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The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of two types of reciprocity (restricted reciprocity and generalized reciprocity) on customers’ trust in social commerce (s-commerce) and trust performance (purchase intention and word-of-mouth intention). Furthermore, this study examines how individual and contextual moderators (personal shopping experience and community shared language) could impact the trust development process.

This study adopted a survey method and obtained data from 287 users in a customer-to-customer (C2C) s-commerce platform. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the research hypotheses.

The results demonstrate that two types of reciprocity positively affect trust in s-commerce. Customers’ trust performance is significantly affected by trust in s-commerce. Additionally, shopping experience in s-commerce is found to positively moderate the relationship between restricted reciprocity and trust in s-commerce.

The findings help to understand the nature and role of reciprocity in influencing trust and trust-related behaviors in the context of C2C s-commerce. The research also helps to explore the individual and contextual moderators that impact the effect of reciprocity on trust development.

The results offer a comprehensive view of trust building strategies for s-commerce practitioners, including shoppers, vendors and managers of s-commerce platforms.

This study is among the first few research studies that offers a theory-based conceptualization of reciprocity in C2C s-commerce and provides empirical support for the impact of reciprocity on customers’ trust in C2C s-commerce. In addition, this study devises a broader view of reciprocity based on restricted and generalized exchange principle to represent the interaction of vendor–shopper and shopper–shopper, respectively.

The paper aims to explore the factors that influence the risk perception. The moderating roles of purchase experience and purchase involvement are also investigated.

The conceptual model is framed into the SOR (stimulus-organism-response) model, which was tested using data collected from the users of a leading group buying platform in China, with the help of LISREL.

The result indicates that both vendor- and intermediary-related factors exert negative yet significant influences on perceived risk. The relationships between vendor-related attributes and perceived risk are contingent on purchase involvement. The relationships between intermediary-related attributes and perceived risk are subject to purchase experience.

This study explores the moderating effects of purchase experience and purchase involvement based on the characteristics of group buying, demonstrating the differences from traditional online shopping.

The aim of the present study was to gather and review all the important properties of the Sn–Ag–Cu (SAC) solder alloy. The SAC solder alloy has been proposed as the alternative solder to overcome the environmental concern of lead (Pb) solder. Many researchers have studied the SAC solder alloy and found that the properties such as melting temperature, wettability, microstructure and interfacial, together with mechanical properties, are better for the SAC solder than the tin – lead (SnPb) solders. Meanwhile, addition of various elements and nanoparticles seems to produce enhancement on the prior bulk solder alloy as well. These benefits suggest that the SAC solder alloy could be the next alternative solder for the electronic packaging industry. Although many studies have been conducted for this particular solder alloy, a compilation of all these properties regarding the SAC solder alloy is still not available for a review to say.

Soldering is identified as the metallurgical joining method in electronic packaging industry which uses filler metal, or well known as the solder, with a melting point < 425°C (Yoon et al., 2009; Ervina and Marini, 2012). The SAC solder has been developed by many methods and even alloying it with some elements to enhance its properties (Law et al., 2006; Tsao et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2002; Gain et al., 2011). The development toward miniaturization, meanwhile, requires much smaller solder joints and fine-pitch interconnections for microelectronic packaging in electronic devices which demand better solder joint reliability of SAC solder Although many studies have been done based on the SAC solder, a review based on the important characteristics and the fundamental factor involving the SAC solder is still not sufficient. Henceforth, this paper resolves in stating all its important properties based on the SAC solder including its alloying of elements and nanoparticles addition for further understanding.

