凡客：暗渡陈仓

目前．无论是凡客还是整个电商行业，更多地还是处于追求规模的阶段。短期内难以取得盈亏平衡。     

李善友：“有病的人”去创业

“作为一个在黑土地出生的农家少年，从南开数学到HR，再到总编辑，继而创业，现今又迈入我视为终身事业的教育领域，梦想一次又一次幸运地照进我平凡的现实。”李善友说道。他的朋友这么形容李善友，他拼命抓住一切可能的机会，把困难当成“学习和锻炼的良机，愈挫愈奋，越战越勇”。     

Optimal search,learning and implementation

We characterize the incentive compatible, constrained efficient policy (“second-best”) in a dynamic matching environment, where impatient, privately informed agents arrive over time, and where the designer gradually learns about the distribution of agents? values. We also derive conditions on the learning process ensuring that the complete-information, dynamically efficient allocation of resources (“first-best”) is incentive compatible. Our analysis reveals and exploits close, formal relations between the problem of ensuring implementable allocation rules in our dynamic allocation problems with incomplete information and learning, and between the classical problem, posed by Rothschild (1974) [20], of finding optimal stopping policies for search that are characterized by a reservation price property.     

An intelligent tutoring system for the accounting cycle: Enhancing textbook homework with artificial intelligence

This paper describes an electronic tutoring system, developed using principles of artificial intelligence (AI), to help students learn the accounting cycle. Unlike other educational technologies, the tutoring system provides instruction and feedback that is tailored to each individual student and addresses not only problem-solving outcomes but also problem-solving processes. To assess the effectiveness of the tutoring system, we administered a pre-test and then required students in a sophomore accounting course to use either the tutoring system or their textbook as a reference when journalizing transactions for a homework assignment. We then administered a post-test. A pre-post analysis showed that the tutor group’s test performance increased approximately 27% points, whereas the textbook group’s test performance improved by only 8% points. Implications of these findings for instructors and researchers are discussed.     

Motivating self-regulated learning in technology education

This paper proposes a compensative model for self-regulated learning in technology education (SRLT) comprised of cognitive, metacognitive and motivational domains. Discussion of the cognitive domain centers on problem-solving and creativity, with a focus on the need to engage students in open-ended assignments in informal contexts and to teach them a repertoire of methods, strategies and heuristics for inventive design and problem-solving, rather than letting them search randomly for ideas or use the trial-and-error method. The notion of metacognition deals with peoples’ ability to be aware of and control their own thinking, for example, how they selects their learning goals, use prior knowledge or intentionally choose problem-solving strategies. Self-regulatory behaviour is highly correlated with an individual’s motivation to handle challenging assignments, and with his or her internal satisfaction from being engaged in a task that contributes more to creativity than to receiving external rewards. Another important factor is an individuals’ self-efficacy belief in their ability to handle a highly demanding assignment determined by previous positive experience in similar tasks and the existence of a supportive social and emotional environment. The SRLT model highlights the interrelationships between the cognitive, metacognitive and motivational aspects of learning, problem-solving and invention. For example, teaching students problem-solving strategies could help them accomplish a task, improve their ability to monitor their own thinking and reflect on their learning, and enhance their self-efficacy beliefs about problem-solving and creativity. The teachers’ role in promoting SRLT education and directions for further research are also discussed.     

Fostering Systematic Innovative Thinking and Problem Solving: Lessons Education Can Learn From Industry

This article aims to illuminate different means of nurturing creativity in the high-tech industry and in modern organizations, particularly in the context of problem solving and product development, and to examine the potential implications for technology education. There is a large gap between conventional wisdom, which maintains that technology education is intended to foster creative thinking among pupils, and reality in the field. The case study presented is that of a mid-sized Israeli industrial plant, dealing with the design and production of construction tools for professionals and domestic use, such as spirit levels, measuring tapes, squares and rulers. This plant utilized innovation, uniqueness and quality as the main instruments in the battle for the market. A series of workshops for the plant's staff, entitled ‘Systematic Inventive Thinking’, resulted in the development of a range of new, original and successful products. The cumulative experience indicated that people can learn efficient techniques for solving a problem, or developing a new product, by breaking it down to its basic components, by ‘playing' systematically with ideas, in order to achieve new results. The notion that methodical courses can trigger pupils' incentive to be innovative and original, and can foster teamwork is almost absent from the field of education. Educators and scholars in technology education pay little regard to teaching and exploiting methods to fostering systematic original thinking and problem-solving. The challenge in education is to find an optimal combination and balance between fostering activity based on openness and ‘disorder’, on the one hand, and imparting systematic methods for innovative thinking and problem-solving, on the other. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Resale Markets and the Assignment of Property Rights

The consumption of an indivisible good causes identity-dependent externalities to non-consumers. We analyse resale markets where the current owner designs the trading procedure, but cannot commit to future actions. We ask the following questions: (1) Does the identity of the initial owner matter for the determination of the final consumer? (2) Is the outcome always efficient? The major conclusion of our paper is that the irrelevance of the initial structure of property rights arises in resale processes even if there are transaction costs that hinder efficiency. This result complements the Coasian view where the irrelevance of the assignment of property rights is a consequence of efficiency.     

Augmenting the Value of Ownership by Protecting It Only Partially: The "Market-Overt" Rule Revisited

This article analyzes alternative rules for settling conflictsbetween right owner and a bona fide purchaser. The optimal rule,so it is argued, is the one which maximizes the expected valueof the ownership right, given the risk of right violation. Inorder to maximize this value, one must seek to both mitigatethe risk of right violation and augment a potential buyer'swillingness to pay for the right. The analysis specifies therelevant parameters that define which rule is optimal in givencircumstances, and proves that there are cases in which thevalue of the ownership right is maximized if the owner's rightis only partially protected against innocent third parties.Two prevailing notions are challenged: first, that the "market-overt"rule necessarily induces buyers to invest fewer resources inprepurchase precautions, and second, that a buyer's willingnessto pay is unaffected by the choice of the legal rule.     

When the going gets tough,do the tough go shopping?

This study examines the impacts of consumer confidence on stockpiling behavior and, subsequently, retail inventory management. We show how stockpiling behavior evolved during the “Great Recession” of 2008–2009 as consumer confidence waned and demonstrate the impact of this development on inventory management. Drawing on the two-segment household inventory theory consisting of nonstockpiling and stockpiling segments, we use a panel dataset (2005–2015) to calibrate household inventory holdings. This dataset then serves as input for a retailer-level case study. Our empirical analysis reveals significant impacts from changing stockpiling behavior. When consumer confidence is low, both stockpiling and nonstockpiling segments respond by reducing weekly consumption rates; however, the stockpiling segment also significantly lengthens the time between shopping trips, and ultimately increases the duration of inventory holdings. These changes to consumption and stockpiling add complexity to inventory planning, requiring retailers to carefully adjust inventory levels to maintain service levels.