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The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative analysis, in which learning orientation, market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, and innovativeness function as key success factors in technology‐intensive firms. The authors formulate a structural equation model to examine the relationship among these constructs.

A structural equation model was designed to examine the relationship. To test the model, the authors conducted covariance structural analyses of data collected from 333 venture companies, including innovation companies, in Taiwan.

The central finding is that learning orientation plays a full mediating role in the relationship between market orientation and innovativeness. The results indicate that organizational structure (formalization and decentralization) does not play a moderating role in the relationship between innovativeness and business performance; however, the extent of formalization of an organizational structure negatively correlates with business performance.

Market orientation can strengthen innovativeness via organizational learning. In the high‐tech industry, the market information obtained from customers and competitors helps firms to keep an eye on the market. For better competitive advantages and business performance, firms must have learning capabilities and employees' identity with corporate mission.

The research empirically examines the mediating role of learning orientation and the moderating role of organizational structure in the model. The findings indicate that firms should strengthen their learning orientation and innovativeness, and avoid interfering in the organizational structure to improve business performance.

While envy has been widely explored in psychology literature, theoretical understanding of the effects of envy on consumers’ emotional responses to brands is promising but under explored. Therefore, this study aims to apply cases of envy and psychological distance to consumers to examine whether the style of brand storytelling can moderate brand preference.

Three experimental studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. Experiment 1 investigated the effect of envy on consumer evaluations of an advocated brand, through viewing a series of advertisements that varied in brand storytelling styles. A total of 104 working students were randomly assigned to a 2 (brand storytelling: underdog vs top dog) single factorial design. Experiment 2 investigates the effect of envy on consumer evaluations of the advocated brand through viewing advertisements that varied in psychological distance. A total of 108 working students were randomly assigned to a 2 (psychological distance: proximal vs distant) single factorial design. Experiment 3 investigated the effect of envy on evaluations of the brand through viewing advertisements that varied in brand storytelling style and psychological distance. A total of 208 working students were randomly assigned to a 2 (underdog vs top dog) × 2 (proximal vs distant psychological distance) between-subject factorial design.

Results demonstrate that for consumers experiencing benign and malicious envy, advertisements characterized by brand storytelling (underdog vs top dog) and psychological distance (proximal vs distant) will elicit differential brand preferences.

This research takes up the call to address the limited attention given to envy in the context of brand advertising. Specifically, this research aims to explore how consumer envy influences brand preference and the role of moderating effects such as brand storytelling and psychological distance in this context.

The competition among banks in Taiwan is fierce. The financial services offered by banks are highly similar and banks attempt to devise a variety of marketing campaigns to gain brand preferences of bank clients. However, little research regarding bank marketing has applied the segmentation strategy to precisely target bank clients. The purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating roles of cognitive load and brand story style in the impact of bank clients’ affective orientation on brand preference of bank clients.

A total of 216 participants who have bank accounts in Taiwan were randomly assigned to a 2 (brand story style: underdog vs top dog) × 2 (cognitive load: low vs high) factorial design. An ANOVA was conducted to examine the interaction effects of affective orientation, cognitive load and brand story style on the brand preference of bank clients. Affective orientation of participants was measured by Affective Orientation Scale.

Results demonstrate that for bank clients with low and high affective orientation, advertisements characterized by cognitive load (low vs high) and brand story style (underdog vs top dog) will elicit differential brand preferences of bank clients.

This is the first research to examine the moderating effects of bank clients’ affective orientation, cognitive load and brand story style on brand preferences of bank clients. Specifically, this research takes up the call to apply bank clients’ personality traits to examine the impact of bank marketing on brand preferences of banks.

This paper examines how market orientation and competence of knowledge reinforce the innovation and in turn improve the business performance.

This research applied research design with quantitative approach based on positivism philosophy, that is, research aimed to test the theory and data which is general to produce findings that are special through hypothesis test. This study was supplemented by field studies as a necessary source of data in the form of trends, attitudes, opinions, perceptions of owners, managers or senior employees of SMEs in the textile industry in Bali, related to the variables used in this study.

