Boots的美丽新世界

在大众还在争论此轮经济危机是呈U型趋势、W型趋势，亦或是L型趋势时，有些企业已经用实际行动证明它们已爬出谷底，迈进了崭新的世界。     

如何建立良好的银企伙伴关系

充满挑战的经济环境带来的长期结果是正面的,银行对企业将不再只是服务提供商,而是基于共同目标的伙伴,双方对彼此的需求和限制要有清晰的认识。金融危机过后,银行与企业关系的重要性一直是大家讨论的重点。帮助企业度过好年景很容易,然而只有在困难时期,银行为企业提供支持才更为关键。     

Viral marketing: Motivations to forward online content

Despite the increasing popularity of viral marketing, factors critical to such a new communication medium remain largely unknown. This paper examines one of the critical factors, namely Internet users' motivations to pass along online content. Conceptualizing the act of forwarding online content as a special case of a more general communication behavior, we identify four potential motivations: (1) the need to be part of a group, (2) the need to be individualistic, (3) the need to be altruistic, and (4) the need for personal growth. Using a survey of young adults, we examine the relationship between these motivations and the frequency of passing along online content. We also investigate if high trait curiosity can indirectly lead to more forwarding by increasing the amount of online content consumed. Results show that Internet users, who are more individualistic and/or more altruistic, tend to forward more online content than others.     

美国银行“被瘦身”

随着新的关于另类资产监管条款的出台,面对严苛的政策法规,美国各个银行不得不开始新一轮的"瘦身"潮。     

Brand Community Members as a Source of Innovation

Brand community members have a strong interest in the product and in the brand. They usually have extensive product knowledge and engage in product‐related discussions; they support each other in solving problems and generating new product ideas. Therefore, brand communities can be a valuable source of innovation. So far, little is known about the member's ability and willingness to participate in a company's innovation process. How does passion for the brand, affiliation to the brand community, and trust in the brand affect the willingness to engage in a company's innovation process? What is the effect of brand passion on brand knowledge and on domain‐specific skills, which are considered important prerequisites for qualified and creative contributions to new product development? What is the effect of personality traits on the willingness and ability to engage in new product development? This research addresses these questions, which are interesting for managers who are thinking about opening up their innovation process and collaborating with brand communities and for academics exploring the opportunities of online communities for new product development and trying to develop promising new forms of open innovation networks. Drawing on brand community literature, relationship theory, creativity theory, and personality traits research, this paper introduces a comprehensive set of antecedents affecting brand community members' willingness to engage in new product development. It is argued that consumer creativity, identification with the brand community, and brand‐specific emotions and attitudes (passion and trust) as well as brand knowledge are important determinants of consumers' willingness to share their knowledge with producers. The paper also identifies two personality traits (i.e., extraversion and openness) that have significant influence on brand passion, creativity, and identification with the community. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 550 members of the Volkswagen Golf GTI car community. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationship among the constructs. Though a positive disposition toward a brand may be advantageous for consumers that are willing to interact with producers during new product development, our results show that it is consumer interest in innovations and the innovative process that drives them to get involved. Further, brand community members with more knowledge and more innovative skills seem to be more willing to contribute than less qualified community members.     

Ethical dilemmas in organization development: A cross-cultural analysis

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature and extent to which cultural differences bear on perceptions of ethical Organizational Development consulting behaviors. U.S. (n=118) and Taiwanese (n=267) business students evaluated eleven vignettes depicting potential ethical dilemmas. Respondents judged the ethicality of each vignette, the likelihood of the event's occurrence and the party responsible for the event's occurrence. Multivariate Analyses of Variance revealed significant cultural differences in perceptions of ethicality, and group differences in perceptions of the events' likelihood of occurrence. U.S. subjects provided higher ethicality ratings than the Taiwanese, and lower ratings on the likelihood of occurrence. Response distributions resulting from the identification of the responsible party were similar for six of the eleven vignettes. When differences did occur, it appeared that the Taiwanese were more inclined than the U.S. subjects to view responsibility as shared by the client and the consultant. The results suggest the need for the incorporation of cultural differences in a code of ethics for the profession and the need for cross-cultural ethics training for partitioners.Louis P. White is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. His articles have appeared in theAcademy of Management Review, theTraining and Developing Journal, Gaming and Simulation, andHuman Relations. He is also the author ofProfessional Ethics and Practice in Organizational Development (with Kevin C. Wooten), Dr. White received his Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology.Melanie J. Rhodeback is an active Human Resource Management consultant, writer and speaker, and the owner of Rhodeback & Associates, a firm specializing in data analytic strategies to improve management decision making. Her research and consulting interests include the assessment of attitudes, values, ethics, and equity. Dr. Rhodeback serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Houston-Clear Lake in the School of Business and the School of Human Sciences & Humanities.     

TUC Organizing Academy 10 years on: what has been the impact on British unions?

The year 2008 saw the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) Organizing Academy which was designed to train a new cadre of union officials. The aim was to develop a culture of organizing that could help to transform the decline in trade union membership by bringing in new members who had been trained to be active within their unions. Through in-depth interviews and a survey of graduates of the Academy we look at the impact this project has had on individuals, their unions, and the wider union movement. We are particularly keen to give voice to the graduates as they have been charged with the difficult task of transforming the British trade union movement. We find evidence that trained organizers continue to be influential within their unions, but that many (although by no means all) get stuck in relatively junior positions because of the lack of a specialist career structure. This inevitably constrains their influence. The division between ‘servicing’ and ‘organizing’ functions is an almost inevitable consequence of the establishment of a separate, specialist organizing role and can also cause tensions and constrain the spread of organizing practices within unions. Despite this, there is evidence of widespread adoption of basic organizing practices, although more strategic organizing is still far less common. More widely, there is strong evidence of organizers developing new and influential networks between unions, and of individual unions implementing specialist organizing training. Despite this mixed evaluation, we argue that the creation of the Academy has had a considerable impact on British unions and has fostered important and innovative organizing approaches that would probably not have emerged otherwise.