Spillover effects of investment in big data analytics in B2B relationships:What is the role of human capital?

Economy-wide investment in Big Data Analytics (BDA) offers retailers a number of opportunities and while there is some evidence that new technologies have been widely adopted by retailers, it also transpires that many retailers have yet to fully exploit the benefits of BDA. Most research on Big Data and productivity (or performance) tends to focus on internal factors that prevent retailers from fully exploiting their investment in BDA. Research has paid scarce attention to the benefits that can accrue to the focal firm from the upstream investment in BDA and the features of the B2B marketing environment that may hamper (or enhance) these benefits. Unlike the previous literature, the paper tests the extent to which retailers, by having access to larger share of graduate workforce at regionally, can benefit more from inter-industry upstream investment in BDA than retailers located in areas where such workforce is scarce. Using data from ORBIS, KLEMS and QLFS, we show that retailers located in regions with a larger proportion of graduate workforce benefit more from inter-industry upstream investment in BDA as they tend to be more efficient on average. Equally, upstream investment in BDA is positively associated to frontier shifts over time (i.e. technical progress)

Brand origin and country of production congruity: Evidence from the UK and China

The process of manufacturing and marketing international products is increasingly complex and especially for multinational corporations that strive to lower production costs while adapting their products and services to match local preferences. Localization of international business has been shown to generate differing country of origin (COO) effects in terms of the brand origin and country of production (COP) congruity issue. Both country of production and brand origin may not be the same, which questions the effect of incongruity on a brand, consumer ethnocentrism and localization issues particularly when a well known brand are from a developed country and COP is in a developing country. This study extends past studies on the COO effect to examine whether a negative COP affects consumer product perception and consumer purchase decision of a well-known brand. Hypotheses are tested empirically against survey consumer data from the UK (developed country) and People's Republic of China (developing country) using Sony as a global brand. The main findings show that both brand origin and COP are particularly important for consumers in a developed country in their product evaluations while perceived brand image of a developing country and price are key factors for consumers in a developing country. In addition, knowledge of the extent of consumer ethnocentrism can be a major determinant for branding decisions related to using product information cues about country of production and/or an international brand image

Message Framing in P2P Lending Relationships

This paper investigates whether language and associated message framing (low-cost signal) can provide a solution to the risks generated by asymmetric information in P2P lending, drawing on the signalling and message-framing theories. First, it examines the extent to which message framing is associated with funding outcomes in the context of P2P lending; second, it investigates whether positive message framing reinforces the positive impact of credit ratings (high-cost signal) on funding outcomes. Our analysis is conducted on a dataset of 33028 listings of potential borrowers from a Chinese P2P lending platform using the Heckman selection models. We find that the use of positively framed messages is positively associated with positive funding outcomes and enhances the positive impact of the credit ratings on funding outcomes. Our results contribute to the literature on the effectiveness of low-cost signals in of Internet-based interactions while highlighting complementarities between different types of signals in P2P lending

The Effects of Trust and Peer Influence on Corporate Brand-Consumer Relationships and Consumer Loyalty

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.Drawing on relational tie theory and theory of trust, this study examines the role of affective and cognitive trust in mediating the relationship between corporate brands and consumers, and in loyalty towards corporate brands of national dairy products in China. The study also investigates the moderating effect of peer influence on corporate brand and consumer relationships and the two trust types. Using survey data from 600 consumers, the study shows that while cognitive trust mediates the relationships between certain corporate brand and consumer constructs, including corporate brand competence and corporate brand communication and loyalty, affective trust mediates the effect of loyalty on corporate brand and consumer relationship constructs, including corporate brand communication, corporate brand liking and corporate brand similarity. Peer influence is found only to have a positive moderating effect on corporate brand communication regarding affective trust

International Social Entrepreneurship and Social Value Creation in Cause-Related Marketing through Personal Relationships and Accountability

Drawing on the resource based view (RBV) and literature on relational embeddedness and network ties, we examine how personal relationships of international social entrepreneurs and accountability of social enterprises influence social value creation in cause-related marketing (CRM) of three UK-based international charities. The study also explores how personal relationships of international social entrepreneurs affect accountability of social entrepreneurship for social value creation of non-profit organizations in the UK context. The findings revealed through the case study method highlight the importance of personal relationships between charity and commercial organizations across borders closely allying corporate social responsibility. In international social entrepreneurship, social value creation is facilitated by accountability of social goals while trust-based personal relationships assist access to commercial opportunities

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.

