Internet Tool Use and Virtual Co-Creation in the Brazilian Construction Industry: Organizational Practices and Consumers' Personal Values

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the use of Internet tools and virtual co-creation initiatives of firms ranked among the top 100 in the Brazilian building industry. The research was based on observation of the companies' websites and of 200 posts written by participants in a collaborative building project. Websites were observed for the way online interaction tools were aligned to their declared goals. Posts were analyzed using discourse analysis and coded on the basis of the list of values. Results show that only three companies use online tools for the purpose of co-creation and that customer enjoyment is the primary driver of co-creation.     

So Whaddya Think? Consumers Create Ads and Other Consumers Critique Them

With the availability of online creative tools, consumers create ad-like communications on their own or in response to company contests. These consumer-generated ads (CGA) are like word-of-mouth (WOM) in that they are consumer-to-consumer communications, yet they have the look and feel of traditional advertising. We examine consumer responses to both contest and unsolicited CGA and company ads using data gathered from consumers via netnography and depth interviews. Content analysis is used to compare the three ad types and reveals that the contest rules frame CGA so that they resemble company ads while unsolicited CGA differ from both ad types. Findings show that consumers respond to both types of CGA by engaging with the ad rather than the brand, much like an ad critic, while company ads elicit brand associations. Unsolicited CGA are seen as authentic, but not credible, while contest ads are seen as credible, but not authentic, revealing a boundary condition to the conventional view that authenticity leads to credibility.     

联盟情境下试探型强制外交行为探析

联盟历来是国际政治学研究的核心问题之一,但学术界对于联盟在强制外交中所发挥的作用缺乏足够的重视。在对现有强制外交理论研究进行批判性借鉴的基础上,笔者将联盟政治与强制外交相结合,提出了一种新型强制外交——联盟情境下的试探型强制外交。这种强制外交指的是强制国利用联盟内困境(即联盟成员对于被抛弃与被牵连的恐惧)而采用武力威胁或使用有限武力的方式,试探对象国与其盟友之间承诺的可信度的外交行为。联盟情境下的试探型强制外交行为有三种策略可供选择,它们分别是战争边缘策略、眼镜蛇策略和懦夫游戏策略。通过对1905年摩洛哥危机和1938年捷克斯洛伐克危机的考察,笔者分析归纳出了有利于决策者实施和推动强制外交成功的理想因素,并按照因素的可变性特征分为环境性和策略性两类:环境性因素包括双方实力对比情况、直接对象国对于盟友的重要程度、双方对爆发战争的彼此可承受的程度、试探对象是否为非对称性联盟;策略性因素包括选择适当的时机、合法化自身的行为、向对手提供愿意妥协的诱因等。     

Workers’ tenure and firm productivity: New evidence from matched employer-employee panel data

Using rich longitudinal matched employer-employee data on Belgian firms, we explore the impact of workers’ tenure on firm productivity. To do so, we estimate production functions augmented with firm-level measures of tenure. We deal with the endogeneity of standard inputs and tenure, which arises from unobserved firm heterogeneity and reverse causality, by applying a modified version of Ackerberg et al.’s (2015) control function method, which explicitly removes firm fixed effects. Consistently with recent theoretical predictions, our analyses point to positive, but decreasing, returns to tenure. We also find that the impact differs widely across several firm dimensions. Tenure is particularly beneficial for productivity in contexts characterized by a certain degree of routineness and low job complexity. Along the same lines, our findings indicate that tenure exerts stronger positive impacts in industrial and capital-intensive firms, as well as in firms less reliant on ICT-intensive and knowledge-intensive processes.