Digital Internationalization of Traditional Firms: Virtual Presence and Entrepreneurial Orientation

While digital technologies like the internet offer new and less cost-intensive ways to seize international opportunities, when it comes to traditional firms selling tangible products, little is known about their use of online channels for servicing foreign markets. This is especially the case for their choice between customized (active) or general (default) forms of corporate internationalization websites (viz. virtual presence modes). Building on the entrepreneurial orientation literature, we propose that firms that are more entrepreneurially orientated are more likely to capture internationalization opportunities with active internationalization websites. We further suggest that the threat of competitive pre-emption will moderate this relationship. Using a sample of Austrian SME exporters, we find support for the positive effect of entrepreneurial orientation on the use of active internationalization websites, but do not find a significant moderating effect of competitive pre-emption. In this way, we add to the growing research on digital internationalization by explaining the circumstances in which traditional firms choose between different internationalization website formats.     

Strategic implications of consumer food safety preferences

This study examines the tradeoffs consumers are willing to make relative to food safety attributes and other product attributes, such as quality and price, and develops implications for both the government and private sector firms. Conjoint analysis was used to elicit consumers’ preferences for fresh Red Delicious apples. The attributes studied include price, product quality as depicted by the level of defects, a variable representing the level of pesticide usage and the associated cancer risk, and a variable representing different levels of government inspection.The results indicated that most consumers have a strong preference for increased food safety. Government policy options that are explored include stricter production standards, improved regulatory monitoring, and government-defined labels. Private industry options that are examined include grower labels, retailer labels, and third party labels.     

O2O电商平台在线点评有用性影响因素的识别研究——以餐饮行业O2O模式为例

为了识别O2O电商平台在线点评有用性的影响因素,本文构建了基于IAM模型的双路径分析理论模型。以大众点评网上6家餐厅的2372条用户点评数据为样本,通过Tobit回归方法对理论模型进行了实证检验。研究结果显示,核心路径中的信息丰富性、信息可读性及点评负面性等三个变量对在线点评有用性有显著正向影响,其中信息可读性的观测变量点评段落数与在线点评有用性之间呈倒"U"型关系,品牌价值对点评负面性与点评有用性之间的关系具有调节作用,高的品牌价值会降低点评负面性对点评有用性的积极作用。边缘路径中的消费者回应及点评者经验对在线点评有用性具有显著正向影响。旧的评论比新的评论对在线点评有用性的影响更大。     

在线商品评论的效用分析研究

大多数电子商务网站为消费者提供相互交流的平台来发表其针对某件商品的评论.但是,随着在线商品评论的数量不断增加,潜在消费者越来越难从中发现有助于制定购买决策的信息.因此,如何从众多的评论中识别有用的评论,分析在线评论的效用成为关注的热点.本文对在线商品评论效用分析的最新研究进行评述,认为该领域的研究需要充分关注消费者的购买决策过程,进而设计新的数据挖掘方法更好地辅助消费者的购买决策,同时为电子商务网站的运营商调整营销沟通策略提供决策支持.     

First Step in Social Media: Measuring the Influence of Online Management Responses on Customer Satisfaction

With the growing influence of online social media, firms increasingly take an active role in interacting with consumers in social media. For many firms, their first step in online social media is management responses, where the management responds to customers' comments about the firm or its products and services. In this article, we measure the impact of management responses on customer satisfaction using data retrieved from a major online travel agency in China. Applying a panel data model that controls for regression toward the mean and heterogeneity in individual preference for hotels, we find that online management responses are highly effective among low satisfaction customers but have limited influence on other customers. Moreover, we show that the public nature of online management responses introduces a new dynamic among customers. Although online management responses increase future satisfaction of the complaining customers who receive the responses, they decrease future satisfaction of complaining customers who observe but do not receive management responses. The result is consistent with the peer‐induced fairness theory.     

