Customer reactions to self-checkout discontinuance

Self-service technologies (SSTs) increasingly permeate retail space. Yet, sometimes retailers decide to revert to human-delivered service mode by discontinuing their incumbent SST. In this study, we examine how self-checkout (SCO) discontinuance affects customers’ perceptions of SCO technology and purchase behavior. We conduct a natural field experiment by surveying two groups of customers pre- and post- SCO discontinuance: treatment group (who experience discontinuance) and control group (who do not experience discontinuance). Leveraging difference-in-differences analyses, we find that SCO discontinuance results in decreases in customers’ satisfaction with technology, intentions to use technology, perceived simplicity of technology, and basket size. Our results inform managers of the potential downsides of discontinuing SST and provide corroborating evidence of the technology’s benefits.     

Lobbying as a potent political marketing tool for firm performance: A closer look

This study endeavors to enhance political marketing literature about the impact of lobbying on firm performance. Our sample is composed of 140 U.S. firms and spans the years 2007–2014 to encompass the 2007–2009 recession and the subsequent recovery period. Our findings indicate that lobbying expenses positively contribute to firm performance. Also, government contracts in both ways, dollar amount and number of government contracts, act as mediators between lobbying expenses and firm performance. In addition, organizational slack moderates the relationship between lobbying expenses and government contracts. The managerial implications suggest that lobbying expenses can be leveraged as a potent tool for firm performance. Firms with larger lobbying efforts acquired both, higher dollar amounts and a greater number of government contracts.     

Effects of individual resources and team-member exchange on service quality

While workplace resources are generally viewed as positively affecting performance, some studies indicate that not all resources increase performance. This study addresses the controversial disparate effects of workplace resources on performance by exploring functionally classified workplace resources in self-managing service teams and their relative impacts on team service quality. Considering membership dynamics and consequences between members, a field experiment was conducted in a cafeteria, with data collected through a working diary for workplace resources and a customer survey to evaluate service quality. Results suggest that efficacy-resources in self-managing teams should be controlled with caution as they may adversely affect team service quality. Supporting the person–situation interactionism perspective, workplace resources interact dynamically with individual employees and with situations. Esteem-resources were found to increase team service quality, while team-member exchange not only improved team service quality but also moderated the impact of esteem-resources on team service quality.     

Social media affordances in entry‐level employees’ socialization: employee agency in the management of their professional impressions and vulnerability during early stages of socialization

This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affordances of social media. Findings are discussed with regards to employees’ exertion of agency in managing their professional impressions and coping with high levels of uncertainty and vulnerability during early stages of socialization.     

Smart work and hard work: explicating a learning orientation in strategic management accounting

This paper examines the skills and aptitudes necessary to undertake a strategic management accounting project. It argues that individuals involved in such projects are required to work both smart and hard. This argument is developed theoretically by reference to the work of educational psychologists who have identified two different types of goal orientation which people pursue in achievement situations: the learning orientation and the performance orientation. Evidence that strategic management accounting requires a learning orientation is provided by means of a case study which describes its use in a competitive tendering situation. This is followed by a discussion of the potentially symbiotic relationship of strategic management accounting and organizational learning. The discussion leads to the specification of a research agenda that may have significant implications for the practice and learning of management accounting.     

Independent Movement or Government Subcontractor? – Strategic Responses of Voluntary Organizations to Institutional Processes

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that can explain differing responses of voluntary organizations to the pressure of homogenization that follows from interaction with public authorities. The paper is theoretically based on institutional organization theory and resource dependence theory, and empirically on research on voluntary organizations in the social sector. It is asserted that the following factors may explain voluntary organizations' ability to maintain autonomous in relation to public organizations: the characteristics of the organizational field, the focal organization's relations to the dominating organization in the field, organization characteristics and intra–organizational processes and strategies.     

Why are Small Firms Different? Managers’ Views

Do incentives differ between large and small organizations? Results from a representative survey of compensation managers are used to shed light on the issues. I find that (i) small establishments rely less on pecuniary incentives, and have a significantly more hostile attitude towards incentive schemes based on competition and relative rewards; (ii) large units are more vulnerable to mechanisms of efficiency wages, effects that remain even after controlling for differences in monitoring ability; (iii) large units are more prone to indicate that negative reciprocity is important, and that their employees care about relative pay. I argue that these findings fit with behavioral stories of incentives and motivation, in particular those stressing group interaction effects, inequity aversion and gift exchange.     

明代皖南平原的圩田与农业生产

洪武时期，旧有圩田得到迅速恢复；建文至正德期间，圩田有较明显的发展，扩大了耕地面积，富豪围垦在其中占有重要地位，同时，圩田发展与蓄水防洪的矛盾已经凸显；嘉靖以后，水灾呈现加剧的趋势，除固有的自然因素的原因外，过度围垦、民人渔利、修防低效等社会因素起着重要作用，同时，对圩田的治理有新的进展。圩田在皖南平原农业生产上具有重要作用。     

Does success diminish competitive responsiveness? Reconciling conflicting perspectives

Previous research provides conflicting evidence of the association between the past performance of a business and its competitive responsiveness, with researchers observing both positive and negative relationships. To clarify this issue, the authors test a model using survey data from the retailing industry. The model delineates direct and indirect mediated paths through ability to respond, motivation to respond, and awareness of competitors’ actions to show how past performance can have both positive and negative influence on competitive responsiveness. However, the overall impact of past performance of an organization on its competitive responsiveness is positive. The implications of these findings for research, practice, and theory are discussed. Satish Jayachandran (satish@moore.sc.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. His research interests are focused on issues related to the market responsiveness of firms. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He was a recipient of the Harold H. Maynard Award for 2001 from theJournal of Marketing. He was nominated a young scholar by the Marketing Science Institute in 2003. Rajan Varadarajan (varadarajan@tamu.edu) is Distinguished Professor of Marketing and holder of the Ford Chair in marketing and e-commerce at Texas A & M University. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of strategy, international marketing, and e-commerce. His research on these topics has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theAcademy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Business Horizons, theJournal of Business Research, and other journals.     

一纸灵魂的处方，一曲生命的悲歌——再读《红处方》

女作家毕淑敏在创作中始终关注着女性及其生存状况，《红处方》亦是如此，它被一些批评家看作是毕淑敏的女权主义开山之作，事实并非如此。在《红处方》中，强大的女性话语场背后透露出的是女性自我意识的缺失，但与之对应的是作者向读者进行着更为深切的生命体验展示及发自灵魂深处的人性拷问，为现实生活中的人们开了一纸灵魂的处方，具有深广的社会意义，对这一事实的认识是理解《红处方》的重中之重。