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1 – 10 of over 2000Ronald Kuntze, Chen (Ken) Wu, Barbara Ross Wooldridge and Yun-Oh Whang
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test through an experiment, an innovative online video teaching module that significantly improves financial literacy in college of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test through an experiment, an innovative online video teaching module that significantly improves financial literacy in college of business students. Specific business major financial literacy levels are also tested.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 244 college of business students were given a financial literacy test. Half of the students were exposed to the “treatment” (watched a video module), while other half were not. The videos comprised 67 min of micro-lectures that students could download, free of charge, at their own convenience. The researchers analyzed the impact of a previous personal finance course on students’ financial literacy levels and tested across four business majors.
Findings
The video intervention was the most successful at increasing financial literacy, surprisingly more so than having taken a past personal finance course. Interaction effects were not significant. Four college majors were tested with a shorter, improved financial literacy measure – finding, to our surprise that non-quantitative business majors (particularly marketing students) are not less financially literate than other majors. Supporting past research, the authors found that female and African-American college students performed significantly lower on the test.
Originality/value
The research adds value to the literature by developing and testing a modern, novel teaching innovation to improve financial literacy in young adults. Using an experimental setting, the authors showed that the innovation was more effective than the commonly proscribed personal finance course. This is one of the few studies to measure financial literacy levels for specific college of business majors.
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Tripat Gill, Zhenfeng Ma, Ping Zhao and Yongjian (Ken) Chen
This study aims to distinguish between the indispensable (software) versus discretionary (accessories) complementary products to a platform. It investigates the impact of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to distinguish between the indispensable (software) versus discretionary (accessories) complementary products to a platform. It investigates the impact of accessories on increasing the perceived value and sales of a base platform. In particular, the role of two distinct characteristics of accessories – innovativeness and structural nonalignability – in driving the sales of the base platform.
Design/methodology/approach
Combining sales data from the US video gaming industry with primary data on the above two aspects of accessories, this study quantifies the effect of accessories portfolio on the sales of three brands of video gaming platforms.
Findings
A distinct network externality arises from accessories for video gaming platforms, above and beyond the effects of game titles. Importantly, the average level of innovativeness and nonalignability of the accessories portfolio, as well as the frequency of introduction of highly innovative and/or nonalignable accessories positively impact the sales of the platform.
Research limitations/implications
This research seeks to address the gap in the innovation literature on the role of discretionary complementary products (i.e. accessories) on platform sales. Future research should examine this in other platform contexts as well.
Practical implications
Managers of platform-mediated products should give due consideration to accessories, as an important driver of the sales of the platforms. Product managers can leverage the advantage of innovative and nonalignable accessories to enhance consumer demand for the platform.
Originality/value
This study is the first to conceptualize and empirically verify the network externality arising from accessories, a heretofore much neglected component of platform-based markets.
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Xunlei Shi, Qingyuan Wu, Jianjian Deng, Ken Chen and Jiwen Zhang
The purpose of this paper is to propose a strategy for the final assembly of helicopter fuselage with weak rigidity parts and mismatched jointing butt ends.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a strategy for the final assembly of helicopter fuselage with weak rigidity parts and mismatched jointing butt ends.
Design/methodology/approach
The strategy is based on path planning methods. Compared with traditional path planning methods, the configuration-space and collision detection in the method are different. The obstacles in the configuration-space are weakly rigid and allow continuous contact with the robot. The collision detection is based on interference magnitudes, and the result is divided into no collision, weak collision and strong collision. Only strong collision is unacceptable. Then a compliant jointing path planning algorithm based on RRT is designed, combined with some improvements in search efficiency.
Findings
A series of planning results show that the efficiency of this method is higher than original RRT under the same conditions. The effectiveness of the method is verified by a series of simulations and experiments on two sets of systems.
Originality/value
There are few reports on the automation technology of helicopter fuselage assembly. This paper analyzes the problem and provides a solution from the perspective of path planning. This method contains a new configuration-space and collision detection method adapted to this problem and could be intuitive for the jointing of other weakly rigid parts.
