Birds of a feather petition together? Characterizing e-petitioning through the lens of platform data

E-petitioning platforms are increasingly popular in Western democracies and considered by some lawmakers and scholars to enhance citizen participation in political decision-making. In addition to social media and other channels for informal political communication, online petitioning is regarded as both a useful instrument to afford citizens a more important role in the political process and allow them to express support for issues which they find relevant. Building on existing pre-internet systems, e-petitioning websites are increasingly implemented to make it easier and faster to set up and sign petitions. However, little attention has so far been given to the relationship between different styles of usage and the causes supported by different groups of users. The functional difference between signing paper-based petitions vs. doing so online is especially notable with regard to users who sign large numbers of petitions. To characterize this relationship, we examine the intensity of user participation in the German Bundestag’s online petitioning platform through the lens of platform data collected over a period of five years, and conduct an analysis of highly active users and their political preferences. We find that users who sign just a single petition favor different policy areas than those who sign many petitions on a variety of issues. We conclude our analysis with observations on the potential of behavioral data for assessing the dynamics of online participation, and suggest that quantity (the number of signed petitions) and quality (favored policy areas) need more systematic joint assessment.     

The Effects of the Facial Expression of Beneficiaries in Charity Appeals and Psychological Involvement on Donation Intentions

To increase the effectiveness of fundraising campaigns, many human‐need charities include pictures of beneficiaries in their ads. However, it is unclear when and why the facial expression of these beneficiaries (sad versus happy) may influence the effectiveness of charity ads. To answer these questions, an experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of the facial expression on donation intentions, while considering the moderating role of psychological involvement with charities. It found that psychological involvement with charities moderated the impact of the facial expression on donation intentions in that seeing a picture of a sad versus happy person increased intentions to give among participants with lower levels of psychological involvement, whereas the reverse was true for highly involved participants. The moderating effect of psychological involvement was fully explained by the perceived efficacy of one's donation. The findings not only contribute to our understanding of the effect of the facial expression of people pictured in charity appeals on donation behavior, but also suggest that nonprofits should tailor their ads to target potential donors with various levels of psychological involvement with charities.     

Hazards regression for freemium products and services: a competing risks approach

We propose a competing risks approach to analyse customer behaviours in freemium products and services. The event of interest is when a customer starts to pay for additional features or functionalities. The observation of such an event may be preempted by an event where the customer quits using the product before paying and consuming the additional features or functionalities. One such freemium service is the online game category. The Fine-Gray regression model was implemented for an online game player activity data to study how covariates affect the paying hazard. Some covariates are hypothesized to have different discrete effects at multiple change points. We extend the model to allow for possible change points in the analysis.     

The Value of Weather Information for E‐Commerce Operations

To be efficient, logistics operations in e‐commerce require warehousing and transportation resources to be aligned with sales. Customer orders must be fulfilled with short lead times to ensure high customer satisfaction, and the costly under‐utilization of workers must be avoided. To approach this ideal, forecasting order quantities with high accuracy is essential. Many drivers of online sales, including seasonality, special promotions and public holidays, are well known, and they have been frequently incorporated into forecasting approaches. However, the impact of weather on e‐commerce operations has not been rigorously analyzed. In this study, we integrate weather data into the sales forecasting of the largest European online fashion retailer. We find that sunshine, temperature, and rain have a significant impact on daily sales, particularly in the summer, on weekends, and on days with extreme weather. Using weather forecasts, we have significantly improved sales forecast accuracy. We find that including weather data in the sales forecast model can lead to fewer sales forecast errors, reducing them by, on average, 8.6% to 12.2% and up to 50.6% on summer weekends. In turn, the improvement in sales forecast accuracy has a measurable impact on logistics and warehousing operations. We quantify the value of incorporating weather forecasts in the planning process for the order fulfillment center workforce and show how their incorporation can be leveraged to reduce costs and increase performance. With a perfect information planning scenario, excess costs can be reduced by 11.6% compared with the cost reduction attainable with a baseline model that ignores weather information in workforce planning.     

材料采购内部控制缺失风险及应对

从采购合同和采购成本两个方面分析公司材料采购内部控制缺失引致的风险及成因，提出材料采购风险的应对措施。     

购买服务还是政府资助--政府向社会组织购买服务的实践含义

作为政府支持社会组织参与社会服务的一种方式,购买服务往往在广义和狭义两个层面被交替使用,带来了实践中的一些理解差异。对此,文章从历史溯源、当下实践和理论分析三个角度出发,分析了这些差异,并从政策规范的角度出发,对政府购买服务的实践含义进行了探析。     

对网络交际的思考

网络交际现今已经成为很多人生活的一部分,通过网络空间人们交流更加便捷,更加丰富。网络交际对我们的现实社会文化和人际交流有着深刻的影响和冲击。网络交际弱化了文化因素对交际主体角色的制约和影响;网络交际的开放性使不同文化的人更容易交流和相互认同,弱化了本土文化对人际交往的影响;网络交际形成的特殊文化,引起了文化的碰撞和交融;网络交际的不真实性加剧了人与人的信任危机;网络交际信息与真实信息的差异,及网络上对他人隐私的侵害给日常生活交际带来了不利的影响。     

对我国粮食双层流通市场运作机制的经济学解释

与大部分商品一样,现实中的粮食市场往往也是一个多层次的流通市场,其供求关系绝非一个简单的生产者与消费者之间的单层级的市场关系,而是一个包含着生产者、消费者以及多层经销商在内的复杂的市场往来关系.基于我国现阶段粮食市场双层流通体制运作的现状与具体特征,为进一步健全与完善我国的粮食流通体制,现阶段一方面有必要打破国有粮食企业对粮食购销市场的垄断局面和以力争形成竞争、活跃的粮食流通市场;另一方面也要积极培育全国性与区域性的粮食批发市场和积极利用市场机制来配置粮食资源,大力开展省际的产销协作,鼓励产区与销区建立起长期且稳定的购销关系,支持有奈件的企业从事粮食的进出口业务.     

浅析房地产市场复苏的制约因素及其对策

房地产市场包括一级市场和二级市场，二级市场又包括消费市场和投资市场。现在的政策导向只注重房地产消费市场部分，而忽视了其投资市场部分，这是潜力巨大的市场。房地产只有真正成为大众投资品种时，才可能促进房地产一、二级市场的共同繁荣     

网络游戏产业的发展与管理研究

网络游戏在中国发展大约只有七、八年时间,但其产值增长和社会影响都使人们不得不将它上升到了一个产业的高度去看待和研究。本文从我国网络游戏市场规模入手,对网络游戏的产业链、产业带动性、文化内涵等问题进行讨论,最后指出我国在网络游戏管理中应注意的若干问题并提出建议对策。