The market for genetically modified foods: consumer characteristics and policy implications

Conjoint analysis was used to explore consumer preferences for food products that are the product of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The results of a cluster analysis indicated that consumers fell into three homogeneous groups based on their preference for a branded, low-priced, or GMO-free product. There were some differences between the segments based on the sociodemographic characteristics of age, education, and income. However, consumers in the segment that wished to avoid GMOs were most easily distinguished from consumers in the other two segments based on their high level of risk averseness and belief that GMOs do not positively affect the quality or safety of food products. Implications for food marketers and policymakers are discussed.     

Firm-nonprofit collaboration: Explaining the rationale behind firms’ cross-sector partner choices

Cross-sector partnerships between firms and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are emerging at an unprecedented rate to address sustainability issues. Extant research on cross-sector partnerships explains the firms' motivations to engage in partnerships but little is known about what drives the firms' partner choice. We build on firm-firm alliance research, differentiating between network-reinforcing and network-broadening strategies for finding partners. Based on a qualitative study with 33 experts from 17 frontrunner companies and 14 partnering NPOs, as well as secondary data, we assess the trade-offs between these two strategies and explore firms’ partner search and selection decisions. We advance cross-sector partnership research by proposing three drivers to explain why firms in our sample preferred to reinforce (rather than to broaden) their networks when forming additional cross-sector partnerships for sustainability. Moreover, we propose two conditions to explain why frontrunner firms often rely on opportunity-driven (rather than search-driven) partnership formation. These insights shed light on the type of formation strategy used in the context of cross-sector partnerships for sustainability.     

Clickstream Data and Inventory Management: Model and Empirical Analysis

We consider firms that feature their products on the Internet but take orders offline. Click and order data are disjoint on such non‐transactional websites, and their matching is error‐prone. Yet, their time separation may allow the firm to react and improve its tactical planning. We introduce a dynamic decision support model that augments the classic inventory planning model with additional clickstream state variables. Using a novel data set of matched online clickstream and offline purchasing data, we identify statistically significant clickstream variables and empirically investigate the value of clickstream tracking on non‐transactional websites to improve inventory management. We show that the noisy clickstream data is statistically significant to predict the propensity, amount, and timing of offline orders. A counterfactual analysis shows that using the demand information extracted from the clickstream data can reduce the inventory holding and backordering cost by 3% to 5% in our data set.     

Consumer Behaviour and Order Fulfilment in Online Retailing: A Systematic Review

This paper provides a systematic review of consumer behaviour and order fulfilment in online retailing. The objective of this review is threefold: first, to identify elements of order‐fulfilment operations that are relevant to online consumer behaviour (purchase, repurchase, product return); second, to understand the relationship between order‐fulfilment performance and consumer behaviour; and third, to inspire future research on developing consumer service strategies that takes account of these behavioural responses to order‐fulfilment performance outcomes. The paper is based on a systematic review of literature on online consumer behaviour and order‐fulfilment operations, mainly in the fields of marketing and operations, published in international peer‐reviewed journals between 2000 and September 2015. This study indicates that the current literature on online consumer behaviour focuses mainly on the use of marketing tools to improve consumer service levels. Very little research has been conducted on the use of consumer service instruments to steer consumer behaviour or, consequently, to manage related order‐fulfilment activities better. The study culminates in a framework that encompasses elements of order‐fulfilment operations and their relationship to online consumer behaviour. This paper is the first comprehensive review of online consumer behaviour that takes aspects of order‐fulfilment operations into account from both marketing and operations perspectives.     

创建世界级品牌的8R模型

随着中国消费者的收入不断增加和中产阶级的兴起,消费者的品牌意识也不断加强,中国企业要能够在新的竞争环境中塑造自身的竞争力,就不得不创建自己的世界级品牌。本文在考察了众多成功品牌之后,创造性地提出品牌建设的八个方面。     

