Organization,technology and management innovations through acquisition in China’s pork value chains: The case of the Smithfield acquisition by Shuanghui

This paper reviews the changes in Shuanghui’s operations after the Smithfield acquisition as well as transformations in China’s pork industries. As income grows and diets change, there has been an increasing demand for high-quality pork and more processed pork products. However, China’s swine and pork industries are still at an early stage of development as evidenced by the low market concentration, intensive use of labour, a proliferation of intermediaries, and low levels of technology. Bounded by the established consumer preferences for freshness and the status quo in the midstream and upstream segments, Shuanghui is in a slow process of upgrading its domestic operations with Smithfield’s leading brands, import of chilled and frozen pork, advanced technologies, and the vertically integrated business model after this acquisition. In particular, it remains unclear whether Shuanghui can follow Smithfield’s experience to establish stable and safe hog supplies by multiplying self-owned hog farms, maintain and expand its current contracts with large-scale commercial hog farms, or rely more on global sourcing of pork primarily from the U.S.     

Service with improper requests: How fellow customers interpret Employee's judgment call

In this paper, we examined the impact of different judgment calls by service personnel on service satisfaction, in response to inappropriate requests from customers. Based on the stereotype content model, we propose that employees servicing with these requests are often evaluated on two fundamental dimensions, warmth and competence, and the accessibility of one dimension over the other determines overall service satisfaction of fellow customers. Through three experiments, the current research shows that fellow customers perceive service employees who consent to an improper request as higher in warmth but lower in competence than those who reject the request. However, when the compliance has serious consequences for a fellow customer, this negatively affects the competence evaluation but not the warmth evaluation, which in turn reduce customer satisfaction. When the focal customer suffers from the serious consequences, this positively affect both competence and warmth perception, which in turn enhance fellow customer satisfaction. This research could be used to identify ways to handle improper requests made by customers.     

Ketchup with your fries? Utilizing complementary product displays to transfer attention to a focal product

Does placing a display of complementary condiments (e.g., ketchup, mustard, buns,etc.) next to a display of hamburgers make shoppers more likely to attend to the hamburgers? Prior work has established that in-store marketing strategies play an important role in drawing attention to products in a retail setting. Building on this research, the present study develops a framework to better understand how shoppers in a natural retail environment attend to displays of complementary products, and how this attention transfers to a focal product. The results suggest that assortment complexity of a display positively affects initial attention capture.. Further, initial attention capture leads shoppers to spend longer evaluating the complementary products in the display, which, in turn, increases evaluation and choice of the focal product. As such, our framework indicates that complementary product displays can be effective at increasing attention to and choice of an associated focal product.     

专利技术转让的产权关系研究

随着科学技术的不断创新和提高,专利技术的交易越来越频繁,其交易所占贸易的比重也越来越大。文章指出,在专利技术交易发生前后对被交易技术进行必要的产权研究,理顺交易双方的产权关系,明确交易双方的权利和义务,对于交易双方避免交易错位和发生法律纠纷有着重要的指导意义。     

辐射迁移方程--一个K-辛空间上的正则方程

说明了均匀、轴对称、无源介质是一个K-辛空间上的Hamilton系统，Hamilton函数是系统的守恒量；数值计算辐射强度角分布的合理途径是将辐射迁移方程离散成以离散Hamilton函数为守恒量的有限维K-辛空间上的正则方程，并采用保离散Hamilton函数守恒的K-辛算法数值求解．     

The economics of land transfer and title insurance

In the presence of uncertainty over the title of land (due to fraud or error), a legal system can protect either the current (innocent) owner, or a previous owner who claims title. The predominant system in the United States generally awards title to the latter in the event of legitimate claim. Thus, current owners frequently purchase title insurance to provide indemnification in the event of a loss. In contrast, the Torrens system awards title to the current owner, but provides for indemnification of any legitimate claimants. We evaluate these two systems and argue that if transaction costs are low, both promote efficient assignment of title (according to the Coase Theorem), but if transaction costs are high, the Torrens system is more likely to award title to the party that values it the most (namely, the current possessor).     

日本转移定价税制研究

转移价格是指跨国关联企业之间进行交易时使用的价格。70年代以后，随着日本经济实力的增强，日本企业经营国际化迅猛发展，出现了许多利用国际关联企业转移所得而避税的情况，而日本有关跨国公司转移定价的税制的实施，使这一避税现象得到了了的避免。随着我国加入WTO后外资的更多进入，加强转移定价的管理势在民行，学习发达国家的先进做法，将有助于我们在这方面少走弯路。     

外语教学法分析及其启示

本文通过对十种外语教学法的产生过程、原则及其优缺点的分析，从中得到有益的启示：外语教学法是依据不同的语言学、心理学、教育学、哲学等理论来建立自身的理论，所以它们自然会强调这些学科的不同的侧面。因此，我们要择善而从、博采众长，从实际出发，因材施教，灵活运用。