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This study investigates the private equity funds’ performances and persistence by fund type. Diversification benefit exists between public equity and private equity and among different types of private equity funds. The net IRR of private equity funds depends on fund type, economic growth, stock market performance, inflation and interest rate. Fund performance was negatively correlated with capital inflow to private equity market and fund size. Fund size and series are positively correlated. Performance persistency exists in private equity fund managers. Fund type is very important factor in analyzing private equity fund performance and persistency.

The purpose of the study was to identify (1) whether aspects of expectancy-value judgments (EVJ) of uses and gratifications, such as novelty, fashion/status, sociability and relaxation, influenced trust in augmented reality (AR) apps; (2) whether trust in AR apps influenced usage intention toward AR apps and online/offline store patronage intention and (3) the moderating effect of consumer self-determination.

Mobile users (n = 630) were drawn from a USA market research company. The proposed model was tested by structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation.

The study found that trust in AR apps was a determinant of usage intention toward AR apps and online/offline store patronage intention. Novelty and fashion/status for EVJs of uses and gratifications affected trust in AR apps. Sociability for EVJs of uses and gratifications negatively affected trust in AR apps. Users' self-determination moderated the influence of users' trust in AR apps on usage intention toward AR apps and online/offline store patronage intention.

First, the study elaborates on the impacts of the underlying aspects of an EVJ model of uses and gratifications regarding AR apps on trust in AR apps and EVJ model's influence on usage intention toward AR apps and online/offline store patronage intention. Second, the results of the study suggest useful strategies involved in the development of consumer-driven AR apps that satisfy users' needs and desires.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influences of creativity, psychological ownership (PO) and perceived organizational support (POS) on knowledge creation, using the integrative systems model of creativity.

A survey was used to collect data from 188 workers in Korean public service organizations. Analyses, including bootstrapping and hierarchical regression analysis, were performed to determine the mediating effect of PO and also the moderating and the moderated mediating effects of POS.

The results showed that PO mediates partially between creativity and knowledge creation and that POS moderates the relationship between PO and knowledge creation. Notably, the moderated mediating effect of POS was only significant when employees had a high level of POS.

The findings suggest that creativity dissemination requires employees’ social consciousness, collaborative interactions and organizational support. The results imply that human resource development (HRD) practitioners need to cultivate the creativity capacity in the organization.

This study discusses the effects of PO and POS on creative performance, which HRD professionals and organizational leaders draw attention to for organizational development. Implications for organizational composition and interventions to enhance creative performance are provided.

Competing in Emerging Markets; Internationalization of Service Firms; Global Marketing.

Senior undergraduate or graduate students in business schools.

Uber first entered the South Korean taxi hailing service in Seoul in September 2013. In March 2015, the company shut down its operations after being charged for operating an illegal service. However, in January 2016, Uber decided to re-launch Uber’s premium service, UberBLACK after working with the city government. Given the country’s unique characteristics, was the decision to re-enter the market justifiable? Would Uber’s new strategies including partnering with a local company be sufficient? How could Uber gain more market share against its local powerful competitors?

Outcomes This case allows students to understand the challenges of internationalizing services of a global company in an emerging market that has strong national cultures and domestic preferences. The students will learn how to analyze the country and industry external environment as well as internal resources and capabilities to formulate the appropriate market entry strategies and to effectively implement them. The students will also learn the critical role of host country government and how to manage its relationship, the first- and second-mover advantages/disadvantages and the sustainability of innovative business models.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy

This cross-culture study aims to investigate how two cultural values, collectivism (COL) and long-term orientation (LTO), integrate with each other to trigger green consumption.

Using data from three consumer surveys in Vietnam, South Korea and Poland, this study employs polynomial regression with response surface analysis as a methodological approach to assess the complementary, balanced and imbalanced effects of cultural dimensions (COL and LTO) on consumers' green purchase intention (GPI) and behaviors.