(1) Market orientation influences business performance, (2) competence of knowledge moderates the influence of market orientation on business performance, (3) innovation moderates the influence of market orientation on business performance.

(1) Novelty of this research is developing the concept of competence of knowledge associated with business performance in which this relationship has not yet been expressed. (2) Building the concept of innovation development of small-scale industry based on the market orientation. (3) Developing the concept of innovative development of small and medium enterprises of textile industry based on competence of knowledge. (4) Investigating the concept of market orientation and competence of knowledge in an integrated and holistic way to strengthen the innovation and business performance of SMEs of the textile industry in Bali.

To investigate web‐shopping behaviour in Hong Kong: identification of the general attitude towards web‐shopping; relationships between past web‐shopping experience, attitude towards web‐shopping, adoption decisions, search behaviour and web‐shopping intentions; and influences of promotional offers and product categories on web‐shopping intentions.

Relevant hypotheses were constructed and a web‐based questionnaire survey was than conducted using technically educated subjects. The proposed hypotheses were statistically tested and principal components analysis and structural equations were used to produce a structural model.

Web‐shopping intentions are directly affected by web‐search behaviour and web‐shopping adoption decisions, and are indirectly affected by web‐shopping attitudes, past web‐shopping experiences and past experience with the web. Web‐search behaviour was a stronger factor than adoption decision in terms of influencing web‐shopping intentions. The presence of promotional offers had a positive effect on web‐shopping intentions, and web‐shopping intentions were different for different product categories.

The sample employed was composed of technically educated undergraduates and graduates and thus limiting generalizations to a higher levels.

Experienced internet users and experienced web‐shoppers are more likely to be potential future web‐shoppers. Those who have a general dislike for shopping and who tend to buy in a great haste when the purchase becomes absolutely necessary may eventually be another group to become web‐shoppers.

The primary value of this paper lies in extending the understanding of Hong Kong web‐shopper behaviour, and in developing an empirical model that can partly explain the processes leading to web‐shopping intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to report on one high school English‐language‐learner's (ELL) breadth and depth of vocabulary as he communicated with his teacher through e‐mail across geographic boundaries for over 18 months.

The authors began by separating 358 e‐mails into three time periods (first beginning, second middle, and third end) to calculate breadth using lexical density (type‐token ratios). Then, we sampled e‐mails based on personal and impersonal topics within these time periods and linguistically analyzed them for lexical cohesion, semantic usage, and derivational morphology. Interviews with participants before and after the analysis served as member checks.

The quantitative results showed a steady improvement in the breadth of the student's vocabulary over time. Qualitative analyses revealed four major uses of vocabulary within the context of e‐mail and the teacher‐student relationship.

Given our findings, we offer educators insights into ELL strategies and vocabulary assessment, not only with e‐mail but in all written communication.

A social writing tool like e‐mail can be useful for learning English in a safe, non‐threatening environment. Moreover, a trusting social relationship between communicators that develops over time can expedite the language learning process.

Very few studies have looked at the strategic ways ELL students use vocabulary to learn English through e‐mailing.

This paper aims to introduce a practical expert decision support system (EDSS) for performing location analysis and making real estate location decisions in the organization’s facility and real estate management (FREM) department in presence of several decision criteria, under risk and uncertainty. This tool is particularly useful for making strategic decisions in facility planning, portfolio management, investment appraisal, development project evaluations and deciding on usage possibilities in an unbiased, objective manner.

The proposed EDSS uses fuzzy logic and uncertainty theory as two of the most useful tools to deal with uncertainties involved in the problem environment. The system performs an unbiased mathematical analysis on the input data provided by the decision-maker, using a combination of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Global Criterion Method; determines a suitable compromise level between the objectives; and delivers a set of locations that complies best with the outlined desires of the management as the final solution. The application of the system is tested on a real case and has delivered satisfactory results.