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Jing Xu, Xizhi Gu, Donghong Ding, Zengxi Pan and Ken Chen
The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the published slicing methods for additive manufacturing (AM), especially the multi-direction and non-layerwise slicing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the published slicing methods for additive manufacturing (AM), especially the multi-direction and non-layerwise slicing methods, which are particularly suitable for the directed energy deposition (DED) process to improve the surface quality and eliminate the usage of support structures.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the published slicing methods are clarified into three categories: the traditional slicing methods (e.g. the basic and adaptive slicing methods) performed in the powder bed fusion (PBF) system, the multi-direction slicing methods and non-layerwise slicing methods used in DED systems. The traditional slicing methods are reviewed only briefly because a review article already exists for them, and the latter two slicing methods are reviewed comprehensively with further discussion and outlook.
Findings
A few traditional slicing approaches were developed in the literature, including basic and adaptive slicing methods. These methods are efficient and robust when they are performed in the PBF system. However, they are retarded in the DED process because costly support structures are required to sustain overhanging parts and their surface quality and contour accuracy are not satisfactory. This limitation has led to the development of various multi-direction and non-layerwise slicing methods to improve the surface quality and enable the production of overhangs with minimum supports.
Originality/value
An original review of the AM slicing methods is provided in this paper. For the traditional slicing methods and the multi-direction and non-layerwise slicing method, the published slicing strategies are discussed and compared. Recommendations for future slicing work are also provided.
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Zhimin Hou, Markus Philipp, Kuangen Zhang, Yong Guan, Ken Chen and Jing Xu
This paper aims to present an optimization algorithm combined with the impedance control strategy to optimize the robotic dual peg-in-hole assembly task, and to reduce the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present an optimization algorithm combined with the impedance control strategy to optimize the robotic dual peg-in-hole assembly task, and to reduce the assembly time and smooth the contact forces during assembly process with a small number of experiments.
Design/methodology/approach
Support vector regression is used to predict the fitness of genes in evolutionary algorithm, which can reduce the number of real-world experiments. The control parameters of the impedance control strategy are defined as genes, and the assembly time is defined as the fitness of genes to evaluate the performance of the selected parameters.
Findings
The learning-based evolutionary algorithm is proposed to optimize the dual peg-in-hole assembly process only requiring little prior knowledge instead of modeling for the complex contact states. A virtual simulation and real-world experiments are implemented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Practical implications
The proposed algorithm is quite useful for the real-world industrial applications, especially the scenarios only allowing a small number of trials.
Originality/value
The paper provides a new solution for applying optimization techniques in real-world tasks. The learning component can solve the data efficiency of the model-free optimization algorithms.
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Chicheng Liu, Libin Song, Ken Chen and Jing Xu
This paper aims to present an image-based visual servoing algorithm for a multiple pin-in-hole assembly. This paper also aims to avoid the matching and tracking of image features…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present an image-based visual servoing algorithm for a multiple pin-in-hole assembly. This paper also aims to avoid the matching and tracking of image features and the remaining robust against image defects.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors derive a novel model in the set space and design three image errors to control the 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) of a single-lug workpiece in the alignment task. Analytic computations of the interaction matrix that link the time variations of the image errors to the single-lug workpiece motions are performed. The authors introduce two approximate hypotheses so that the interaction matrix has a decoupled form, and an auto-adaptive algorithm is designed to estimate the interaction matrix.
Findings
Image-based visual servoing in the set space avoids the matching and tracking of image features, and these methods are not sensitive to image effects. The control law using the auto-adaptive algorithm is more efficient than that using a static interaction matrix. Simulations and real-world experiments are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a new visual servoing method to achieve pin-in-hole assembly tasks. The main advantage of this new approach is that it does not require tracking or matching of the image features, and its supplementary advantage is that it is not sensitive to image defects.
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Yongjian (Ken) Chen, Nicole Coviello and Chatura Ranaweera
Systematic research examining the mechanisms that mediate the dynamic capability–performance relationship remains scarce. So too is research on the conditions under which these…
Abstract
Purpose
Systematic research examining the mechanisms that mediate the dynamic capability–performance relationship remains scarce. So too is research on the conditions under which these mechanisms might be influential. Accordingly, this study aims to build upon business network research to examine how a firm’s dynamic network capability (DNC) impacts firm performance, mediated by the speed of product reconfiguration (i.e. new product development [NPD] speed) and bounded by firm age.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct moderated mediation analysis on survey data from small- and medium-sized manufacturing and technology firms in the USA. This study uses an initial survey and then a follow-up survey.