First, this study found that, in Vietnam, both COL and LTO had a significant positive effect on GPI. However, only COL demonstrated a significant effect on GPI in South Korea and Poland. Second, this study also revealed that, in all three countries, when COL and LTO were in agreement, the degree of GPI was higher when COL and LTO were higher. The findings also showed that an increase in the imbalance between COL and LTO integration in the Vietnam sample led to a decrease in consumers' GPI. However, this relationship was insignificant in the South Korea and Poland samples.

This study enriches the understanding of green purchase behavior (GPB) and its underlying cultural factors within a cross-cultural framework. In particular, it enhances the knowledge of the debated relationship between different facets of cultural values (specifically, COL and LTO) and pro-environmental behavior, shedding light on this complex relationship in the context of the three different countries.

This study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of the interdisciplinary literature on drones in last-mile delivery (LMD) to extrapolate pertinent insights from and into the logistics management field.

Rooting their analytical categories in the LMD literature, the authors performed a deductive, theory refinement SLR on 307 interdisciplinary journal articles published during 2015–2022 to integrate this emergent phenomenon into the field.

The authors derived the potentials, challenges and solutions of drone deliveries in relation to 12 LMD criteria dispersed across four stakeholder groups: senders, receivers, regulators and societies. Relationships between these criteria were also identified.

This review contributes to logistics management by offering a current, nuanced and multifaceted discussion of drones' potential to improve the LMD process together with the challenges and solutions involved.

The authors provide logistics managers with a holistic roadmap to help them make informed decisions about adopting drones in their delivery systems. Regulators and society members also gain insights into the prospects, requirements and repercussions of drone deliveries.

This is one of the first SLRs on drone applications in LMD from a logistics management perspective.

This paper aims to investigate how brand identity is co-created, with a specific focus on how employees contributed to the process in a five-star hotel setting. The focus of this study is on understanding how two hotels planned and executed their brand identity strategy simultaneously, differentiating one from the other and how employees actively participated in this process.

A longitudinal case study approach was adopted, centred on building the identity of two luxury hotels owned by a single company in Seoul, Korea. Various organizational documents were collected and analyzed to understand the brand identity of the hotels and how brand co-creation has been implemented. In addition, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 42 employees to understand the brand co-creation process from their perspective.

The brand co-creation process of the hotels was conducted simultaneously and evolved over the following four phases, with employees’ roles varying in each phase, namely, establishing a clear brand identity strategy; designing and selecting sensory identity; aligning organizational identity; and delivering brand identity through external communication. Employees that participated in brand co-creation enhanced their brand knowledge, developed emotional bonds with the brand and were motivated to deliver the brand identity. Furthermore, those that immersed themselves in the new brand identities were able to enable positive guest perceptions towards the brand image, which consequently enhanced employees’ pride in their work.

This research advances the brand management literature in defining branding and brand identity elements, as well as emphasizing the importance of consistent branding. In addition, the current study expands the scope of internal branding, highlighting the process of brand co-creation and the role of employees as active participants. Moreover, it reveals that employees’ participation enhances not only their brand knowledge but also their emotional bonds with the brand. The proposed conceptual framework demonstrates the flow of branding elements, brand identity elements and the “infinite loop” of employee participation in brand co-creation.

The case study approach adopted here enables an in-depth investigation of employee participation in brand co-creation, including their different roles and activities in the process; a phenomenon that has not been adequately explored in previous research.

As the number of users on social network services (SNSs) continues to increase at a remarkable rate, privacy and security issues are consistently arising. Although users may not want to disclose their private attributes, these can be inferred from their public behavior on social media. In order to investigate the severity of the leakage of private information in this manner, the purpose of this paper is to present a method to infer undisclosed personal attributes of users based only on the data available on their public profiles on Facebook.

Facebook profile data consisting of 32 attributes were collected for 111,123 Korean users. Inferences were made for four private attributes (gender, age, marital status, and relationship status) based on five machine learning-based classification algorithms and three regression algorithms.

Experimental results showed that users’ gender can be inferred very accurately, whereas marital status and relationship status can be predicted more accurately with the authors’ algorithms than with a random model. Moreover, the average difference between the actual and predicted ages of users was only 0.5 years. The results show that some private attributes can be easily inferred from only a few pieces of user profile information, which can jeopardize personal information and may increase the risk to dignity.

