Media

This study examines whether the quality of online buying experience represents a competitive advantage for Internet firms focused on business to consumer e-commerce (“e-commerce” firms). Forrester Research, a consulting firm, estimates that revenues in the business to consumer segment will grow from $20 billion in 1999 to $184 billion by 2004. Such explosive growth is due, in part, to the superior shopping experiences that new e-commerce firms offer.

In recent years, there has been a wealth of research examining the relevance of culture to consumer behavior. This chapter reviews a particular line of work within this larger body of research: work investigating the unique relevance of language. Our review finds that both structural features of language (properties of grammar) and lexical-semantic and phonological features of language (related to writing systems) are important.

How do you market in today's "experience culture"—as conventional advertising grows increasingly ineffective, and customers grow increasingly independent? There's No Business That's Not Show Business demonstrates how to use "show biz" techniques to cut through the clutter, engage your customers personally, differentiate your product or brand—and create real, long-term value. These techniques can be adapted for any product, service, or market—consumer or B2B.

This paper studies dynamic competition in markets characterized by the introduction of technologically advanced next-generation products. Firms invest in new product effort in an attempt to attain industry leadership, thus securing high profits and benefiting from advantages relevant for the success of future product generations. The analysis reveals that when the current leader possesses higher research and development (R&D) competence, it tends to invest more in R&D than rivals and to retain its lead position.

The financial press and accounting regulators (e.g., the Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Accounting Standards Board) have expressed concern about pressures on Internet firms to report high levels of revenue. This study verifies the association between market capitalization and revenue, and examines economic factors that potentially influence Internet company managers' decisions to adopt allegedly aggressive revenue-recognition policies. Specifically, we examine factors hypothesized to influence the reporting of advertising barter revenue and grossed-up sales levels.

Articles in the financial press suggest that institutional investors are overly focused on current profitability, which suggests that as institutional ownership increases, stock prices reflect less current period information that is predictive of future period earnings. On the other hand, institutional investors are often characterized in academic research as sophisticated investors and sophisticated investors should be better able to use current-period information to predict future earnings compared with other owners.

A Sunday New York Times article on a potential development of new cancer-curing drugs caused EntreMed's stock price to rise from 12.063 at the Friday close, to open at 85 and close near 52 on Monday. It closed above 30 in the three following weeks. The enthusiasm spilled over to other biotechnology stocks. The potential breakthrough in cancer research already had been reported, however, in the journal Nature, and in various popular newspapers (including the Times) more than five months earlier.