Lobbying as a potent political marketing tool for firm performance: A closer look

This study endeavors to enhance political marketing literature about the impact of lobbying on firm performance. Our sample is composed of 140 U.S. firms and spans the years 2007–2014 to encompass the 2007–2009 recession and the subsequent recovery period. Our findings indicate that lobbying expenses positively contribute to firm performance. Also, government contracts in both ways, dollar amount and number of government contracts, act as mediators between lobbying expenses and firm performance. In addition, organizational slack moderates the relationship between lobbying expenses and government contracts. The managerial implications suggest that lobbying expenses can be leveraged as a potent tool for firm performance. Firms with larger lobbying efforts acquired both, higher dollar amounts and a greater number of government contracts.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

Advertising to the masses: the effects of crowding on the attention to place-based advertising

Advertising situated in environments where people congregate or pass through on their way to somewhere else benefit from being placed in such high traffic areas. However, these strategically placed ads also suffer from conditions of human crowding that prevents them from being noticed and processed. We undertake a study of place-based advertising in a shopping mall using facial recognition software to determine the effect of human density on the attention directed to advertising. We find that as human density increases, attention to advertising decreases, but only to a point where it begins to increase again. Our research also finds that human density plays a moderating role on the motivation to process advertising.     

Optimal investment with vintage capital: Equilibrium distributions

The paper concerns the study of equilibrium points, or steady states, of economic systems arising in modeling optimal investment with vintage capital, namely, systems where all key variables (capitals, investments, prices) are indexed not only by time but also by age. Capital accumulation is hence described as a partial differential equation (briefly, PDE), and equilibrium points are in fact equilibrium distributions in the variable of ages. A general method is developed to compute and study equilibrium points of a wide range of infinite dimensional, infinite horizon, optimal control problems. We apply the method to optimal investment with vintage capital, for a variety of data, deriving existence and uniqueness of equilibrium distribution, as well as analytic formulas for optimal controls and trajectories in the long run. The examples suggest that the same method can be applied to other economic problems displaying heterogeneity. This shows how effective the theoretical machinery of optimal control in infinite dimension is in computing explicitly equilibrium distributions. To this extent, the results of this work constitute a first crucial step towards a thorough understanding of the behavior of optimal paths in the long run.     

中国零售业自营与联营问题的流通经济学分析

零售业自营与联营之争由来已久，在当前供给侧结构性改革、完善促进消费体制机制以及零售业寻求创新发展的背景下，有必要对这一问题展开进一步的理论探讨。文章结合马克思流通经济理论指出，自营和联营的本质区别在于是商业资本还是产业资本承担商品流通职能，自营和联营并不是非此即彼的互斥关系，但如果零售业完全倚重其中一种模式并在全社会推向极端，则需要反思商业资本和产业资本是否各得其所和高效分工。在中国流通体制变革中，虽然联营模式在特定历史时期帮助众多零售企业渡过生存危机并推进内资零售快速扩张，但发展至今，已呈现零售业普遍联营的情况，使零售业整体面临着制约创新发展的新问题。数字经济为零售业回归自营提供了有利契机，零售企业应充分利用新技术摆脱联营制的路径依赖，依托数字化开展深度自营并全面提升流通效率。     

The Effects of Search-Related and Purchase-Related Mobile App Additions on Retailers’ Shareholder Wealth: The Roles of Firm Size,Product Category,and Customer Segment

Mobile channel additions have been shown to increase consumer-brand relationships, brand satisfaction towards and overall purchasing from a retailer, but what is less apparent is whether shareholders are fully rewarded for retailers’ mobile channel additions. Results from an event study on 115 announcements relating to mobile app additions of publicly traded U.S. retail firms between 2009 and 2016 indicate that the stock market responds generally positively to mobile app additions, but specifically to the two mobile app addition types. Stock market responses to search-related and purchase-related app additions are moderated by firm size, product category, and target customer age. For announcements of search-related apps, the market responds more positively to product retailers than to service retailers, and to small firms than large ones. For announcements of purchase-related apps, the market responds less positively to firms that target younger customers than firms who do not especially target them.     

Some Potential Linkages for Input-Output Analysis with Flow-of-Funds

Three major, interrelated accounting statements, at the frontiers of quantitative economic analysis, are three interrelated systems, namely: (1) National income and product accounts (NIPA), (2) The input-output tableaux, (IO), and (3) flow-of- funds accounts (FF). The third-mentioned system is somewhat less available and used in only limited areas of macroeconomic analysis. This paper is mainly concerned with use of FF accounting systems. This system shows where financial resources originate, and where they go in support of real capital formation. In this respect, interest rates and other market-based financial rates are of key importance. While much macroeconomic analysis is based on the rates that fit the yield curve, showing the interest rate structure over various maturities of debt associated with a given degree of risk. In contrast, the FF accounts throw light on the whole spectrum of interest rates, across maturities and debt qualities. For example, in analysis of the real estate market and funding of capital formation there, it is important to have a full understanding of the course of mortgage rates of different maturities and qualities. In short, it is necessary to develop a full appreciation of supply and demand forces in the mortgage market, which often is not obviously related to movements of the operative rate for monetary policy, such as very short-term inter bank rates or call money rates. This paper attempts to provide material from the flow-of-funds accounts that would make it possible to analyze the movement of relevant mortgage rates or whatever other rates are needed to understand the financing of capital formation in real estate.     

新形势下企业人力资源开发与管理策略研究

21世纪 ,企业面临“非连贯性”的新竞争环境 ,需要建立健全企业人才资源开发与管理的机制和相应的策略。本文在分析企业面临的新形势的基础上 ,对当前企业人力资源开发与管理机制进行了分析 ,并进一步提出企业人力资源开发与管理的相应策略 ,即彻底转变和更新人才观念 ;实施战略性人力资源管理 ;建立企业高素质人才资源开发机制等。     

ICT Statistics at the New Millennium—Developing Official Statistics—Measuring the Diffusion of ICT and its Impact

The paper gives a short and very rough overview of the ongoing work in the field of statistics relating to the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and its impacts on the economies and on the society as a whole. It introduces three slightly different approaches with different emphasis on describing the emergence and diffusion of ICT and the respective economic and social change. These are termed the indicators approach, the new economy approach and the intellectual capital approach. The paper also discusses the basic requirements for the establishment of a new statistical system, as well as the present obstacles and problems of this work. Finally, some remarks are presented regarding further statistical co-operation in this field.