Search results
1 – 10 of over 3000Jianhua Yang and Rafif Al-Sayed
This study aims to develop a better understanding of radical innovation performance and proposes a comprehensive and theoretical model of the barriers impeding radical innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to develop a better understanding of radical innovation performance and proposes a comprehensive and theoretical model of the barriers impeding radical innovation from the perspective of researchers working in research institutions in China. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used to test the hypotheses regarding barriers to radical innovation and the model proposed in this research.
Design/methodology/approach
The data was collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with researchers from different research institutions across several cities in China. Next, the data was analyzed by deploying the structural equation modeling technique and calculating the statistical significance of correlations, regression and path coefficients among the latent variables.
Findings
The results indicated the major barriers impeding radical innovation in Chinese research institutes. Based on these findings, suggested policies, regulations and business models are put forward that can promote radical innovation in these institutes through increasing research freedom, enhancing organizational flexibility, attracting talented researchers and expanding research collaboration.
Originality/value
The research proposes a comprehensive and theoretical model of the barriers impeding radical innovation from the perspective of researchers working in research institutions in China.
Details
Keywords
Tayebeh Nikraftar, Elahe Hosseini and Elham Mohammadi
Technological entrepreneurship has been a very significant topic in recent decades. It has a crucial role in economic modernization and growth. The need for technological…
Abstract
Purpose
Technological entrepreneurship has been a very significant topic in recent decades. It has a crucial role in economic modernization and growth. The need for technological entrepreneurship is because technology-based industries are expanding rapidly and are replacing traditional industries. Therefore, this study aimed at identifying the factors affecting the success of technological entrepreneurship in Iranian nanotechnology businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was conducted through mixed method. The participants in the qualitative section included 17 university experts and executive managers in the field of nanotechnology in Iran, and 75 nanotechnology business managers participated in the quantitative section. The interview and questionnaire were used to collect information. In order to measure and fit the models, the confirmatory factor analysis method and PLS3 software were used.
Findings
The results indicated that the key factors affecting the success of the technological entrepreneurship process in nanotechnology were classified into five general categories: organizational, environmental, institutional, individual and technology factors. Moreover, it was shown that all these dimensions had a positive and significant effect on technological entrepreneurship. In addition, the organizational dimension has an essential role.
Originality/value
Companies' ability to engage technological entrepreneurship is a vital factor in human resource management and strategic management. However, technological entrepreneurship in Iranian nanotechnology businesses has not been involved integrally in the context of companies.
Details
Keywords
Naser Pourazad, Lara Stocchi and Vipul Pare
The purpose of this study is to determine if brand passion shapes attitudinal brand loyalty while driving a series of important brand-related outcomes (i.e. brand advocacy, social…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to determine if brand passion shapes attitudinal brand loyalty while driving a series of important brand-related outcomes (i.e. brand advocacy, social media following, sense of community, willingness to pay a premium price and alternative devaluation). These aspects are explored for sports apparel brands after considering the perceptions of Iranian consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on the analysis of survey data gathered online and face-to-face from a sample of Iranian consumers of sports apparel brands that were analysed using partial least square path modelling.
Findings
The key empirical findings obtained confirm that brand passion underpins attitudinal brand loyalty and several important brand-related outcomes. Furthermore, the findings show that attitudinal brand loyalty explains the impact of brand passion on most of the outcomes considered, except for social media following.
Research limitations/implications
This study advances knowledge of brand passion by illustrating its “power” as a strong nuance of relationships between consumers and brands. In particular, this study highlights the importance of brand passion in shaping attitudinal brand loyalty, as well as a driver of several outcomes of theoretical and managerial relevance.
Practical implications
By establishing strategies aimed at enhancing brand passion, brand managers can increase attitudinal brand loyalty, attain important goals such as brand advocacy, premium price and social media following, as well as the devaluation of competing brands.
Originality/value
This study uses a unidimensional theorisation of brand passion to increase the understanding of its role as predictor of attitudinal brand loyalty and driver of relevant outcomes. It also examines the mediating effect of attitudinal brand loyalty, thus illustrating important conceptual links between brand passion and brand loyalty in the context of sports apparel brands in a growing economy (Iran).
Details
Keywords
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…
Abstract
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.
Details
Keywords
Jess K. Alberts, Brian L. Heisterkamp and Robert M. McPhee
This study examines the impact of mediator style, mediation outcome, and mediator background variables on community mediation participant satisfaction and fairness perceptions…
Abstract
This study examines the impact of mediator style, mediation outcome, and mediator background variables on community mediation participant satisfaction and fairness perceptions along several dimensions. Our data were collected from a community mediation program located in a justice court in the Southwestern United States. During a twelve‐month period, 40 mediation sessions, each involving a single mediator, were videotaped. The 108 mediation participants completed surveys assessing their perceptions of and satisfaction with their specific mediation experiences. The findings indicate important impacts of mediator facilitativeness on all perceptions and of conflict resolution success on satisfaction. Mediator experience impacted perceptions of the mediator; mediator gender and law background had no impacts.
Details
Keywords
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…
Abstract
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.
