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The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of consumer role (involved vs observing) on consumer responses in the context of online group buying (OGB) service failures.

A scenario simulation method with a 2×3 factorial design was used to investigate the impact of consumer role (i.e. involved consumers and observing consumers) on consumer responses (i.e. perceived quality, negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), and switching intention). The moderating role of seller offering type (i.e. physical products, true services, and pseudo services) on the relationship between the consumer role and responses was also tested.

The differences in perceived quality, negative eWOM, and switching intention between involved consumers and observing consumers were significant. Further, seller offering type moderated the relationship between consumer role and consumer response.

These findings provide several important theoretical and practical implications in regard to OGB service failure and recovery.

This study enriches OGB and service failure literature by a pioneering investigation of how consumer roles respond to OGB service failures and how different seller offering types influence the relationship between consumer role and consumer response. The results will help service providers of OGB benefit from enhancing their service recovery strategies to cope with OGB service failures.

This paper utilizes the improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) with bounded constraints technique on velocity and positioning for adjusting the gains of a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) and iterative learning control (ILC) controllers. The purpose of this paper is to achieve precision motion through bettering control by this technique.

Actual platform positioning must avoid the occurrence of a large control action signal, undesirable overshooting, and preventing out of the maximum position limit. Several in-house experiments observation, the PSO mechanism is sometimes out of the optimal solution in updating velocity and updating position of particles, the system may become unstable in real-time applications. The proposed IPSO with new bounded constraints technique shows a great ability to stabilize nonminimum phase and heavily oscillatory systems based on new bounded constraints on velocity and positioning in PSO algorithm is evaluated on one axis of linear synchronous motor with a PC-based real-time ILC.

Simulations and experiment results show that the proposed controller can reduce the error significantly after two learning iterations. The developed method using bounded constraints technique provides valuable programming tools to practicing engineers.

The proposed IPSO-ILC-PID controller overcomes the shortcomings of conventional ILC-PID controller with fixed gains. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed IPSO-ILC-PID algorithm exhibits great speed convergence and robustness. Experimental results confirm that the proposed IPSO-ILC-PID algorithm is effective and achieves better control in real-time precision positioning.

Considering that users’ information privacy concerns may affect the development of e-commerce, the purpose of this paper is to explore what drives internet users’ willingness to provide personal information; further, the paper examines how extrinsic rewards moderate the relationship between users’ information privacy concerns and willingness to provide personal information.

Data collected from 345 valid internet users in the context of electronic commerce were analyzed using the partial least squares approach.

The result showed that agreeableness, risk-taking propensity and experience of privacy invasion were three main antecedents of information privacy concerns among the seven individual factors. Additionally, information privacy concerns did not significantly affect users’ willingness to provide personal information in the privacy calculation mechanism; however, extrinsic rewards directly affected users’ disclosure intention. The authors found that extrinsic rewards had not moderated the relationship between users’ information privacy concerns and their willingness to provide personal information.

This study is an exploratory effort to develop and validate a model for explaining why internet users were willing to provide personal information. The results of this study are helpful to researchers in developing theories of information privacy concerns and to practitioners in promoting internet users’ willingness to provide personal information in an e-commerce context.

This paper aims to identify ways to establish an information system to aid users to enhance the effectiveness of self-regulated learning and solve the problem of learning domain unawareness. Many libraries are spacious and with a rich collection of books, the problem a newcomer may encounter in the wide library is spatial unawareness. In addition, people new to a particular field of study often encounter the problem of learning domain unawareness.

This paper presents an overview of self-regulated learning theory first. We realize the essential principles of self-regulated learning model in the library and developed a learning system that utilizes the concept of combining mobile augmented reality (AR), indoor navigation and data mining algorithms.