店铺形象和店铺位置在O2O环境中还重要吗？

O2O模式，因为其能够通过渠道间的整合充分发挥线上和线下渠道各自的优势，为企业带来更高的利润和客户保留率，而受到很多企业的追捧。而渠道整合的过程中店铺形象、店铺位置是否还会发挥作用等问题还没有明确的答案。本研究应用网络数据爬虫和问卷调查的方法，收集了北京市西城区、朝阳区、海淀区、东城区的148家开展了在线外卖服务的餐馆数据，利用Smart PLS2.0对数据分析后发现，在O2O环境中，店铺形象尤其是线上店铺形象对渠道整合、企业绩效都发挥着重要的作用，而店铺位置是调节渠道整合的一个重要因素。这些研究发现不仅增加了我们对渠道整合环境中店铺形象、线下店铺位置作用的认识和理解，对开展O2O业务的企业也有着重要的借鉴和参考价值。     

The Changing Face of Distribution Channels: Partial Forward Integration and Strategic Investments

Recent years have seen a drastic transformation in the organization of wholesale and retail markets. Where once clear distinctions between wholesale suppliers and retail competitors existed, now an era of blurring boundaries has emerged. This transformation has been marked by the introduction of online channels for suppliers to provide products directly to consumers while, at the same time, traditional retailers too persist. Thus, retailers are both wholesale customers and retail competitors of many manufacturers. The consequences of the rapid emergence of instances of such partial forward integration by suppliers are not yet fully known. To this end, we study how partial forward integration can affect competing firms' strategic investments. We find that integration shifts the environment from being one in which firms invest to undercut retail rivals to one in which firms invest more in boosting demand, even that of their competitors. A case in point is the tendency for a manufacturer to invest broadly in brand promotion (benefiting both itself and its retail competitor), rather than heavy promotion of its own sales channel. The shift in the nature of strategic investments arising from partial forward integration implies that such integration can benefit firms and consumers alike, even the firm which finds itself reliant on a competitor for supplies.     

考虑消费者策略行为的供应商产品升级策略

随着科技的发展和市场竞争的加剧，企业不断频繁地进行产品升级更新以应对消费者快速变化的需求；同时，消费者也越来越具有策略性行为，主要表现为跨期选择购买产品的类型和时机。本文考虑消费者策略行为研究供应链上游供应商的最优产品升级策略，分析捆绑、模块化和整合三种产品升级策略中消费者的购买决策和供应链企业的均衡定价决策。研究表明：当消费者耐心程度和升级模块的价值升级系数满足一定条件时，供应商将选择模块化升级策略，相对于捆绑升级策略，将获得更高的利润；而只有当消费者耐心程度较小时，采用整合升级策略相对于其他两种升级策略更有利于提高利润。     

来源国劣势与合法化战略——新兴经济企业跨国并购的案例研究

新兴经济体企业在跨国并购中如何根据不同类型来源国劣势来做出合法化战略选择?通过对吉利和万向六次跨国并购的多案例分析,本文打破现有文献关于"来自相同国家的企业面临相似来源国劣势"这一"同质化假定",把来源国劣势构念化为制度维和产品维。通过归纳式案例研究,本文发现,对于产品维的来源国劣势,新兴经济体企业倾向于通过组织制度设计、资源协同和声誉重构等合法性修复战略进行应对。对于制度维的来源国劣势,新兴经济体企业倾向于采用制度遵从、组织制度设计、资源协同等合法性获取战略来应对。当面临产品维和制度维双重劣势时,新兴经济体企业综合运用制度遵从、组织制度设计、资源协同、声誉重构等合法性获取和合法性修复战略,重点强调沟通协调这一合法性维持战略来应对。这些发现贡献于新兴经济体企业在跨国并购,乃至于更广意义国际化的文献,并对中国企业跨国并购过程有一定的启示意义。     

When outsourcing fragments: customer creativity and technological transmutations

One of the most fundamental decisions made in firms is about what functions or activities the firm should perform within its own hierarchy, and which of these it should rely on the market to perform. Outsourcing is ‘an agreement in which one company contracts out a part of their existing internal activity to another company’. However, this article contends that outsourcing has changed, and is changing in ways that make the application of neat, legal and technically correct definitions hard to use, and even harder to apply in strategy. Under the new outsourcing paradigm, technology is not a passive ‘substance’, rather it is an active ‘force’. We aim to look at the ways in which technologies are re-shaped and transmuted by consumers. Through this analysis, we add the consumer activity to the conventional definition of outsourcing. We focus on one of the most highly anticipated and influential new products of 2007 – the Apple iPhone.     

