Bidding in private-value auctions with uncertain values

Auctions are often used to sell idiosyncratic goods difficult for potential bidders to value ex ante. Laboratory auctions with uncertainty over final values in this experiment resulted in 18% and 27% of bids above the expected value of the item in private-value first-price and English auctions, respectively. Risk-seeking preferences as measured on an individual decision task cannot explain overbidding and the first-price auction results suggest that risk aversion may not be a good explanation for bidding behavior observed with certain values. Several candidate explanations fail to explain overbidding, rather it appears to stem from some bidders who are prone to overbidding. Relative to first-price auctions, the size and frequency of overbids are significantly larger in English auctions, while more English auctions are won by overbidders. Differences between the formats appear to be driven by the dynamic nature of English auctions which is consistent with popular notions of “auction fever.”     

基于.net和Ajax的在线编译器网络平台开发

为实现编译的在线化,研究了.NET、Ajax模式与GCC编译器技术,解决了编译器核心的调用,网页局部刷新,语法高亮实现和网络拥堵等关键技术问题,设计了在线编译器网络平台。经测试,平台运行稳定,可靠安全,操作简洁,具有良好的人机交互界面。在计算机编程教学和编程竞赛等领域有广阔的应用前景。     

Drivers and barriers to online airline ticket purchasing

Although online sales of airline tickets are growing, many travellers are still reluctant to use the web as a purchase channel. Given the cost advantages of online sales for airlines, it is useful for them to know the main drivers and barriers affecting the use of the Internet to purchase tickets. This study analyses the influence of risk, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on the airline ticket online purchase intention. The results of a survey show that perceived purchase risk and perceived usefulness exercise a direct influence on airline ticket purchasing intentions, while perceived ease of use has an indirect influence through perceived usefulness. Psychological risk, performance risk and privacy risk are the predominant perceived risk dimensions in airline tickets purchase, whereas social risk and time loss risk are negligible.     

Strategies for creating value through individual and collective customer experiences

Despite tremendous interest in how online communities create value, existing research tends to focus on limited means through which such value is generated. In this article, we develop a conceptual model of customer value formation. This model rests on two dimensions, namely whether value is formed in the customer or provider domain and whether the value is individual or collective in nature. This enables value formation to be characterized in four ways and enables a more nuanced view of value formation to emerge. Firms are encouraged to reflect on their efforts to support each of the four value formation types. In particular, our conceptualization challenges companies to consider customer contexts outside of customer-firm interaction as important sources of value creation for customers. Such reflection enables practitioners to develop strategies for supporting individual and collective value creation across both the customer and provider domains.     

基于携程网在线评价探析黑龙江省五星级酒店的顾客满意度

在线点评的发展为酒店企业了解其服务质量提供了有效的工具。以黑龙江省五星级酒店为例,以技术手段抓取以在线点评文本为主要数据基础的内容,运用网络文本分析法,进行词条的搜集和归纳整理,构建酒店服务质量网络评价体系,从服务质量、设施设备、地理位置三个角度对酒店的顾客感知服务质量进行研究,从中发现不足并提出相应对策。     

Systemic financial distress and auction-based bankruptcy reorganization

Most bankruptcy procedures try to reorganize a financially-distressed firm's debts to a serviceable level through negotiations overseen by courts. Markets are an alternative to such negotiations. This paper develops a market-based approach that is appropriate if claimants are severely cash-constrained and there is merit in having existing owners-managers remain in control.This approach was developed in response to the 1997 Asian Crisis, where the sheer numbers of over-indebted firms, creditors with poor incentives, and inexperienced courts stymied negotiated resolution. The scheme, however, can be applied to other crisis settings that exhibit particular characteristics. One such setting could be the resolution of external sovereign debts, a situation where creditors obviously cannot take possession of a country.The scheme arranges creditors in a queue to be serviced in sequence from the firm's operating cash flows. Creditors bid for their position in this queue, and those accepting a greater proportionate reduction in the face value of their claims are placed ahead of the others. Any existing hierarchy of claims is honored by having claimants bid for their positions within the relevant segment of the queue. No one in the queue (including owners who are last) is paid anything until the (reduced) debts of the first in line are fully discharged using the firm's operating cash surpluses. The queue then moves up and the next claimant in line is serviced.The paper shows that, in equilibrium, the aggregate debts of the firm are reduced enough to provide a positive expected residual return to the owner-managers, which improves their incentives to efficiently operate the firm and can result in an outcome that is Pareto superior to other bankruptcy procedures. We discuss the efficiency properties of this scheme and its appropriateness to situations of systemic financial distress.     