In this paper, the authors’ only utilized each user’s own profile data, especially text information. Since users in SNSs are directly or indirectly connected, inference performance can be improved if the profile data of the friends of a given user are additionally considered. Moreover, utilizing non-text profile information, such as profile images, can help increase inference accuracy. The authors’ can also provide a more generalized inference performance if a larger data set of Facebook users is available.

A private attribute leakage alarm system based on the inference model would be helpful for users not desirous of the disclosure of their private attributes on SNSs. SNS service providers can measure and monitor the risk of privacy leakage in their system to protect their users and optimize the target marketing based on the inferred information if users agree to use it.

This paper investigates whether private attributes of SNS users can be inferred with a few pieces of publicly available information although users are not willing to disclose them. The experimental results showed that gender, age, marital status, and relationship status, can be inferred by machine-learning algorithms. Based on these results, an early warning system was designed to help both service providers and users to protect the users’ privacy.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a Bourdieu-oriented study that investigates race discrimination when graduates of diverse ethnicities aspire to enter the accounting profession. This study illustrates the benefits of a careful and fine-grained operationalization of ethnicity for such a research project.

The cohort interviewed comprises 45 participants of 20 different ethnicities.

From this interview data, it appears that employers mostly favour “Pakeha” New Zealanders (the non-Maori ethnic majority group, mostly of British origin); those who migrated from China and East Asia are the most disfavoured; between them are those of ethnic minorities brought up in New Zealand and those who migrated from the Indian subcontinent and South Asia. Underneath the experience of discrimination is the operationalization of ten subtle factors, and a range of strategies adopted to overcome such factors, as further described in this study.

The findings may permit stakeholders, including professional bodies, employers, aspirant accountants, vocational counsellors, and those who have interests in promoting equality and meritocracy in the accounting profession, to formulate effective rules and structures to combat discrimination. It may also inform those in other professions seeking to lessen ethnic discrimination, and wider society.

The study fills a gap in the accounting literature by elaborating on the mechanisms of how ethnic minorities are discriminated against. It confirms that discrimination is suffered not only by the most salient ethnic groups, but by graduates of “Western” universities, of many and diverse ethnicities, all of whom suffer being perceived as “outsiders”.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the functionalities, safety regulations and product applications of herb Stevia rebaudiana extract. This plant material is embedded with multiple functionalities such as antioxidant, antidiabetics, anti-inflammation and antimicrobial. The regulations released from global authorities are covered to ensure the safety premise of stevia. Besides, the product applications of the extract of aerial parts of the herb S. rebaudiana helps us to recognize its value from commercial side.

Relevant literatures are selected and obtained from main scientific databases such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed and trade magazines published between 2000 and 2023. The keywords and their possible combinations such as sweetening, antioxidant, antidiabetics, anti-inflammation, safety and product development were used to ensure the preciseness and completeness of literature searching. Major data such as sweetness, total phenolic content and dose together with latter critical conclusions from searched publications were appropriately used and discussed. In this review, approximately 150 scientific literatures were meticulously ordered and analyzed. In applications, it is the first time that sentiment analysis was used to obtain a market assessment of the stevia-containing products.

This review paper helps rearrange the scientific affairs of those stevia extract’s functions like sweetening, antioxidant, antidiabetics and inflammation. Sweetness indexes of steviol glycosides were summarized together for comparison while various in vitro and in vivo approaches were reviewed to quantify those functions’ capacities and to depict the related mechanism. The regulation of steviol glycoside compounds such as rebaudioside A was established by global authorities such as US Food and Drug Administration and Joint FAO/World Health Organization Expert Committee to ensure the safety endorsement before commercialization. Then, this study discussed about the market performance of stevia ingredients or products with the self-developed data analytics. This study also investigated the product development progress of stevia-containing food products in the categories of beverage, bakery, dairy and confectionery. Those stevia-containing food consumer goods can be acceptable by certain consumers.

This review paper precisely presents the evidential information about the stevia’s multiple functionalities with mechanisms and global regulation milestones. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is then the first time to probe the stevia-containing products’ market performance through data analytics.