On pricing and protection of complementary products

The business literature advises firms producing complementary products to sell the core product at a low price, but to price the complementary product at a higher premium. This strategy, however, is problematic if firms face competitors in the market for complementary products as well, as observed in recent years for instance in the market for printers/ink cartridges. Motivated by several measures the firms have taken in this market, the current paper analyzes whether firms are interested in protecting their complementary product from outside competition. We find that firms protect their products only if consumers underestimate the demand for the complementary product when deciding which core product to buy. Moreover, we investigate how the decision to protect the complementary product interacts with a firm’s pricing decision. We show that the price policy proposed in the business literature should only be applied, if consumers sufficiently underestimate their demand for the complementary product so that firms strongly protect these products from outside competition.     

零售市场价格策略的演化博弈分析

基于一个三阶段Hotelling博弈模型:位于[0,1]线性城市两端的零售A和B第一阶段同时选择价格策略变量,第二阶段确定价格的大小,第三阶段由消费者选择零售商。应用演化博弈论进行研究,分析了零售市场价格策略的演化稳定性。     

Optimal Digital Rights Management with Uncertain Piracy

Many firms that sell digital copies of copyrighted materials online face a common dilemma: the use of digital rights management (DRM) to impede pirates can impose restrictions on legitimate use. We introduce a two‐period model in which the use of DRM in the first period affects the probability that a consumer finds a pirated copy in the second period; the threat of legal action reduces consumers’ consumption of pirated copies; and firms choose whether to sell, and at what prices, either strongly or weakly DRM‐protected products, or both. Furthermore, we incorporate the role of uncertainty concerning future levels of piracy. Using a two‐period model with uncertainty, we investigate a firm's optimal DRM strategies and present the optimal pricing strategy as well as product launch strategy under different market conditions. We find that one important characteristic of the optimal strategy is that it is optimal to maintain the same product line configuration strategy for both periods. We also characterize the conditions under which each strategy is optimal.     

Strategic Revenue Sharing with Daily Deal Sites: A Competitive Analysis

Promoting through daily deal sites has become popular in the past few years. Groupon is perhaps the best known provider of these promotions (also known as online discount vouchers) to customers. Daily deals differ from traditional coupons on three important dimensions: (i) They are not offered to consumers directly by firms but are offered through an intermediary, (ii) the promotional depth offered by these localized promotions tends to be higher, and (iii) consumers prepay for the discount vouchers, and then the daily deals site reimburses the retailer a prespecified negotiated percentage of each paid voucher. In this study, we build a theoretical model to explore the profitability of undertaking a daily deals campaign by firms. Our analysis identifies the role of types of consumers in the market, relative bargaining power of the local firms, revenue sharing agreements, and market characteristics, such as degree of product substitutability and extent of competition, on the profitability attained through daily deal promotions. Surprisingly, when demand spillovers exist, an asymmetric outcome, with one firm offering an online discount voucher and the competing firm not offering an online discount voucher, is an equilibrium under some conditions.      

The rudiments of an Internet-based health plan for consumers: an interview with John Danaher, MD, MBA. Interview by Richard L. Reece

Richard L. Reece, MD, interviewed John Danaher, MD, MBA, on August 16, 2000, to discuss how his new company is preparing for the perfect storm--the looming convergence of demanding consumers, defined contributions, and Internet-based health plans. He describes how his firm is putting financial and clinical tools in the hands of consumers and physicians, so consumers can be more enlightened in their health care choices. Danaher says, "We're not about buying goods and services online. We are transforming the way consumers buy health care and seek insurance. We're trying to be a 401 k where people get on, knowing their risk profile and return horizons. We aim to motivate consumers to be proactive in making health care choices. How do we make consumers responsible and motivated enough to take control of managing their health care costs? How well we articulate this call to consumer action will be the key to our success."