How Task-Facilitative Interactive Tools Foster Buyers’ Trust in Online Retailers: A Process View of Trust Development in the Electronic Marketplace

While there is a sustained interest in research focusing on issues relating to trust development in the electronic marketplace, significant gaps remain in the literature. In particular, little is known of the underlying processes that may be occurring in online trust development. For example, research suggests that factors such as site design and navigability are among the factors that impact trust perceptions. Extant literature, however, is largely silent about why certain trust-related effects are observed in online environments. In this paper, we propose a new process-centric perspective for understanding the formation of online trust—through buyer's assessment of the e-retailer's assistive intent, implicitly embedded in task-facilitative interactive tools. Specifically, we develop and test a model delineating the relationship between seller's provision of interactive product information management and product information comprehension tools, buyer's perceptions of seller's assistive intent, and buyer's initial trust in the seller. The results of two studies provide support for the trust-enhancing effects of task-facilitative informational tools and the mediating role of buyer's perceptions of seller's assistive intent. Importantly, these effects occur without any explicit expressions of seller's intentions. The results also suggest that the efficacy of interactive informational tools in engendering perceptions of seller's assistive intent, and hence trust, varies with the buyer's level of involvement with and knowledge of the product category.     

Google or BizRate? How search engines and comparison sites affect unplanned choices of online retailers

Recent trends in online retailing suggest that “33% of buyers often or sometimes make unplanned purchases” [Annual Retail Consumer Survey Report. Jupiter Research 2003.]. Findings based on online retailing trends also suggest that both search engines and infomediaries are beginning to play a strong role in leading consumers to online retail sites. Additionally, some practitioner studies find that about half of online consumers use comparison shopping sites before choosing a retailer. Retailers therefore need to understand whether search engines or infomediaries play a stronger role in bringing unplanned consumers. This is the issue that we investigate in this research. Our results indicate that, retailer and consumer factors, category characteristics and the consumer's past relationship with the retailer do play a role in the store choice decisions of online consumers. Between search engines and infomediaries, however, search engines play a far stronger role than infomediaries. The effect is, in fact, more than twice that of infomediaries.     

Anti-branding on the internet

Anti-brand web sites are online spaces that focus negative attention on a specific targeted brand. Although anti-consumption movements on the internet have been gaining in numbers and in strength, research has not fully uncovered the nature of such sites and their impact on brand value and consumer anti-consumption. We present a conceptual framework describing online anti-branding and investigate causal relationships in two empirical studies. Study 1 investigates the brand value's impact on likelihood of the presence of anti-brand sites. Strong brands are more likely to have anti-brand sites. Study 2 is a content analysis of a representative sample of anti-brand sites that assesses the nature of the language used by such sites. Anti-brand sites use three types of language — market, ideological and transactional speech. The study finds that market speech is most prevalent and relates to brand value.     

Sequencing strategies in large, competitive, ascending price automobile auctions: An experimental examination

This paper reports on a large-scale field experiment testing strategies available to a seller participating in simultaneous competitive sequential ascending price automobile auctions. Every other week, the seller offered approximately 100 vehicles for sale in an auction environment in which several competing sellers offered on the order of 3000 vehicles. The experiment tested various sequences in which the seller could offer the vehicles, such as high values first or low values first. Surprisingly, and contrary to intuition drawn from the theory of single item and single seller auctions, the worst performing sequence from those tested is for the seller to order vehicles from highest to lowest values. The best sequence is to group the vehicles by type and offer the low valued vehicles first and then move to offer the higher valued vehicles.