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21 – 30 of over 1000Wonjun Chung and Chang Wan Woo
This study investigated whether the 2008 summer Olympic Games improved the country image of China among foreign consumers. It examined the extent to which the changed country…
Abstract
This study investigated whether the 2008 summer Olympic Games improved the country image of China among foreign consumers. It examined the extent to which the changed country image contributed to its product image. A quasi-experimental research design was used, with surveys taken two months before and two months after the event. The results showed that hosting the Olympics significantly improved the country image of China but did not affect the image of its products in a positive way.
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Hanyang Ma, Saixing Zeng, Geoffrey Qiping Shen, Han Lin and Hongquan Chen
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between international diversification strategy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) for firms from emerging…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between international diversification strategy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) for firms from emerging economies.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on an empirical study of a sample of Chinese firms listed in Engineering News Record top contractors from 2010 to 2014. A moderated analysis is employed in order to test the hypotheses and examine how the scale and scope of international diversification affect CSR.
Findings
The empirical results show that degree of internationalization (DOI), as the scale, is positively related to firms’ CSR scores. Furthermore, two scopes, geographic diversification (GD) and project diversification (PD), have different effects on CSR scores. GD negatively moderates the relationship between DOI and CSR scores, while PD has a positive direct impact on CSR scores.
Research limitations/implications
This paper focusses on firms from emerging economies; therefore, the findings may not hold for firms from developed markets.
Practical implications
The results of this paper provide strategical advice regarding international business, for firms from emerging economies to meet the managerial challenges regarding CSR in global markets.
Originality/value
As the relationship between international diversification and financial performance has been thoroughly discussed in previous studies, this paper extends the literature on international diversification’s effects on CSR.
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Maximilian Lude, Reinhard Prügl and Natalie Rauschendorfer
Brand stories are often created around the company’s humble beginnings as an underdog. The authors explore the effects of who is telling the underdog story and thus draw attention…
Abstract
Purpose
Brand stories are often created around the company’s humble beginnings as an underdog. The authors explore the effects of who is telling the underdog story and thus draw attention to the nature of the brand source by differentiating between family and non-family firms. The authors expect that who is telling the underdog story impacts consumers’ attitude toward the brand in terms of brand authenticity and trustworthiness perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted an online experiment with a 2 × 2 between-subject design and an overall sample size of 314 respondents.
Findings
Most importantly, the authors find that the family-firm nature of the brand storyteller significantly impacts the underdog effect. The positive effects of underdog biographies on brand attitude in terms of authenticity and trustworthiness loom significantly larger for family firms compared with non-family firms.
Practical implications
The authors find that the underdog effect is significantly stronger for family firms that tell the underdog story. Managers of family firms with underdog roots should take advantage of this finding by integrating underdog stories into their marketing concepts. The findings of this study show that the communication of a company’s roots can serve as a valuable tool to build and maintain a positive brand image and help to increase purchase intentions, which is particularly true for firms capitalizing on their family nature when telling the underdog story.
Originality/value
The authors combine research on brand stories using the underdog effect with research on the consumer’s perception of family firms, further exploring the role of the brand storyteller in underdog narratives, resulting in important theoretical as well as practical implications.
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M. Rosario González-Rodríguez, M. Carmen Díaz-Fernández and Xavier Font
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of customers’ environmental concerns, customers’ perceptions of a hotel’s environmental practices and of the hotels’…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of customers’ environmental concerns, customers’ perceptions of a hotel’s environmental practices and of the hotels’ environmentally friendly images, on customers’ willingness to pay a price premium to stay at environmentally friendly hotels.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical framework comprises both social identity theory and value-belief-norm theory. The data were collected through a survey of 454 customers staying at eco-friendly hotels in Spain. The research model is tested by using a structural equation modelling approach.
Findings
The findings illustrate that customers’ environmental concerns have a greater explanatory value on their willingness to pay a price premium than do their perceptions of the hotels’ environmental practices. Furthermore, these causal relationships are similar in magnitude when considering the mediating effects of the hotels’ eco-friendly image and the environmental practices.
