International Buying Center Analysis – The Status Quo of Research

In industrial markets purchasing decisions are made by buying centers. Sellers thus have to analyze buying centers in order to generate effective strategies and measures. If we consider progressive economic globalization in this context, it becomes clear that a success promising analysis of buying centers cannot take place from a purely national perspective. On the contrary, the current ongoing globalization process emphasizes the importance of international investigation perspectives and the need to obtain international findings regarding market powers, processes and decision-making elements. There are numerous differences between buying centers in different countries. However, the international buying center analysis is only at an early stage of development. Most studies only analyze one aspect of the complex multipersonal decision process and mostly only for few countries. Thus we identify a lack of comprehensiveness in international buying center research and reveal some interesting starting points for further research.     

WTO成立以来全球反倾销调查发起趋势之演变

世贸组织成立以后,反倾销成为其保护国内产业的合法措施予以保留。本文对世贸组织成立11年来反倾销整体的发展趋势进行了宏观分析。特别重点关注全球贸易和反倾销领域中的典型代表美国、欧盟、印度．分析了这三个国家和地区反倾销的态势。在此基础上,对于中国发起反倾销调查的趋势,以及在全球反倾销调查的发起中应遵循的立场进行了讨论。     

Establishing a high-technology knowledge transfer network: The practical and symbolic roles of identification

Knowledge transfer networks (KTNs) are composed of interconnected firms, government entities, and research organizations that play a critical role in the funding, development, and dissemination of knowledge in high-technology industries. Despite the common use of KTNs in situations that require technology inputs spanning multiple firms, little research has examined the start-up of KTNs and the marketing literature has essentially ignored them. Using social network, social identity, and relevant attribution and motivation theories, the authors build a conceptual model that explains key outcomes of start-up KTNs. A preliminary empirical investigation of a UK-wide KTN start-up finds evidence that social identification with the network is a key moderating mechanism. Identification plays a practical role in creating positive knowledge-transfer benefits for firms that are central in the KTN's social network. Identification also plays a symbolic role by affecting participants' perceptions of overall KTN performance in light of knowledge-transfer benefits that they received, and as an antecedent to affective commitment to the KTN.     

The impact of technological and organizational implementation of CRM on customer acquisition, maintenance, and retention

In recent years, customer relationship management (CRM) has been a topic of the utmost importance for scholars and managers. Despite the evidence provided by numerous empirical studies, many companies that have implemented CRM systems report unsatisfactory levels of improvement. This study analyzes what influence companies can expect CRM implementation to have on performance and how they can leverage its impact. The authors propose a conceptual model that investigates the link between technological and organizational implementations, as well as the implementations' interactions with management and employee support and CRM process-related performance. By measuring CRM performance in terms of the initiation, maintenance, and retention of customer relationships, the study provides a detailed picture of what CRM implementations are capable of achieving. The results of the empirical study, conducted across four industries and ten European countries, indicate that CRM implementation does not impact performance equally for different aspects of the CRM process, and that it has an impact only if adequately supported by the appropriate company stakeholders.     

Trauma epidemiology and outcome in a developing country: perspectives from a university teaching hospital in Beirut

This study aims at evaluating trauma care at the American University of Beirut Medical Centre (AUB-MC) and comparing it to the norms established by the Major Trauma Outcome Study (MTOS). From January 2001 until January 2003, data necessary to calculate probability of survival using the Trauma Injury Severity Score methodology were collected. M, W, Z, Ws and Zs statistics were calculated to compare outcome at AUB-MC to the MTOS dataset. A total of 873 patients were included in the study. W statistics was calculated at 0.35 with Z score for the overall sample of 0.081 indicating that there was no statistically significant difference in survival between this group and the MTOS group. In a developing country a hospital achieves trauma outcomes similar to the MTOS dataset. Further studies looking at trauma care in Lebanon as a whole are needed.     