Findings
The findings support the general view that DNC is instrumental to firm performance, regardless of firm age. However, DNC operates differently for younger vs older firms. That is, DNC’s impact on the performance of younger firms is enabled by speeding up NPD, while much of the performance impact for older firms appears to be through alternative resource reconfiguration route(s). This study identifies the need to include a mediating variable such as resource reconfiguration to detect how DNC impacts performance.
Research limitations/implications
The model could include different dimensions of mediating resource reconfigurations, alternative boundary conditions and longer-term data.
Practical implications
This study provides managers with insight on how speed of product reconfiguration (in terms of NPD) operates in the DNC–performance relationship. It also helps them understand how this relationship changes in younger vs older firms.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide empirical evidence on how DNC operates to influence performance in firms that are younger vs older.
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Yunfei Dong, Tianyu Ren, Ken Chen and Dan Wu
This paper aims to improve the accuracy of robot payload identification and decrease the complexity in its industrial application by developing a new method based on the actuator…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to improve the accuracy of robot payload identification and decrease the complexity in its industrial application by developing a new method based on the actuator current.
Design/methodology/approach
Instead of previous general robot dynamic modeling of the actuators, links, together with payload inertial parameters, the paper discovers that the difference of the actuator torque between the robot moving along the same trajectory with and without carrying payload can be described as a function of the payload inertial parameters directly. Then a direct dynamic identification model of payload is built, a set of specialized novel exciting trajectories are designed for accurate identification and the least square method is applied for the estimation of the load parameters.
Findings
The experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method in robot payload identification. The identification accuracy is greatly improved compared with that of existing methods based on the actuator current and is close to the accuracy of the methods that direct use the wrist-mounted force-torque sensor.
Practical implications
As the provided experiments indicate, the proposed method expands the application range and greatly improves the accuracy, hence making payload identification fully operational in the industrial application.
Originality/value
The novelty of such an identification method is that it does not require the rotor inertias and inertial parameters of links as a prior knowledge, and the specially designed trajectories provide completed decoupling of the load parameters.
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Kuangen Zhang, MinHui Shi, Jing Xu, Feng Liu and Ken Chen
This paper aims to realize the automatic assembly process for multiple rigid peg-in-hole components.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to realize the automatic assembly process for multiple rigid peg-in-hole components.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper develops fuzzy force control strategies for the rigid dual peg-in-hole assembly. Firstly the fuzzy force control strategies are presented. Secondly the contact states and contact forces are analyzed to prove the availability of the force control strategies.
Findings
The rigid dual peg-in-hole assembly experimental results show the effectiveness of the control strategies.
Originality/value
This paper proposes fuzzy force control strategies for a rigid dual peg-in-hole assembly task.
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Yanzhao Tang, Xuemei Zhan and Ken Chen
This paper aims to examine the effect of differential leadership on organizational corruption by developing a measure of organizational corruption and proposing a moderated…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effect of differential leadership on organizational corruption by developing a measure of organizational corruption and proposing a moderated mediation model. The model focuses on the mediating role of moral disengagement underpinning the relationship between differential leadership and organizational corruption, and the moderating role of organizational justice in influencing the mediation.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected 210 responses from online participants with full time work experience and 57 MBA students answered the survey offline.
Findings
Results showed that differential leadership was positively associated with organizational corruption. Furthermore, moral disengagement fully mediated the relationship between differential leadership and organizational corruption. Besides, distributive justice negatively but procedural justice positively moderated the indirect effect of moral disengagement.
Research limitations/implications
Testing the moderated mediation model helps to advance the theoretical understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the effect of differential leadership on organizational corrupt behavior.
Originality/value
This empirical study provides preliminary evidence of the mediating role of moral disengagement in the positive relationship between differential leadership and organizational corruption. The mediated moderation also extends the finding by adding organizational justice as the moderator to explain how the effect of differential leadership on organizational corruption. Finally, this study provides initial evidence for organizational corruption measure.
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