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This article presents the results of a survey of 202 male Taiwanese consumers. In this study, consumer judgements of two technological products varying in their level of complexity made in highly, moderately, and newly industrialised countries were obtained in a multi‐attribute context. The results show that the country‐of‐origin image of moderately and newly industrialised countries was less negative for technologically simpler products (i.e. a television) than they were for technologically complex products (i.e. a computer). It appears that the negative image of moderately and newly industrialised countries can be attenuated by making Taiwanese consumers more familiar with products made in these countries and/or by providing them with other product‐related information such as brand name and warranty. Newly industrialised countries were perceived more negatively as countries of design than as countries of assembly, especially in the context of making technologically complex products. The image of foreign countries as producers of consumer goods was positively correlated with education. The more familiar consumers were with the products of a country, the more favourable was their evaluation of that country. Consumer involvement with purchasing a technologically complex product such as a computer was positively associated with the appreciation of products made in moderately industrialised countries. Managerial and research implications are derived from these results.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

Information systems (IS) outsourcing has been viewed as an attractive option by many senior managers generally because of the belief that IS outsourcing vendors can achieve economies of scale and specialization because their only business is information processing. The challenge of implementing, operating and maintaining enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and the outsourcing service offered by ERP vendors have made ERP outsourcing an attractive option for some organizations. However, although IS outsourcing is now a major industry, the outsourcing of ERP applications is still in its infancy. This paper explores ERP outsourcing in terms of the application service provider (ASP) approach where a third‐party vendor hosts, manages and maintains various data and ERP applications on behalf of different clients. Critical to the management of the ERP outsourcing relationship is the outsourcing contract, which, if improperly or incompletely written, can have significant negative implications for the outsourcing firm. Contracts that encourage vendor performance and discourage under‐performance are therefore clearly of interest to managers. Although many articles have appeared on outsourcing, the issue of incentive contracts for ERP outsourcing has not been adequately addressed by researchers, partly because of the infancy of this area. In this paper, an approach to analyze incentive schemes and structuring ERP outsourcing contracts for the mutual gain of the parties is presented.

This paper aims to gather together the minimum units of users’ identity in the Bitcoin network (i.e. the individual Bitcoin addresses) and group them into representations of business entities, what we call “super clusters”. While these clusters can remain largely anonymous, the authors are able to ascribe many of them to particular business categories by analyzing some of their specific transaction patterns (TPs), as observed during the period from 2009 to 2015. The authors are then able to extract and create a map of the network of payment relationships among them, and analyze transaction behavior found in each business category. They conclude by identifying three marked regimes that have evolved as the Bitcoin economy has grown and matured: from an early prototype stage; to a second growth stage populated in large part with “sin” enterprise (i.e. gambling, black markets); to a third stage marked by a sharp progression away from “sin” and toward legitimate enterprises.

Data mining.

Four primary business categories are identified in the Bitcoin economy: miners, gambling services, black markets and exchanges. Common patterns of transaction behavior between the business categories and their users are a “one-day” holding period for bitcoin transactions is somewhat typical. That is, a one-day effect where traders, gamblers, black market participants and miners tend to cash out on a daily basis. There seems to be a strong preference to do business within the bitcoin economy in round lot amounts, whether it is more typical of traders exchanging for fiat money, gamblers placing bets or black market goods being bought and sold. Distinct patterns of transaction behavior among the business categories and their users are flows between traders and exchanges average just around 20 BTC, and traders buy or sell on average every 11 days. Meanwhile, gamblers wager just 0.5 BTC on average, but re-bet often within the same day. Three marked regimes have evolved, as the Bitcoin economy has grown and matured: from an early prototype stage, to a second growth stage populated in large part with “sin” enterprises (i.e. gambling, black markets), to a third stage marked by a sharp progression away from “sin” and toward legitimate enterprises. This evolution of the Bitcoin economy suggests a trend toward legitimate commerce.

