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.     

The effectiveness of information interventions to improve domestic food safety among rural consumers

Consumer education on food handling behavior is regarded as an effective method to improve domestic food safety and prevent foodborne illness, but is usually overlooked in rural areas. Using a presurvey and two rounds of postsurveys targeted at rural consumers from China included in a randomized controlled trial, this study investigated the effectiveness of two information interventions—a leaflet with tips for best practices and the leaflet plus consumer education sessions conveyed by phone—and compared them with a control group. Cloth use behavior was the target in the trial and five specific aspects were evaluated: (1) whether the cloth was made of old clothes, (2) whether the one used to clean kitchen tables was also used to wash dishes, (3) whether it was hung to dry, (4) how it was disinfected, and (5) how long the cloth was used before being discarded. Firstly, consumers' behavior was scored by summing the above-mentioned five behaviors. The results estimated using the difference-in-difference model showed that respondents in the leaflet-only group improved to a greater extent than those in the control group, but their difference in progress was not statistically significant until the second round of the postsurvey. Respondents in the leaflet-plus-phone group were quicker to adopt suggested practices and made discernible improvements compared with those in the leaflet-only group in the first round of the postsurvey, but the gap between these groups narrowed to statistically insignificant in the second round of the postsurvey. It was concluded that one consumer education session was effective and made a difference in the long term, whereas more education sessions produced normative behavior at faster rates, showing a significant improvement in the short term. Then, the study estimated the effectiveness of interventions on the five specific behaviors separately. The results were estimated using a probit difference-in-difference model and showed that the suggested behaviors with lower costs or a greater difference from past behaviors were more likely to be adopted by consumers. Consumer education facilitates proper food handling practices among rural households, which should be considered by policy makers.     

Workforce diversity and financial statement readability

The Securities and Exchange Commission has associated readability with a range of linguistic features largely determined by the language style of the information producers, including sentence length and the use of personal pronouns, familiar words, surplus words and active voice. We examine the impact of a firm's workforce ethnic diversity on its financial statement readability. Based on linguistic literature, we argue that a more diverse workforce increases the linguistic heterogeneity of the inputs into financial statements, hindering financial statement readability. We show that financial statement readability decreases with the ethnic diversity of the workforce, and that this effect is more pronounced for firms located in a community with a high crime rate or low social capital. We also find that the market reacts less to the earnings surprises of firms with less readable financial statements. We further find that the impact of white-collar employee diversity on readability is greater than that of blue-collar employee diversity. The results of robustness tests suggest that workplace diversity does not reduce firms' overall information production quality, which rules out the alternative explanation that employee diversity hinders financial statement readability through increasing employee conflict and communication errors. Overall, our study suggests that workforce diversity is an important determinant of financial statement readability.     

PPP模式下轨道交通项目干系人动态管控

公私合营PPP模式作为基础设施项目融资建设的新方式,在城市轨道交通项目中的应用已成为新的研究热点。PPP项目结构复杂、参与方众多,决策和设计阶段的干系人管理对项目顺利实施有较大影响。根据利益相关者理论,在识别徐州城市轨道交通项目干系人,并对其进一步细分的基础上,详细分析了徐州城市轨道交通项目各干系人的期望与要求,提出了基于全寿命周期的项目干系人动态管控,可从主体识别、参与动力、参与过程以及绩效评价机制4个方面提高管理效率,为PPP模式下项目干系人管理策略决策提供一种新思路,对于同类项目管理实践具有一定指导意义。     

国有商业银行建立和完善公司治理结构新探

建立和完善公司治理结构是国有银行商业化的关键，是实现银行价值最大化的制度保障，也是实现中国银行业与国际接轨的必要准备。加快金融体制改革，公司治理结构改革的核心是处理好委托代理关系，关键是界定产权边界，调整产权结构。本文分析了国有商业银行实行公司治理结构的现状，对如何建立和完善比较科学的治理结构进行了有益的探索。     

多哈贸易谈判中止及其对全球贸易的影响

由于世界贸易组织(WTO)主要成员在谈判的核心议题上一如既往地不愿意让步,7月24日,WTO总干事拉米正式建议,全面中止已持续近5年的多哈回合全球贸易谈判,且不为恢复谈判设定任何时间表.这意味着要在今年年底前完成多哈回合谈判已经成为不可能.随着多边贸易谈判的中止,谈判中的硝烟和战火已暂时消散.但人们不禁要问,被寄予厚望的多哈回合谈判为何难以再继续前进?这一结局对全球贸易以及多边贸易体制的发展会产生怎样的影响?特别是随着时间的推移,多哈回合谈判的命运又将怎样?     

一般自首的几点思考

自首制度,是当今世界各国刑事立法中普遍采用的量刑制度之一.这一制度对于鼓励犯罪人改过自新、分化瓦解共同犯罪人和减少司法运作成本意义重大.     

金融支持我国实体经济发展的有效性分析

实体经济稳企回转是国民经济良性发展的基础.在国内经济转型发展的攻坚时期,大量金融资本投向虚拟经济领域,发展中不平衡、不协调问题一直存在,金融支持实体经济发展的有效性引发质疑.本文从金融支持实体经济发展的现状出发,指出金融支持实体经济的针对性、有效性不足的原因,强调统筹金融市场建设、优化金融信贷政策、引导金融资源投向、加大金融产品创新、规范民间金融发展、建立成效考核机制等多个方面是确保资金投向实体经济,提升金融支持实体经济有效性的重要举措.     

“长江经济带”对“世界水谷”建设的战略需求

分析"长江经济带"水生态文明建设存在的问题及战略需求,阐述"世界水谷"模式在破解"长江经济带"水生态文明建设问题中的应用,提出发挥"政产学研"创新驱动,为解决水污染问题提供人才支撑;创新驱动主体协同,为产业转移提供资金支持和技术保障;利用市场手段解决排污权分配问题等建议。     

《科技进步与对策》1984—2014年刊文综述与知识图谱分析

透析了《科技进步与对策》1984—2014年关注的学术热点,廓清了研究内容的知识脉络、结构、动态变化过程及近年来最新研究趋势等。基于文献计量学视角,以《科技进步与对策》创刊30余年来刊文为研究对象,借助Ucinet、CiteSpace、VOSviewer等工具进行了高被引文献分析,以及合作团队、单位、关键词热点变迁等知识图谱的可视化研究。