后现代主义与传统生活方式研究的比较:消费者行为学视角

本文从消费者行为学的视角,对比了后现代主义与传统生活方式研究范式,发现五个关键的差异点:传统方法的研究目标是简化细节,而后现代主义方法则更注重细节;传统方法更关注品牌对消费者的普遍意义,而后现代主义方法关注的是品牌对不同消费者的不同意义;传统生活方式研究更偏好定量研究方法,而后现代主义者则更偏好定性研究方法;传统方法得到的市场细分边界是模糊的,而后现代主义的市场细分边界是明显的;传统方法着重于生活方式的特征描述,而后现代主义方法则侧重于理论的发展。文章最后讨论了后现代主义生活方式研究的营销管理意涵。     

Unionization and Productivity: Evidence from Charter Schools

This paper studies the relationship between teacher unionization and student achievement. Generally stable patterns of teacher unionization since the 1970s have historically presented challenges in measuring the effects of unionization on educational production. However, the blossoming of the charter school sector in recent decades provides fertile ground for study because while most charters are nonunion, teachers at some charters have unionized. Using a generalized difference‐in‐difference approach combining California union certification data with student achievement data from 2003–2012, we find that, aside from a one‐year dip in achievement associated with the unionization process itself, unionization does not affect student achievement.     

When is human capital a valuable resource? The performance effects of Ivy league selection among celebrated CEOs

We investigate whether and when highly trained human capital constitutes a rent‐sustaining resource. Our study of 444 CEOs celebrated on the covers of major U.S. business magazines found an advantage accruing to graduates of selective universities. Such CEOs led firms with higher and more sustained market valuations. The advantage was strongest for undergraduate programs as these related to the kinds of talent demanded of a CEO. The advantage also was greatest in smaller firms where CEO discretion might be highest and for younger CEOs who may benefit most from college and are less able to appropriate rents. Finally, the advantage accrued to graduates of more recent years, when selective schools had become less socially elitist and increasingly meritocratic, thus favoring human versus social capital. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Review of Catastrophic Risks for Life Insurers

Catastrophic mortality events are characterized by a sudden and concentrated increase in mortality and as such present a major risk to life insurers. Such events include pandemics, war, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and industrial, transport, and other accidents. Of these, pandemics arising from influenza are considered the most significant threat to the life insurance industry due to their capacity to cause a major increase in claims. We review the features and mortality implications of an influenza pandemic for life insurers, and describe a range of other risks that are likely to emerge as well.     

Do Criminal Sanctions Deter Insider Trading?

Many developed markets have taken what appears to be a tough stance on illegal insider trading through the use of criminal sanctions. Although criminal sanctions represent a much greater penalty than civil sanctions, the higher burden of proof required makes their enforceability weaker. This trade off between severity and enforceability makes the impact of criminal sanctions ambiguous. We empirically examine this issue by studying the deterrence of insider trading following the introduction of criminal sanctions in a developed market. Significant changes in sanction regimes are rare, especially when criminal sanctions are introduced without other changes. In February 2008, New Zealand introduced criminal sanctions for insider trading. This change of law offers a unique setting in which to examine the deterrence effect of criminalization. Using measures for the cost of trading, degree of information asymmetry, and probability of informed trading, we find that the enactment of this law led to a worsening in these measures. These findings suggest that the weaker enforceability of criminalization outweighs the associated increased severity of the penalties in New Zealand.     

The routine may be stable but the advantage is not: competitive implications of key employee mobility

We extend our theoretical understanding of the effect of key employee mobility on organizational performance. We find that when an organization with an advantageous set of routines loses a key employee to a competitor, the advantaged organization's competitive position is reduced vis‐à‐vis the hiring competitor. What is more interesting is that we also show that the diffusion of an advantageous set of routines through the mobility of key employees may affect competitive advantage in at least two additional ways. Our findings result from an analysis of 412 competitive events between the San Francisco 49ers and all other teams in the National Football League during the 24‐year period when the San Francisco 49ers perfected the routines of a strategic innovation that has become known as the West Coast Offense. First, we find that there is a loss of advantage for the organization when competitors increasingly compete against additional organizations that hired key employees from it. Second, we find that there is a loss of advantage for the organization when competitors expect future competition against additional organizations that hired key employees from it. Our results challenge the traditional argument that socially complex routines create sustainable competitive advantages because they are not easily imitated and do not rely on any single individual. Instead, we show that routines are stable to the loss of key employees, but the advantages derived from them are not. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

从网易博客刮起的百事风暴——百事可乐与网易合作博客营销案例

5月8日,百事可乐在网易投放了一则活动通告,由此掀起了一场波澜壮阔的百事风暴……"只要上传你为中国队加油的照片到pepsi.163.com,参加‘百事我创,我要上罐’活动,你将有机会成为21名登上百事中国队纪念罐的一员,并出现在全国超过1亿个百事可乐罐上,并有机会获得内含5,000元人民币消费金的招商银行百事纪念卡!"     

Volatility dynamics of NYMEX natural gas futures prices

We examine the volatility dynamics of NYMEX natural gas futures prices via the partially overlapping time‐series model of Smith (2005. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 20, 405–422). We show that volatility exhibits two important features: (1) volatility is greater in the winter than in the summer, and (2) the persistence of price shocks and, hence, the correlations among concurrently traded contracts, displays substantial seasonal and cross‐sectional variation in a way consistent with the theory of storage. We demonstrate that, by ignoring the seasonality in the volatility dynamics of natural gas futures prices, previous studies have suggested sub‐optimal hedging strategies. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28:438–463, 2008     

Gray Matters on Screen: Intelligence Agencies,Secret Societies,and Hollywood Movies

We normally think of government agencies as acting in a purely rational and instrumental way. In the case of intelligence agencies, we presume they rely on reason and science to protect the national interest. By contrast, the general view of secret societies and occult groups is that they engage in rituals and practices that have little or nothing to do with normal social intercourse, or even with reality. This article shows that these common assumptions are false, and that secret societies and intelligence agencies share many important traits. Our understanding of the CIA's role in supporting the production of Hollywood movies will be enhanced by taking these similarities into account. Intelligence work and the operations of secret societies are shown to overlap in five categories: religious underpinnings, occult practices to control the mind, cryptography, violations of social convention, and cryptic transparency—the ability to carry out secret activities in plain sight. These affinities explain why the CIA can promote movies that are actually quite candid in their revelation of the dark underside of the Agency. In so doing, the CIA projects a subliminal message that whatever questionable actions it takes are justified by a higher good, which can only be known by insiders.