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The purpose of this paper is to study the problem of a routing problem with uncertain try-on service time (VRPUS) for apparel distribution, and to devise solution strategies coping with the uncertainty by an evolutionary algorithm. VRPUS belongs to the category of practical routing models integrated with uncertain service times. However, in the background of apparel distribution, it has distinct features. The try-on service will improve the customer satisfaction by providing experiences to customers; the return cost is saved; the customer loyalty is improved for experiencing face-to-face try-on services. However, the uncertainty of try-on service time makes the apparel distribution process uncertain and incurs additional risk management cost, such that the logistics companies should optimally make decisions on the choice of the service and the service processes.

This paper devised a mixed-integer programming (MIP) model for the base vehicle routing problem (VRP) and then it is extended to support the solution strategies for uncertain try-on times. A try-on time estimation parameter and a time reservation parameter are used to cope with the uncertain try-on time, and the try-on rejection strategy is applied when the uncertain try-on time is realized at customer and no surplus time can be used for try-on service besides distributing to remainder customers. Due to the computational complexity of VRPUS, an evolutionary algorithm is designed for solving it. These parameters and strategy options are designed for the operational decisions by logistics companies. Finally, a decision support system (DSS) is designed.

Five experimental scenarios are performed to reveal the impacts of parameters and solution strategies coping with uncertain try-on time on the distribution cost, return cost, and the try-on service failure. The tuning methods are designed to assist the decisions by logistics companies.

A new routing problem is addressed for apparel distribution in fashion industry especially in the context of booming apparel e-commerce, which is a VRP with uncertain try-on service time for apparel distribution; three strategies are developed to cope with the try-on time uncertainty. The proposed method is also a theoretical base for designing a practical DSS for logistics companies to provide try-on service to customers.

Hypocrisy often observed in the social responsibility practices of commercial enterprises is more likely to occur in social enterprises. However, this issue has received little research attention. This study explores, from a consumer perspective, the formation of perceived hypocrisy and its impact on the cognitive legitimacy of social enterprises.

This research conducted two experiments, and data were collected from 515 subjects in China to test the proposed hypotheses.

Behavioral inconsistency in social enterprises leads to consumers' perceived hypocrisy. The higher the perceived hypocrisy towards social enterprises, the weaker their cognitive legitimacy of social enterprises. At a lower level of inconsistency, the perceived hypocrisy of social enterprises was lower than that of commercial enterprises. Egoistic attribution to prosocial behavior moderated the negative effect of perceived hypocrisy on cognitive legitimacy. The stronger the egoistic attribution, the greater is the negative effect of perceived hypocrisy on the cognitive legitimacy of social enterprises.

Social entrepreneurs should be acutely aware of the harmful effects of hypocrisy on social enterprises. Social enterprises should not exaggerate their propaganda or be consistent with their words and actions.

This study innovatively analyzes the damage to the cognitive legitimacy of social enterprises caused by the hypocrisy that tends to occur in commercial enterprises and argues from the consumer viewpoint. These findings enrich the perspective on exploring social enterprise legitimacy.

This chapter reviews three main issues in the interactions between air transport and high-speed rail (HSR) in China, namely the interaction between low-cost carriers (LCCs) and HSR, HSR speed effect on airlines, and airline–HSR integration. Studies on these three aspects of airline–HSR interactions have yet been well reviewed, and our chapter aims to fill in this gap. In this chapter, we comprehensively survey literature on the topics, especially studies on Chinese markets that have recently witnessed major HSR developments (and have planned further large-scale HSR expansion in the coming years). Our review shows that, first, compared to full-service carriers, LCCs face fiercer competition from HSR. However, the expansion of HSR network in China can be better coordinated with LCC development. Second, HSR speed exerts two countervailing effects on airline demand and price (the “travel-time” effect and “safety” effect, respectively). Specifically, an HSR speed reduction can have a positive effect on airlines due to longer HSR travel time, but a negative effect on airlines due to improved perception on HSR safety. Third, airline–HSR integration can be implemented through cooperation between airlines and HSR operators and through co-location of airports and HSR stations and can have important implications for intermodal transport and social welfare.