The proposed NO Donkey E-learning (NODE) system utilizes AR and innovative indoor positioning technology to fulfil the goal of navigation inside a library and solve the problems of spatial and learning domain unawareness. On the one hand, the system allows peers to communicate asynchronously to create a cloud-based information sharing community; the dual-track terminal (the website and the app interfaces) in the system could provide both educational functionalities and mobility for readers. On the other hand, AR navigation function integrates the information of reading paths, the real-space locations, real-time dynamic information, book introductions and readers’ comments to help readers have access to the topic-related books efficiently.

We found that although the library provides the floor plan and signs, such passive and fixed indication may cause spatial unawareness. People need system to show the bookshelf location and dynamic direction indicators when they walk in the wide library. However, most existing library information systems only provide readers with the function of book search, including which floor the book is on, call number and check-out status. In this sense, we propose that self-regulated learning theory integrated the new innovation technology is the solution for the above issues.

The system developed in this study, while viewing the real scenes inside the library through camera lens, provides related virtual educational information services and learning paths on screen and guides the public to do systematic self-regulated learning. With the functions of the “learning topic” and “knowledge sharing”, the learning system promotes the general public to self-monitor their learning progress and to use the sharing mechanism as the system structure to solve the two main problems of spatial unawareness and domain unawareness in learning in libraries, creating a truly innovative people-centred library information system.

Until now, many different varieties of grey relational grade methods had been proposed, and there are also many relevant publications. However, in one article published in 2007, which applied the previous grey relational grade to environmental protection fields and some results had been found. After studied it carefully, the author found that the grey relational grade in the paper was not the previous grey relational grade. According to the mathematics logic, it must first prove the proposed grey relational grade satisfies the four axioms in grey relational analysis, and then the author can say that the achieved results are reasonable and correct. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper lists the rational and regular grey relational grade that had been published in the past, and used the four axioms in grey system theory to prove the Pai’s grey relational grade that satisfy the four axioms steps by steps.

Through the detail proof of the proposed grey relational grade in Pai’s paper, it indeed satisfies the four axioms in grey relational grade.

The paper had enhanced the correctness and reasonableness of that paper, and let the grey relational grade, which appear in Pai’s paper is legitimate and correct grey relational grade in grey system theory.

The paper had identified that Pai’s grey relational grade is a rational and regular grey relational grade in grey system theory, and it proves that the results in Pai’s paper are correct and reasonable.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different forms of interpersonal conflicts and employees’ psychological empowerment may affect knowledge sharing intentions directly or indirectly via interpersonal trust in the workplace.

Survey data collected from 249 employees of 37 of the top 500 corporations in the manufacturing industry in Taiwan were used for the data analysis. The research model was analyzed using the component-based structural equation modeling technique, namely, the partial least squares (PLS) approach.

The results indicate that both relationship and task conflicts have significant indirect effects on employees’ knowledge sharing intentions via psychological empowerment and trust. Additionally, psychological empowerment significantly influences employees’ knowledge sharing intentions both directly and indirectly via trust.

The primary theoretical implication is an advancement in the understanding of the critical antecedents of and their different effects on employees’ knowledge sharing intentions from the perspectives of conflict management and individual psychological empowerment. Future research may concentrate on investigating the bidirectional interactions among trust, relationship conflicts and task conflicts in different knowledge-sharing contexts.

This study provides practical insights into conflict resolution intended to facilitate psychological empowerment and interpersonal trust that encourage knowledge sharing in the workplace.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first knowledge sharing study that empirically examines how task and relationship conflicts affect employees’ knowledge sharing intentions differently via the mediation of their perceived psychological empowerment and interpersonal trust in one another in the workplace.

This study is based on a web-based advertising value model, adding emotional appeal, advertising credibility, advertising clicks, product evaluation and incentive to examine the impact on consumers' product evaluation and purchase intention.

In total, 313 valid online questionnaires were collected from those who had browsed the social media advertisement.

The results show that advertising credibility and emotional appeal have a higher impact on advertising attitude than informativeness and irritation in the original web-based advertising value model.