Food security implications of global marine catch losses due to overfishing

Excess fishing capacity and the growth in global demand for fishery products have made overfishing ubiquitous in the world’s oceans. Here we describe the potential catch losses due to unsustainable fishing in all countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and on the high seas over 1950–2004. To do so, we relied upon catch and price statistics from the Sea Around Us Project as well as an empirical relationship we derived from species stock assessments by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 2000 alone, estimated global catch losses amounted to 7–36% of the actual tonnage landed that year, resulting in a landed value loss of between 6.4 and 36 billion (in 2004 constant US6.4 and 36 billion (in 2004 constant US). From 1950–2004, 36–53% of commercial species in 55–66% of EEZs may have been overfished. Referring to a species-level database of intrinsic vulnerability (V) based on life-history traits, it appears that susceptible species were depleted quickly and serially, with the average V of potential catch losses declining at a similar rate to that of actual landings. The three continental regions to incur greatest losses by mass were Europe, North America, and Asia—forming a geographic progression in time. But low-income and small island nations, heavily dependent on marine resources for protein, were impacted most profoundly. Our analysis shows that without the inexorable march of overfishing, ~20 million people worldwide could have averted undernourishment in 2000. For the same year, total catch in the waters of low-income food deficit nations might have been up to 17% greater than the tonnage actually landed there. The situation may be worst for Africa, which in our analysis registered losses of about 9–49% of its actual catches by mass in year 2000, thus seriously threatening progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goals.     

The Brand Personality of Nonprofit Organizations and the Influence of Monetary Incentives

This article contributes to the limited literatures on small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using an institutional theoretical framework, we analyzed fieldwork interviews with twenty SMEs and perspectives of 165 SME managers and workers in textiles, garment, and footwear industries, the most important wage-earning sector in Vietnam. Having understood in the context of a developing “market economy with socialist orientation” (thus a “Southern perspective”), we find that socially responsible practices and expectations developed long before the arrival of CSR as a western concept and an MNC agenda. While identifying and contributing ideas concerning forms of “informal” CSR practices—influenced by social and cultural expectations—to the CSR/SME literature, we are conscious of the mixed effects of these practices and the ongoing nuanced negotiations between workers and managers in these SMEs. In our research, we found that it takes both domestic and international stakeholders to improve labor conditions in Vietnam under the banner of CSR.     

An essay on the biological origin of producing surplus value by human labor

In this essay, we explore the origins of the ability to produce surplus value through human labor. The main hypothesis is that the safety factor for energy capacity in humans determines the surplus value of human labor in human societies. We estimate the safety factor for Homo sapiens to be around 2.78. This is based on the rise of the encephalization quotient from 2.5 in Australopithecus africanus to 5.8 in H. sapiens, and we assume this rise is matched by a rise in the safety factor from 1.2 to 2.78. Being a communal species compels human individuals to produce both their personal and their community’s energy need. The possible correlation between Dunbar’s number and the safety factor of energy production capacity provides a very essential feature of human labor, namely “surplus value”. The average labor activity of a modern human is sufficient to provide energy for two to three people’s energy burden in a community. Human labor not only produces the energy for survival of an individual but also produces a surplus due to the safety factor. Therefore, work activity of an individual enables them to supply more than they need for themselves as a value.     

The ex-dividend-day behavior of stock prices: the case of Japan

We provide a comprehensive empirical analysis of stock pricebehavior around the ex-dividend day in Japan. We find that pricesrise on the ex-day and that dividend-related tax effects appearto be secondary. Returns around ex-dividend days are dominatedby the proximity of many ex-days to the fiscal year end. Excessreturns of 1 percent, which are independent of any dividend-relatedconsiderations, are higher than round-trip transaction costson medium-sized transactions. Prices seem to imply selling pressurebefore and buying pressure at the start of the new fiscal year.These trading patterns appear to be motivated by intercorporatemanipulative trading around the end of the firms' fiscal year,which are unrelated to dividends.