The new wave of AI-powered luxury brands online shopping experience: The role of digital multisensory cues and customers’ engagement

Academic literature retains a dearth of empirical evidence of the cutting-edge aspect of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital assistance and digital multisensory cues, despite the prospect of these factors on real-life customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the significant pathway and effects of AI-powered digital assistance toward customers’ luxury brand online shopping experience. Drawing on S–O-R (Stimulus, organism, and response) and TRAM (Technology Readiness and Acceptance Model) paradigm, a multi-method research design was deployed to investigate constructs. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were utilized to explore customers' online behavior under the luxury brands and information technology aspect. Secondly, survey data were collected and analyzed by using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The PLS-based analysis of quantitative data confirmed the exploratory insights of qualitative findings, establishing the connections of AI-powered digital assistance, customer engagement, and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Research findings also suggest that customer engagement plays a mediation role in the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Besides, digital multisensory cues moderate the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customer engagement. Further, fsQCA complements the findings of PLS-SEM that reveal the significant combination of factors that lead to the perceptions of customers' luxury brand online shopping experience.     

Institutional dynamics and access to non-farm employment in rural China, 1950–1996

This article examines non-farm employment in the context of Chinese rural institutional change, based on evidence from discrete-time logistic models for event history analysis using the Life History and Social Change survey. We find the transition to non-farm sector rose rapidly during the Great Leap Forward and market reform, while the Cultural Revolution saw it reach the lowest ebb. While male advantage prevailed exclusively during the Cultural Revolution and early marketization, education possessed a stable positive effect in all historical periods. Although the returns to different kinds of political capital vary along with institutional dynamics, intergenerational reproduction was greatly reduced after the Cultural Revolution.     

Do Foreign Firms Transfer Gender Norms in the Labour Market? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Closing the gender gaps in economic opportunities is crucial for boosting economic growth and the empowerment of women. In this paper, we study how foreign firms contribute in reducing gender disparities in the labour market by transferring the gender norms of their country of origin to the affiliates in the host countries. We use cross sectional data on foreign firms located in 19 Sub Saharan Africa countries in 2010 by UNIDO. We find that firms coming from more gender equal countries employ more female workers in their affiliates. This effect is more relevant for the highly skilled female workers.     

Alternative balanced scorecards built from paradigm models in strategic HRM and employment/industrial relations and used to measure the state of employment relations and HR system performance across U.S. workplaces

This paper constructs alternative balanced scorecards based on high‐performance work system (HPWS) and employment relations system (ERS) models. The models are depicted and compared in diagrams and used as framework skeletons for building separate HPWS and ERS scorecards, intended to provide a detailed data picture of the operational health and performance of an organization's employment/HR system and its operations, processes, and inputs/outputs. The scorecards are filled in with nationally representative data from 2,000+ U.S. workplaces using more than 50 employment/HR indicators, as reported by separate panels of managers and employees. The indicators for each workplace are aggregated into an overall HR/employment system score, ranked from low‐to‐high, and graphed as frequency distributions. These distributions provide a unique snapshot picture of the mean and dispersion of the state of employment relations and HR system performance for companies across the United State. They also reveal that “models matter” since the HPWS and ERS scorecards provide distinctly different evaluation assessments.     

Does studying abroad enhance employability?

Over 200,000 European students study abroad under the Erasmus programme. It appears that studying abroad may impart skills which are helpful for professional careers after graduation. Approximately, 54% of European students report that participation in the Erasmus exchange programme helped them to obtain a first job; however, interestingly, those from Central and Eastern European countries report it much more often—in 73% of cases. The aim of this paper is to find out whether studying abroad enhances the employability of higher education graduates in Poland. Using the propensity score matching method and data from a nationwide tracer survey of Polish graduates, we find that Polish students who completed at least one semester of their studies abroad do not benefit in terms of a higher employment rate after graduation.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

The Econometrics and Economics of the Employment Effects of Minimum Wages: Getting from Known Unknowns to Known Knowns

I discuss the econometrics and the economics of past research on the effects of minimum wages on employment in the United States. My intent is to try to identify key questions raised in the recent literature, and some from the earlier literature, which I think hold the most promise for understanding the conflicting evidence and arriving at a more definitive answer about the employment effects of minimum wages. My secondary goal is to discuss how we can narrow the range of uncertainty about the likely effects of the large minimum wage increases becoming more prevalent in the United States. I discuss some insights from both theory and past evidence that may be informative about the effects of high minimum wages, and try to emphasize what research can be done now and in the near future to provide useful evidence to policy‐makers on the results of the coming high minimum wage experiment, whether in the United States or in other countries.     

Income and substitution effects of fiscal policy on work effort

The focus of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the impact on work effort of changes in government purchases financed with lump‐sum taxes, in a neoclassical framework, with respect to four industrialised countries. Second, it reconsiders the expenditure–work effort relationship in a broader conceptual context that allows for distortionary taxation and a disaggregation of the income and substitution effects. Our findings are shown to cast doubt on the empirical plausibility of the prevailing (neoclassical and New Keynesian) models which seem to rely heavily on the lump‐sum tax notion, thus ignoring the substitution effects of distortionary taxation.     

城市贫困人群的医疗救助问题研究

随着城市居民最低生活保障制度的实施和不断完善,城市贫困人群的生活得到了一定程度的改善。但是,在现有体制下,贫困人群的医疗问题日益凸显出来,他们在医疗方面实际上处于一种双重缺失状态,如果不解决好这个问题,有可能会影响到整个社会保障制度的完善和社会的稳定。     

我国经济发展水平与劳动力就业数量关系研究——兼论我国劳动力资源是否过剩

我国劳动力对经济发展而言，其生产率高于资本，因而经济发展对劳动力就业的促进作用逐渐减弱（经济增长的就业弹性逐渐变小）。据测算，我国2013年以前劳动力就业压力很大，2015年以后劳动力又会供不应求。所以，我国未来经济发展中，2014年前后应采用不同的产业结构调整策略来充分满足劳动力就业的要求。