brand, namely when firms restrict their decisional control either to voluntarily participate in the game (i.e., compulsory play) or to spend as much time as desired playing the game (i.e., time pressure). Our findings advance existing knowledge about the use of games in marketing and provide important implications for how marketers can harness their potential to build self–brand connections.     

THE ROLE OF PREFERENCE SHOCKS AND CAPITAL UTILIZATION IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION*

The article examines the proposition that preference shocks play a central role in our understanding of the Great Depression. I identify a series of unusually large negative shocks that destabilized the U.S. economy during the 1930s. When the artificial economy is paired with variable capital utilization and mildly increasing returns to scale in production, it is able to account for most of the decline in economic activity and it predicts a tepid recovery.     

The desired level of market orientation and business unit performance

Existing studies of market orientation have hypothesized that the strength of the market orientation/performance relationship depends on environmental variables such as market turbulence, technological turbulence, and competitive intensity. To date most empirical studies have failed to confirm these hypotheses; however, these studies (1) assumed that performance is a linear function of the achieved level of market orientation and (2) tested whether environmental uncertainty moderates this relationship. A complementary explanation for the impact of environmental variables on a firm’s market orientation arises from studies of organizational behavior that link the need for coordination and control to environmental uncertainty and organizational strategy. Building on this perspective, the authors argue that (1) environmental uncertainty influences the desired level of market orientation and (2) the gap between the desired and achieved levels of market orientation influence business unit performance. The authors test these hypotheses with data collected from multiple respondents in 308 US firms. The data analysis confirms that the desired level of market orientation is a function of market turbulence, competitive intensity, technological turbulence, and innovation strategy. In addition, the desired level of market orientation positively influences the achieved level. Finally, when the achieved level of market orientation is less than the desired level, business unit performance is a negative function of the gap between the desired and achieved levels of market orientation.

风险管理，你犯错了吗？

我们无法预测“黑天鹅事件”的发生,与其一味幻想可以执掌未来,防堵风险,不如设法降低此类威胁带来的不良影响。     

Financial competence,overconfidence, and trusting investments: Results from an experiment

Financial transactions sometimes occur in an environment where third-party enforcement is lacking. Behavioral explanations typically allude to the social preferences, where an individual’s utility is directly affected by another’s outcome, as the driver of the trusting investments and reciprocal returns. We hypothesize that, in part, these decisions are determined by an individual’s financial literacy and overconfidence in one’s knowledge. Experimental evidence is coupled with an innovative financial literacy assessment, which measures general competence, numeracy skills, and overconfidence in one’s knowledge. Results indicate that overconfidence is a significant determinant of behavior. Specifically, overconfident individuals make larger contributions in the investment game. We also document that there is an escalated effect in overconfident individuals who are also exhibit risk loving preferences.     

HR and analytics: why HR is set to fail the big data challenge

The HR world is abuzz with talk of big data and the transformative potential of HR analytics. This article takes issue with optimistic accounts, which hail HR analytics as a ‘must have’ capability that will ensure HR's future as a strategic management function while transforming organisational performance for the better. It argues that unless the HR profession wises up to both the potential and drawbacks of this emerging field and engages operationally and strategically to develop better methods and approaches, it is unlikely that existing practices of HR analytics will deliver transformational change. Indeed, it is possible that current trends will seal the exclusion of HR from strategic, board‐level influence while doing little to benefit organisations and actively damaging the interests of employees.     

Trading-up on unmet expectations? Evaluating consumers’ expectations in online premium grocery shopping logistics

Geography and retail store locations are inherently bound together; this study links food retail changes to systemic logistics changes in an emerging market. The later include raising income and education, access to a wide range of technologies, traffic and transport difficulties, lagging retail provision, changing family structure and roles, as well as changing food culture and taste. The study incorporates demand for premium products defined by Kapferer and Bastien [2009b. The Luxury Strategy. London: Kogan Page] as comprising a broad variety of higher quality and unique or distinctive products and brands including in grocery organic ranges, healthy options, allergy free selections, and international and gourmet/specialty products through an online grocery model (n?=?356) that integrates a novel view of home delivery in Istanbul. More importantly from a logistic perspective our model incorporates any products from any online vendors broadening the range beyond listed items found in any traditional online supermarkets. Data collected via phone survey and analysed via structural equation modelling suggest that the offer of online premium products significantly affects consumers’ delivery logistics expectations. We discuss logistics operations and business management implications, identifying the emerging geography of logistic models which respond to consumers’ unmet expectations using multiple sourcing and consolidation points.     

INTENSITY OF COMPETITION, ENTRY AND ENTRY DETERRENCE IN RENT SEEKING CONTESTS

In rent seeking contests agents compete over a given amount of resource a prize. To increase the likelihood of winning the prize, the agents expend efforts. This paper addresses the issue of entry to and entry deterrence from rent seeking contest. The main purpose of the analysis is to provide an explanation for the empirical fact that the number of participants in contests is usually small. I also obtain results on the relationship between the intensity of competition in a contest and the amount of the contenders'expenditures.     

Benchmark priors for Bayesian model averaging

In contrast to a posterior analysis given a particular sampling model, posterior model probabilities in the context of model uncertainty are typically rather sensitive to the specification of the prior. In particular, ‘diffuse’ priors on model-specific parameters can lead to quite unexpected consequences. Here we focus on the practically relevant situation where we need to entertain a (large) number of sampling models and we have (or wish to use) little or no subjective prior information. We aim at providing an ‘automatic’ or ‘benchmark’ prior structure that can be used in such cases. We focus on the normal linear regression model with uncertainty in the choice of regressors. We propose a partly non-informative prior structure related to a natural conjugate g-prior specification, where the amount of subjective information requested from the user is limited to the choice of a single scalar hyperparameter g_0j. The consequences of different choices for g_0j are examined. We investigate theoretical properties, such as consistency of the implied Bayesian procedure. Links with classical information criteria are provided. More importantly, we examine the finite sample implications of several choices of g_0j in a simulation study. The use of the MC³ algorithm of Madigan and York (Int. Stat. Rev. 63 (1995) 215), combined with efficient coding in Fortran, makes it feasible to conduct large simulations. In addition to posterior criteria, we shall also compare the predictive performance of different priors. A classic example concerning the economics of crime will also be provided and contrasted with results in the literature. The main findings of the paper will lead us to propose a ‘benchmark’ prior specification in a linear regression context with model uncertainty.