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With the rise of customer engagement in online products and services innovation, enterprises are seeking effective referral reward program (RRP) to encourage customers’ follow-up electronic-referral (e-referral) behaviors. Therefore, how to stimulate more customers to participate in the RRP is very important to enterprises. However, little empirical work has systemically investigated the impact of RRP on customers’ follow-up e-referral, as well as the moderating effects of customers’ characteristics. To fill those research gaps, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of RRP (particularly, reward amount and reward type) on customers’ follow-up e-referral, and the role of creative self-efficacy.

Based on the self-perception theory and the context of online customer innovation, this paper establishes a theoretical model and uses an experiment with 160 participants to test the hypotheses on the role of reward (amount and type) and the moderating effect of creative self-efficacy.

The results of the experiment suggest that both reward amount and reward type in RRP positively impact customers’ follow-up e-referral. Furthermore, customers’ creative self-efficacy moderates the relationship between rewards and customers’ follow-up e-referral. Customers with low creative self-efficacy, reward amount significantly stimulate their follow-up e-referral, but such effect is insignificant when customers’ creative self-efficacy is high. In terms of reward type, gift reward has more positive effect on customers’ follow-up e-referral when they have high (rather than low) creative self-efficacy, but cash reward has more positive effect on those with low (rather than high) creative self-efficacy.

First, based on the self-perception theory, the study clarifies the inconsistent relationship between reward and customers’ e-referral and contributes to related research. Second, the study broadens the existing research perspective by introducing creative self-efficacy, which shows interesting and powerful moderating effect but has been ignored in previous studies. Third, the study provides valuable advice on how enterprises design an effective RRP to enhance customers’ follow-up e-referral.

Although the United States Congress has attempted to ameliorate some of the adverse impacts of the Balanced Budget Act through the 1999 Balanced Budget Refinement Act, the final results of the reforms to Medicare remain to be seen. This article provides an update and examines the impacts of the Balanced Budget Act on health providers and medical education. The authors also discuss the implications of these impacts for further policy adjustment.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce structured light image processing technology into pipeline welding automation projects, and develop a vision‐based pipeline girth‐welding robot. The welding torch can accurately track the weld and complete the omni‐orientation welding automatically.

Weld image processing adopts the base theory including Laplacian of Gaussian filter, neighbourhood mean filter, largest variance threshold segmentation and morphologic, etc. obtains good effect of weld recognition.

The paper uses a vision sensor to achieve the weld character's recognition and extraction, directly control the robot tracking weld to complete automation welding. Compared with the existing pipeline welding devices, it does not need the lay orbit or plot tracking mark, which can shorten the assistant time to improve the productivity.

The research findings can satisfy the need of whole‐directional automation welding for large diameter transportation pipe's circular abutting weld. It fits for the automation welding for the long‐distance transportation pipe of petroleum, natural gas, and water.

Aiming at the character recognition and extract of V‐type weld, the method combining the neighbourhood mean filter algorithm with the largest variance threshold segmentation is proposed to obtain the quick weld image processing speed.

This paper aims to investigate how marketing tactics can enhance parents' loyalty in the educational context. Building on extant research, it proposes an integrated framework in which perceived marketing tactics are related to school image, which in turn is related to parents' loyalty.

Five marketing tactics are selected. A questionnaire is constructed, and data are collected from 1,200 parents of schoolchildren studying in 60 elementary schools in Taiwan. A multiple regression analysis is conducted to analyze the data.

The results show that the selected marketing tactics all significantly and meaningfully predicted the perception of school image, however promotion tactics were the most effective strategy. In addition school image is an effective predictor of parents' behavior. Finally school image mediates the relationship between marketing tactics and parents' loyalty.

The finding suggests that school administrators can use marketing tactics in order to enhance school image that in turn leads to parents' school choice and word‐of‐mouth.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how information literacy can enhance job performance in the workplace setting.

Building on extant research, an integrated framework in which information literacy is related to person‐job fit which in turn influences job performance is proposed. A survey questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 427 current employees in financial institutions in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

Results indicate that there is a positive relationship between dimensions of traditional literacy and computer literacy toward person‐job fit. In addition person‐job fit is an effective predictor of job performance. Finally person‐job fit partially mediates the relationship between information literacy and job performance.

