Inferring salesperson capability using stochastic frontier analysis

This paper proposes an easy-to-implement econometric method for inferring salesperson capability from archival panel data, namely stochastic frontier (SF) analysis. We demonstrate this method with a sample of salespersons provided by a life insurance company. Using the proposed SF model, we are able to estimate each salesperson’s capability. Furthermore, we examine the relationship between the estimated salesperson capability and three future outcomes (i.e. future sales performance, future customer attrition, and future salesperson turnover) under different time horizons. We find that, in general, the estimated salesperson capability has a stronger explanatory power for the near than for the more distant future. Since an individual salesperson’s capability cannot be directly observed by researchers (and thus is typically omitted), traditional analyses of sales performance suffer from an omitted-variable problem that can lead to biased estimates of focal variables. The SF model can significantly mitigate this omitted-variable problem. Statistical tests indicate that our sales performance model with estimated salesperson capability results in a statistically significant improvement in model fit. Of note, our model differs methodologically from SF models previously used in the marketing literature in that it is based on a three-component model that disentangles unobserved individual heterogeneity, efficiency, and random shocks.     

The impact of sales contests on customer listening: an empirical study in a telesales context

Companies often use sales contests to achieve short-term objectives to motivate salespeople and to boost sales. However, sales contests also may encourage salespeople to adopt less relational behaviors and limit their ability to manage customer relationships, as manifested in their customer listening practices. Therefore, this study, based on a natural field experiment, examines the effects of a sales contest on customer listening. In so doing, four dimensions of customer listening (passive, active, adaptive, and assertive listening), associated with a process of listening (Hearing, Processing, and Responding), were identified. The study helps clarify the effect of a sales contest on these four dimensions of customer listening by telesales agents. The results reveal that this sales contest exerts negative effects only on the active and passive customer listening, not on the adaptive and assertive customer listening. The study sheds light on how sales contests influence important behaviors such as customer listening, as well as on the nature of customer listening itself.     

Ideas of justice and reconstructions of Confucian justice

Confucianism tends to play only a marginal role in current theorizing about justice, which is a global pursuit dominated by Western theory and its strong tendency to assume that justice refers to some substantive conception of distributive, socioeconomic justice. This article examines and compares reconstructions of Confucian justice by Joseph Chan, May Sim, and Fan Ruiping. Each reconstruction makes reference to both classical and modern Western justice theory and thus each involves a comparative approach; indeed, each reconstruction seeks ultimately, in its own distinctive fashion, to present a version of Confucian justice that is comparable with modern Western justice theory. In this article we assess, critically and comparatively, the tertium comparationis and the arguments in each reconstruction. While our analysis does not wholly endorse any of the reconstructions, it shows that there is a richness and vitality to Confucian justice theory that merits proper consideration in justice theory conceived as a truly global and cosmopolitan discipline.     

短视频顾客灵感的触发机制及其对顾客融入的影响

短视频顾客灵感(SVCI)是顾客灵感概念在短视频情境下的具象化, 是顾客由营销类短视频中获得的从接受营销引导的想法到转变为对消费相关目标的内在追求的激活状态。短视频顾客灵感的前因包括视频因素、主播因素和个人特质因素; 短视频顾客灵感中的观念式启发和行动式启发两个维度的交叉可以产生短视频顾客灵感状态矩阵, 矩阵中四种灵感状态在一定的条件下可以转化; 短视频顾客灵感通过直接贡献(顾客购买)和间接贡献(顾客推荐、顾客影响力和顾客知识)两条途径对顾客融入产生正向影响; 商品类型和消费者-主播关系强度在短视频顾客灵感对顾客融入的作用中起到调节作用; 短视频顾客灵感有助于揭示短视频营销中顾客灵感的触发机制及其对顾客融入的影响, 可以帮助消费类短视频主播和短视频平台产生更高效的营销内容和策略, 同时可以帮助消费者提升短视频购物的消费体验。     

亲组织不道德行为的负面效应及其作用机制

近年来, 员工为了企业利益而做出的违背社会价值、道德习俗、行为规范和法律等的亲组织不道德行为(Unethical pro-organizational behavior, UPB)导致的各种悲剧不断上演。然而, 现有研究主要聚焦于UPB的影响因素和积极作用方面, 对其潜在的危害性重视不足。鉴于此, 从多层次视角研究UPB的负面效应及其作用机制。首先, 考察UPB对情绪耗竭的影响及道德认同的调节作用和内疚的中介作用。其次, 创造性地提出组织UPB的概念, 并考察其对组织长期绩效的负面效应以及企业声誉的中介效应。最后, 进一步从利益相关者的视角考察企业UPB和员工UPB对顾客主动绩效的影响以及顾客企业认同的中介效应和顾客知觉到的员工组织化身的调节效应。研究成果不仅有助于丰富UPB的相关理论, 而且对遏制这种行为的进一步漫延具有重要启示。     