The findings strengthen the literature on the antecedents of advertising attitude in social media context, confirming advertising clicks as a predictor of product evaluation, and determining that advertising attitude, product evaluation and incentive play key roles as predictors of consumer purchase intention.

The findings are particularly relevant to advertising marketing managers. In the context of social media advertising, the advertising credibility of consumers is the key to increasing consumers' willingness to purchase. Advertisers must establish a good advertising reputation to consumers in the social media context.

This study combines the web-based advertising value model, advertising clicks, product evaluation and incentive to investigate the factors that influence customers' purchase decisions in the context of social media.

Previous studies of manufacturing management have ignored a critical theme: the relationship between supervisory support and work‐family conflict. This paper aims to explore the link between interpersonal relationships, guanxi, leader‐member exchange (LMX) theory, emotional intelligence (EI), supervisory support, and work‐family conflict.

The unit of analysis of this research is the dyad; the paper gathered 244 valid questionnaires from workers in traditional industries in Taiwan and China. Multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data and to test the hypotheses.

The paper finds that supervisory support for work‐family conflict has faded in traditional industries. And, it finds that leaders with a higher level of LMX and expressive ties to their subordinates tend to offer a higher level of supervisory support, but that leaders with higher level of instrumental ties to their subordinates tend to offer lower levels of support. Finally, the survey results also show that a leader's level of EI is not related to supervisory support.

The research combines Western concepts of relationships with the Eastern concept of guanxi with the goal of clarifying the transfer of management concepts and exploring the explanatory power of guanxi in Chinese society. Although the empirical results of this study do not totally agree with expectations, they treat the benefits of supervisors' EI for organizations from a new point of view.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better picture of factors influencing behavioral decisions in online shopping by identifying different targets of trust and discussing their antecedents and outcomes.

Online survey data from 242 ihergo members were used to test the proposed model, and structural equation modeling with partial least squares was performed to analyze the measurement and structural models.

The findings show that the four types of trust identified in this study are critical determinants of perceived risk and attitude. In addition, the majority of the antecedents are found to be associated with their respective types of trust.

The research extends the theory of reasoned action and prior research to discuss four types of consumer trust, as well as their respective antecedents and subsequent consequences. The result is a more descriptive model that better explicates consumers’ decision-making processes in online shopping.

Given the intense competition between online shopping sites, web site managers should strive to provide a safe and user-friendly shopping environment. In addition, the vendor can enhance trust by encouraging satisfied customers to provide positive endorsements.

This study is possibly the first of its kind, in identifying the four types of trust and their respective antecedents in the context of an online group-buying auction, and thus serves to enrich the existing literature concerning trust-building factors.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of plasma nitriding and Ti-C:H coating deposition on AISI 316L and to find the best tribological performance of various specimens.

An experimental investigation is performed into the effects of plasma nitriding and Ti-C:H sputtering on the tribological properties of AISI 316L biomedical stainless steel. Five samples are prepared, namely, original AISI 316L stainless steel (code: 316L), nitrided 316L (code: N316), 316L and N316 sputtered with Ti-C:H (codes: D316 and DN316, respectively) and polished N316 sputtered with Ti-C:H (DN316s). The microstructure, mechanical properties and coating adhesion strength of the various samples are investigated and compared. The tribological properties of the samples are then evaluated by means of reciprocating wear tests performed in 8.9 Wt.% NaCl solution against three different counterbodies, namely, a 316L ball, Ti₆Al₄V ball and Si₃N₄ ball.

It is shown that plasma nitriding followed by Ti-C:H deposition (DN316s) improves the tribological properties of AISI 316L; the sample provides the best tribological performance of the various specimens and has a wear rate approximately 156 times lower than that of the original 316L substrate.

The results suggest that nitriding followed by polishing and Ti-C:H sputtering provides an effective means of improving the service life of AISI 316L biomedical implants.