Search results

In the face of a changing and turbulent environment, an organizational learning culture (OLC) is crucial for the long-term operation of an organization. A learning culture provides the capacity to effectively integrate employees, and it also provides structure so that an organization can move forward via continuous learning and change. Few empirical results are available from Chinese companies enduring an organizational change. To bridge this research gap, this study investigated the relationships among an OLC, job satisfaction, turnover intentions and job performance during organizational change.

A quantitative approach with structural equation modeling (SEM) and bootstrapping estimation was used to test hypotheses developed from a sample of 434 employees in a restructured telecommunications company in Taiwan.

Employees who experienced a higher learning culture had lower levels of turnover intentions and exhibited better job performance. Job satisfaction had a negative impact on employee turnover intentions but a positive impact on job performance. Moreover, job satisfaction fully mediated the relationships between an OLC and employee turnover intentions and job performance. When encountering organizational planned changes, a vibrant learning culture gave employees a higher level of satisfaction in their jobs and workplace. Although unexpected challenges often appeared during the organizational changes, employees with a higher level of job satisfaction tended to fulfill their own job duties and showed fewer turnover intentions.

In investigating issues related to organizational change, this study provides managerial insights and addresses strategies for facilitating the adoption of an OLC into the design and implementation of a better workplace environment.

This study aims to examine the consequences when audit committees have different economic incentives (i.e. incentive-based compensation) to switch auditors.

The author focuses on companies experiencing an auditor switching event (client-initiated dismissals) and uses Heckman’s (1997) two-stage estimation procedure to control endogenous bias. Audit committee quality is measured by the level of incentive-based compensation. Accrual quality and abnormal audit fees are examined over the periods of auditor switches.

Using 1,087 US companies between 2006 and 2014, the author found that audit committees’ incentive-based compensation is negatively (positively) associated with accruals quality (abnormal audit fees) only when companies switch from Big 4 to non-Big 4 auditors or switch within non-Big 4 auditors. For companies that switch from non-Big 4 to Big 4 auditors, she found no evidence.

This study provides a detailed discussion of the consequences of audit committee quality. The findings also contribute to the literature by concluding that economic incentives are associated with ineffective oversight, particularly after auditor switches.

Sarbanes–Oxley Act and its associated regulations significantly expanded the oversight role of audit committees. However, regulators bypassed restrictions on audit committee compensation. Accordingly, the author suggests that regulators focus on the issue of economic incentives to improve audit committee quality.

Minimal research has been conducted on the role of audit committees when companies switch to a new external auditor. The author shows that when companies switch auditors, incentive-based compensation significantly affects the monitoring quality of audit committees.

The purpose of this study was to better understand the more complex social, technical and personal socialization experiences of engineers when they started new jobs in Taiwan. Much of the research and practice on the socialization of newly hired employees is narrowly focused on newcomer learning.

The study is a qualitative, case study approach designed to collect in-depth data about the socialization experiences of engineers in Taiwan. Thirteen participants reported their experiences from when they began new jobs, and the researchers collected and analyzed data from semi-structured interviews. The analysis followed qualitative analysis methods for content analysis.

The findings indicated that interpersonal relationships are critical to successful socialization, and the relational structures encountered by newcomers reflect the broader culture of Confucianism and the social interactions of guanxi in the Taiwanese workplace. Three main dimensions of socialization emerged from the data referring to social, technical and personal learning experiences.

The findings identify what is working (mentoring) and what is not working well (training). Human Resource managers and supervisors of newcomers can take actions to better manage the multiple dimensions of socialization.

Unlike most studies of socialization in Asia, this study took an in-depth, qualitative look into the experiences of newcomers. What emerged from the analysis of the data was a framework composed of three interdependent dimensions of socialization experiences. The findings inform both managers and newly hired employees about socialization experiences and how they can be improved.

The basic assumption is that there is a symmetric relationship between review valence and rating, but what if review valence and rating were linked asymmetrically? There are few studies which have investigated the situations in which positive and negative online reviews exert different influences on ratings. This study considers brand strength as having an important moderating role because the average rating of existing reviews for a particular product is a heuristic cue for decision makers. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to argue that an asymmetric relationship between review content valence and numerical rating will depend on brand strength.

The authors have conducted a sentiment analysis via text mining, using self-developed computer programs to retrieve a data set from the TripAdvisor website.

This study finds there is an asymmetric relationship between review valence (verbal) and numerical rating. The authors further find brand strength to have an important moderating role. For a stronger brand, negative review content will have a greater impact on numerical ratings than positive review content, while for a weaker brand, positive review content will have a greater impact on numerical ratings than negative review content.

Marketers could adopt sentiment analysis via text mining of online reviews as a valid measure or predictor of consumer satisfaction or numerical ratings. Strong brands should direct more attention to negative reviews, because in such reviews the negative impact transcends the positive. In contrast, weak brands should aim to exploit as many positive reviews as possible to minimize the impact of any negative reviews.

This study finds there is an asymmetric relationship between review valence (verbal) and numerical rating and considers brand strength to play an important moderating role. The authors have used real data from the TripAdvisor website, which allow people to express themselves in an unsolicited manner, and linked these with the results from the sentiment analysis.

Western researchers have concluded that generational groups of workers have different work characteristics and prefer different leadership styles. This paper investigates whether Western research applies equally to generational groups in Taiwan's workplaces, specifically in the higher education sector and manufacturing industry.