Research limitations/implications
The empirical findings provide managers with a better understanding of how customers’ environmental concerns and their own sense of identification with environmentally friendly hotels influence customers’ behavioural intentions towards willingness to pay a premium.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the literature by highlighting those cognitive processes that influence the customers’ willingness to pay a price premium to stay at environmentally friendly hotels. Hence, the study provides valuable information to hotel managers.
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Tommy Lau, Man Lai Cheung, Guilherme D. Pires and Carol Chan
The abolishment of the wine tax in Hong Kong has led to increased wine consumption and increased demand for wine-related professionals, such as sommeliers. Yet the importance of…
Abstract
Purpose
The abolishment of the wine tax in Hong Kong has led to increased wine consumption and increased demand for wine-related professionals, such as sommeliers. Yet the importance of sommeliers’ value-adding performance in the context of upscale Chinese restaurants has not been examined. To address this gap, the SERVQUAL framework is adopted to examine the influence of sommeliers’ service quality (SQ) on customer satisfaction (CS) and loyalty in the context of upscale Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong.
Design/methodology/approach
The survey method is used to collect data from 302 units of the population of interest, partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the links between constructs.
Findings
Four of the seven dimensions of sommeliers’ service quality, namely, empathy, tangibles, credibility and assurance, have a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, whereas the impact of perceived value and responsiveness on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is positive but only marginally significant. Reliability has a weak and non-significant impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Research limitations/implications
Examining a small number of upscale Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong limits generalisation of the findings to other contexts. Replication of the research in different contexts will enhance generalizability. In terms of implications, the discussion highlights the importance of sommeliers’ service performance on customers’ SQ perceptions SQ, CS and loyalty, all of which are important variables for restaurateurs.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of the influence of the quality of sommelier’s SQ on CS and loyalty in upscale Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong. Given the lack of attention to this service role in the literature, the study contributes theory from which further understanding can develop.
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Fei Kang, Jiyu Li, Han Zhang and Ying Zhang
Despite the increasingly growing empirical research on leader humor, the critical issue of how and when leader humor affects newcomer adjustment was largely overlooked. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the increasingly growing empirical research on leader humor, the critical issue of how and when leader humor affects newcomer adjustment was largely overlooked. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between leader humor and newcomer adjustment. Based on social information processing theory, the authors identify newcomers' role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE) as the mediator and suggest that newcomers' cognitive flexibility moderates the effects.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were obtained from a 2-wave sample of 195 newcomers. The authors utilized the PROCESS procedure developed by Hayes to assess the hypothesized moderated mediation model.
Findings
The findings showed that leader humor could boost newcomers' RBSE which, in turn, was beneficial to newcomer adjustment. Besides, newcomers' cognitive flexibility plays a moderating role in the relationship between leader humor and newcomers' RBSE.
Research limitations/implications
This study utilized a cross-sectional research design, making the design difficult to obtain causal conclusions. Moreover, the data were all based on self-reports from newcomers, which may raise a concern of common method bias.
Originality/value
This paper extends the literature on leader humor and newcomer adjustment by treating RBSE as the mediator and newcomers' cognitive flexibility as the moderator. This study is one of several empirical studies to test the link between leader humor and newcomer adjustment.
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This paper gives a review of the finite element techniques (FE) applied in the area of material processing. The latest trends in metal forming, non‐metal forming, powder…
Abstract
This paper gives a review of the finite element techniques (FE) applied in the area of material processing. The latest trends in metal forming, non‐metal forming, powder metallurgy and composite material processing are briefly discussed. The range of applications of finite elements on these subjects is extremely wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore the aim of the paper is to give FE researchers/users only an encyclopaedic view of the different possibilities that exist today in the various fields mentioned above. An appendix included at the end of the paper presents a bibliography on finite element applications in material processing for 1994‐1996, where 1,370 references are listed. This bibliography is an updating of the paper written by Brannberg and Mackerle which has been published in Engineering Computations, Vol. 11 No. 5, 1994, pp. 413‐55.
