比尔·盖茨遭遇“滑铁卢”——微软投资近百亿美元的电视-互联网战略遭到惨败

1997年5月，一大群有线电视公司的管理人员来到微软总部，与比尔&;#183;盖茨共商有线电视业的未来大计，其中包括Comcast公司的CEO罗伯茨、Tele-Communications的CEO约翰&;#183;马龙。他们希望建立高速有线电视网，把娱乐、互联网服务传送到消费者的电视上，但是他们需要资金和技术。     

Defeating feature fatigue

Consider a coffeemaker that offers 12 drink options, a car with more than 700 features on the dashboard, and a mouse pad that's also a clock, calculator, and FM radio. All are examples of "feature bloat", or "featuritis", the result of an almost irresistible temptation to load products with lots of bells and whistles. The problem is that the more features a product boasts, the harder it is to use. Manufacturers that increase a product's capability--the number of useful functions it can perform--at the expense of its usability are exposing their customers to feature fatigue. The authors have conducted three studies to gain a better understanding of how consumers weigh a product's capability relative to its usability. They found that even though consumers know that products with more features are harder to use, they initially choose high-feature models. They also pile on more features when given the chance to customize a product for their needs. Once consumers have actually worked with a product, however, usability starts to matter more to them than capability. For managers in consumer products companies, these findings present a dilemma: Should they maximize initial sales by designing high-feature models, which consumers consistently choose, or should they limit the number of features in order to enhance the lifetime value of their customers? The authors' analytical model guides companies toward a happy middle ground: maximizing the net present value of the typical customer's profit stream. The authors also advise companies to build simpler products, help consumers learn which products suit their needs, develop products that do one thing very well, and design market research in which consumers use actual products or prototypes.     

HOW DOES SKILLS MISMATCH AFFECT REMITTANCES? A STUDY OF FILIPINO MIGRANT WORKERS

In this article, unit record data on Filipino migrants are used to analyze the issue of skills mismatch, its prevalence, and its impact on remittances sent back home. Results obtained using instrumental variable techniques reveal that significant proportions of highly educated Filipino workers are employed in low‐skilled jobs overseas, with systematic variation by gender and by country of work. We find that skills mismatch impacts significantly on the migrant's remittance behavior, with effects that are differentiated between genders. Specifically, where there is mismatch in the migrant's educational attainment and the migrant's job requirement, we find significant reductions in remittances for men but not for women. (JEL J240, J610, O150)     

The substitution strategy dilemma: substitute selection versus substitute effectiveness

Many brands build market share by acting as a substitute when competitive brands become undesirable or difficult to obtain. Notably, prior research offers competing strategic recommendations for marketers hoping to encourage consumers to engage in substitution. Past research examining substitute selection—measuring consumers’ beliefs about how well one product will substitute for another—suggests that marketers should offer replacements that are similar to the initially preferred product. In contrast, research examining substitute effectiveness—the consequences of substitution—suggests that differentiated brands will enjoy more long-term success. We integrate these two streams of research, explaining why there is a mismatch between substitute selection and substitute effectiveness, replicating and showing boundary conditions for the effects, and testing a managerial intervention that encourages consumers to choose more dissimilar (and more effective) substitutes.     

Evidence on the effects of bank competition on firm borrowing and investment

This paper presents evidence on the financial and real effects of bank competition using a large panel of privately held firms. I trace the firm-level impact of the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, which increased the competitiveness of U.S. banking markets. Following the deregulation, newly formed firms used significantly less external debt, were smaller, and realized higher returns on assets, consistent with their investing less due to greater financial constraints. These effects diminish as firms age, ultimately reversing sign. The differential impact that banking market reforms may have on newer and more established firms is underscored.     

The effect of language use on the financial performance of microfinance banks: Evidence from cross-border activities in 74 countries

This multi-year study examines the relationship between financial performance and language use, observing 405 partnerships between microfinance banks and their international financial partners in 74 countries. Drawing on language research in international business, we find that microfinance banks based in English-speaking, French-speaking, and Spanish-speaking countries have higher performance. Furthermore, the linguistic distance between the home country of a microfinance bank and the home country of its international partner(s) is negatively related to its financial performance. Our large-scale study confirms the effect of language use on organization-level financial performance and extends research on language in multinationals from intra-firm to inter-firm relationships.