Exploring the mediating role of utilitarian value and hedonic value in the formation of oppositional loyalty in online communities

Our research expands the scope of the research on oppositional loyalty from brands to online communities. Online communities allow members to freely express their opinions and promote the occurrence of oppositional loyalty behaviours towards the communities. Oppositional loyalty is defined in this article that, for the purpose of strengthening the market position of their preferred community, members of the online community may express negative views or even show oppositional behaviour towards adversarial communities. In view of social capital theory, the study examines the effect of hedonic value and utilitarian value on oppositional loyalty in online communities. The results show that only hedonic value significantly affects oppositional loyalty; hedonic value mediates the effect of the three dimensions of social capital (network ties, identification, and common language) on oppositional loyalty. The study identifies that community type moderates the impact of social capital (identification and common language) on hedonic value but does not moderate the effect of social capital on utilitarian value. Finally, we find that members' oppositional loyalty towards their community can promote their community participation. This research provides recommendations for online community managers to manage and benefit from members' oppositional loyalty.     

The influence of social capital on local retail patronage in an urban setting

Local retail stores are currently facing intense competition from both online retailers and large chain stores. An understanding of local retail store patronage (i.e., patronage of retail stores in one's own community) is essential to the survival and growth of local retailers. Drawing on Social Capital Theory, we theorize and show with store-level survey data the influence of social capital (community attachment and reciprocity) on local retail store patronage in a large urban setting. We find that the impact of social factors differs for residents within the community compared to those outside of the community. We also demonstrate the importance of social factors in comparison to non-social factors. These findings contribute to the literature by extending the impact of social capital on local retail store patronage beyond rural settings, providing insight into urban consumers' decision to patronize local retail stores, and highlighting the impact of community boundaries. These findings also generate practical recommendations for local merchants and stress the importance of building reciprocal relationships with local customers as well as varying communications across community boundaries.     

Does character's gender matter in inspirational brand story? Exploring the moderating effect of gender role conformity

Inspirational brand story is a widely used marketing strategy in brand building. However, few empirical studies have investigated the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of a successful brand story strategy. The current study examined the influence of lead character's gender in inspirational brand story on consumer–brand identification based on the social identity theory, benevolent sexism, and gender schema theory. Results from two experiments demonstrated that the gender of inspirational brand stories has an impact on consumer brand identity through the mediation effect of sympathy. Compared with a male character, a female character elicits viewers' sympathy, which results in high brand identification. Such a gender effect is stronger when there is a high level of perceived gender role conformity. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Crypto quanto and inverse options

Over 90% of exchange trading on crypto options has always been on the Deribit platform. This centralized crypto exchange only lists inverse products because they do not accept fiat currency. Likewise, other major crypto options platforms only list crypto–stablecoin trading pairs in so-called direct options, which are similar to the standard crypto options listed by the CME except the US dollar is replaced by a stablecoin version. Until now a clear mathematical exposition of these products has been lacking. We discuss the sources of market incompleteness in direct and inverse options and compare their pricing and hedging characteristics. Then we discuss the useful applications of currency protected “quanto” direct and inverse options for fiat-based traders and describe their pricing and hedging characteristics, all in the Black–Scholes setting.     

Corporate Lobbying and Firm Performance

Corporate lobbying activities are designed to influence legislators, regulators and courts, presumably to encourage favorable policies and/or outcomes. In dollar terms, corporate lobbying expenditures are typically one or even two orders of magnitude larger than spending by Political Action Committees (PAC), and, unlike PAC donations, lobbying amounts are direct corporate expenditures. We use data made available by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to examine this more pervasive form of corporate political activity. We find that, on average, lobbying is positively related to accounting and market measures of financial performance. These results are robust across a number of empirical specifications. We also report market performance evidence using a portfolio approach. We find that portfolios of firms with the highest lobbying intensities significantly outperform their benchmarks in the three years following portfolio formation.     

Career concerns,shareholder monitoring and investment efficiency: From the perspective of compensation contract rigidity in Chinese SOEs

This paper presents theoretical analysis of how career concerns and shareholder monitoring affect chief executive officer(CEO) agency costs. We investigate inve...     

中小软件外包人力资本投资风险与控制策略研究

人力资本投资在服务外包总投资中占了最大比重,对软件外包企业来说更是如此.人力资本投资比重的增加给企业带来更大收益的同时也增加了企业的投资风险.目前,我国中小规模软件外包企业员工流动率高达20％,是社会平均流动率的两倍,形势严峻.本文力图突破传统的共性分析层面,从中小软件外包特性分析出发,探讨其人力资本投资风险的形成过程,并分别基于交易成本理论和期权理论提出控制人力资本投资风险的再外包和分阶段投资策略,为我国中小软件外包企业缓解高人力资本流失率,控制人力资本投资风险提供理论依据.     

DEFINING AND OPERATIONALIZING SUPPLY CHAIN PROCESS INTEGRATION

Integration has been recognized as critical to successful supply chain management. However, an extensive literature review revealed no consensus in its conceptualization. The current study attempts to address this research gap by providing a better definition and operationalization of supply chain process integration. With empirical support, it is proposed that internal and external supply chain process integration should be treated as two separate constructs, each comprised of two dimensions: connectivity and simplification.     

大学生模拟创业平台体系的构建研究——以福州大学为例

本文总结了福州大学的学生模拟创业平台体系,即学生首先通过创业教育,培养创业意识,学习基本的公司管理知识,培养团队管理能力,之后利用社团互助平台,获取人力资源,组建团队,随之在赛事训练平台开展虚拟和实体的创业实践训练,在此基础上,形成成熟创业计划的团队,可申请孵化,进入创业孵化平台。该平台体系系统上具有有序性,运作上又具有系统性,可供有关同行参考。     

小型水利工程质量管理现状及建议

分析小型水利工程质量现状,提出应对措施.给水利工作者们一点启发.