This study highlights the importance of information literacy when predicting job performance. Managers could benefit by understanding the antecedents of person‐job fit in a practical sense for organizations' favorable outcomes.

With a defined population served, contracted provider panels and the nature of care delivery integration, managed care has provided a solution, though not a panacea, to provide equitable services, standardized and prevention oriented cares to its enrolled members. Combined with the earmarked capitation reimbursement system and a series of cost containment and utilization review techniques, managed care has also demonstrated potently its capacity in cost‐saving and quality promotion. Presents steps and measures related to managed care that federal government has taken to manage care and contain cost. It is crucial to identify and promulgate best practices continually, while managing utilization of resources for improving health care, containing cost, and equalizing medical care access to a greater proportion of the population. Concludes that it may take time for a universal adoption of managed care. However, Americans may actually benefit more from having a standard level of health care that managed care could achieve and provide.

The purpose of our study is to investigate the impact of corporate culture on sales order backlog.

The authors use regression analysis to examine the relation between corporate culture and the level of sales order backlog, an important leading indicator of firm performance.

Using a large panel sample of US firms for the period of 2003–2021, the authors find a significant and positive relation, suggesting that firms with strong corporate culture have a higher level of sales order backlog.

The study findings contribute to two separate areas of research: corporate culture in management literature and sales order backlog in accounting literature. Prior study has focused on the impact of corporate culture on current firm performance. This study extends prior research by investigating the impact of corporate culture on order backlog, an important leading indicator of future performance.

This study aims to examine the relations between teachers' perception of parental involvement and teacher satisfaction. It further aims to investigate how this relationship may be moderated by interpersonal personality traits.

A questionnaire was conducted; participants were 572 classroom teachers who teach at public elementary schools in Taiwan.

Hierarchical regression results indicated that parental involvement at home was considered the most effective factor influencing teachers' satisfaction, followed by teacher‐parent contact. Parental involvement at school was less important. Furthermore, extraversion moderates the relationship partially; teachers low in extraversion perceived home‐based involvement associated with teachers' satisfaction more strongly than those high in extraversion. In contrast, the study found no moderating effect for agreeable teachers.

This article presents an original empirical study that expands the model of parental involvement in order to improve understanding of how teacher's perception of parent involvement is linked to teacher satisfaction.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the relationship between customer perceptions of public relations (PR) and customer loyalty; to test for the moderating role of brand image in that relationship.

Data were collected in a survey of customers of the insurance industry in Taiwan, using a questionnaire designed on the basis of focus‐group discussions with 30 consumers. Hierarchical regression analysis of data from 367 respondents was used to test two hypotheses.

The results show that consumers' perception of an organisation's PR practice is an antecedent of loyalty. The impact of public relations perception (PRP) on customer loyalty is stronger and more significant when the brand image is favourable. If it is unfavourable, the effect of PRP on customer loyalty is negligible.

This study extends previous research by examining the moderating role of brand image. Further research is indicated, to identify the key moderators of the driving force of PR in relation to customer relationship marketing.

This paper proposes an original eight‐item scale for the assessment of customer PRP activity, which can be applied in practice to measure its effectiveness under different brand‐image conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how policy instability is priced in interest rates. Policy instability refers to the likelihood that the current policy will be changed in the future in the absence of political power shifts.

Chinese government’s experimental policy-making approach provides an ideal set of frequent policy flip-flops which allows us to identify the effect of policy changes.

Conditional on the bureaucratic quality of policymaking, a good-quality policy reversal is related to reductions in interest rate term spread and volatility; a bad-quality policy reversal is related to increases in the spread and volatility. The bureaucratic quality is multi-dimensional and the moderating effect is stronger on interest rates when it is measured more precisely.

First, we can use the interest rate dynamics to infer the policy risk premium, which is a more objective market indicator of the bureaucratic quality of the policy change. Second, the study is among the first that documents the pricing of policy instability can be moderated by the bureaucratic quality. The results indicate that it is important for a government to be responsive and consistent in liberalizing the financial market. It will lead to reduced cost of capital and volatility for investors and firms in the economy. Third, given that the bureaucratic quality is multi-dimensional and produces stronger impact jointly, a country shall continue to improve on different aspects of the bureaucratic quality. Although the study is based on the empirical evidence from Chinese policy environment, the results can be broadly applied to any developing economies that intend to liberalize the market to spur economic growth.