This study explores the influence of parasocial interaction (PSI), brand credibility and product involvement on celebrity endorsement, and how PSI interacts with brand and product factors and affects celebrity endorsement synthetically.

This study employs a 2 (high/low product involvement) by 2 (high/low brand credibility) between-subjects factorial design experiment to test the hypotheses.

Brand credibility has a positive effect on followers' attitudes toward advertising and products, and product involvement influences its moderation. PSI has salient positive effects on followers' attitudes and behavioral intention, regardless of high/low product involvement. Brand credibility mediates PSI's influence on celebrity endorsement.

The results reinforce the significant effect of PSI on endorsement effectiveness and brand credibility, show the influence of brand credibility and product involvement and show how their influence conditionally interacts with others.

The corporate advertiser should prefer a high PSI celebrity as their endorser. The advertising message design on the microblog also deserves the attention of advertisers.

This study is the primary attempt to construct an integral model to demonstrate the synthetic effect and interaction process of consumers' perception of the endorser, brand and product category factors on celebrity endorsement within the social media context.

Drawing on the political theory of leadership and the input‐process‐output model the purpose of this paper is to examine the link between leader political skill and team performance by focusing on the mediating role of team communication and the moderating role of team task interdependence.

The authors collected three waves of data from 80 teams across four business units and employed hierarchical regression modeling and the moderated path analysis approach suggested by Edwards and Lambert to test the moderated mediation model.

Leader political skill was found to positively influence team performance via promoting the quality of team communication. Moreover, team task interdependence moderates the relationship between leader political skill and team communication, such that the relationship is stronger when team task interdependence is high rather than low.

First, the paper adopts the measuring scales developed in the western organizational context to investigate the relations and phenomena existing in the Chinese organizational context. Future research should adopt the indigenous measuring scales to investigate the relations and phenomena existing in the Chinese organizational context. Second, both political skill and team performance were reported by the team leader, which might lead to common source bias. Future research should allow team members to rate leaders' political skill and the team leaders' supervisors to provide evaluation of team performance.

Owing to its importance to team performance, political skill is one of the critical skills that leaders should make efforts to develop. When companies recruit leaders for work teams, they should put more attention on the political skills of the candidates. Moreover, companies should cultivate a cooperative team climate to facilitate team communication.

Although Ahearn et al. suggested that leader political skill has positive effect on team performance, they did not empirically examine the specific process and mechanism through which the positive effect occurs. This study argues team communication is a critical mechanism that bridges leader political skill and team operations and outcomes as well. The study adopts longitudinal research design and collects multi‐source data to test the authors' model. The study also complements past research by investigating both the mediating and moderating mechanisms in the leader political‐team performance linkage.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents and consequences of insurer trust and salesperson trust, as well as the relationships between insurer, salesperson, and customer loyalty in order to build a conceptual model which investigates the relationships of insurer trust and salesperson trust, and finds ways to build trust and customer loyalty in the non-life insurance industry in Taiwan.

The data for this study were collected from the customers of non-life insurers’ policyholder service centres and were analysed using in-depth interviews and questionnaires. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was to assess the proposed research model empirically.

This study finds that firm size did not have a significant effect on insurer trust. Customer trust in the insurer was negatively but not significantly related to customer trust in the salesperson. Additionally, when relatives or friends are insurance salespersons; it is easy to build trust with them.

This study provides non-life insurers with new avenues for promoting and marketing their insurance.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a model that identifies the causal relationship among relationship marketing types, service quality and relationship quality on customer loyalty.

Data for this study were collected using in‐depth interviews and surveys from the clients of policyholder service centres of life insurers in Taiwan. A structural equation modelling approach is employed to examine the relationship posited in this study.