The authors propose a new theoretical framework that allows investigating and exploring the network of payment relationships in the Bitcoin economy. This study starts by gathering together the minimum units of Bitcoin identities (the individual addresses), and it goes forward in grouping them into approximations of business entities, what is called “super clusters”, by using tested techniques from the literature. A super cluster can be thought of as an approximation of a business entity in that it describes a number of individual addresses that are owned or controlled collectively by the same beneficial owner for some special economic purposes. The majority of these important clusters are initially unknown and uncategorized. The novelty of this study is given by the pure user group and the TP analyses, by means of which the authors are able to ascribe the super clusters into specific business categories and outline a map of the network of payment relationships among them.

The starting point of this study is to examine the open space of the Museum of Islamic Art Park, located in Doha, through the design criteria to find out, qualitively and quantatively, its sufficiency for users. The park area, located by the sea, is one of the most modern open spaces in Qatar's capital and was designed to complement the adjacent Museum of Islamic Art. Beyond a mere park, the design claims to bring together the public with the new urban space.

In this context, the study is aimed at determining the use of the space by analysing its physical features, evaluating the sufficiency of the programme elements' quality and quantity, determining the potential of the research area as a public open space by evaluating its visual life quality and attractiveness, guiding park designs with similar features, and providing a reference for other spatial analysis and evaluation research.

Firstly, literature on the research subject and area was studied. The evaluation criterias were determined by the findings from the literature and by visiting the area and these were used to create the analysis form to apply to the research area. Next, using the analysis forms in the field, the research area was evaluated under General information, Physical and Sensorial analysis. At the end of the study, the existing literature and fieldwork findings were evaluated with a holistic approach. It was found that the space brings together people from all ages and social groups; as well as providing an attractive social environment, the park hosts several urban spatial components in one place. Finally, recommendations were made for enhancing the visual/spatial quality and attractiveness of the area.

The purpose of this study was to optimize the parameters for enhancing the vitamin D₂ formation in three edible mushroom varieties, namely, shiitake mushroom (Lentinula edodes), white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) and oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) using ultraviolet (UV) irradiation.

Freshly harvested mushrooms were irradiated with UV-B and UV-C lamps. Further, mushrooms were treated with UV-B at a distance ranging between 10 and 50 cm from the UV light source, for 15–150 min, to maximize the conversion of ergosterol to vitamin D₂. Analysis of vitamin D₂ content in mushrooms before and after UV exposure was done by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC).

HPLC results showed a significant (p < 0.001) increase in vitamin D₂ levels of shiitake (17.3 ± 0.35 µg/g), button (24.9 ± 0.71 µg/g) and oyster (19.1 ± 0.35 µg/g) mushrooms, irradiated with UV-B at a distance of 20–30 cm for 120 min. Further, stability studies revealed that vitamin D₂ levels in UV-B-irradiated mushrooms gradually increased for 48 and 72 h of storage at room and refrigeration temperatures, respectively. During cooking operations, 62%–93% of vitamin D₂ was retained in UV-B-irradiated mushrooms.

This study describes the most effective parameters such as ideal wavelength, mushrooms size, duration of exposure and distance from UV sources for maximum vitamin D₂ formation in edible mushrooms using UV irradiation. Further, assessment of vitamin D₂ stability in UV exposed mushrooms during storage period and cooking operations has been carried out. In addition, this study also provides a comparison of the vitamin D₂ levels of the three widely cultivated and consumed mushroom varieties treated simultaneously under similar UV exposure conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of school autonomy and accountability and related multiple changes and impacts in key areas of school education in Hong Kong since implementing school-based management (SBM) from 1990s.

To explore the evolution and the uniqueness of autonomy and accountability in the Hong Kong school system, the paper begins with an historical account, followed by an evaluation of the effects of SBM as shown in policy documents, local research, international reviews and illustrative findings from a case study. The local and international implications of SBM for research and practice are then discussed.