Various Pb-free solders have been studied and investigated to overcome the health and environmental concern of the SnPb solder. In terms of the melting temperature, the SAC solder seems to possess a high melting temperature of 227°C than the Pb solder SnPb. Here, the melting temperature of this solder falls within the range of the average reflow temperature in the electronic packaging industry and would not really affect the process of connection. A good amendment here is, this melting temperature can actually be reduced by adding some element such as titanium and zinc. The addition of these elements tends to decrease the melting temperature of the SAC solder alloy to about 3°C. Adding nanoparticles, meanwhile, tend to increase the melting temperature slightly; nonetheless, this increment was not seemed to damage other devices due to the very slight increment and no drastic changes in the solidification temperature. Henceforth, this paper reviews all the properties of the Pb-free SAC solder system by how it is developed from overcoming environmental problem to achieving and sustaining as the viable candidate in the electronic packaging industry. The Pb-free SAC solder can be the alternative to all drawbacks that the traditional SnPb solder possesses and also an upcoming new invention for the future needs. Although many studies have been done in this particular solder, not much information is gathered in a review to give better understanding for SAC solder alloy. In that, this paper reviews and gathers the importance of this SAC solder in the electronic packaging industry and provides information for better knowledge.

This paper resolves in stating of all its important properties based on the SAC solder including its alloying of elements and nanoparticles addition for further understanding.

The authors aim to measure the effects of ambidextrous innovation and its mix strategy on organizational obsolescence with the moderating roles of environmental turbulence.

Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses on the basis of the survey data of 198 firm employees in China.

Both exploratory and exploitative innovations significantly restrain organizational obsolescence. The complementary strategy of ambidextrous innovation is negatively correlated to organizational obsolescence, but the impact of balanced strategy is not significant. Environmental turbulence negatively moderates the relationship between exploratory innovation and organizational obsolescence, whereas it cannot moderate the effect of exploitative innovation.

The empirical and conceptual findings have important implications for organizations countering obsolescence through the construction of a mix strategy of ambidextrous innovation. This study enriches and extends obsolescence theory by introducing the joint mechanism of ambidextrous innovation and environmental turbulence.

The study investigates how the congruence of online deal popularity and star rating influences service quality expectation in online group buying (OGB) websites. It also investigates the role of authenticity perceptions of online cues.

Two experiments are used to assess the effects of congruence between deal popularity and star rating on service quality expectation for service deals in an OGB website.

The findings suggest that a combination of congruently high deal popularity and high star rating has a stronger effect on expected service quality than a combination of congruently low cues. The findings further suggest that expected service quality is greater under the combination of high deal popularity and low star rating than the combination of low deal popularity and high star rating, showing the differences between incongruent cue combinations. The findings also show the moderating effect of consumer authenticity perceptions of cues on the expected service quality.

The novel contribution of the study is to extend cue congruence theory to explain how congruent online information cues and the consumers' authenticity perceptions of the cues influence consumers' judgment of online deals. The contribution is validated empirically in the context of OGB. The findings advance current knowledge concerning how consumers use online information cues.

Many small-to-medium sized service shops (e.g. jewelry shops, fine-dining restaurants etc.) operate in a unique service environment. They often face customers in transit (i.e. transient delivery) and with minimal information of their preferences (i.e. high uncertainty). This study investigates how such shops create service experience to customers by focusing on three constructs, namely, customer orientation, management commitment to service quality and quality of leader-member exchange in service systems with the uncertain and transient nature. Building on a systems approach of service experience design, the authors examine all possible effects (main effects and two-way and three-way interaction effects) on customer experience. Specifically, to frame the two-way and the three-way interaction effects, the authors adopt the contingency and configuration approaches, respectively.

This study employs a multiple respondent approach involving managers, employees and customers to collect data from 225 service shops in Hong Kong. Hierarchically moderated regression analysis is employed to analyze the collected data.

Contrary to our initial conceptualization, most of the direct effects and two-way interaction effects among the three constructs are insignificant. The authors do, however, uncover a significant effect of the three-way interaction term. The authors analyze the results from the configuration perspective.

The finding suggests that the configuration approach is necessary to determine the configuration concerning how design elements align with one another to generate an integrative effect on customer experience. The authors conclude that for high-contact services of the transient and high-uncertainty type, all three constructs must operate simultaneously to evoke favorable customer experience. Customer experience is holistically developed in a service system with high-uncertainty and transient nature, requiring simultaneous alignment across a range of design choices among those involved in service delivery (manager, employee and customer).

The purpose of this paper is to present the design of a compact microstrip bandpass filter (BPF) in dual-mode configuration loaded with cross-loop and square ring slots on a square patch resonator for C-band applications.

