石油价格进入更加波动的新时期

通过对油价波动的历史原因、市场内在因素和人为因素的分析可以看出，石油市场已进入一个新时期，油价将变得更加动荡，而且在波动中呈上升趋势。预计新的平均价位大体为每桶20美元。为此，石油公司应积极研究贸易策略，一方面设法使自身免受损失，另一方面还要寻求从价格波动中赢利。只有准备充分，才能够抗御油价的剧烈波动和周期性变化，进而获得生存与发展。     

B‐TO‐B E‐COMMERCE: A CONTENT ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT OF MOTOR CARRIER WEBSITES

An Internet presence is a critical early component in the process of building towards a fully operational and unified e‐commerce strategy. E‐commerce has significantly impacted logistics/supply chain strategies and the development and implementation of a website have become key issues for many firms within the transportation industry. This study provides an overview of website content within the motor carrier industry. Content analysis was used to assess the site design, informational content, and the interactive content of 152 motor carrier websites, and to compare the features offered on the Top 100 motor carrier firm websites with those offered on the sites of smaller carrier firms.     

Advertising effects on consumer welfare: Prices paid and liking for brands selected

The effect of advertising on consumer welfare has been the subject of dispute among economists, arising largely from disagreement among scholars regarding the persuasive versus the informative role of advertising. This paper reports two experiments that explore the welfare implications of advertising effects. Experiment 1 shows that the same advertisements can either increase or decrease prices paid for selected brands, depending on the degree to which the choice situation requires brands to be recalled in order to be considered. However, an increase in prices paid caused by advertising does not necessarily imply detrimental effects on consumer welfare. Experiment 2 shows that, even under circumstances in which differentiating advertising leads consumers to select brands with higher average prices, it can provide useful information to consumers that allows them to make purchases that are more in line with their personal tastes than are the choices of consumers not exposed to the advertisements.     

State dependency in youth unemployment: A lost generation?

Utilizing a job search framework and survey data on both completed and uncompleted spells of unemployment we present in this paper maximum likelihood estimates of the determinants of re-employment probabilities of young workers in Britain. The model used allows us to examine the importance of state dependency in youth unemployment as well as ethnicity, educational qualifications, and unemployment income. Results suggest that there is strong evidence of negative duration dependence in the transition from unemployment to employment for young workers in Britain.     

The relationship between innovation culture and innovation outcomes: exploring the effects of sustainability orientation and firm size

Being sustainability‐oriented has become a key strategy for many firms. Equally, innovation culture and innovation outcomes have long been recognized as important contributors to the growth of firms. However, the literature on sustainability and innovation provides limited understanding of the important relationship between sustainability orientation, innovation culture and innovation outcomes. Given that large firms and small firms differ in building and employing their strategic assets, firm size matters in understanding the relationship. Through the lens of resource‐based view, we develop a theoretical model embedding the four components and test it using data from a global survey: the 2012 Comparative Performance Assessment Study. Our research contributes to sustainability literature and innovation theory by providing an integrated framework to explicate the mechanism through which the innovation culture of the firm impacts on innovative performance through the sustainability orientation of the firm. The findings advance our understanding of the extent to which sustainable orientation can explain the relationship between innovation culture and innovation outcomes. Our evidence shows that the innovation culture of a firm facilitates the sustainability orientation of the firm and that the converse also applies. The research also contributes to our knowledge of the differences between large and small firms in leveraging their strategic assets in terms of innovation culture and sustainability orientation to facilitate superior innovation outcomes. Although firm size moderates the relationship between innovation culture and innovation outcomes, the research shows that this no longer holds when sustainability orientation is included in the relationship. A strong sustainability orientation can be a competitive advantage for firms in the R&D Management delivery of superior innovation outcomes.     

A buyer's perspective on collaborative versus transactional relationships

This research examines collaborative and transactional relationships in buying firms to determine whether collaborative relationships offer greater benefits than transactional relationships, and to ascertain which relational factors drive satisfaction and performance for both collaborative and transactional relationship types. Factor analysis, t-tests and step-wise regression were used to analyze data from a survey of buying firms. Results show that collaborative relationships offer higher levels of satisfaction and performance than transactional relationships. Satisfaction factored into two separate constructs: satisfaction with the relationship and satisfaction with the results. Of the relational factors examined, trust is the most important predictor of performance and satisfaction with the relationship regardless of the type of relationship examined.