连锁企业规模扩张的理论思考

连锁商业是一种规模经济较为明显的商业组织形式。连锁企业在发展中普遍具有规模扩张的本能，通过规模扩张来实现规模经济效益。但是，我国连锁企业的规模的扩张存在一些问题，尤其是某些基本概念混淆不清，这造成了实践中的许多偏差。因此，本文通过对连锁企业规模扩张进行理论梳理，重新界定连锁企业的规模扩张，分析探索其内在规律，以便提供对我国连锁企业规模扩张的有益启示。     

Internal Versus External R&D: A Study of R&D Choice with Sample Selection

This paper extends previous analyses of the choice between internal and external R&D to consider the costs of internal R&D. The Heckman two-stage estimator is used to estimate the determinants of internal R&D unit cost (i.e. cost per product innovation) allowing for sample selection effects. Theory indicates that R&D unit cost will be influenced by scale issues and by the technological opportunities faced by the firm. Transaction costs encountered in research activities are allowed for and, in addition, consideration is given to issues of market structure which influence the choice of R&D mode without affecting the unit cost of internal or external R&D. The model is tested on data from a sample of over 500 UK manufacturing plants which have engaged in product innovation. The key determinants of R&D mode are the scale of plant and R&D input, and market structure conditions. In terms of the R&D cost equation, scale factors are again important and have a non-linear relationship with R&D unit cost. Specificities in physical and human capital also affect unit cost, but have no clear impact on the choice of R&D mode. There is no evidence of technological opportunity affecting either R&D cost or the internal/external decision.     

The effect of concentration and market power on food prices: evidence from Finland

This research examines empirically the relationship between economies of scale, concentration, and market power in food retailing. With unique, local market data available Finland, the analysis could investigate the impact of both local concentration and industry-wide concentration (which can be interpreted as multimarket contact) are taken into account in the evaluation of grocery retail competitiveness. The results show that the main factor affecting market power is the size of the retail firm. Larger share grocery retailers, for both the local and the national markets, carried higher mark-ups. At the same time, no firm-level scale economies were found from these larger firms. I conclude from these findings that the main purpose of large grocery retail mergers is to gain market power not efficiency.     

To Go Or Not To Go? Ethical Perspectives on Tourism in an ‘Outpost of Tyranny’

For many years, the actions of Myanmar’s military government have provoked domestic discontent and strong condemnation overseas. The government is encouraging tourism in an attempt to legitimize its actions whilst generating valuable foreign currency. However, a number of organizations are urging people to avoid travel to Myanmar and thus prevent the military junta from obtaining the hard currency and global legitimacy it needs to survive. In this article, the ethical arguments for and against tourism in Myanmar are discussed, and for the first time the ethical perceptions of tourists themselves are explored. The study applied the Multidimensional Ethics Scale to a group of 376 Myanmar visitors, finding that respondents were generally in favor of tourism in Myanmar, but were uncomfortable with the ethical implications of their visit. Simon Hudson is an Associate Professor in the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary. He has a marketing degree from Brighton, England, an MBA from California, and a PhD from Surrey, England. Prior to working in academia, he spent several years working in the tourism industry in Europe, and six years running his own business. Dr Hudson has published numerous journal articles and book chapters from his work, and has three books to his name; Snow Business, Sport & Adventure Tourism and Tourism & Hospitality Marketing.     

论中国保险公司的规模经济

保险公司只有达到一定规模才具有国际竞争力.保险公司的最佳经济规模在不同的时期受保险市场主体的多少、国家的保险产业政策等多种因素影响.我国保险公司与全球著名大型保险公司规模相比有较大差距,因此,规模经济对于提高中资保险公司的国际竞争力具有特殊的现实意义.中资保险公司可通过上市扩充资本金、并购、组建保险集团等途径实现规模经济.     

Resource utilisation Efficiency: A South African Provincial Evaluation

The objective of this paper is to analyse the utilisation of production capacity and total under‐utilisation in order to identify weak‐performing industries across the nine South African provinces. Detecting inefficiencies within the different provinces will help to identify where sound managerial or government intervention is required, which can contribute to the future success of the New Growth Path Framework and the Strategic Integrated Projects. Using a multistage data envelopment analysis model at the subnational level, several categories of production factors are explored: intermediate demand, labour, capital, as well as taxes and subsidies. The results emphasise South Africa's weak infrastructure and the failure to effectively promote stability in managing factor inputs. The results further illustrate that industry scale efficiency for water and electricity are poorest across all provinces, highlighting the current water and energy supply concerns in South Africa and problem areas associated with the National Development Program.     

Cross-linguistic validation of a unidimensional scale for cosmopolitanism

Consumers' positive dispositions relating to foreign countries, cultures, and products are an important yet under-researched topic, compared against the volume of research on consumers' negative dispositions towards the same. Cosmopolitanism, conceptualized as a general dispositional orientation reflecting an affinity for cultural diversity and the proclivity to master it, garners increasing attention as a variable for international market segmentation. Empirical studies on cosmopolitanism are scarce, principally due to the absence of scale demonstrating sufficient cross-cultural validity across languages. This research reports on such a validation, across four countries and five languages. Psychometric evaluations entailed a number of techniques, including multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. The results largely confirm the cross-lingual applicability of the cosmopolitanism scale.     

我国社会融资规模的指数化构建分析

我国社会融资规模概念在2010年提出后,一直在不断完善中,2014年2月,央行也首次公布了地区社会融资规模的统计结果。社会融资规模作为一项比新增贷款更为全面的货币政策中介指标,能够反映人民币贷款体现不出来的问题,但其在要素构成方面一直有较多探讨。本文对我国2002年1月至2013年12月的社会融资规模数据进行指数化研究,得出各指标的不同权重,试将社会融资规模指数化,以便更好的利用于研究分析中。     

浅析规范影子银行发展的有效途径

随着经济改革进一步深化,中国整个金融行业格局发生巨大的变化,影子银行体系规模迅速扩大,成为金融体系的重要组成部分,在促进实体经济发展方面发挥了不可替代的作用,同时也蕴含着不可忽视的风险.本文将从中国影子银行发展现状入手,分析其产生原因、对经济的影响,并提出如何规范我国影子银行发展的对策和建议,以促进金融体系持续、快速和健康发展.     

Conceptualizing and validating organizational networking as a second-order formative construct

Based on an existing conceptualization in the literature, this study operationalizes the construct of organizational networking, through a rigorous two-stage scale construction and validation process. Organizational networking refers to firm behaviors, i.e. the activities/routines/practices, which enable an organization to make sense of and capitalize on their networks of direct and indirect business relationships. We conceptualize the measurement model as a second-order formative construct with four first-order reflective constructs based on a four-dimensional view of organizational networking comprising information acquisition, opportunity enabling, strong-tie resource mobilization and weak-tie resource mobilization. The scale validation was undertaken at the first- and second-order levels. The result confirms the four distinct first-order measurement models. At the second-order level, a MIMIC (multiple indicators and multiple causes) model was employed to assess the validity of the formative measurement model. The results suggest that all four components significantly contribute to the overarching construct of organizational networking, with strong-tie resource mobilization being the most important contributor. Thus, our operationalization confirms the uniqueness of the different dimensions of organizational networking that should be configured as a strategy of sensing and seizing opportunities in the network. The organizational networking scale will provide future research with a basis to explore different strategic patterns of networking behaviors in varying contexts, and its role in relation to other organizational behaviors and outcome variables, such as firm performance.