Emerging Market Business Cycles: The Role of Labor Market Frictions

Emerging economies are characterized by higher variability of consumption and real wages relative to output and a strongly countercyclical current account. A small open economy model with search‐matching frictions and countercyclical interest rate shocks can account for these regularities. Search‐matching frictions affect permanent income, and increase future employment uncertainty, heightening workers' incentives to save and generating a greater response of consumption and the current account. The greater consumption response feeds into larger fluctuations in workers' willingness to work, while interest rate shocks lead to variations in firms' willingness to hire; both of these outcomes contribute to highly variable wages.     

When Shopbots Meet Emails: Implications for Price Competition on the Internet

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - The Internet has dramatically reduced search costs for customers by using such technologies as shopbots. Email based targeting is relatively inexpensive; the...     

Exploring Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) in The Consumer Purchase Decision-Making Process: The Case of Online Holidays – Evidence from United Kingdom (UK) Consumers

This study explores the role of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in the consumer decision-making process when purchasing a holiday. Using an ethnographic approach, it explores the role of eWOM on consumers’ attitudes toward online reviews (eReviews) and their subsequent behavior. Across the consumer decision-making processes – information search, evaluation, and purchase – the study develops a conceptual framework with three eWOM dimensions: (1) motivation, (2) source, and (3) content. Findings explore the variations of eWOM’s influence across the decision-making stages with implications for theory and practice. The study further highlights implications for segmentation practices in the tourism industry.     

Online Price Search: Impact of Price Comparison Sites on Offline Price Evaluations

Consumers increasingly rely on Internet price comparison sites (PCS) to gain knowledge about the market. The prices generated by a PCS search can act as contextual reference prices and influence the attractiveness of prices encountered later as consumers shop offline at local stores. This paper demonstrates that both PCS retailer ratings and the shape of the PCS price distribution influence the impact of PCS search results on later price evaluations. A favorable PCS retailer rating increases the perceived validity of the price associated with that retailer, enhancing the impact of that PCS price on offline price evaluations (Study 1). The shape of the PCS price distribution can also influence later price evaluations, however this effect depends on the information provided by the PCS retailer ratings. When PCS retailer ratings are similar, implying similar validity for the associated prices, low PCS prices and those appearing more frequently in the PCS price distribution have more impact (Studies 2 and 3). When PCS retailer ratings are variable (some high and some low), the PCS price distribution effect occurs only when the PCS retailer ratings provide congruent information about price validity — that is, the most frequent price is offered by retailers with more favorable ratings. Study 3 shows that price validity inferences do mediate this result. Finally, we depart from the offline shopping context to show that when consumers choose a retailer directly from the PCS search results, the effect of PCS retailer ratings is stronger for high-priced retailers and for consumers who rely less on the retailer price as a heuristic to infer retailer service level. Based on our findings we offer insights for online and offline retailers when considering strategic responses, such as price matching guarantees.     

Search practices in the early phase of the innovation process and ambidexterity: testing a sample of high-tech companies

This paper investigates the relationship between the practices put in place by firms to search for local and distant knowledge, ambidexterity and firms’ performances; attention is then focused on analysing the antecedents and consequences of ambidexterity in the search phase of the innovation process. Structural equation modelling has been used in order to test these hypotheses in a sample of Italian high-tech companies. Results of the study show a positive impact of the practices used by firm to search for distant knowledge on both ambidexterity and firms’ performances as well. Implications of these results are discussed in the paper.     

The default heuristic in strategic decision making: When is it optimal to choose the default without investing in information search?

Many studies have shown that decision makers have a tendency to choose the default or standard action among several possible actions. The article develops a model to explore under what conditions it is optimal for a firm facing a strategic decision problem to choose the default action without investing in obtaining more information that allows a more accurate decision. The model shows that the strategy to follow the default without additional information (“the default heuristic”) is more likely to be optimal when the cost of obtaining information is higher, and when the variation in possible outcomes is lower. The model also analyzes the optimal level of information search, showing that if the firm chooses to obtain information at all, it will invest in more accurate information when the cost of obtaining information is lower and when the variation in possible outcomes is lower.     

When hubs forget,lie, and play favorites: Interpersonal network structure,information distortion,and organizational learning

The interpersonal network structure of an organization directly influences the diffusion and recombination of ideas and can thus facilitate or impede organizational learning. Most interpersonal networks have ‘hubs’—individuals who have significantly more connections than does the average member. This raises important questions about how hubs influence organizational learning outcomes. Does the presence of hubs improve or impair performance? What happens if hubs forget or misrepresent information that is transmitted through the network? Using simulation models, we find that moderately hubby networks outperform both very hubby and democratic networks. We also find that moderate amounts of information omission or misrepresentation can be surprisingly beneficial to performance, though the patterns of their effects are strikingly different. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

方向限制的信息搜索引擎在智能交通系统中的应用研究

基于位置的信息服务(LBS)要求在任何时间,任何地点,向有需要的人群提供正确的位置信息,因而在智能交通系统(ITS)中有着广泛的应用.传统的信息搜索方式是先对海量数据进行关键字检索,再对兴趣点进行逐个排除并得到最终结果,这种方式运算量大,检索结果复杂.方向限制的信息搜索通过对兴趣点建立新型索引,利用快速有效的剪枝技术结合关键字索引方法预先剪除大量不符合方向要求的数据,显著提升了搜索效率,为用户的出行提供更加便利的体验效果.     

博客营销在企业网络营销中的作用管窥

互联网的迅猛发展给博客(BLOG)提供了一个迅速成长的成熟环境。而企业在网络营销业务中的博客营销则是一种基于包括思想、体验等表现形式的个人知识资源及它的网络信息传递形式。这种网络营销工具已在企业网络营销业务中起到越来越大的作用。     

Query Titles in Travel Forums: Nature and Impacts on Responses

Despite travel forums being an influential source of electronic word of mouth in the tourism context, the nature of interaction between information inquirers and contributors is yet to be appraised. This study attempts to fill the knowledge gap by exploring the inquiry titles in a travel forum in terms of its nature and influence on viewers’ responses. For empirical examination, thread titles for queries on South Korea and Japan that were posted in the Lonely Planet Thorn tree forum between March 2009 and February 2010 were collected (n?=?220) and analyzed. The results reveal that search by location is prevalent when potential tourists post a query in a travel forum. Search by interest is more likely at the city or regional level, while search by general (SBG) topic is prevalent in national-level search. The nature of inquiry title also reflects the intended length of stay at a destination. SBG in title significantly outweighs other categories in terms of the number of views and replies. Implication of findings and directions for future study are discussed.