A relationship-management assessment tool: Questioning, identifying, and prioritizing critical aspects of customer relationships

With customer-relationship management (CRM) no longer a buzzword among trendsetters, organizations in all types of industries initially rushed to embrace it. Although a seductively attractive concept, the implementation of CRM proved difficult, however, and organizations are struggling with realizing their vision of a CRM organization. To help managers assessing the stage of relationships between their organization and the organization's business customers we consider the automotive industry. Based upon our case organization and its relationships with numerous business customers we develop a practical tool to question, identify, and prioritize critical aspects of customer-relationship management. First, we identify key areas in CRM. Secondly, we investigate how the chosen case organization has managed each of these key CRM areas over a broad range of business-customer relationships. Thirdly, we acknowledge that many organizations simultaneously have different types (transaction-relationship continuum) of business customers. We finish the article with a discussion of the study's limitations, and suggest avenues for future research.     

我国童装出口遭遇的技术性贸易壁垒及应对措施

我国儿童服装在出口市场中屡屡遭遇技术性贸易壁垒,造成了很大的损失。本文主要通过对于儿童服装国内外不同行业技术要求、标准的对比及典型案例的研究和分析,得出了我国儿童服装出口频遭国外技术型贸易壁垒的原因,并针对各种情况提出了全面的技术性贸易壁垒应对措施。     

Did accelerated filing requirements and SOX Section?404 affect the timeliness of 10-K filings?

This paper examines the effect of Sarbanes-Oxley provisions on 10-K filing delays. We find that tightened filing deadlines for accelerated and large accelerated filers are not associated with changes in the incidence of late filing. While Section 404 compliance does not affect filing timeliness for firms with effective internal controls, we find that about half the firms disclosing internal control weaknesses are late filers. As a consequence, many Section 404 material weakness firms experience negative abnormal returns around late filing notifications before filing the 10-K. Lastly, we find that market reactions to late filing notifications are more negative when management provides no meaningful explanation for the delay, consistent with managers’ incentives to withhold bad news.     

Online Price Discrimination and EU Data Privacy Law

Online shops could offer each website customer a different price. Such personalized pricing can lead to advanced forms of price discrimination based on individual characteristics of consumers, which may be provided, obtained, or assumed. An online shop can recognize customers, for instance through cookies, and categorize them as price-sensitive or price-insensitive. Subsequently, it can charge (presumed) price-insensitive people higher prices. This paper explores personalized pricing from a legal and an economic perspective. From an economic perspective, there are valid arguments in favour of price discrimination, but its effect on total consumer welfare is ambiguous. Irrespectively, many people regard personalized pricing as unfair or manipulative. The paper analyses how this dislike of personalized pricing may be linked to economic analysis and to other norms or values. Next, the paper examines whether European data protection law applies to personalized pricing. Data protection law applies if personal data are processed, and this paper argues that that is generally the case when prices are personalized. Data protection law requires companies to be transparent about the purpose of personal data processing, which implies that they must inform customers if they personalize prices. Subsequently, consumers have to give consent. If enforced, data protection law could thereby play a significant role in mitigating any adverse effects of personalized pricing. It could help to unearth how prevalent personalized pricing is and how people respond to transparency about it.     

Stepping into futures: Exploring the potential of interactive media for participatory scenarios on social-ecological systems

In this paper, we present a strategy for the development of interactive media scenarios to help communicate uncertainties and complexities in coupled human and natural systems. Insights arising from Complex Adaptive Systems theory advocate the need for more adaptive perspectives on natural resources management. For the collaborative exploration of future complexities and uncertainties, participatory scenario development has proven to be a powerful approach. A range of communication strategies with benefits for conveying complexity, however, has not yet been adopted by scenario developers. We present a framework of criteria with which we structurally analyze the benefits of interactive media communication. First, we consider requirements of feasibility, flexibility and stakeholder contributions. Then, we synthesize criteria for the communication of Complex Adaptive Systems. Finally, we set criteria for communicatory clarity and engagement. Using this framework, we review several science communication fields, including landscape visualization, serious gaming and visual analytics. We then develop a strategy for interactive media communication in participatory scenario development, including two work-in-progress examples. This strategy employs mixed media, micro-games and accessible stakeholder contributions in a geo-web context, and is suitable for participatory work in live settings as well as on-line, from a local to a global scale.     

A SHOCK ABSORPTION INDEX FOR INOPERABILITY INPUT–OUTPUT MODELS

Recent disasters have underscored the importance of enhancing resilience in economic systems. In this work, we propose a novel shock absorption index, which provides a measure of the ability of an economic system to tolerate disruptions. It is assumed that there are externally defined initial levels of system failure or disruption, as well as maximum allowable levels of inoperability for each sector. The shock absorption index is defined as the largest fraction of the anticipated initial disruption that can be absorbed by the predefined robustness limits. It provides an overall measure of the robustness of an economic system towards a disruptive event, which is driven by both the economic structure and the individual robustness of different sectors. The results of two case studies illustrate policy-making insights in identifying and prioritizing risk management strategies for critical systems.