Changing the rules of the game: Business responses to new regulation

This study investigates business responses to new regulation by focusing on the rearrangement of interactions in business relationships involving ‘NRG’, a large multinational energy company in the aviation industry. ‘NRG’ is confronted with new environmental rules resulting from the inclusion of the aviation industry in the European Emissions Trading Scheme as of 2012. We demonstrate that business actors do not simply comply with the rules of the game; instead they elaborate responses which impact on the creation of new rules. We argue that research on business responses to new regulation is highly relevant to industrial marketing because the increasing complexity of regulation in many industrial markets provides significant opportunities and threats to businesses. We propose three guiding principles which could be used by managers in understanding, influencing and responding to new regulation.     

Causality: a Statistical View

Statistical aspects of causality are reviewed in simple form and the impact of recent work discussed. Three distinct notions of causality are set out and implications for densities and for linear dependencies explained. The importance of appreciating the possibility of effect modifiers is stressed, be they intermediate variables, background variables or unobserved confounders. In many contexts the issue of unobserved confounders is salient. The difficulties of interpretation when there are joint effects are discussed and possible modifications of analysis explained. The dangers of uncritical conditioning and marginalization over intermediate response variables are set out and some of the problems of generalizing conclusions to populations and individuals explained. In general terms the importance of search for possibly causal variables is stressed but the need for caution is emphasized.     

探析新型工业化与民营经济科技创新的互动效应——以浙江为例

新型工业化与传统工业化具有截然不同的发展思维,新型工业化与传统工业化形成的剧烈反差将激发民营企业的创新动力。民营经济的科技创新凝结了以科技为核心的生产要素,开拓了一条向技术、人才、管理争效益的路径。顺应新型工业化与民营经济科技创新的互动机理,需要分析互动的环境因素、夯实互动基础以激活互动效应。     

动脉产业与静脉产业互动合作关系研究

本文在对动脉与静脉产业的功能与作用进行分析的基础上,首先,以不可再生资源为基础,依次增加可再生资源、静脉产业资源的方式分别建立资源平衡模型,分析延长产业生命周期互动关系;建立资源总量模型分析规模互动关系;从定性方面对发展促进互动关系进行了研究.其次,对协同发展关系进行了研究,得出了产业发展规模相适应、产业性质、产业调整、资源共享等协同一致,并对内涵进行了分析;从技术、规模、市场需求、产业关系等方面对相互制约关系进行了研究.最后,得出了合理确定动脉与静脉产业的比例关系、及时调整两者的发展规模与结构是保障循环经济体系正常运行的基础的结论,并给出了应对策略.     

中国劳动密集型工业发展与城市化进程的相互关系

在二元经济结构转换的初期阶段,劳动密集型工业的发展与城市化密切相关。劳动密集型工业的规模、空间布局影响城市化的数量水平,其产业层次、用工方式则影响城市化的质量水平。同时,城市化的数量和质量水平也会反作用于劳动密集型工业的规模扩张。本文认为,我国改革开放以来劳动密集型工业的发展呈现出明显的粗放性,而且城市化数量水平和质量水平也较低,两者之间是互相影响、互为因果的。我国目前劳动密集型工业和城市化发展均存在需要克服的障碍,因此应该抓住两者的相互关系,促使两者相互带动、协调发展。     

近代东北区城市化与工业化相互作用的过程分析

20世纪初,东北地区一度发展成为我国最早的重化工业地域,同时城市化的水平位于全国前列.快速的工业化是东北区高速城市化的基础,同时殖民地产业布局地调整和优化又离不开城市化的支撑.吸取历史经验,对于当今振兴东北老工业基地具有深远的现实意义.     

Consumers’ valuation for food traceability in China: Does trust matter?

Food safety is a very important topic in China. We investigate Chinese consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for food traceability using a choice experiment. Given that consumers’ trust in the food system may affect their preferences and WTP, we also assess the interaction between consumers’ trust in government’s supervision of food safety and food labels and consumers’ preferences for traceable food products. Using data collected from a choice experiment on Fuji apples in a face-to-face survey in six Chinese cities, the results show that (i) consumers are willing to pay for traceable food but their valuations can differ upon the degree of their trust in government’s supervision of food safety and food labels; (ii) consumers are willing to pay for traceability with strong evidence of preference heterogeneity; (iii) government is not the most trusted safety inspection and certificate authority as found in prior studies using animal food products in China.     

Multi-scale interactions between economic policy uncertainty and oil prices in time-frequency domains

Dynamic interactions between policy uncertainty and economic activity, including oil prices, have attracted increasing amounts of scholarly interest, but few studies have considered the inherent feature that the entire market is composed of different stakeholders operating in different time horizons. To fill this gap and address this issue, this paper proposes a multi-scale correlation framework. Specifically, we use the wavelet coherence method and scale-by-scale linear Granger causality tests to explore the co-movement and causality of pairs of economic policy uncertainty indices of G7 countries, China, Brazil, and Russia and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices. Our results show that the interaction between economic policy uncertainty and oil prices in the short-term is weak but gradually strengthens towards the long-term, especially when significant historical political or financial events occurred. Moreover, a consistent conclusion is that the interaction is negative in the medium-term, while it is positive in the long-term. Further, Granger causality tests at different time-scales show that no Granger causality from economic policy uncertainty to oil prices exists in the short-term for all sample countries, except the US, while there is a strong unidirectional or bidirectional Granger causality for all researched countries in the medium- and the long-term.     

Enhancing relationships in e-tail: Role of relationship quality and duration

This research deals with antecedents and outcomes of relationship quality in e-tail. SMART-PLS analysis of survey data from India (n = 644) showed that perceived value, e-service quality, interaction, discounts and transaction related factors were found to have a positive effect on relationship quality (RQ). RQ mediates the relationship between these antecedents and self-brand connect and loyalty. Support for serial mediation was found with RQ and self-brand connect preceding loyalty formation. Relationship duration positively moderated the effect of RQ on self-brand connect. RQ was conceptualized as a formative second order factor. E-tailers may invest in antecedents of RQ and they may devise strategies to increase the duration of relationships.     

低碳背景下我国制造业绿色创新系统演化过程:创新系统功能视角

在低碳发展要求下,我国制造业绿色创新系统快速发展,呈现出不同演化特征。应用动态创新系统功能分析框架,对低碳背景下我国制造业绿色创新系统的演化过程进行分析。研究发现,在低碳背景下,我国制造业绿色创新系统的演化包含3个阶段:初创阶段、形成与成长阶段、成熟与转移阶段。一般来说,在创新系统演化的不同阶段存在若干不同的系统功能作用模式,其中,只有一种模式发挥主导作用。最后,基于以上分析,针对我国制造业绿色创新系统的不同演化阶段提出政策建议。