Intention of Internet-based Customer Involvement in Product Development： A Conceptual Investigation

The paper develops an extension of Technology Acceptance Model （TAM） and puts forward the TAM-VCE conceptual model to explain the intention of intemet-based customer involvement in new product development （NPD）. The findings will help enterprises design Virtual Customer Environments accepted by customer.     

Reserves and cash flows under stochastic retirement

Uncertain time of retirement and uncertain structure of retirement benefits are risk factors for life insurance companies. Nevertheless, classical life insurance models assume these are deterministic. In this paper, we include the risk from stochastic time of retirement and stochastic benefit structure in a classical finite-state Markov model for a life insurance contract. We include discontinuities in the distribution of the retirement time. First, we derive formulas for appropriate scaling of the benefits according to the time of retirement and discuss the link between the scaling and the guarantees provided. Stochastic retirement creates a need to rethink the construction of disability products for high ages and ways to handle this are discussed. We show how to calculate market reserves and how to use modified transition probabilities to calculate expected cash flows without significantly more complexity than in the traditional model. At last, we demonstrate the impact of stochastic retirement on market reserves and expected cash flow in numerical examples.     

NPD speed vs. innovativeness: The contingent impact of institutional and market environments

Whereas new product development (NPD) speed and product innovativeness are two critical strategic determinants of firm performance, previous studies show inconclusive findings about their effects. Drawing on institutional and contingency perspectives, this study elucidates value appropriation issues in NPD and examines how the effects of NPD speed and technological radicalness are contingent on institutional frameworks and market conditions. Results from 244 high-tech companies in China show that dysfunctional competition enhances the effect of NPD speed, but legal inadequacy hinders the impact of technological radicalness on firm performance. Market growth strengthens the performance effect of NPD speed but restrains the effect of technological radicalness. In addition, technological radicalness demonstrates stronger effects on firm performance when demand uncertainty is high.     

Time Changes for Lévy Processes

The goal of this paper is to consider pure jump Lévy processes of finite variation with an infinite arrival rate of jumps as models for the logarithm of asset prices. These processes may be written as time-changed Brownian motion. We exhibit the explicit time change for each of a wide class of Lévy processes and show that the time change is a weighted price move measure of time. Additionally, we present a number of Lévy processes that are analytically tractable, in their characteristic functions and Lévy densities, and hence are relevant for option pricing.     

Unraveling determinants of inferred and stated attribute nonattendance: Effects on farmers’ willingness to accept to join agri-environmental schemes

Attribute nonattendance (ANA) has received very little attention in the context of willingness to accept (WTA), although an increasing number of studies analyze the preferences of ecosystem service providers toward incentive-based schemes. We add to the understanding of ANA behavior by analyzing stated and inferred ANA in a choice experiment investigating farmers’ WTA for participating in agri-environmental schemes (AES) in southern Spain. We use mixed logit models, following Hess and Hensher for the inferred ANA approach. Evidence is found of ANA behavior for both stated and inferred approaches, with models accounting for ANA clearly outperforming those that do not account for it; however, we produce no conclusive results as to which ANA approach is best. WTA estimates are only moderately affected, which to some extent is consistent with the low level of non-attendance found for the monetary attribute. Stated and inferred approaches show very similar WTA estimates. Additionally, we investigate sources of observed heterogeneity related to ANA behavior by using a sequence of bivariate probit models for each attribute. Overall, our results hint at a positive relationship between ease of scheme adoption and nonattendance to attributes. However, further research is still needed in this field.     

研发过程模型优化——研发过程任意阶段知识运作模型研究

本文拟通过对三个现有研发过程模型的评述,结合其他相关文献的回顾以及当前企业界所能够提供的技术服务,对研发过程模型予以优化,并尝试提出了‘研发过程任意阶段知识运作模型”来探讨“知识在研发过程中究竟是如何运作的”的问题,以期能够为当前的企业界和学术界的研发过程运作模式的完善提供有益参考。     

传统优势企业不连续创新研究

传统优势企业拥有较多的科技资源,是技术创新的重要主体,其技术创新能力的强弱事关国民经济发展全局。这类企业由于资源优势在连续创新上往往表现出色,但同时由于行为劣势在不连续创新上表现欠佳。为了实现从后发优势向先发优势的转变,有必要对传统优势企业的不连续创新进行专门的研究。     

FAST MONTE CARLO GREEKS FOR FINANCIAL PRODUCTS WITH DISCONTINUOUS PAY‐OFFS

We introduce a new class of numerical schemes for discretizing processes driven by Brownian motions. These allow the rapid computation of sensitivities of discontinuous integrals using pathwise methods even when the underlying densities postdiscretization are singular. The two new methods presented in this paper allow Greeks for financial products with trigger features to be computed in the LIBOR market model with similar speed to that obtained by using the adjoint method for continuous pay‐offs. The methods are generic with the main constraint being that the discontinuities at each step must be determined by a one‐dimensional function: the proxy constraint. They are also generic with the sole interaction between the integrand and the scheme being the specification of this constraint.     

Market‐oriented is more than being customer‐led

Connor, in ‘Customer‐led and market‐oriented: A matter of balance’, argues, among other things, that we propose that market oriented businesses focus on future customer needs to the neglect of current customer needs, that market oriented businesses over‐emphasize marketing activities in their value chains, that market oriented businesses emphasize generative learning to the neglect of adaptive learning, and that only large companies have the resources to become market oriented. These arguments are largely unfair extrapolations of our position and reflect a superficial understanding of the nature and benefits of being market oriented. We use this response to clarify our position on these issues. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New product development in Asia: An introduction to the special issue

Given the increasing importance of Asia, the purpose of this special issue is to broaden the scope of our understanding of New Product Development (NPD) by going beyond the traditional Western research settings and looking at how new products are developed in Asia. This paper introduces the special issue on NPD in Asia and identifies key patterns of similarities and differences between Asian and Western NPD practices. The paper highlights key similarities and differences in the areas of organizational/top management support; technological proficiency; customer/market orientation; information sharing; cross-functional interface; entrepreneurship orientation; NPD strategies; innovation orientation; contingencies of innovation orientation; innovative marketing strategies; NPD process; appointment of project managers; rewarding team members; success rate; and cycle time.