Regulatory and environmental effects on public transit efficiency: a mixed DEA-SFA approach

This paper assesses the impact of regulatory and environmental factors and statistical noise on the efficiency of public transit systems within a DEA-based framework. Using a panel of Italian companies, we implement a DEA-SFA mixed approach based on [H.O. Fried et al. (2002) Journal of Productivity Analysis, 17(1–2), 157–174] to decompose DEA inefficiency measures into three components: exogenous effects, managerial inefficiency and stochastic events. Besides providing evidence on the determinants of input-specific efficiency differentials across companies, the results point out that managerial skills play a minor role, and emphasize the relevance of regulatory policies aimed at replacing cost-plus subsidization with high-powered incentive contracts as well as improving environmental conditions of public transit networks.      

Impact of sales force automation on technology-related stress, effort, and technology usage among salespeople

This study unveils factors affecting sales force automation (SFA) technology usage by salespeople. It differs from previous research by: (1) proposing a model that examines the consequences of task complexity on role perceptions and technology usage, and (2) understanding the negative repercussions of SFA technology on the user. The proposed model was tested using data from 150 salespeople employed by a national organization. The results suggest that integration of SFA technology induces adverse role perceptions in salespeople. However, controlling for extraneous variables, effort is significantly related to salespeople's usage of technology. Key managerial implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Sales force technology usage—reasons, barriers, and support: An exploratory investigation

Increasingly, salespeople are being asked to adopt and use a variety of technologies to increase their selling productivity and efficiency, including sales force automation and customer relationship management technologies. However, little research has investigated what happens once sales force automation (SFA) technology is adopted. This paper explores the reasons why salespeople use SFA technologies, the perceived barriers to SFA usage and how management can increase the usage of SFA technology. First, a qualitative study was performed to gain insight about salespeople's automation technology usage and the reasons why some salespeople fully use or do not utilize technology. After the initial study, 130 salespeople were surveyed. More productivity/efficiency was the main reason why salespeople use technology, the lack of management and technical support proved to be the main barrier to usage, and training proved most effective in increasing usage of SFA technology. Sales managers are provided with implications of the findings.     

“营改增”影响地方政府税收努力研究

基于随机前沿分析法（SFA）测算2011-2015年我国地方政府税收努力程度,并运用双重差分法考察“营改增”对地方征税行为的影响。研究发现：“营改增”将地方税（营业税）变为共享税（增值税）,显著降低了地方政府税收努力程度;改革对税收努力的冲击受经济发展水平、转移支付额度和税收返还的影响,获取转移支付收入和税收返还越多的地区税收努力下降速度越快。后“营改增”时期,如何提高税收效率,缓解地方财政收入对转移支付和债务收入的依赖性,是理顺中央和地方财税关系,完善财税收入体系的重要问题。     

IT投资对我国机械制造业上市公司技术效率的影响分析

将IT投资作为投入要素和企业特征变量,基于SFA模型和DEA-Tobit模型分别构造了6个模型,以2004—2008年我国机械、设备、仪表制造业上市公司为样本,就IT投资对我国机械制造业上市公司技术效率的影响进行了实证分析。结果表明:SFA和DEA在测算技术效率方面具有较好的一致性,"生产率悖论"仍然存在;两种视角下测得的技术效率具有显著差异,且在SFA中,作为企业特征变量的IT投资的影响大于其作为生产要素的影响,这在DEA中情况正好相反;企业规模与技术效率正相关,企业资产负债率和企业年限与技术效率负相关,股权集中度与技术效率的关系不显著。     

我国商业银行效率结构研究

本文采用随机前沿法(SFA)测算了1990—2003年我国商业银行的X-利润效率、规模效率、范围效率及其动态变化,然后分析了宏观因素、产权制度与市场结构对效率水平的影响程度和影响机制。实证检验发现,GDP增长率、固定资产投资增长率和货币供应量(M2)的增长率对X-利润效率水平产生正影响;CPI和以全部国有及规模以上非国有工业企业的销售利润率衡量的企业整体效益状况对X-利润效率水平产生了负影响;所有宏观变量中,固定资产投资增长率的影响最大。在面临相同的宏观经济环境下,国有商业银行和股份制商业银行的X-利润效率水平存在结构性差别,且依次递增;两类商业银行均存在一定程度的规模效率,国有商业银行在大多数年份里的规模效率好于股份制银行,从时间趋势来说,两类商业银行由于规模的扩大,规模经济效应正在逐步减弱且差距也在逐步缩小;国有银行几乎不存在范围效率,股份制银行存在一定程度的范围效率,但从时间趋势来看,范围效率逐步减弱。产权制度是造成这种差异的关键原因,市场竞争程度对商业银行效率也产生了非常重要的影响;且两者对商业银行效率的影响是一种互补关系而不是替代关系。最后提出了相应的对策和建议。     

基于SFA法的商业银行成本效率研究

本研究利用SFA法测度了14家商业银行1999—2008年间总共252组样本的成本效率值——其中原始样本140组，改进样本即考虑贷款质量的112组（2001—2008）。结果显示，不管资产质量（不良贷款率）考虑与否，股份制银行的成本效率都要优于国有银行，但差距在逐年缩小；不良贷款率对整个银行业有显著影响，其中对国有银行较股份制银行冲击大，效率值下降幅度相应较大，同时不良贷款率控制起色，负面影响逐年减小。     

Strategic and organisational determinants of sophistication in deployed sales force automation systems within three industry sectors in the UK

Abstract

This paper investigates strategic and organisational context determinants of the sophistication of adopted sales force automation (SFA) systems in three UK industries: financial services, pharmaceuticals, and building/construction. Sophistication of adopted systems is associated with the organisation placing greater emphasis on information orientation, which is itself driven by an increased integration of IT and sales coupled with increased organisational slack. Increased integration of IT and sales is itself driven by increased strategic importance of sales coupled with increased use of internal communication networks. Importantly, a firm's marketing orientation, although also driven by the strategic importance of sales, has no impact on either information orientation or SFA sophistication. We discuss the implications of our findings to aid understanding of SFA implementation failure.     

Why sales reps should welcome information technology: Measuring the impact of CRM-based IT on sales effectiveness

This study seeks to answer the following question: Can sales representatives enhance their performance through their acceptance of information technology (IT) tools? Using data collected from two companies, we show that despite uncertain results and the frequent resistance among salespeople to IT interventions, IT acceptance indeed has a positive effect on sales performance. This occurs because salespeople using IT expand their knowledge and, in turn, gain improved targeting abilities, enhanced presentation skills, and increased call productivity. Thus, sales representatives have a strong incentive to accept IT because doing so is likely to sharpen their own job performance.     

Sources of productivity growth on Finnish dairy farms—application of an input distance function

The objective is to examine sources of productivity change on Finnish dairy farms in the 1990s. The decomposition of productivity change into technical and technical efficiency change is widely recognized but it neglects the scale effect. Generalized decompositions incorporating all three components are calculated for a sample of Finnish dairy farms from 1989-2000. This period is of interest because of the drastic change in agricultural policy when Finland joined the European Union (EU) in 1995. The results indicate that productivity growth was on average low, approximately 0.15% per year. Neutral technical change was identified as the most important source of productivity growth (1.1%). Technical efficiency decreased by almost 0.5% annually. The contribution of the scale effect in productivity change increased towards the end of study period.