达成一致和复杂自适应系统(续)--一种评价协作性规划的框架

五、复杂性科学 在物理学、生物学、数学和计算机科学中出现了一系列关于自组织、复杂系统的适应性本质的观点.这些观点不仅提供了对正在形成的网络社会的理解方法,而且提供了在达成共识中走出这些佯谬的途径.复杂性科学为我们的评价框架提供了灵感,因为它提供了能够同时评价有形和无形结果的方法.复杂性科学提供了概念的工具,使我们关注达成一致过程中的反馈和学习,它帮助我们理解改革和第二、第三位的作用是如何产生的.这些观点暗示达成共识在漫长的过程中的最大贡献将是:在如此频繁变幻的世界上,帮助社区和组织在实施和创造方面提高到新的水准.     

Implications of accurate usage of nutrition facts panel information for food product evaluations and purchase intentions

The nutrition facts panel on food packages was designed to provide comprehensible quantitative nutrition information that would allow consumers to make more informed food choices that could result in significant long-term health benefits. This study (1) examines how accurately consumers can use nutrient information in the facts panel to determine if a product has more or less than the recommended daily values of certain nutrients and (2) offers predictions and tests of the relationships between this usage ability and product nutrition evaluations and purchase intentions. Results show that more accurate use moderates the effect of product nutrition value on consumer evaluations, as predicted. Findings also reveal that several variables (e.g., measures of nutrition knowledge, attitude toward the “facts” label) are related to accuracy in the usage task. Implications based on these findings are offered. Scot Burton is a professor and Wal-Mart chairholder in the Department of Marketing and Transportation at the University of Arkansas. His research interests include public policy and consumer welfare concerns, consumer price and promotion perceptions, and survey research measurement issues. His work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, and other journals. Judith A. Garretson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marketing and Transportation at the University of Arkansas. Her research interests include promotion issues public policy and consumer welfare, and consumer behavior in general. Her work has appeared in journals including theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, and theJournal of Professional Services Marketing, as well as in conference proceedings such as the American Marketing Association and the Association for Consumer Research. Anne M. Velliquette is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marketing and Transportation at the University of Arkansas. Her research interests include consumer behavior and public policy. She has published in theJournal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Professional Services Marketing, and proceedings of the Association for Consumer Research as well as other conference proceedings and journals.     

The Effectiveness of Post-Disaster Recovery Marketing Messages—The Case of the 2009 Australian Bushfires

An understanding of how best to communicate with the tourism market in the wake of a disastrous event is essential for destination marketing organizations seeking to manage the misperceptions and media-imposed attitudes held by potential visitors. To date, the literature remains silent in terms of the types of messages destination marketing organizations are best to employ when a disaster has hit and consequently marketers often take an “ad hoc” approach to their post-disaster communications that may or may not be effective in terms of encouraging visitation. In response to this knowledge gap, the research presented in this article adopted an experimental methodology to examine the effectiveness of nine disaster recovery message themes commonly used by destination marketing organizations. The messages were presented to respondents via a print advertisement promoting the Victorian region of Gippsland—a tourism region severely affected by the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires. The results revealed that a marketing message endorsed by a well-known and well-associated celebrity figure is likely to be most effective in encouraging tourists to return to or visit a disaster-affected destination 12 to 24 months following the event. The findings also revealed a significant relationship between past visitation and the time frame in which visitors will visit a disaster-affected region. Those who had visited the region four times or more were much more likely to return within 6 months of the event than less frequent visitors. A final important message revealed in this study was the fact that the tourism market is not averse to disaster recovery promotional activities, a concern often considered by destination marketers when planning their post-disaster recovery campaigns.     

Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: the role of sustainability-focused events

Tourism is a potential setting for encouraging sustainable behaviour. One popular mechanism is to stage events with a sustainability focus, aimed at fostering behaviour change amongst attendees. This paper reports on a study of a sustainability-focused event in Australia. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) was used to explore if and how this event could potentially promote pro-environmental behaviour change amongst attendees. TTM provides a five-stage framework, linked to a series of 10 processes of change, with both attitudinal and behavioural dimensions. The stages comprise pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. Findings suggest that this event attracts individuals already significantly committed to sustainable behaviour who are using the event as a source of encouragement and positive feedback for their lifestyle choices. They are not the audience that the organisers need to reach in order to achieve their aim of behaviour change on a broader scale. This event did, however, support the processes of change, particularly for those in the “action” and “maintenance” stages. This paper considers the implications of these findings and TTM as a research tool for the future promotion and marketing of these events to tourists, possible applications to tourism fairs and exhibitions, and to behavioural change in tourism generally.     

Market-making costs in Treasury bills: A benchmark for the cost of liquidity

We focus on market-making costs by examining the daily bid–ask spreads for off-the-run, one-month Treasury bills around two liquidity-changing events. Event one, Salomon Brothers’ supply shock, results in a roughly 2.5-basis-point increase in the spread because of an increase in ask prices; and event two, the Long-Term Capital Management demand shock, results in a doubling of the spread because of a decrease in bid prices. Our results provide a benchmark for researchers examining bid–ask spreads of securities that include a liquidity premium, a risk premium, and an asymmetric information premium.     

Implications of Stratified Sampling for Fair Lending Binary Logit Models

We examine the effect of sample design on estimation and inference for disparate treatment in binary logistic models used to assess for fair lending. Our Monte Carlo experiments provide information on how sample design affects efficiency (in terms of mean squared error) of estimation of the disparate treatment parameter and power of a test for statistical insignificance of this parameter. The sample design requires two decision levels: first, the degree of stratification of the loan applicants (Level I Decision) and secondly, given a Level I Decision, how to allocate the sample across strata (Level II Decision). We examine four Level I stratification strategies: no stratification (simple random sampling), exogenously stratifying loan cases by race, endogenously stratifying cases by loan outcome (denied or approved), and stratifying exogenously by race and endogenously by outcome. Then, we consider five Level II methods: proportional, balanced, and three designs based on applied studies. Our results strongly support the use of stratifying by both race and loan outcome coupled with a balanced sample design when interest is in estimation of, or testing for statistical significance of, the disparate treatment parameter.