BACKGROUND: Global development goals increasingly rely on country-specific estimates for benchmarking a nation's progress. To meet this need, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2016 estimated global, regional, national, and, for selected locations, subnational cause-specific mortality beginning in the year 1980. Here we report an update to that study, making use of newly available data and improved methods. GBD 2017 provides a comprehensive assessment of cause-specific mortality for 282 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1980 to 2017. METHODS: The causes of death database is composed of vital registration (VR), verbal autopsy (VA), registry, survey, police, and surveillance data. GBD 2017 added ten VA studies, 127 country-years of VR data, 502 cancer-registry country-years, and an additional surveillance country-year. Expansions of the GBD cause of death hierarchy resulted in 18 additional causes estimated for GBD 2017. Newly available data led to subnational estimates for five additional countries-Ethiopia, Iran, New Zealand, Norway, and Russia. Deaths assigned International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes for non-specific, implausible, or intermediate causes of death were reassigned to underlying causes by redistribution algorithms that were incorporated into uncertainty estimation. We used statistical modelling tools developed for GBD, including the Cause of Death Ensemble model (CODEm), to generate cause fractions and cause-specific death rates for each location, year, age, and sex. Instead of using UN estimates as in previous versions, GBD 2017 independently estimated population size and fertility rate for all locations. Years of life lost (YLLs) were then calculated as the sum of each death multiplied by the standard life expectancy at each age. All rates reported here are age-standardised

Inter-organizational collaborations for social innovation and social value creation:Towards the development of new research agenda and theoretical perspectives

The intensifying poverty and poorer living conditions, the need for greater social welfare along with ongoing damages to the natural environment in several contexts of the world have proved the increasing importance of social innovation for creating positive social and environmental change. This special issue addresses to the limitations in social innovation literature by providing insights into the role of inter-organizational collaborations in the process, practice and outcome of social innovation. Thus, the papers published in this special issue advance current knowledge and scholarship on different aspects of the social innovation phenomena occurring in inter-organizational contexts. The current paper reviews existing perspectives and studies on social innovation undertaken inter-organizational contexts, develops the future agenda for improving scholarship on social innovation occurring through inter-organizational collaborations, and provides the development of new theoretical ideas by focusing on some key studies in the literature and papers published in this special issue. With a focus on subsistence contexts that are characterized by limiting institutional environments, this paper identifies the types of partnerships that are being formed by social enterprises and individual social entrepreneurs, and how they may facilitate and foster social innovation practice and performance through social value creation

International R&D partnerships and intrafirm R&D–marketing–production integration of manufacturing firms in emerging economies

Although cross-functional integration is important for research and development (R&D), research about implications of cross-functional integration has been rather sparse. In new product development (NPD), no study to date has examined intrafirm as well as interfirm integration of key functions such as intrafirm R&D–marketing–production together with interfirm integration of host R&D–partner R&D. Such marketing and operations interface contributes to a better understanding of how operational and marketing activities impact on competitiveness and firm performance. This study collected data from 202 electronics manufacturing firms operating in an emerging economy, mainland China and Hong Kong with international R&D partnerships. The findings indicate that a high level of R&D integration between firms improved NPD performance when cross-functional integration is based on existing rather than new product configurations and key technologies. Interestingly, in high distance situations, cross-functional integration in the production validation stage generated NPD success. The findings show that high environmental uncertainties lead to a high level of host and partner firms R&D integration. However, product newness has no significant effects on R&D integration in any of the NPD stages

Stakeholder diversity and collaborative innovation: integrating the resource-based view with stakeholder theory

This paper uses Stakeholder Theory to build on the Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm – and its extension, the Knowledge-Based View (KBV) – and theoretically and empirically assesses how a choice of stakeholders with a diverse set of interests and motives affects the development of collaborative innovation. Theoretically, the paper discusses how collaborating with stakeholders with diverse motives and interests affects the development of diverse types of innovations; and whether and how a focal organisation's access to diverse information sources may influence the behaviour of different types of collaborators. The empirical analysis is based on Spanish Technological Innovation Panel (2015–2016) data. The results show that collaborations with secondary (primary) stakeholders are typically associated with the likelihood of developing ecoinnovations (product and process innovations) and increased demand for skilled workers. We also find that access to diverse information sources is associated with the likelihood of collaborating with primary stakeholders only