The proposed EDSS took the defined objectives, the list of alternative locations, and their attributes as the required input for problem-solving, and used a combination of AHP, Possibilistic approach, and global criterion method to solve the problem. The delivered outcome was a set of proper locations with the right attributes to meet all objectives of the organization at a satisfactory level, confirmed by the problem owners.

The application of such a system with such a degree of preciseness and complexity has been very limited in the literature. The system designed in this study is an Industry 4.0 decision making tool. For designing this system several body of knowledge are used. The present study is particularly useful for making strategic decisions in the domains of portfolio management, investment appraisal, project development evaluations and deciding on property usage possibilities. The proposed EDSS takes the information provided by the experts in the field (through qualitative and quantitative data collecting) as the inputs and operates as an objective decision-making tool using several bodies of knowledge considering the trends and developments in the world of FREM. The strong scientific method used in the core of the proposed EDSS guarantees a highly accurate result.

Breathing resistance is the main factor that influences the wearing comfort of respirators. This paper aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using the gene expression programming (GEP) for the purpose of predicting subjective perceptions of breathing resistances of wearing respirators via surface electromyography (sEMG) and respiratory signals (RSP) sensors.

The authors developed a physiological signal monitoring system with a specific garment. The inputs included seven physical measures extracted from (RSP) and (sEMG) signals. The output was the subjective index of breathing resistances of wearing respirators derived from the category partitioning-100 scale with proven levels of reliability and validity. The prediction model was developed and validated using data collected from 30 subjects and 24 test combinations (12 respirator conditions × 2 motion conditions). The subjects evaluated 24 conditions of breathing resistances in repeated measures fashion.

The results show that the GEP model can provide good prediction performance (R² = 0.71, RMSE = 0.11). This study demonstrates that subjective perceptions of breathing resistance of wearing respirators on the human body can be predicted using the GEP via sEMG and RSP in real-time, at little cost, non-invasively and automatically.

This is the first paper suggesting that subjective perceptions of subjective breathing resistances can be predicted from sEMG and RSP sensors using a GEP model, which will remain helpful to the scientific community to start further human-centered research work and product development using wearable biosensors and evolutionary algorithms.

The Lebanese began their present emigration in the middle of the nineteenth century, heading towards North America, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, and Australia. Today's Lebanese diaspora is made of highly educated and prominent entrepreneurs who have created huge marks in their adopted homelands and the world. In the current study the authors aim to explore this and make suggestions for future research.

The authors use historical literature review and synthesis in order to explore the topic and make suggestions for future research.

The authors find that entrepreneurs from Lebanon have had a significant impact on the economies of many parts of the world.

This paper is original in that it brings together the research on entrepreneurship and Lebanon so that future researchers can have good ideas as to ways to pursue future cross‐cultural research.

The literature of entrepreneurship has an urban focus and despite the emergence of the rural entrepreneurship literature, we know little about the characteristics, philosophies, operating practices and growth strategies of ordinary village entrepreneurs’ in a UK context. As a concept, the “village entrepreneur” is contentious as theoretically there should be little difference between urban and rural entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, there is! The concept is important because many villages are in decline and are marginal places in terms of entrepreneurial opportunity. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A review of the fragmented literature is conducted to synthesise and develop greater understanding. Drawing on a “life-story” approach the empirical strand comprises of an analysis of five ethnographic interviews with village entrepreneurs.

The respondents did not consider themselves entrepreneurs whom they characterised as flash, rogues and even crooked. Their embedded village entrepreneur persona was constructed around tales-of-character, hard work and perseverance. They prided themselves in making “slow-money” which they retain over their lifetime. Embeddedness, self-efficacy, character and morality were key themes encountered.

From a research perspective the findings are based on a limited sample and the study was not specifically designed to capture data on characteristics, philosophies and operating practices. Further research on a larger scale is necessary to validate the findings.

From a practical perspective policy makers require to consider the notions of embeddedness, self-efficacy, character and morality when considering implementing growth strategies in rural areas.

This study contributes to the growing literature of rural entrepreneurship by expanding the typology of rural entrepreneurs and by detailing philosophies, operating practices, and growth strategies suitable and appropriate for small village and rural businesses.