Managing a nation's image during crisis: A study of the Chinese government's image repair efforts in the “Made in China” controversy

The image of a nation is crucial in the conduct of international relations (Wang, J. (2006). Managing national reputation and international relations in the global era: Public diplomacy revisited. Public Relations Review, 32, 91–96). A favorable image plays a critical role in asserting one's influence (Benoit, W. L., & Brinson, S. L. (1994). AT&T: “Apologies are not enough”. Communication Quarterly, 42, 75–88; Wang, J. (2006). Managing national reputation and international relations in the global era: Public diplomacy revisited. Public Relations Review, 32, 91–96). Often, strategic communication tools like public relations and media diplomacy are used to enhance a nation's image (Giffard, A., & Rivenburgh, N. K. (2000). News agencies, national images, and global media events. Journalism Quarterly, 77, 8–21). In 2007, China's reputation as “the workshop of the world” (Gaulier, G., Lemoine, F., & Unal-Kesenci, D. (2005). China: A workshop of the Cd and a market for Europe. At: http://ideas.repec.org/a/cii/cepill/2005-245.html. Accessed on 14 May 2009) came under severe threat with a series of product recalls. This was arguably the first time that allegations of product deficiencies were targeted at a country. Using the image repair theory, this paper examined the strategies used and the image these strategies generated for China. Findings showed that the initial defensive strategies generated an image of a hurried and harried country. After it was willing to confront the crises through corrective action, a surer and more determined image emerged.     

AN ALTERNATING LEAST-SQUARES PROCEDURE FOR ESTIMATING MISSING PREFERENCE DATA IN PRODUCT-CONCEPT TESTING*

Product-concept testing is a popular activity in marketing research. Often the number of new product/service concepts under study far exceeds the time available for any single respondent. Respondents therefore may receive only a subset of the concepts comprising the total design. Researchers are interested in making plausible imputations for the missing evaluations of any given respondent. This paper proposes a model and an iterative estimation procedure to impute missing entries for each evaluator. The model and the procedure incorporate (1) the internal structure of the response matrix and (2) an ancillary matrix of (nonmissing) respondent background data; they also (3) allow for individual differences in respondents' uses of the numerical rating scale. The model is applied to both real and synthetic data. Suggestions also are given on how the data imputations may be used in market segmentation and product-line decisions.     

A skew logistic distribution as an alternative to the model of van Staden and King

The logistic distribution is a simple distribution possessing many useful properties and has been used extensively for analyzing growth. Recently, van Staden and King proposed a quantile-based skew logistic distribution. In this paper, we introduce an alternative skew logistic distribution. We then establish recurrence relations for the computation of the single and product moments of order statistics from the standard skew logistic distribution by using the moments of order statistics from the standard half logistic distribution. These enable an efficient computation of means, variances and covariances of order statistics from the skew logistic distibution for all sample sizes. The results become useful in determining the best linear unbiased estimators of the location and scale paramters of the skew logistic distribution. Finally, we provide an example to illustrate the usefulness of the developed model and then compare its fit with that provided by the model of van Staden and King.     

Social media and Web 2.0 for knowledge sharing in product design

Working collaboratively with internal and external partners (suppliers, customers and internal stakeholders) has been at the epicentre of product design. Knowledge sharing has been well recognised in this context. However, there is limited research that has addressed the role of social media/Web 2.0 in facilitating knowledge sharing for sense- and decision-making within product design. To address this gap, this study draws on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and two vignettes that relate to ‘collaborative co-design’ and ‘collaborative design-to-order’. We illustrate the role of social media/Web 2.0 in building knowledge sharing capabilities for sense- and decision-making for internal and external partners during product design. Limitations and further research into the use of social media/Web 2.0 are also discussed.     

网络时代的工业设计走向

网络本身是中性的,它提供的仅仅是一个信息承载空间。网络对于工业设计的意义在于:一方面,网络的出现带来新的设计现象;另一方面,导致在设计领域及设计工具、方法上的延伸与拓展。     

制度缺失与储蓄替代——中国农户防卫性储蓄机制的行为发现与理论检验

运用统计图解方法研究，发现中国农户家庭偏好中存在防卫性机制。适当选取模型和计量工具，随后的参数检验也证实防卫性机制存在。防卫性储蓄是金融保险制度缺失条件下的行为替代，决策应沿着合理利用这一行为机制来思考，以建立城乡一体的国家社保体系。     

电气信息类专业人才创新能力培养模式初探

为培养学生的工程实践和创新能力,教学过程应着力形成教学、科研、生产紧密结合的过程,形成三个阶段三条线相互交叉、相互融合的过程;在主观与客观碰撞中,进发创新的火花,在着力发展个性特长的同时,注重开发技术应用能力,在真实的工程环境中训练学生的实际工作能力。为达此目的,须构建和营造新的人才成长机制和环境,探索新的人才培养模式,正确处理好教学、科研、生产的关系。     

群论中的一个定理及其应用

证明了群论中的一个定理并运用这个定理简化或解决了群论中许多其它问题。     

The effect of product variety on purchase probability

Regarding the effect of product variety on purchase probability, there exist findings which demonstrate a positive effect of variety for small assortments and a negative effect of variety for large assortments. Despite these results, little evidence exists about the causal mechanism of this effect. We conduct a field study among German consumer electronics customers to investigate the previously proposed constructs of anticipated product utility, anticipated regret and evaluation costs. The results suggest that anticipated regret and evaluation costs play a powerful role in explaining the negative link between variety and purchase probability for high variety assortments. Anticipated product utility on the other hand serves to explain part of the positive causality for low variety assortments. The results obtained give rise to recommendations for the planning of assortments.

How car dealers adjust prices to reach the product efficiency frontier in the Spanish automobile market

This paper investigates the relationship between the dynamics of price discounts at the dealership level and product efficiency in the Spanish auto market. Using data envelopment analysis (DEA), product efficiency scores are estimated for 2092 different vehicles commercialized during 2010, using an innovative database that accounts for more than 75 technical attributes of each model. By alternating official and discounted prices on the DEA specification, we are able to propose a measure of competitive improvement in the retailing stage. We also introduce a decomposition of this measure into two indices that account for the “commercial effort” made by the dealer and the “intensification of competition” that results from the discounting efforts of the other dealers. Finally, we explore the importance of a number of drivers of dealer discounts. As expected, the results confirm the existence of an inverse relationship between product efficiency and dealer discount. Also as expected, discounts are significantly larger for generalist brands, aged models and gasoline engines.