Search results

The purpose of this study was to understand consumers' continuance intention to purchase in social commerce from an integrated perspective of the expectation confirmation model (ECM) and information adoption model (IAM). Moreover, the cultural difference between the United States and China was explored in the integrated model.

A total of 1,589 responses were collected from American (n = 725) and Chinese consumers (n = 864). The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to perform measurement assessment, structural model and multiple group analysis.

Results showed that consumers' continuance intention to purchase in social commerce was significantly predicted by the integrated model. Within the ECM, confirmation of expectations positively affected information usefulness and satisfaction, and information usefulness positively influenced satisfaction, which further led to continuance intention. Moreover, within the IAM, both argument quality and source credibility positively affect information usefulness, which leads to information adoption and continuance intention to purchase in social commerce. In addition, the influences of information usefulness on information adoption and continuance intention to purchase in social commerce were stronger for American consumers.

The findings of this study gain a better understanding of consumers' decision-making process and cultural differences between American and Chinese consumers.

How do we make sense of urban life in the past? What do we do when we study urban history, and to what extent do our methods fully capture the complexities of historical city living? These are crucial questions for any scholar interested in the historical dimensions of urban experience. Notwithstanding the interest of most urban historians in the relationship between the physical form of urban space and its experience by inhabitants and visitors, very few scholars have written histories that systematically integrate these two areas of inquiry. In this chapter, we argue that such research requires a method and an accompanying tool that can analyze historical urban life in a more integrated, holistic way. We propose a way forward by introducing the Time Machine platform as a scalable data visualization and analysis tool for researching everyday urban experience across space and time. To illustrate the potential we focus on a case study: the area of the Bloemstraat in early modern Amsterdam. Unpacking a section of the Bloemstraat, house by house and room by room, we show how the Time Machine forms an instrument to connect spatial layouts to the arrangement of objects and to the practical and social use of the space by the inhabitants and visitors. We also sketch how this tool illuminates more dynamic spatial and temporal practices such as how people, goods, and activities are connected to locations in the wider city and beyond.

The hotel sector in South Africa is also aware of the detrimental impact of its activities on the environment. As a result, it has taken steps to mitigate such effects, evidenced by implementing green hotel practices. ‘Green hotels’ refers to lodging establishments that try to consume less energy, water and materials while still offering high-quality services. Unfortunately, although the hotel sector contributes significantly to employment and economic growth globally, its activities harm the environment through pollution, overuse of natural resources and solid and liquid waste.

This chapter discusses the concepts of green hotels and green practices. This chapter also highlights the need for green practices and identifies a case study on green hotels and practices in a South African context. This chapter found that the green hotel sector implements green practices, such as water-saving practices due to the risk of water insecurity, the growing demand for sustainability and the necessity to boost revenues. Green hotels and practices are a step to actualise the objectives of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 12 and 13, which focus on clean water and sanitation and climate change, respectively. The study underscores the importance of green practices and how South Africa responds to the challenge. It is believed that hotels contribute significantly to environmental degradation, but they can also help to preserve the environment through their activities through green practices. Strategies like adopting green practices would be a remedy to mitigate pollution and its effects on environmental sustainability.

Through a theoretical lens of psychological ownership, this study aims to investigate how technology mindfulness may stimulate metaverse tourism users’ feelings of individual psychological ownership, aesthetic value and conversational value, which in turn fosters intention to engage in prosocial behaviors.

The study used a scenario-based survey that allowed U.S.-based participants to create their own avatars and imagine using their avatars to explore heritage sites in the metaverse. Structural equality modeling was applied for data analysis.

The results from 357 valid responses indicate that technology mindfulness arouses tourists’ individual psychological ownership, aesthetic value, conversational value and prosocial behavioral intentions. The moderating role of biospheric value orientation on willingness to donate and intention to volunteer is investigated.

The research sheds light on the significance of technology mindfulness, conversational value and psychological ownership perspectives in the metaverse, which have been previously overlooked. The authors used a scenario-based survey for mental stimulation due to current metaverse technology limitations.

The study is one of the first to explore the possibility of encouraging prosocial behaviors using metaverse-facilitated technology. The research offers guidelines to engage hospitality and tourism customers in the metaverse that can blend their virtual experiences into the real world.

This study represents one of the pioneering efforts to gain an in-depth understanding of the application of metaverse in triggering prosocial behavior toward heritage sites, explained via a technology mindfulness-driven model with a psychological ownership perspective.

This study aims to assess the factors influencing the adoption of circular bioeconomy practices by crop farmers.

Data collected from 303 farmers in the region of Western Macedonia (WM) were used to identify the adoption factors of the circular bioeconomy. Principal component analysis (PCA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) techniques were applied through a custom-designed and specially structured questionnaire.

The results reveal four main motivations that lead farmers to adopt circular bioeconomy practices in their farming activities: interest in physical-economic resources and factors related to production and consumption; technology and renewable energy and the environment.

This study is based solely on farmers in WM. Furthermore, this study assumes that there will be a strategy to promote a circular bioeconomy under the auspices of the government.

