Social Network Analysis — Erkenntnisse für die Markenpositionierung im Web

Die zunehmende Verbreitung neuer technologischer Infrastrukturen erm?glicht neue Einblicke in das Konsumentenverhalten. Das Internet f?rdert die aktive Teilnahme des Konsumenten an wirtschaftlichen Prozessen und dokumentiert seine Interaktionen mit Anbietern und anderen Nachfragern. Eine Methode zur Gewinnung systematischer Einblicke in dieses Beziehungsnetzwerk ist die Social Network Analysis (SNA). Die relativ junge Methode kann traditionelle Marktforschungsmethoden bereits erg?nzen, wie empirische Fallbeispiele zeigen.     

Kundenbindung in Handels- und Serviceunternehmen – Die Wirkung von Kundenbindungsinstrumenten auf Einstellungen und Kaufverhalten

In order to differentiate from their competitors, marketing managers increasingly count on relationship marketing instruments. As customer loyalty programs have gained importance during the last decade, retailers face various new possibilities to reach their customers on a one-to-one level. However, empirical evidence in this field shows that the enormous investments do not always yield the desired effects. One reason is that marketing managers disregard that the effectiveness of different instruments might depend on particular conditions, target groups, and situations. The article gives an overview about the influence of relationship marketing instruments on customers’ attitudes and behaviors. It provides a holistic classification of relationship marketing instruments and explains the effectiveness from a theoretical perspective. We summarize empirical studies dealing with the effectiveness of different instruments under certain conditions. Furthermore, we derive implications for retail managers about how to successfully use relationship marketing instruments. Finally, we discuss directions for future research.     

Credit Rationing and Government Loan Programs: A Welfare Analysis

Asymmetric information about borrower default probabilities may lead to inefficient credit rationing of low-risk borrowers in otherwise competitive markets. In a simple model having these properties, we show that some types of government loan programs, such as loan guarantees issued through lenders, might improve economic efficiency. But the incentive for high-risk borrowers to misrepresent their loan quality is worsened by other government loan programs, notably those that try to target aid directly to rationed borrowers. As such, cost-effective programs may increase inefficiency. This surprising result highlights the need to conduct model-specific policy analyses, as opposed to analyses based on model-free performance indicators.     

Web-cam’s potential for collaborative activities in the Earth sciences

We report here our experiences from using easily acquired web-cam components for collaborative ventures in the Earth sciences. We have used a variety of hardware and different software. We demonstrate from various locations in the U.S.A. the feasibility of using web-cam in multitudinous activities, relevant for conducting research and knowledge dissemination. We summarize the quality of the connections from the various combinations of communicating parties. Today, web-cams can be utilized as an economical and viable means of point-to-point communication in the Earth science community. Greater bandwidth is sorely needed for activities such as multi-party conferencing on the present internet network. We propose that web-cam can be readily deployed as a web-service for facilitating collaborative research over the GRID infrastructure, using the middleware Narada-Brokering. Web-cam will play an important role in the emerging field of geoinformatics.     

An examination of long-lived asset impairments under SFAS No. 121

Until recently, the impairment of long-lived assets and identifiable intangibles was a controversial and unresolved accounting issue. Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 121 on long-lived asset impairments provides guidelines in selecting the conditions or circumstances that justify or necessitate a writedown and in measuring, recognizing, and disclosing the amounts of asset impairments. The results indicate that the financial impacts of 935 writedowns reported by 670 companies are quite significant and, in some cases, up to 10 times that of reported earnings. Moreover, the results indicate that industry classification consistently had a significant effect on the dependent variables used as proxies for the financial impacts of asset impairments.