The challenges of comparative theology: An assessment of Kärkkäinen's Doing the work of comparative theology

Doing the Work of Comparative Theology by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen seeks to do the work of understanding the parallels, similarities, and differences between Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism through comparative theology. Comparative theology differs from comparative religion in that it investigates other religious traditions from the perspective of a particular tradition, rather than approaching all of the traditions from the outside. This approach, however, presents unique challenges, specifically, maintaining the same approach to a topic regardless of the tradition being explored, and presenting each tradition without universalizing the beliefs of the tradition as a whole.     

The Comparative Psychology of Avian Visual Cognition

How do small-brained, highly mobile animals like birds so readily perceive the visual world? Despite the computational complexity of vision, recent behavioral tests have suggested that these evolutionarily distant animals may use visual mechanisms that operate in the same manner as the visual mechanisms of primates. This article reviews new evidence regarding the processes of early vision and object perception in pigeons and considers speculations about the similarities and differences between avian and primate visual cognition.     

Comparative relationships of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS-R) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) to the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS)

This study investigated whether the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale — Revised (WAIS-R) and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) demonstrate similar patterns of relationship with the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS). Sixty VA patients were administered the WAIS-R and WMS and 60 completed the WAIS and WMS. The groups were comparable in terms of demographic variables. Pearson correlations were computed between the subtest and IQ scores from the intelligence scales and the scores from the WMS for each group. Comparison of the resulting correlations for the WAIS-R group with those of the WAIS subjects demonstrated only four significant differences, indicating that the WAIS-R and WAIS variables covary in a similar manner with the WMS scores. Following factor analysis of the test data for both groups, coefficients of congruence indicated a high degree of similarity between the two factor solutions. Essentially the same relationships emerged between intelligence variables and the WMS regardless of which scale was administered.     

Evolution of Nonassociative Learning: Behavioral Analysis of a Phylogenetic Lesion

A recent phylogenetic analysis of two learning-related neuromodulatory traits in mechanosensory neurons of species related to the marine molluskAplysia californicaidentified one species,Dolabrifera dolabrifera,which lacked both neuromodulatory traits. Since these traits are thought to contribute importantly to certain forms of learning and memory in the defensive withdrawal reflexes ofAplysia,in the present study, I tested the prediction that facilitatory nonassociative learning would be reduced or absent inDolabrifera.I tested the tail-mantle withdrawal reflex inDolabriferaand size-matchedAplysiafor three forms of nonassociative learning and memory: dishabituation and short- and long-term sensitization. I found that the same protocols that produced significant dishabituation, short-term sensitization, and long-term sensitization inAplysiafailed in all three cases to produce significant learning inDolabrifera.Thus, the prediction from the prior mechanistic analysis is confirmed: Dishabituation and short- and long-term sensitization are significantly reduced and perhaps abolished inDolabrifera.Although not conclusive, this phylogenetic correlation between the absence of behavioral changes and the absence of neural mechanisms thought to underlie the behavioral changes gives support to the contemporary neuromodulatory model of dishabituation and sensitization inAplysia.Furthermore, these results raise the possibility that evolutionary alteration of two specific neuromodulatory mechanisms may have directly contributed to evolutionary change in behavioral plasticity.     

On the Special Logic Thesis in Chinese Philosophy

I address the problem of whether philosophy can be international by its claim to represent rationality, hence universality. I argue in favor of this claim by focusing on the special logic thesis in Chinese philosophy. This thesis holds that a different type of logic must be used when studying the Chinese texts. I argue at length against the special logic thesis by examining the problem of human nature in the Confucian philosophers Mencius, Hsün Tzu and Kao Tzu. I show how their arguments can be reconstructed as inductive analogical arguments and as deductive argument. I then broaden the notion of the logic of argumentation into a discussion of metaphysical anti-essentialism and underdetermination in order to resolve the problem of human nature and also to show how the same types of logical analysis (more generally construed) can be applied to the arguments from these Confucian philosophers. Under my treatment, Kao Tzu, somewhat surprisingly, turns out to provide the most insight.