中国主要木材产品的需求收入弹性测算与启示

木材产品是重要的林产品,是国家经济建设和人民生活主要的资料,在国民经济与社会发展中发挥积极作用。通过构建双对数模型,采用实证分析的方法,估算出2005²012年间原木、锯材和人造板这三种木材林产品的平均需求收入弹性分别为0.301、1.100和1.338,总结出中国木材产品消费和国民经济增长的作用规律,并得到加速森林资源培育、继续优化产业结构和建立可持续贸易机制几点启示。     

Pointing Out Differences: Consumer Evaluations of Comparative Information Across Product Types

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of comparative claims across search and experience product types. Data was obtained from 159 Taiwanese college students. Results reveal that comparative claims used in blogs (compared to those in print ads) produce lower counterarguments and consumers more easily accept claims made on a blog. Comparative claims lead to higher brand attitude and purchase intention for search products on the blog; however, noncomparative ads lead to higher brand attitude and purchase intention for experience products on the blog. For both search and experience products, there is no significant difference.     

Why do firms delete brands? Insights from a qualitative study

Large consumer goods firms manage and market an assortment of brands and consistently deal with strategic challenges related to brand portfolio management, such as creating or acquiring brands, growing brand equity, managing brands in the portfolio and deleting brands. There is substantial research on several areas of brand portfolio management except in the area of brand deletion. This situation exists despite the fact that deleting weak brands has important implications for a firm and its brand portfolio. Therefore, it is critical to understand why firms delete brands from their portfolios. This research applies a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis in the context of firms that adopt a ‘house of brands’ brand architecture and presents findings guided by the strategic decision-making literature.     

Effects of perceived product quality and Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) on consumer price preferences for children's furniture in China

The effects of perceived product quality and orientation toward Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) on consumer price preferences were studied with the use of survey data of the children's furniture market in two metropolitan cities of China: Shanghai and Shenzhen. Based on the results from a factor analysis and logistic regression, consumers’ perceived product quality of children's furniture was identified as a four-dimensional construct: ‘supplier attributes’, ‘extended product attributes’, ‘basic product attributes’ and ‘environmental quality attributes’. Consumer price preferences were discovered to be negatively influenced by ‘basic product attributes’, but positively influenced by consumer orientation towards LOHAS, gender and education level. In conclusion, China's children's furniture market presents a high-end niche segment with growth potential for both furniture producers and wood material suppliers.     

Corporate Lobbying and Firm Performance

Corporate lobbying activities are designed to influence legislators, regulators and courts, presumably to encourage favorable policies and/or outcomes. In dollar terms, corporate lobbying expenditures are typically one or even two orders of magnitude larger than spending by Political Action Committees (PAC), and, unlike PAC donations, lobbying amounts are direct corporate expenditures. We use data made available by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to examine this more pervasive form of corporate political activity. We find that, on average, lobbying is positively related to accounting and market measures of financial performance. These results are robust across a number of empirical specifications. We also report market performance evidence using a portfolio approach. We find that portfolios of firms with the highest lobbying intensities significantly outperform their benchmarks in the three years following portfolio formation.     

Multilateral trade liberalisation helps promote export product diversification: Trade tensions damage the prospects of the poorest economies

Using a large panel dataset over a 20‐year period, this article explores the effect of multilateral trade liberalisation on export product diversification. Empirical results show that multilateral trade liberalisation is positively associated with export product diversification. However, less‐developed economies experience a greater positive effect than relatively advanced economies. This analysis suggests that if trade tensions reduce cooperation on trade matters among World Trade Organization members, it may hinder export product diversification in developing countries, and the poorest countries might be the most adversely affected.     

Advancing tourism research through multilevel methods: research problem and agenda

Tourism research often encounters social phenomena and research problems that involve multiple levels. However, most researchers assume that the phenomena exist in a single level and perform analyses that do not reflect the hierarchical nature of social dynamics. This article heeds the call from Current Issues in Tourism by illustrating multilevel methods and proposing an agenda for multilevel research. In particular, this article seeks to reconcile the limitations of single-level analysis and to delineate how multilevel methods could be applied in tourism research. It further seeks to advance tourism theories by introducing more complex multilevel design with broader applications in various tourism settings. This article presents two common tourism research scenarios, critiques their limitations, and proposes how multilevel methods could not only address these limitations, but also how they could advance tourism theories. An empirical study is offered to demonstrate multilevel design and analytical techniques.     

Vertical alliance portfolios and the business performance of small technology-based firms

This paper discusses how small technology-based firms (STBFs) effectively manage vertical alliances by choosing proper alliance structures to both manage challenges and pursue higher performance. We consider the main challenges of STBFs’ vertical alliances as opportunistic risk and coordination concern between partners, and derive four types of vertical alliance portfolios with different extents of risk and return based on the relational perspective. We then examine the impact of each portfolio on performance and the moderating effect of STBFs’ age and technological capability. The results show the portfolio focusing on bilateral alliances is not helpful for STBFs, while the others are useful. The portfolio focusing on unilateral alliances promises young firms better performance, while hybrid portfolios of unilateral and bilateral alliances are more helpful for older STBFs. In hybrid portfolios, bilateral alliance in the upstream is beneficial to specific technology-focused firms, while bilateral alliance in the downstream is recommended to STBFs whose technology covers a wider range.     

Toward an Integrated Model of Purchase Intention of Dietary Supplements in Sexually Oriented Advertising

This study was designed to examine antecedent factors that yielded a model of purchase intention of dietary supplements in sexually oriented advertising. Results suggested that sexual cognition, gender difference, individual attitude toward advertisements, and product involvement were yielded as key predictors toward people's purchase intention of dietary supplements. However, sexually oriented advertising did not considerably increase their purchase intention. A regression analysis also loaded sexual cognition and product involvement as two key determinants in the model of purchase intention of dietary supplements. Moreover, people with a more positive level of sexual cognition significantly resulted in their higher degree of purchase intention of dietary supplements.     

Celebrity endorsements: Investigating the interactive effects of internalization,identification and product type on consumers’ attitudes and intentions

In line with Kang and Herr's work (2006), this research questions the ELM's contention that celebrity credibility serves foremost as a peripheral element in a persuasive communication context. Nevertheless, in a different light to the Kang and Herr's ‘either-central-or-peripheral-role’ of a source characteristic, this research advances that celebrity credibility plays concomitantly central and peripheral roles in a persuasive message context depending on product involvement and brand-purchase motive. Particularly, this research uses the notions of ‘source internalization’ and ‘source identification’ (Kelman, 1961) to theorize that source credibility can have a concomitant dual role (peripheral and central) in a persuasion context. More precisely, this research investigates the interactive effects of source identification and internalization with product involvement as well as brand-purchase motives on consumers' attitudes and intentions. Source internalization is predicted to have persuasive effects in the contexts of high-involvement as well as informational products. Source identification is predicted to have persuasive effects in the context of low-involvement as well as transformational products. The findings of two experiments show that celebrity credibility acts through only a single route (i.e., only internalization has persuasive effects) uniformly across different product involvement levels and brand-purchase motive types. We interpret these results with the lens of the ‘match-up’ hypothesis (Kamins, 1990).