Few studies have focused on the perspectives of crop farmers and what encourages them to adopt circular bioeconomy practices in their crops. Existing barriers are related to economic incentives and constraints. The more circular bioeconomy practices farmers adopt, the greater the positive impact on the environment and rural development, and the factors influencing the adoption of these practices are investigated here.

This study aims to explore how network visualization provides opportunities for learners to explore data literacy concepts using locally and personally relevant data.

The researchers designed six locally relevant network visualization activities to support students’ data reasoning practices toward understanding aggregate patterns in data. Cultural historical activity theory (Engeström, 1999) guides the analysis to identify how network visualization activities mediate students’ emerging understanding of aggregate data sets.

Pre/posttest findings indicate that this implementation positively impacted students’ understanding of network visualization concepts, as they were able to identify and interpret key relationships from novel networks. Interaction analysis (Jordan and Henderson, 1995) of video data revealed nuances of how activities mediated students’ improved ability to interpret network data. Some challenges noted in other studies, such as students’ tendency to focus on familiar concepts, are also noted as teachers supported conversations to help students move beyond them.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study the authors are aware of that supported elementary students in exploring data literacy through network visualization. The authors discuss how network visualizations and locally/personally meaningful data provide opportunities for learning data literacy concepts across the curriculum.

Shifting focus from innovation quantity to innovation quality becomes a priority in innovation study, business and policy. This paper aims to figure out whether and how knowledge recombination (recombinant exploration/recombinant exploitation) affects firms' innovation quality (technological value/economic value) and how these relationships are moderated by environmental turbulence (technological turbulence/market turbulence) in the context of open innovation.

A panel data set is built on 373 Chinese pharmaceutical firms' patents and new product data from 1997 to 2020. And a negative binomial regression model is applied to test the hypotheses.

The analyses indicate that (1) recombinant exploration favors technological value but hinders economic value, while (2) recombinant exploitation benefits both. Regarding environmental turbulence's moderating effects, (3) technological turbulence has opposite moderating effects on the impacts of recombinant exploration versus exploitation on technological value, whereas (4) market turbulence benefits the impacts of both on economic value.

This research provides the answer to practitioners' question that “How to improve innovation quality?” That is “Think from a recombination logic, clarify your internal value preference and the external turbulence.”

From an emerging perspective of innovation, this research expands the innovation quality research to a recombination logic. A multi-dimensional research framework is developed to clarify the complex relationships between knowledge recombination and innovation quality. Finally, two moderators, technological versus market turbulence, formulate more targeted implications for firms' innovation management in open innovation.

Railways are a well-known example of complex critical infrastructure, incorporating socio-technical systems with humans such as drivers, signallers, maintainers and passengers at the core. The technological evolution including interconnectedness and new ways of interaction lead to new security and safety risks that can be realised, both in terms of human error, and malicious and non-malicious behaviour. This study aims to identify the human factors (HF) and cyber-security risks relating to the role of signallers on the railways and explores strategies for the improvement of “Digital Resilience” – for the concept of a resilient railway.

Overall, 26 interviews were conducted with 21 participants from industry and academia.

The results showed that due to increased automation, both cyber-related threats and human error can impact signallers’ day-to-day operations – directly or indirectly (e.g. workload and safety-critical communications) – which could disrupt the railway services and potentially lead to safety-related catastrophic consequences. This study identifies cyber-related problems, including external threats; engineers not considering the human element in designs when specifying security controls; lack of security awareness among the rail industry; training gaps; organisational issues; and many unknown “unknowns”.

The authors discuss socio-technical principles through a hexagonal socio-technical framework and training needs analysis to mitigate against cyber-security issues and identify the predictive training needs of the signallers. This is supported by a systematic approach which considers both, safety and security factors, rather than waiting to learn from a cyber-attack retrospectively.

Utilising the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theoretical framework, this study investigated how destination attachment and overall satisfaction mediate the linkage between memorable tourism experiences and customer-based destination brand equity (CBDBE).

The authors study presents a model that illustrates how memorable tourism experiences can influence CBDBE by impacting tourists' attachment and overall satisfaction with a destination. The model was tested using empirical data obtained through a survey of 382 Indian domestic tourists. The data were analysed using the SPSS AMOS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences Analysis of a Moment Structures) programme.

This study validates the accuracy and effectiveness of the suggested conceptual model, demonstrating significant linkage between the variables of the study. Accordingly, it was observed that positive memorable tourism experiences have a notable impact on the development of attachment and satisfaction with the tourist destination forming strong CBDBE.

The study's primary managerial recommendation is that, to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, destination management organisations should give priority to memorable experiences and positive emotions instead than only concentrating on product-centred marketing. Second, destination managers must mould their business models based on the link between memorable tourism experiences, destination attachment, satisfaction and CBDBE.

Perhaps, the authors' research is one of the earliest to explore the relationship between tourists' overall satisfaction, attachment to a destination and memorable experiences and how they impact customer-based brand equity (CBBE) for a specific urban hill station destination.