Brain Storming at the Annual Conference of CCOIC

On December 18, Annual Conference of CCOIC, sponsored by CCPIT was successfully held in Beijing. The theme of this conference was ＂to drive the globalization of theenterprises ＆ improve their international competitiveness＂ About 600 people including high-level government officials, famous economists and experts as well as entrepreneurs attended the annual COherence, Business wisdom sparked the conference. And the following is some inspiring and splendid thought from tbose intelligent.     

Priming a Cross‐Category Brand Alliance: The Moderating Role of Attribute Knowledge and Need for Cognition

Firms often enter cross‐category advertising brand alliance strategies with the goal to increase their market share by association with popular but noncompeting brand allies. However, firms are often not aware of the effects of these alliances on consumer perceptions of participating brands. This research explores the factors moderating brand attribute inferences following exposure to a cross‐category advertising brand alliance. It is proposed that attributes of a brand ally may serve as anchors that produce assimilation effects and move perceptions of a target brand toward the ally's attribute value, or as standards of comparison that produce contrast. This work provides evidence that attribute judgments in a cross‐category advertising brand alliance are moderated by attribute knowledge and individual differences in information processing motivation as reflected in self‐reported need for cognition (NFC) ratings.     

Developing the evidence base of patient and public involvement in health and social care research: the case for measuring impact

While patient and public involvement (PPI) in health and social care research has progressed successfully in the last decade, a range of difficulties with the evidence base exist, including poor understanding of the concept of impact, limited theorization and an absence of quantitative impact measurement. In this paper, we argue that a paradigm change towards robust measurement of the impact of involvement in research is needed to complement qualitative explorations. We argue that service users should be collaboratively involved in the conceptualization, theorization and development of instruments to measure PPI impact. We consider the key advantages measurement would bring in strengthening the PPI evidence base through a greater understanding of what works, for whom, in what circumstances and why.     

Writing for the anti-tourist? Imagining the contemporary travel magazine reader as an authentic experience seeker

Contemporary travel magazine feature writing has received little attention in the academic literature to date, despite the fact that these writers have a persuasive power to mediate foreign cultures and destinations and could potentially act as agents of positive social change. In this article, 12 internationally published and distributed contemporary travel magazine articles have been subjected to a critical discourse analysis contributing to the theory of the mediating power of texts with respect to the conceptualization of tourism identities. Two prominent tourism discourses emerge, the tourist-versus-traveller dichotomy and the promise of authentic cultural experiences, which portray both the writer and the imagined reader as an anti-tourist (perhaps denying their contribution to the tourism industry). The findings suggest that these writers have an imagined archetypal anti-tourist reader in mind, who seeks authentic experiences that are immersed in traditional customs. These discourses lead these authors to write sensitively and thoughtfully about foreign cultures, although some still reflect harmful cultural stereotyping and commodification. In general, however, it appears that these contemporary travel writers are heeding the scholarly call for more globally conscious and socially responsible travel writing.     

Transportation security and the role of resilience: A foundation for operational metrics

This paper presents operational metrics to determine a passenger transportation system's resilience to terrorism. The metrics range from those specific to the number of trips to more holistic measures that include the contribution of these trips directly and indirectly to economic activity. These metrics can aid decision-makers in rendering more informed judgments about resource allocation and how to design a portfolio of security and recovery strategies.The paper also provides a framework for evaluating transportation risk, including the important role of perceptions in potentially amplifying these risks. It provides a range of strategies to promote resilience as well. Resilience of a transportation system is then quantified using the real-world case of the 2005 London subway and bus bombings. In terms of ordinary resilience, we find that 77.4 percent of total journey reductions on attacked modes were offset by increases in substitute modes for the 4 months following the attacks. We also estimate that 76.9 percent of total journey reductions on attacked modes were the result of a “fear factor,” as opposed to capacity reductions.The paper concludes with a set of proposed prospective resilience measures to evaluate the potential resilience of a transportation system. These metrics are based on the vulnerability, flexibility, and resource availability to cope with a terrorist attack or natural disaster.