This paper shows the links between school autonomy and accountability by exploring the potential effects of both of these factors on educational management and student achievement, which are increasingly emphasised in educational policies. The investigation shows that the assumed links and effects are not always consistent or empirically supported. The positive effects that school autonomy has on school governance and management, teachers’ work, school-based curriculums and student learning are all significant when there is also strong leadership, comprehensive continuous professional development and a positive, collaborative school climate. These key elements work alongside school autonomy to facilitate positive change.

School autonomy and accountability should be viewed as necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for school improvement and development. Further characterisation of the processes happening in schools is needed to explore the different realisations of school autonomy and accountability.

This investigation of school autonomy and accountability in Hong Kong provides the international audience with a deeper understanding of the dynamics involved in the development of SBM.

This article provides a critical review of four constructs-organizational identification, organizational commitment, occupational identification, and occupational commitment-to advance our understanding about how public sector employees from different occupations may become psychologically attached to their organizations. This review is intended to clarify previous inconsistencies as well as spark new interest among public administration researchers to examine sources and consequences of public employees’ organizational identification and commitment. This article also elucidates about how public sector employees’ attachment to their occupations may influence their attachment to their organizations. In that effort, this article reviews interrelationships among the four constructs. Finally, based on the patterns of connections observed, a future research program including seven testable research propositions is proposed.

Adhesively bonded joints are gaining importance in the structural joining processes competing against welding and bolting processes. However, long-term behaviour of adhesively bonded joints is still an open question. Due to the increasing interest in adhesively bonded joints, mainly in the transports industry, there is a need to deep the knowledge about the fatigue behaviour of adhesive joints with metallic substrates allowing the development of reliable joints to resist cyclic loadings. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

An experimental research aiming at characterizing the fatigue behaviour of adhesively bonded aluminium substrates is presented in this paper, covering both fatigue crack propagation and global S-N behaviours. Double cantilever beam (DCB), end notch flexure (ENF) and double lap joints (DLJ) specimens built using the AA6061T651 substrate and epoxy adhesive were used to evaluate the pure modes I and II fatigue crack propagation rates and the S-N fatigue behaviours.

DCB and ENF specimens allowed the formulation of pure modes I and II fatigue crack propagation laws including the propagation thresholds. DLJs showed higher static shear strength than recommended by the manufacturer for aluminium substrates, but fatigue resistance of the DLJs was lower than suggested by the manufacturer. The fatigue damage process in the DLJs was dominated by a fatigue crack initiation process.

A consistent fatigue research on adhesively bonded aluminium substrates is presented covering in the same study aspects of fatigue crack propagation and fatigue crack initiation. Data reduction schemes involving both numerical and analytical procedures were followed. Proposed work constitutes a rigorous basis for future fatigue prediction models developments.

The understanding of leaders’ network centrality in social networks has been acknowledged as a major topic that can advance the social network field; most studies in this area have either taken firms as the subject by which the network centrality of firms was measured or/and have been conducted for the functional project context. Very little research has been done in the pure project context. This paper aims to revisit the centrality–performance link in the singular specialized project context.

The proposed relationships using panel data on 48 movie directors who lead pure projects has been studied. Freeman’s (1979) and Wasserman and Faust’s (1994) procedures have been adopted to compute our three centrality measures and their effects have been examined on box-office and artistic performance. A random effect and a mixed-effects Poisson model have been fit to examine the significance of the centrality–performance relationship.

The findings provide empirical evidence to support three out of the six hypotheses. The findings suggested that degree and closeness centrality are positively related to commercial performance and betweenness centrality is negatively related to commercial performance. However, it was found that only the degree centrality is related to artistic performance.

This study has two features that distinguish it from prior studies that link centrality to performance. First, the focus is on centrality attached to the leaders instead of the centrality attached to functional project teams or firms, as previously investigated. Second, this study is the first attempt of its kind to analyse the proposed relationship for an Asian market.