我国中小商业银行多元化经营的效应分析

本文利用超越对数函数和对我国中小银行1987～2004年间多元化经营行为的经济效应进行了实证分析,并从存量和流量角度探究了当前多元化经营的发展水平,提出了我国中小银行多元化经营的行为动因与逻辑.研究发现,我国中小银行存在明显的范围经济,但长期以来多元化经营发展缓慢,现行金融制度环境和中小银行经营机制缺陷是根本原因,外部市场环境约束影响了中小银行的多元化经营,内部风险控制不足制约了多元化的发展动力,过分追求规模扩张影响了多元化经营效果,市场定位模糊导致多元化经营的盲从,因此,要提升中小银行多元化经营水平,必须从外部金融制度和自身经营机制入手.     

Tipped out: How do gratuities affect restaurant operations?

Tipping is a well-established social norm in North American restaurants. Researchers have given considerable attention to the interaction between consumers and servers, but less so to the relationships within a restaurant and even less so to restaurant managers’ perspectives. Our study, the first of its kind, used interviews and a survey to explore the perspectives of both restaurant managers and servers in identifying operational issues arising from tipping. Inequity and unfairness, loss of control of service quality, and difficulties in succession planning and promotion were identified. There is clearly a need to investigate strategies to mitigate some of these impacts.     

Using the Pack‐and‐a‐Half Rule to Eliminate Backroom Inventories in Retail Operations

In the retail industry, backroom inventories are typically associated with higher labor costs and greater operational complexity. Thus, retailers look for ways to eliminate backroom inventories. A heuristic used for this purpose is the pack‐and‐a‐half rule which suggests that the shelf space allocated for a product should be at least 50% larger than the case pack quantity in which the product is delivered. Despite its popularity among retailers, the pack‐and‐a‐half rule has been ignored in the academic literature. We introduce the pack‐and‐a‐half rule, assess its impact on a retailer's profits, identify cost, demand, and product characteristics driving this impact, and propose a modification. Based on an analysis of data obtained from a retailer on 1,986 SKUs in 20 categories, we find that the pack‐and‐a‐half rule decreases a retailer's profits, on average, by 10% when applied uniformly across all SKUs. Further, this decrease is significantly affected by product depth, product width, demand elasticity, case pack quantity, and inventory carrying cost. Finally, we develop a set of modifications based on these variables where the pack‐and‐a‐half rule is applied selectively and in a stepwise fashion. These modifications limit the decrease in a retailer's profits to a range between 6% and 7%.     

Increasing Shopper Trust in Retailer Technological Interfaces via Auditory Confirmation

This research examines the effects of sounds made by retail technological interfaces – self-checkout kiosks, credit card readers, mobile apps, websites – at point-of-sale. We propose that such sounds, retail transaction auditory confirmation (RTAC), increase trust in technological interfaces by providing auditory confirmation that stages of the checkout process have been successfully executed. Increased trust in technological interfaces leads to positive downstream consequences in the form of satisfaction and purchase intention. Visual and auditory distraction in the retail environment reduces trust, even when visual confirmation is provided, but synchronously provided audio-visual confirmation attenuates the negative effects of environment distraction.     

Examining the impact of information technology and patient flow on healthcare performance: A Theory of Swift and Even Flow (TSEF) perspective

The impact of information technologies on manufacturing operations and performance is well established. However, scant research has been devoted to examining information technology (IT) investment among hospitals and how it influences patient care and financial performance. Using the lens of the Theory of Swift Even Flow (TSEF), we present an operations management-based perspective on the effect of IT in streamlining hospital operations. Specifically, we examined the role of IT on patient flow and its consequences for improved hospital efficiency and performance.     

Predictors and effects of retail brand equity – A cross-sectoral analysis

Although retailers increasingly seek to position themselves as strong, attractive, and unique brands, little is known about differences in retail branding among different retail sectors. This study analyzes the importance of perceived retail attributes for consumer-based retail brand equity (RBE), particularly the varying roles of these attributes in important retail sectors, and the effects of RBE on intentional loyalty. The authors examine empirical data on 2112 consumer evaluations of retail firms in the grocery, fashion, electronics, and DIY sectors and apply multi-group structural equation modeling. The results indicate that the importance of retail attributes for RBE varies among the different sectors, but a strong and stable link between RBE and consumers' intentional loyalty is evident across retail sectors. The sector-specific and cross-sectoral observations in this study provide managers with specific knowledge on the main levers of RBE in different retail contexts.     

Comparing perceived insecurity among customers and retail staff during service encounters

The study compares perceived insecurity by customers and retail staff during service encounters. The topic is important, because retailers invest millions of dollars in security. The framework of the study divides perceived insecurity into financial, physical, psychosocial and time-related insecurity. A total of 39 consumers participated in seven focus group discussions, and 34 retail staff members responded semi-structured interviews. The study confirms that from both customer and staff perspectives a high quality service encounter has an influence on perceived insecurity, and it diminishes disturbance and criminal activity. However, there are differences between customer and staff perspectives in many areas.     

Leading national brands facing store brands competition: Is price competitiveness the only thing that matters?

Store Brands (SBs) have experienced a strong increase in both value and unit sales internationally during the last decades; thus their market share has been constantly growing. Starting from these considerations, the present work aims at deepening the topic of inter-brand competition within the FMCG market and, in particular, the market share trade-off between Leading National Brands (LNBs) and Store Brands. Our empirical analysis is based on panel data about 322 product categories sold within the Modern Grocery Distribution stores in the 2010–2013 period. Results obtained show: (i) the existence of a relationship between the increase in the LNB-SB price gap and the switching of market share from the former towards the latter; (ii) the consolidation of a change in consumers' purchasing preference in favor of SBs; (iii) the existence of an inverse relationship between the inter-brand competition intensity and the retail branding life cycle evolutionary stage, which is different for each product category.     

Factors affecting donations in U.S. retail stores: A conceptual framework

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence consumer donations in U.S. retail stores. The study provides a conceptual framework of factors derived from the cause-related marketing, consumer behavior and psychology literatures. These factors are categorized as consumer-related factors, retailer-related factors and context-related factors. Consumer-related factors include consumer-retailer identification, consumer-cause affinity, impure altruism, civic engagement and post-purchase cognitive dissonance. Retailer-related factors consist of retailer-cause fit, retailer's commitment to the cause, retailer image as being altruistic, and retailer credibility. Context-related factors include time pressure, social pressure, shopping amount, and perceived savings during the shopping trip. This conceptual framework serves as a foundation for future empirical studies.     

IT project portfolio governance: The emerging operation manager

Today's information technology (IT) organizations are under pressure to meet or improve IT service levels for critical business functions. Various industry standards, such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) standard, have gained wide acceptance as comprehensive methodologies for improving the effectiveness of IT management. The role of IT operations management is subsequently changing from a component orientation (such as networks, systems, storage, database, and applications) to managing business‐oriented, end‐to‐end IT services. This article presents a detailed analysis of available literature in order to identify the most appropriate competencies and necessary skill sets that will be needed by an operation manager for strategic business alignment.