A study of trust over time within a social network mediated environment

Abstract

Trust is central to many marketing models; however, few studies have measured its components over time. Many longitudinal studies have relied on retrospective recall. This study builds a theory of trust development and undermining over time within the context of social-network media.An inductive study phase used phenomenological webnography to build a theory of trust development. 352 peer-review comments were analysed over six years. Outcomes of this phase informed subsequent deductive tests.Four dimensions of trust emerged – ability, benevolence, integrity and predictability – with different salience over time. Ability, a cognitive-based dimension, was important in initial trust-building. Integrity and predictability, linked to the brain’s emotion area, became important later. Undermining of trust was a shorter process than its development.     

TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND GROWTH: Evidence from Mexican Cities

Applying the most recent methodology for explaining economic growth differences across countries (Barro, 1997), education, learning by doing, infrastructure, and knowledge spillovers due to specialization have been considered relevant in explaining productivity growth differences in Mexican urban manufacturing (de León, 1999). In this article, I evaluated whether there is a significant change in the relevance of these variables under trade liberalization. In particular, I evaluated the hypothesis that trade liberalization would promote productivity growth in the northern cities as result of the dynamic effect of trade given that these cities are close to the new central market for Mexican manufacturing and the loss of relevance in the previous accumulated growth factors (Livas and Krugman, 1992; Hanson, 1994). In contrast to that hypothesis, I observed that urban manufacturing close to the United States did not show a better performance than the rest of the cities as expected and that accumulated growth factors, such as education, learning by doing, and infrastructure are still relevant in explaining productivity growth across urban manufacturing in Mexico.     

Place,space, and foreign direct investment into peripheral cities

Perspectives drawn from the economic geography literature are increasingly used to generate insights into locational issues in international business. In this paper, we seek to integrate these literatures further by investigating the locational determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) into peripheral cities within an emerging economy. Peripheral cities in emerging economies are attracting a growing proportion of global FDI flows, but the international business literature lacks a framework for understanding subnational determinants of FDI, particularly into non-core locations. We draw on the core-periphery model to build and test theory on how spatial interdependencies between subnational locations impact on the distribution of FDI inflows into a large and heterogeneous country China. Our results show that whilst peripheral cities tend to have a negative effect on FDI, this effect is positively moderated by proximity to core cities. The results highlight the importance of considering interactions between place and space when investigating locational issues in international business.     

Internationalization and HRM strategies across subsidiaries in multinational corporations from emerging economies—A conceptual framework

The rapid rise of multinational Corporations (MNCs) from emerging economies has led to greater interest and urgency in developing a better understanding of the deployment and diffusion of managerial strategies from their perspective and without assuming the prevailing Western ethnocentric orthodoxy. This paper develops a conceptual framework of global HR strategies and practices in MNCs from emerging economies across their subsidiaries in both developed and developing markets. Using data from a pilot study of an Indian MNC, it provides insights and guidance into the motives, strategic opportunities and constraints in cross-national transfer of HR policies and practices in a multi-polar world.     

成功销售的7个步骤

销售服务具有极大的风险性。但是似乎有一些销售顾间即使是在最坏的经济环境下也能够应付自如。他们的成功不能完全归因于外表和个性的魅力，那么他们能够如此成功的原因是什么呢？     

Payments for environmental services to promote “climate‐smart agriculture”? Potential and challenges

Payments for environmental services (PES) have gained wide popularity as approaches to promote environmentally friendly land use or agricultural production practices. Yet academics have also voiced concerns against seeing PES as a panacea. This article discusses whether PES is an appropriate and promising approach to promote so‐called “climate‐smart agriculture” (CSA) practices, which we define as agricultural production practices that contribute to CO₂ emission reductions and/or removals and provide benefits to farmers via increased productivity and profits and reduced vulnerability to climate change. PES appears most promising for the promotion of CSA practices in small‐scale farming contexts with low incomes. Effective design, however, requires solid estimates of cost and benefit flows from CSA adoption over time, accounting for differences in socioeconomic and ecological conditions, and addressing the risk of leakage. Funding for such PES will likely have to come from public sources, and seems most promising where synergies with other objectives such as agricultural development, food security, and climate adaptation or other environmental services exist. The potential of alternative approaches for CSA support such as taxation with rebates for CSA practices, CSA‐related investment support such as microcredits, and hybrid approaches such as conditional microcredit should be further investigated.     

Commonality in Codes of Ethics

We create a database of company codes of ethics from firms listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and, separately, a sample of small firms. The SEC believes that “ethics codes do, and should, vary from company to company.” Using textual analysis techniques, we measure the extent of commonality across the documents. We find substantial levels of common sentences used by the firms, including a few cases where the codes of ethics are essentially identical. We consider these results in the context of legal statements versus value statements. While legal writing often mandates duplication, we argue that value-based statements should be held to a higher standard of originality. Our evidence is consistent with isomorphic pressures on smaller firms to conform.     

Fundraising communications: the role of experience in perceptions of media risk

This paper examines fundraising communications for charities in respect to their use of media. The questions posed were the extent to which knowledge and experience affect the perceptions of risk in media decision-making, and to what extent direct marketing reduces risk owing to its measurability. Based on a mail survey, direct mail was perceived as less risky than advertising. However, less risk was generally perceived when using familiar media. Managerially, the implications are that fundraisers may be lulled into a false sense of security by their familiarity with the media that they are using. The research emphasises the importance of perceptions in risk-taking and the need continually to re-evaluate positions on media choice. Copyright © 1999 Henry Stewart Publications