Suchergebnisse

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of optimal pricing strategies for two substitutable products from the same product platform and the effects of variations in product architecture.


Design/methodology/approach
The authors design a product line which consists of two substitutable products and use a traditional market segmentation research framework to analyze the pricing and product design strategies.


Findings
It is concluded that profit tends to rise in a centralized supply chain at the expense of market share of the integral product. In a decentralized supply chain, one product will reduce its market share so as to enhance the degree of modularity. Although enhancing the extent of integration of a product will bring in more flexibility during the design of the product line, this will do so at the expense of the market share of the other product.


Originality/value
The authors find that the two products form a product line and share a common module belonging to the platform, so any changes in the modules (changes in product architecture) not only affect the product in question but also the other one in the product line.

Previous studies have linked public-sector employees' motivation to desired results such as higher performance and improved quality of public services. However, questions about the impact of employee motivation on public projects have received less attention. This article uses work motivation theory to explore the fundamental processes by which transformational leadership (TL) and public service motivation (PSM) engender public project success (PS). Analysis of 296 public servants' data working on Pakistan public projects showed a positive correlation between TL, PSM, and PS. It also showed that PSM partially mediates the relationship between TL and PS.

In the present work, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was established to simulate the heat transfer process at different air-inflow velocities, and to predict the spatial and temporal variations of temperature distribution during forced-air cooling (FAC). Based on the conventional evaluation system, a more comprehensive multi-parameter evaluation system was proposed to determine an optimal precooling strategy of various air-inflow velocities. The current system employed a novel heterogeneity index to quantify the overall uniformity (OHI), and added a detailed theoretical calculation procedure of the cumulative moisture loss during the forced-convection cooling (M, mg). By analysing the effect of different airflow rates on SECT, precooling uniformity, moisture loss, and energy requirement, an airflow rate in the range of 1.5 - 2.5 m·s-1 was recommended as optimum for harvested peach precooling. Any further increase in air-inflow velocity led to excessive energy cost since it generated a relatively low decrease in SECT and overall heterogeneity index, so as moisture loss. At the same time, the moisture loss of peach primarily occurred in HCT, which was inversely proportional to airflow rate and cooling uniformity. An increasing power-law function relationship existed between energy consumption and airflow rate. The present work demonstrated the effect of various air-inflow velocities on peach precooling efficiency, and provided an integral evaluation system to optimise the precooling strategy of other horticultural fruits.

AbstractThis paper explores relational benefits from Chinese customer's behavioural perspective, which is a valuable addition to the existing literature that focuses on the western cultural background. The findings of this research show that the relational benefits exist in the online shopping context. In addition to confidence benefit, special treatment benefit and social benefit that have been recognized in traditional services, a new benefit scale, honour benefit, is identified in this study. Empirical data from over 500 online consumers suggest that the relational benefits are becoming more and more important and can possibly turn into the sources of the new competitive advantage for the enterprise in the e‐business environment. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the price decisions and profits of two firms in a competitive market in which one platform firm considers whether to adopt a consumer customization strategy.


Design/methodology/approach
This study develops the consumer's utility function, which captures consumers' behavioural and emotional factors in the self-customizing process, and it adopts a game theory approach to analyze the equilibrium price and equilibrium profit for each firm.


Findings
The results show that increased sensitivity in consumer customization might not benefit the platform, especially when the size of the consumer group deriving positive additional utility from the self-customizing process is small. Interestingly, if the consumer customization sensitivity is high, increasing sensitivity can benefit both firms by relaxing competition between them, while it can hurt consumer surplus. The study also further identifies the conditions under which platforms can adopt a consumer customization strategy.


Research limitations/implications
Two major limitations of the study are that the model does not involve price discrimination or explore the value of adopting a consumer customization strategy in a vertically differentiated market.


Practical implications
This study offers managerial insights for the platforms that intend to invest in a consumer customization strategy, including providing a more simple, more efficient self-customizing process for consumers; empowering consumers to broadcast their creations to a large network by social media technologies; addressing how to determine what consumers really need and want; and so on.


Originality/value
Little research has been performed to analyze the impacts of adopting a consumer customization strategy on pricing decisions in a duopoly market by capturing consumers' behavioural and emotional factors. While this study explores the above research issue, it also illustrates the effect of the adoption of a consumer customization strategy from a consumer surplus perspective.