The impact of media on the legitimacy of new market categories: The case of broadband internet

Building on research in institutional theory and market categories, we argue that media coverage, through the effects of cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy, influence the creation of new market categories. Using data on the broadband access industry, we develop and test a media coverage model of market category entries, demonstrating the legitimacy effects of media-based information exchange on the emergence of new market categories. We include two post hoc analyses on mediation effects to test the relationship between population density and media coverage. These results indicate a possible mediation relationship, which we discuss in the implications of our study.     

Ranking journal quality by harmonic mean of ranks: an application to ISI statistics & probability

As the preponderance of journal rankings becomes increasingly more frequent and prominent in academic decision making, such rankings in broad discipline categories is taking on an increasingly important role. The paper focuses on the robustness of rankings of academic journal quality and research impact using the widely‐used Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science citations database (ISI) for the Statistics & Probability category. The paper analyses 110 ISI international journals in Statistics & Probability using quantifiable research assessment measures (RAMs), and highlights the similarities and differences in various RAMs, which are based on alternative transformations of citations and influence. Alternative RAMs may be calculated annually or updated daily to determine when, where and how (frequently) published papers are cited (see Chang, McAleer and Oxley (2011a, b, c) , Chang, Maasoumi and McAleer (2012) ). The RAMs are grouped in four distinct classes that include impact factor, mean citations and non‐citations, journal policy, number of high quality papers, and journal influence and article influence. These classes include the most widely used RAMs, namely the classic 2‐year impact factor including journal self citations (2YIF), 2‐year impact factor excluding journal self citations (2YIF^*), 5‐year impact factor including journal self citations (5YIF), Eigenfactor (or Journal Influence), Article Influence, h‐index, PI‐BETA (Papers Ignored – By Even The Authors), 5YD2 (= 5YIF/2YIF) as a measure of citations longevity, and escalating self citations as a measure of increasing journal self citations. The paper highlights robust rankings based on the harmonic mean of the ranks of RAMs across the 4 classes. It is shown that focusing solely on the 2YIF of a journal, which partly answers the question as to when published papers are cited, to the exclusion of other informative RAMs, which answer where and how (frequently) published papers are cited, can lead to a distorted evaluation of journal quality, impact and influence relative to the more robust harmonic mean of the ranks.     

Influences of individual-level characteristics on risk perceptions to various categories of environmental health and safety risks

Over the last five decades, social science researchers have examined how the public perceives the risks associated with a variety of environmental health and safety (EHS) hazards. The body of literature that has been emerged diverse both in the methodology employed to collect and analyze data and in the subject of study. The findings have confirmed that risk perceptions vary between groups of individuals as well as between categories of EHS risks. However, the extant literature on EHS risk perceptions has failed to provide empirical insights into how risk perceptions can be best explained according to the interplay of both (1) the category of EHS hazard appraised and (2) the prominent individual-level characteristics that best explain observed risk perception differences. This study addresses this deficiency in the literature by providing insights into the individual and cumulative roles that various individual-level variables play in characterizing risk perceptions to various categories of EHS risks including ‘agentic risks’ like street drug use and cigarette smoking, ‘emerging technological risks’ like nanoparticles and cloning, and ‘manufacturing risks’ like air and chemical pollution. Our data are drawn from the 2009 Citizens, Science, and Emerging Technologies national study of United States households that investigated public perceptions of EHS risks, traditional and emerging media use, and various individual characteristics like personal demographics, socioeconomic factors, and perceptual filters. The findings show that some categories of EHS risks like those associated with emerging technologies may be more easily predicted than other categories of risks and that individual-level characteristics vary in their explanative power between risk categories even among a single sample of respondents.     

张家界旅游商品开发现状及对策

张家界市旅游业蓬勃发展,但在开发中存在旅游购物品企业规模偏小、人力资源短缺、旅游购物品缺乏特色和创意等问题.张家界旅游购物品市场前途非常广阔,企业间要加强合作,扩大规模,培育发展产业集群;要注意重视政府的作用的发挥,创建知名旅游购物市场品牌,加大宣传力度.     

析《合同法》第286条及其正确行使

分析了学术界关于《合同法》第286条的三种观点,并提出了自己的看法与见解,最后指出了如何正确行使《合同法》第286条规定的优先受偿权。     

专业观众展览会参观目的及其类型研究——东莞国际机械及原料展览会案例探究

以专业观众组织卓有成效的东莞国际机械及原料展览会为研究个案，运用定性方法探究专业观众多样化的参观目的、类型和层次。主要研究结论为：按照专业观众参观目的及其对参展商的购买作用判断，专业观众可分为核心层、次层、外层；按照专业观众与参展商的产业关系判断，专业观众类型实际上是一个以参展商为中心的纵横交错、非常完善的产业集群链。研究打破了人们传统上对专业观众的认知，拓宽了专业观众的类型，是对国外现有研究的有益补充。     

The Theoretical Domains of Retailing Research: A Retrospective

In a previous review article [Brown, James R. and Dant, Rajiv P. (2008a), “Scientific Method and Retailing Research: A Retrospective,” Journal of Retailing, 84 (April), 1-13], we had discussed the substantive domains, the methodological approaches, and the inferential tools that researchers used to test their conceptual frameworks in 164 articles published in the Journal of Retailing during 2002-2007. In this article, we continue this introspective process, by reviewing the theories used in 173 articles published in the Journal of Retailing in the 2004-2009 (to Issue 2) time period, and classifying those theories according to their application to various substantive issues. A total of 119 different theories were used across these 173 articles, which we sub-grouped into twelve broad-based theoretical categories: (1) marketing theories, (2) microeconomic theory, (3) consumer choice theory, (4) social exchange theory, (5) information processing theory, (6) satisfaction theory, (7) reference price theory, (8) competitive theory, (9) attribution theory, (10) other psychological theories for individuals, (11) other social psychological/sociological theories, and (12) other theories. We also examine the methodological approaches and tools used to test those theories. A number of research gaps are identified for future retailing scholarship.     

Improving food security in the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal province,South Africa: Too little,too slow

Food insecurity is still remarkably high in the poorest areas of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Many rural households struggle to have sufficient access to the food they need or prefer. This article explores the extent of food access insecurity and assesses the perceived impact on food security of an Empowerment for Food Security Programme that was launched in the Province in 2007. One of the programme aims was to improve agricultural practices in community gardens, home gardens and broiler production. Data were collected among 390 beneficiary households involved in these agricultural projects in 2010. Findings confirmed that experience-based food insecurity levels were still high, despite the agricultural support programme and the government income transfers. Nevertheless, respondents attribute an improved dietary diversity and better access to resources to the programme.     

The importance of importance: Its impact on decision-making in mall retail categories during an economic downturn

The study examines how, during an economic downturn, the perceived importance of the value offering of retail store categories, as identified by a major international mall operator based in Australia, influences the relationship between consumers’ shopping attitudes and likelihood of purchasing in those categories. The findings show variance in the importance pertaining to retail store categories between those that have and those that have not altered their shopping behaviour. Different mediating effects were found in the major, mini-major, leisure, apparel, and mobile phone categories, suggestive of each group having differing levels of self-interest in the value offerings of each category, thus, symptomatic of dissimilar decision-making strategies for each group. Contributions to theory and practice are discussed.