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The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of manufacturing flexibility in the relationship between knowledge creation, technological turbulence and performance. In an increasingly competitive and changing environment, firms need to boost their technological and management know-how to adequately develop manufacturing flexibility.

This study analyzes survey data collected from 370 manufacturing firms. Validity and reliability analyses were conducted using SPSS and Amos. The research hypotheses were tested using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

The main findings show that knowledge creation positively and significantly affects business and operational performances directly, and indirectly, through manufacturing flexibility. Moreover, technological turbulence has a positive and significant effect on it. This finding contributes to understanding why some firms get better outcomes from manufacturing flexibility than others, a disputed issue in the literature.

This study highlights the need for manufacturing firms to foster cultures of knowledge creation, to better educate and train employees and to develop other instruments of knowledge creation.

This study makes several contributions to manufacturing flexibility literature: (1) establishing a link between technological turbulence and knowledge creation to develop manufacturing flexibility; (2) add empirical evidence on the relation between manufacturing flexibility and performance and (3) contributes to consolidating the mediation role of manufacturing flexibility in the relations between knowledge creation and business performance, as studies focussing on such a role are scarce in the literature.

This study aims to explore how information technology (IT) companies that provide professional information systems/IT solutions to business clients can enhance employees’ service innovation performance.

Self-reported data were collected from 251 employees over two periods, along with their supervisor-reported data. The model was tested using structural equation modeling.

Employees’ engagement fully mediates the impact of innovative self-efficacy and social identification on service innovation performance. Employees’ customer orientation and feeling trusted both strengthen the transformation of service innovation engagement into service innovation performance. However, IT employees’ embeddedness, unexpectedly, significantly weakens the link between engagement and performance in business-to-business (B2B) service innovation contexts.

The sample was collected in Taiwan, where the IT industry is dominant and employees’ values and team interactions are influenced by Chinese culture. Data drawn from a single industry, involving a particular culture, limit claims of external validity.

Managers can encourage participative decision-making, or hold official platforms where peers and clients can exchange ideas, leading to higher levels of feeling trusted and customer orientation, which both strengthen the link between service innovation engagement and performance. Moreover, highly embedded members can easily discuss novel ideas with team members and obtain improvement-oriented feedback, which ensures highly embedded members can keep focusing on service innovation.

This study provides a more nuanced picture of predictive factors for individual innovation behavior in B2B service innovation contexts in which employees provide business clients with professional, innovative IT solutions through team-based projects.

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the healthcare organization’s intention to use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for improving efficiency. This paper also intends to identify various factors that influence the adoption of RFID in the healthcare organization. This paper develops and tests seven different hypotheses. These hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling. Our results provide support for a number of relationships in the hypothesized model. These include direct relationships among the factors risk, resistance to change, supplier support and the factor perceived usefulness. However, the study did not find support for the relationship between the factors perceived ease of use and intention to use. The results provide support for several indirect relationships as well. These include indirect relationships between the factors perceived resistance to change, risk, suppliers’ support and perceived ease of use with the factor intention to adopt RFID technology in the healthcare organization. This research is grounded in the theory of reasoned action and applies the technology acceptance model (TAM) to the healthcare organization’s intention to use RFID technology.

Relativism, at least in some of its forms, is antithetical to sociology as traditionally practiced and conceived. (See, for instance, Benton and Crabb, 2001, pp.50‐74 and 93‐1006; Collins 1996a; Mann, 1998; Murphy, 1997; and Taylor‐Gooby, 1994). Hence, sociologists should consider abandoning traditional sociology or rejecting relativism. An example of the sort of relativism I have in mind is the philosophical theory that the truth and falsity of propositions is relative to the social context of their promulgation. Such epistemological relativism is expressed by Newton‐Smith when he says: “The central relativist idea is that what is true for one tribe, social group or age might not be true for an other tribe, social group or age” (Newton‐Smith, 1982, p.107).

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the extent to which knowledge management (KM), customer satisfaction (CS) and organizational image (OI) discriminate quality-certified municipalities from non-certified ones (ISO 9001).

An empirical study was carried out involving 81 Portuguese municipalities (40 certified, 41 non-certified), paired in a random sampling procedure. The Knowledge Management Questionnaire (n=1,372 municipality employees), the Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Organizational Image Questionnaire (n=3,096 residents) were applied. Multiple discriminant analysis was performed.

The results indicate that certified and non-certified municipalities are distinct based on a function that considers KM (competitive orientation and formal KM practices), CS (intangible and tangible factors) and OI (favorable image).

The findings need further validation in other countries. However, the results highlight the importance of quality certification for both employees and residents.

The results encourage local public administration organizations to introduce and maintain quality certification.

This research is the only one, to the authors’ knowledge, that simultaneously explores organizational processes of KM, CS and OI in local public administration. The sampling procedure and the information from diverse data sources are unique contributions. The conclusions may aid practitioners and scholars in understanding these organizational phenomena in the context of quality-certified and quality non-certified municipalities.

Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.

The purpose of this paper was to study responses to traditional food of a country, focusing on emotion-motivational responses by locals and foreigners.

Through an experimental design study, Portuguese and Foreign participants were exposed to both traditional and nontraditional food pictures of a country and asked to evaluate their emotional and motivational responses while physiological responses of electrodermal activity were being continuously recorded. Predisposition factors of body dissatisfaction, food neophobia and food involvement were also evaluated given their potential role in predicting the responses to the visualization of the food pictures.

This study found that local traditional food received a higher positive evaluation than nontraditional food with locals evaluating it even higher than foreigners. Higher feelings of arousal and desire as well as willingness to try in response to traditional food were also found as well as higher feelings of pleasure by locals. However, interestingly, and contrary to expectations derived from previous literature, emotion-motivational responses were not significantly different between locals and foreigners.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research addressed an identified research gap in the literature, being the first one evaluating the autonomic responses of consumers to traditional food by exploring how local and foreign consumers respond to traditional food versus nontraditional food using psychophysiological measures of emotion.

El objetivo principal de esta investigación fue estudiar las respuestas a la comida tradicional de un país, centrándose en las respuestas emoción-motivación de los locales y los extranjeros.

A través de un estudio de diseño experimental, los participantes portugueses y extranjeros fueron expuestos a imágenes de comida tradicional y no tradicional de un país y se les pidió que evaluaran sus respuestas emocionales y motivacionales mientras se registraban continuamente las respuestas fisiológicas de la actividad electrodérmica. También se evaluaron los factores de predisposición de la insatisfacción corporal, la neofobia a la comida y la implicación en la comida, dado su papel potencial en la predicción de las respuestas a la visualización de las imágenes de comida.

Encontramos que la comida tradicional local recibió una evaluación positiva más alta que la comida no tradicional, con los locales evaluándola incluso más alto que los extranjeros. También se encontraron mayores sentimientos de excitación y deseo, así como la voluntad de probar en respuesta a la comida tradicional, así como mayores sentimientos de placer por parte de los locales. Sin embargo, curiosamente, y en contra de las expectativas derivadas de la literatura anterior, las respuestas emocionales-motivacionales no fueron significativamente diferentes entre los locales y los extranjeros.

Esta investigación abordó una brecha de investigación identificada en la literatura, siendo la primera que evalúa las respuestas autonómicas de los consumidores a la comida tradicional al explorar cómo los consumidores locales y extranjeros responden a la comida tradicional frente a la no tradicional utilizando medidas psicofisiológicas de emoción.

本研究的主要目的是研究本地人和外国人对一个国家的传统食物的情感动机反应。

通过实验设计研究, 葡萄牙人和外国参与者会看到一个国家的传统和非传统食物图片, 并被要求评估他们的情绪和动机反应, 同时连续记录皮肤电活动的生理反应。考虑到其他变量在预测对食物图片可视化的反应方面的潜在作用, 还评估了身体不满、食物恐惧症和食物参与的易感因素的影响。

研究结果发现, 当地的传统食物比非传统食物得到了更高的积极评价, 且当地人对它的评价甚至比外国人更高。当地人对传统食物的表现出更高的唤醒, 欲望和尝试意愿, 以及更高的愉悦感。然而, 有趣的是, 与以往文献的预期相反, 当地人和外国人之间的情绪动机反应并没有呈现出明显差异。

这项研究填补了现有文献中的研究空白, 它是第一个通过使用心理生理学的情绪测量方法来探索本地和外国消费者对传统食物与非传统食物的反应, 从而评估消费者对传统食物自主反应的研究。

The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers’ intention to use mass customization by incorporating preference fit and their ability to express preferences into the theory of planned behaviour and to examine how consumers perceive behavioural control over the process of online mass customization (OMC). Preference fit, which refers to fit between consumer preference and product attributes, and ability to express preferences were integrated into theory of planned behaviour as two belief variables related to OMC.

In total, 346 potential respondents were invited via e-mail to participate in the present study acquired from an independent marketing company. We conducted a self-administrated online survey using a video clip with voice instructions to demonstrate the OMC process as a stimulus.

The results suggest that consumers’ attitudes and perceived behavioural control predicted their OMC use intentions. Preference fit positively affected consumers’ attitudes towards OMC as a behavioural belief, and the ability to express preferences positively influenced preference fit but did not predict perceived behavioural control as a control belief. Clothing involvement was a positive predictor of preference fit and the ability to express preferences.

This study contributes to the OMC literature by suggesting a theoretical framework by extending the theory of planned behaviour and identifying consumers’ belief variables as antecedents of attitudes and perceived behavioural control in the OMC context. In addition, the study examines the role of clothing involvement in facilitating consumers’ OMC beliefs, suggesting the crucial role of clothing involvement as one of individual factors extending theory of planned behaviour framework, in the OMC process.