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Zhen Li, Shaowen Zhang, Qingfeng Meng and Xin Hu
The Chinese construction industry is experiencing a rapid growth these days. Due to the requirements of energy conservation, emission reduction and construction waste management…
Abstract
Purpose
The Chinese construction industry is experiencing a rapid growth these days. Due to the requirements of energy conservation, emission reduction and construction waste management, the development of prefabricated buildings (PBs) has attracted much attention in the Chinese construction industry. However, the development of PBs are still in their infancy in China, which have been negatively impacted by many obstacles. It is of great significance to clarify and analyze these obstacles for the purpose of promoting the development of PBs in China. Due to the wideness and complex features of obstacles, the existing literature exploring the research topic lacks comprehensiveness. The purpose of this paper is to systematically identify and discuss the obstacles that hinder the development of PBs in China.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts the method of news report analysis based on the news reports retrieved from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and nine major portals in China. The Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) method of content analysis was used to rank the obstacles according to their importance.
Findings
A total of 79 obstacles to the development of PBs in China are identified, and the 79 obstacles are divided into 8 dimensions. Among the Top 20 obstacles, the government dimension accounted for the highest number of 5, the market and consumer dimension and development organization dimension were 4, Manufacturing Enterprise of Prefabricated Components (PCs) dimension, construction organization dimension and design organization dimension were 2, logistics enterprise dimension was 1, and industry association dimension was 0. Among them, the biggest obstacle is the high transportation costs.
Research limitations/implications
First, data collection may not be very comprehensive. Second, this paper is only based on the obstacles in the development of PBs in China, and the universality of the management conclusions needs to be further strengthened.
Practical implications
The research results help the stakeholders in the Chinese PBs industry to better understand the barriers hindering the industry development in a systemic way, which will help propose appropriate strategies to address these barriers.
Originality/value
This paper clarifies the obstacles of China's PBs and makes an analysis, which is of great value to the development of China's PBs.
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Jordi Pujadas-Hostench, Ramon Palau-Saumell, Santiago Forgas-Coll and Javier Sánchez-García
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intention to purchase products through clothing brands’ social network sites (SNS) based on the theory of planned behavior and uses…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intention to purchase products through clothing brands’ social network sites (SNS) based on the theory of planned behavior and uses and gratifications theory (U&G), and the moderating effects of self-image congruity (SIC).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 1,003 followers of their favorite clothing brands’ SNS. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group SEM analysis. The models were estimated from the matrices of variances and covariances by the maximum likelihood procedure using EQS 6.1.
Findings
The results highlight the positive impact of U&G on attitude, SNS intentions and SNS use, and U&G, SNS intentions and SNS use were seen to be the main antecedents predicting purchase intentions. Furthermore, SIC was found to have moderating effects between SNS attitude and SNS intentions and between SNS intentions and SNS use.
Practical implications
This research can help clothing brands understand the need to generate brand beliefs, and to develop contents or events to help accomplish the transition from use to purchase.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the literature by providing a better understanding of intention to use and purchase intention through clothing brands’ SNS pages.
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Saeedeh Rezaee Vessal and Amitabh Anand
The purpose of this research is to conduct a literature review on the evolution, antecedents, and outcomes of luxury consumption (LC). To accomplish our goal, we used a…
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to conduct a literature review on the evolution, antecedents, and outcomes of luxury consumption (LC). To accomplish our goal, we used a combination of bibliometrics and systematic approaches to review 165 articles published between 1998 and 2019. The investigation revealed that the evolution of LC is mostly driven by consumer motivation and is influenced by cultural and psychological variables. Furthermore, we explored the aforementioned antecedents of LC along four major axes. Antecedents related to (1) individual characteristics, (2) brand components, (3) cultural and social values, and (4) organizational strategies. Furthermore, based on the outcomes of LC, we found two categories (individual traits and social values). The chapter concludes by proposing a broader research agenda for the future.
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