A total of 20 higher education institutions and 148 manufacturing SMEs in machinery manufacturing in Taipei were identified. After operational definitions for constructs were defined, a questionnaire was developed and administered. After data had been processed through editing, coding and tabulation, a statistical technique was selected where research expectation tests could be conducted. In order to test construct validity, factor analysis was also performed. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to test for any significant differences between the variables under investigation.

The research shows that generational groups in manufacturing industry have different work characteristics and require different leadership styles, while there were no differences in work characteristics and preferred leadership style for generational groups in the education sector.

The results of this research provide some direction for leaders and researchers. Leaders should recognise the different work characteristics between generational groups and apply leadership styles that will positively contribute to employee motivation.

This study aims to develop a comprehensive LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability) restaurant service quality scale by using a rigorous qualitative and quantitative research process to effectively measure the service quality of LOHAS restaurants. Moreover, this study aims to further identify the Kano quality characteristics and strategic meanings of service attributes in LOHAS restaurants.

This study designed the preliminary items of the service quality scale for LOHAS restaurants (LORSERV scale) based on relevant literatures and expert interview procedures. This study identified the goodness of fit of the questionnaire content, construct validity and validity of the LORSERV scale using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The moderated regression was conducted to identify the Kano quality characteristics and strategic meanings of each service attribute in LOHAS restaurants.

The results indicated that the LORSERV scale included seven dimensions (internal sense of happiness, transitiveness, environment, healthy catering, service commitment, green practicability and thoughtfulness), for a total of 33 items. According to the results of the Kano model, the seven service attributes were categorized into the attractive quality. A total of 25 service attributes were categorized into the one-dimensional quality, and one service attribute was categorized into the must-be quality.

The contribution of this study is that the scale could facilitate operators of LOHAS restaurants to effectively understand customer perceptions of service quality and serve as a reference to upgrade and improve service quality. The identification of Kano quality characteristics for each service attribute is conducive for LOHAS restaurants to understand the strategic meanings of each service attribute and can serve as a reference to make distinctive service strategies to reach sustainable operations.

For entrepreneurship education issue, the purpose of this paper is to apply a novel four-step method of comparative education research and assessment items for university-based entrepreneurship ecosystems (U-BEEs), with a specific focus on universities in Taiwan and Singapore. In this paper, entrepreneurship education development is explored, and important implications for the further improvement of entrepreneurship education are provided.

This study is based on the comparative education research method and proceeds in four steps (i.e. description, interpretation, juxtaposition, and comparison). The U-BEE items are applied to exemplify the similarities and differences of the process by which entrepreneurship education developed in two universities each in Singapore (National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University) and Taiwan (National Taiwan University and National Tsing Hua University).

From the country-based standpoint, the findings include considering broader factors (i.e. history, education) in such a comparison of the similarities and differences among four universities, reflecting the reality in the Asian region and introducing the method application of comparative education research for the first time in entrepreneurship education. From holistic and specific perspectives of U-BEE, the findings consist of presenting similarities and differences based on the comparisons of each item and showing the classified findings.

This study provides helpful insights based on the perspectives of academics and practitioners. First, the authors urge the necessity of the theoretical base of teaching and learning in education when universities plan for entrepreneurship education. Second, the authors stress the critical impact of the government on the execution of entrepreneurship education in the higher education context.

The aim of this paper is to use a new approach of performance evaluation, grey relation analysis (GRA), which is a concept borrowed from the study of industry and is increasingly applied to commerce. GRA is used to evaluate the relative performance of three of Australia's major banks The result of the study indicates that although the sample size is small and the distribution of data is unknown, GRA can still be successfully used in evaluating bank performance. In addition, this paper compares the GRA results with the financial statement analysis and shows that the same result can be obtained.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX), job satisfaction (JS), life satisfaction (LS), and psychological capital (PC) for employee relation management.

A total of 319 valid questionnaires were received from employees of financial and electronics manufacturing industries in Taiwan, and they were then analyzed using a structuring equation model with SPSS 12.0 and LISREL 8.8.

Good LMX increases psychological capital. Psychological capital enhances both JS and LS, and psychological capital serves as a full mediator for both JS and LS. A moderating effect of industrial characteristics is found between LMX and LS and between psychological capital and LS.

The findings suggest that managers need to focus on leadership style in order to develop employees’ life and JS through building psychological capital.

This study not only obtained further support for predictions derived from the LMX theory but was also a more extensive analysis of the meaningful relationships between job and LS with a mediating effect of psychological capital on employee relation management.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a stylized model to solve the pricing strategy, resource allocation and consumer surplus problems of multichannel healthcare services.

This paper considers a two-stage decision model with different levels of consumers’ knowledge. Faced with physical problems, knowledgeable consumers can solve their problems by seeking online healthcare channels, while unknowledgeable consumers need to make a two-stage decision to try to solve their problems.

The effective diagnosis rate and the proportion of knowledgeable consumers positively impact the optimal pricing in online and offline channels. In addition, a higher proportion of knowledgeable consumers does not result in higher demand in the online and offline channels. Moreover, if service providers lower their prices a small amount, they will lose some profit, but the consumer surplus will be higher, which will encourage more consumers to access healthcare services.

Knowledge levels are simplified into two categories. Also, the authors assume the resources of online and offline healthcare services are comparable.

This paper incorporates the knowledge level and misdiagnosis rate into the model framework to study the most effective pricing strategy for multichannel healthcare services.