The findings are generally consistent with the literature. This study supports all hypotheses. Finally, the article concludes with theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings.

This study attempts to focus on policyholder service centres in the life insurance industry, which have been increasingly emphasized in Taiwan, to examine the impacts that different relationship marketing methods have on service quality, relationship quality and customer loyalty. Based on the results of in‐depth interviews and surveys, this study also attempts to propose a set of references to aid the development and implementation of relationship marketing campaigns and to make further contributions to both the academic and empirical literature.

The purpose of this paper is to present a preliminary work on extracting band gap information of materials from academic papers. With increasing demand for renewable energy, band gap information will help material scientists design and implement novel photovoltaic (PV) cells.

The authors collected 1.44 million titles and abstracts of scholarly articles related to materials science, and then filtered the collection to 11,939 articles that potentially contain relevant information about materials and their band gap values. ChemDataExtractor was extended to extract information about PV materials and their band gap information. Evaluation was performed on randomly sampled information records of 415 papers.

The findings of this study show that the current system is able to correctly extract information for 51.32% articles, with partially correct extraction for 36.62% articles and incorrect for 12.04%. The authors have also identified the errors belonging to three main categories pertaining to chemical entity identification, band gap information and interdependency resolution. Future work will focus on addressing these errors to improve the performance of the system.

The authors did not find any literature to date on band gap information extraction from academic text using automated methods. This work is unique and original. Band gap information is of importance to materials scientists in applications such as solar cells, light emitting diodes and laser diodes.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize that procedural justice has a contribution to parent‐subsidiary links within multinational enterprises (MNEs).

A mailed survey is adopted in this study. A total of 152 valid and complete questionnaires were returned from the respondents. Structural equation modeling and Chow test are used in this research paper.

Based on structural equation modeling, three significant dimensions of the parent‐subsidiary links are found to contribute to the financial performance of the subsidiaries (resource commitment, information flow, and control flexibility). Based on Chow test, these dimensions can lead to better financial performance under greater procedural justice in the decision‐making processes of MNEs.

This study only collected information from Taiwanese multinational firms in East Asia and the Pacific countries, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Generally, these regions are the emerging market, with structurally volatile but fast‐growing economies. In addition, further studies can extend the research to other countries. Environmental interferences, such as culture and legal rules, were not considered in this study.

In reality, although the due process is sometimes neglected because of time limitations or lack of patience, superior managers still should pay more attention to the processes of strategic decision making to keep the procedure fair and transparent.

This paper underlines the importance and value of the procedural justice in MNE management. The exercise of the procedural justice motivated subsidiary managers to aim for better financial performance with voluntary effort and their best ability.

The main purpose of this study is to explore the effect of three dimensions of “home feeling” – home-as-practical, home-as-social and home-as-attachment – on the online rating of homestays and additionally considers the accommodation’s attribute performance and level of sharing.

To achieve the research aims, more than 9,738,335 items of user-generated content concerning 743,953 Airbnb listings covering 35 cities were collected as the study data. These data are analyzed through hierarchical regression.

The results show that all three dimensions of home feeling positively affect the online rating; all three dimensions negatively moderate the relationship between attribute performance and online rating; the size of the moderating effect of each dimension on the relationship between attribute performance and online rating gradually increases in the order home-as-practical, home-as-social and home-as-attachment; and as the level of sharing increases, the moderating effect of home feeling on the relationship between attribute performance and online rating diminishes.

This study contributes to the literatures on the role of home feeling in homestays, the online rating of homestays and the motivations of guests who choose different room types. The findings of this study can help hosts better understand the formation of online rating of homestays, make targeted improvements in rooms and services and create a home feeling for specific degrees of sharing. This in turn will help them to improve the online rating of their homestays, establish an excellent online reputation and, ultimately, increase sales.

This study advances knowledge by confirming three dimensions of home feeling not only have direct positive impacts on online rating but also mitigate the impact of attribute performance on online rating. This effect differs significantly in magnitude with the degree of sharing.