In the proposed design, the dual-mode response for the filter is realized with two transmission zeros (TZs) by the insertion of a perturbation element at the diagonal corner of the square patch resonator with orthogonal feed lines. Such TZs at the edges of the passband result in better selectivity for the proposed BPF. Moreover, the cross-loop and square ring slots are etched on a square patch resonator to obtain a miniaturized BPF.

The proposed dual-mode microstrip filter fabricated in RT/duroid 6010 substrate using PCB technology has a measured minimum insertion loss of 1.8 dB and return loss better than 24.5 dB with a fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 6.9%. A compact size of 7.35 × 7.35 mm² is achieved for the slotted patch resonator-based dual-mode BPF at the center frequency of 4.76 GHz. As compared with the conventional square patch resonator, a size reduction of 61% is achieved with the proposed slotted design. The feasibility of the filter design is confirmed by the good agreement between the measured and simulated responses. The performance of the proposed filter structure is compared with other dual-mode filter works.

In the proposed work, a compact dual-mode BPF is reported with slotted structures. The conventional square patch resonator is deployed with cross-loop and square ring slots to design a dual-mode filter with a square perturbation element at its diagonal corner. The proposed filter exhibits compact size and favorable performance compared to other dual-mode filter works reported in literature. The aforementioned design of the dual-mode BPF at 4.76 GHz is suitable for applications in the lower part of the C-band.

This paper aimed to identify critical success factors (CSFs) of building information modeling (BIM) implementation among architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) firms in Malaysia using quantitative statistical methods.

A questionnaire survey was conducted on the population of all AEC firms in Malaysia to rank the relative importance of 15 success factors (SFs) for BIM implementation in the firm on a 5-point Likert scale. The sampling frame consisted of all members registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) from which 184 responses were received. The distinction between SFs and CSFs was achieved by a normalized mean cutoff value. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to determine the relative groupings of the CSFs and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to examine the underlying relationships between the CSF groupings.

Results of this study validated 11 previously identified CSFs for successful implementation of BIM among Malaysian AEC firms. Non-technical factors such as management, leadership and coordination were found to have higher relevance compared to technical factors such as software and hardware. Ranking analysis of the CSFs found internal coordination factors to have more importance compared to external coordination factors. PCA revealed 4 principal components (PCs) from the 11 CSFs. Together, these four PCs explain 74.3% of the variance in the data. Also, six hypothesized relationships between these groupings were supported using PLS-SEM.

This study found an interaction between internal and external coordination factors for the implementation of BIM. Future research could explore the dynamics of both intra- and inter-firm coordination, which may create an environment suitable for BIM implementation.

This study provides Malaysian AEC firms with a general strategy on how to approach the implementation of BIM within the firm. In addition, government initiatives should focus on increasing BIM competency of graduates entering the workforce. This can be achieved through the development of a national BIM curriculum. Apart from that, the implementation of BIM requires a radical shift in the traditional building delivery process, not just simply acquiring new software and hardware.

This study revealed that the interactions between different firms at the industry level can influence successful implementation of BIM at the firm level. CSFs for BIM implementation at the firm level have been extensively studied. However, few studies exist which explore the inter-firm collaborations at the industry level that facilitate successful BIM implementation.

Knowledge management has historically been approached in private firms as a key factor for business management. However, this is not the case for government institutions. The existing literature on the transfer of knowledge appears as a topic little addressed in government and even to a lesser degree within the police forces. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between motivation, knowledge absorption, knowledge transfer and innovative behavior in a public organization such as the Puerto Rico Police.

This quantitative research using the survey technique had the participation of 300 police officers from the 13 police regions of Puerto Rico and the research model was analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results contribute to the growth of the currently limited literature at identifies how motivation, knowledge absorption, knowledge transfer and institutional support influence innovative behavior.

The study discusses a series of implications on less explore the issue in how the transfer of knowledge becomes a key force to produce change and the success of all reforms. Various implications for the success of public administration in bringing a change from a bureaucratic culture to an advanced one are also discussed.