Clarinda Rodrigues and Paula Rodrigues
This paper aims to investigate the mediating effect of brand love on purchase intention and word-of-mouth through mystery, sensuality and intimacy as brand image dimensions in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the mediating effect of brand love on purchase intention and word-of-mouth through mystery, sensuality and intimacy as brand image dimensions in the context of neo-luxury brands. It also explores the moderating effect of duration and intensity of consumer-brand relationships on brand image dimensions.
Design/methodology/approach
The data collection was done via an online survey of a representative group of Millennials. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.
Findings
The paper suggests that brand love mediates the relationship between brand image, purchase intention and word-of-mouth for both Apple and Michael Kors brands. This study also identifies differences in the effects of intimacy, sensuality and mystery on brand love. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the moderation effect of intensity and duration of consumer-brand relationships varies among the two neo-luxury brands.
Research limitations/implications
Further research should aim at investigating other categories of products and services in the field of neo-luxury, as this study focus on fashion and mobile brands. Other antecedents and outcomes of brand love should also be evaluated, as well as other moderating variables.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the fast-growing consumer-brand relationships literature by exploring the role of brand love in the context of the emergent neo-luxury paradigm. It also intends to provide a better understanding of how to build and nurture an effective brand image through a multidisciplinary approach that combines mystery, sensuality and intimacy.
Details
Keywords
Zhiyun Zou, Jinlong Wu, Jianzhi Gao and Xuecai Xu
By aiming at defending cascade failures effectively, the purpose of this paper is to present a strategy of inserting modular topologies into urban road network through reducing…
Abstract
Purpose
By aiming at defending cascade failures effectively, the purpose of this paper is to present a strategy of inserting modular topologies into urban road network through reducing the burdens of critical components with too much traffic flow.
Design/methodology/approach
Each module is considered as a small-world random network, which is inserted into the initial Barabási-Albert scale-free network. Based on the user-equilibrium assignment, the strategy searches for remote nodes with low betweeness and flow in the network, and sets these nodes to be connected with the modular topologies. In this sense, the inserted modules are supposed to attach to the nodes with lower intensity of shorter path, and avoid bringing more impact to the nodes with higher betweeness and traffic flow. By using efficiency as the measurement of cascading failures, the performance of the networks generated through the strategy is tested.
Findings
The results show that the performance of the strategy is sensitive to the average degree of the inserted modular, and the modular size with a better effect on reducing the size of cascading failures or delaying the time of breakdown, while the other factors (e.g. the rewired probability) present few differences among various values. Meanwhile, it is found that the importance-based attachment mechanism has a better effect on preventing the cascading failures, especially delaying the step time of the larger reduction.
Practical implications
The strategy aims at alleviating the burdens in critical components to prevent the cascading failures of the network, and provides practical guidance on the decision of the urban road network evolving process.
Originality/value
An effective strategy for cascade defense in urban road network is proposed in this paper.
Details
Keywords
Junseok Hwang, Jörn Altmann and Kibae Kim
The purpose of this research is to empirically analyse the structure of the Web 2.0 service network and the mechanism behind its evolution over time.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to empirically analyse the structure of the Web 2.0 service network and the mechanism behind its evolution over time.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the list of Web 2.0 services and their mashups that is provided on Programmableweb, a network of Web 2.0 services was constructed. Within this network a node represents a Web 2.0 service with an open API, and a link between two nodes represents the existence of a mashup service that uses the two nodes.
Findings
The findings suggest that the evolution of the Web 2.0 service network follows the preferential attachment rule although the exponent of the preferential attachment is lower than for other networks following a preferential attachment rule. Additionally the results indicate that the Web 2.0 service network evolves to a scale‐free network but the exponent of the power law distribution is lower than for other networks.
Originality/value
The research applied social network analysis to the Web 2.0 service network. It showed that its network structure and the evolution mechanism are different from those found in similar areas, e.g. the world wide web (WWW). The findings imply that there are factors which lower the exponent of the preferential attachment equation and the power law distribution of the degree centralities.
Research limitation/implications
This paper did not investigate the factors responsible for the low values of the exponent of the preferential attachment equation and the exponent of the power law distribution. However, it is suggested that it could be correlated with the fact that the interconnection between nodes depends on the property of the nodes.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to present a competitive defender‐attacker risk model that assumes a dual exponential relationship between defender (Ci) and attacker (Ai) resource…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a competitive defender‐attacker risk model that assumes a dual exponential relationship between defender (Ci) and attacker (Ai) resource allocation: vi(Ai,Ci)=e−αici−e−αiCi−γiAi.
Design/methodology/approach
Network risk is defined in terms of degree sequence, g, node/link damage, d, and probability of failure, v: R=∑gividi. The paper finds the optimal allocation of resources (Ai, Ci) that minimizes R from the defender's point of view, and maximizes R from the attacker's point of view.
Findings
The effectiveness of the optimal min‐max strategy is compared with three allocation strategies: random, non‐network, and network. It is shown that total network risk is minimized by the non‐network strategy, because this strategy considers damage values and ignores network topology in the definition of risk.
Originality/value
The method is illustrated by applying it to critical infrastructure – a hypothetical water‐and‐power network.
Details