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1 – 10 of 65This study examines how informal business networks achieve marketing goals in socially uncertain contexts. Drawing from multiple historical sources, Shangbangs, a type of business…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines how informal business networks achieve marketing goals in socially uncertain contexts. Drawing from multiple historical sources, Shangbangs, a type of business network that thrived in pre-1949 China, are analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
The Critical Historical Research Method (CHRM) undergirds a study of Shangbangs’ historicity (i.e. their socio-historically embedded multiplicity, including organizational forms, activities and connotations.
Findings
As informal regional, professional, project-based, special-product-based or mixed marketing networks, Shangbangs relied on “flexible specialization” and coupled multiple business needs to market goods and services, business organizations, specific social values and, when necessary, to debrand business rivals.
Research limitations/implications
This analysis extends theories about marketing networks by probing their subtypes, diverse marketing activities, multipronged channels and relationship building with social entities (including underground societies, business associations and guilds) in response to pre-1949 China’s market uncertainties. Substantiating an alternative approach to “flexible specialization” and marketing innovations within the pre-1949 Chinese economy shows how a parallel theoretical framework can complement western-based marketing theories.
Originality/value
This first comprehensive analysis of Shangbangs, an innovative historical Chinese marketing network outside the conventional market-corporate dichotomy, can inform theory building for marketing strategy-making and management conditioned by social contexts.
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Shanshan Zhang, Fengchun Huang, Lingling Yu, Jeremy Fei Wang and Paul Benjamin Lowry
Researchers continue to address the concept of self-disclosure because it is foundational for helping social networking sites (SNS) function and thrive. Nevertheless, the authors'…
Abstract
Purpose
Researchers continue to address the concept of self-disclosure because it is foundational for helping social networking sites (SNS) function and thrive. Nevertheless, the authors' literature review indicates that uncertainty remains around the underlying mechanisms and factors involved in the self-disclosure process. The purpose of this research is to better understand the self-disclosure process from the lens of dual-process theory (DPT). The authors consider both the controlled factors (i.e. self-presentation and reciprocity) and an automatic factor (i.e. social influence to use an SNS) involved in self-disclosure and broaden The authors proposed a model to include the interactive facets of enjoyment.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed model was empirically validated by conducting a survey among users of WeChat Moments in China.
Findings
As hypothesized, this research confirms that enjoyment and automatic processing (i.e. social influence to use an SNS) are complementary in the SNS self-disclosure process and enjoyment negatively moderates the positive relationship between controlled factor (i.e. self-presentation) and self-disclosure.
Originality/value
Theoretically, this study offers a new perspective on explaining SNS self-disclosure by adopting DPT. Specifically, this study contributes to the extant SNS research by applying DPT to examine how the controlled factors and the automatic factor shape self-disclosure processes and how enjoyment influences vary across these processes – enriching knowledge about SNS self-disclosure behaviors. Practically, the authors provide important design guidelines to practitioners concerning devising mechanisms to foster more automatic-enjoyable value-added functions to improve SNS users' participation and engagement.
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Mei Huang, Kexin Wang, Yue Liu and Shuangyu Xu
Effective post-disaster communication is essential for destination marketing organizations to encourage visitors following natural disasters. This research aimed to analyze the…
Abstract
Purpose
Effective post-disaster communication is essential for destination marketing organizations to encourage visitors following natural disasters. This research aimed to analyze the impact of two typical types of post-disaster communication messages – solidarity messages and testimonial messages – on post-disaster visiting intention. This research proposes effective communication strategies for post-disaster destination marketing.
Design/methodology/approach
For the case of Jiuzhai Valley, China, which experienced market recovery after two years of rebuilding following a 2017 earthquake, this study designed three contextual experiments based on post-disaster communication scenarios on the Internet and social media to test the causal chain between recovery message types and post-disaster visiting intentions. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance, independent samples t-tests, and the bootstrap method.
Findings
The results indicate that both solidarity messages and testimonial messages evoked higher visiting intention than the no-message group. However, solidarity messages (vs testimonial messages) were more effective when shared on the destination management organization's official account than when they were shared on an influencer's account, with their effects being mediated by the symbolic – as opposed to the hedonic – value of tourist behavior.
Practical implications
Destination management organizations should actively carry out marketing communication through the Internet and social media for areas that have experienced disasters. Crisis communicators should consider inviting popular social media influencers to visit the destination and share their experiences to enhance market confidence, while also paying more attention to the operation of official social media accounts.
Originality/value
This study sheds light on the use of the Internet and social media as tools for post-disaster marketing. By expanding on post-disaster communication theory, this study fills a research gap regarding the effectiveness of tourism marketing strategies after a crisis.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings persistence in the light of a developing economy, with the main focus on China.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings persistence in the light of a developing economy, with the main focus on China.
Design/methodology/approach
In the analysis, the author conducts a survey on the tax avoidance situation of Chinese listed companies from 2012 to 2020. Then, a multivariate regression analysis is performed in order to analyse the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and earnings persistence.
Findings
The findings of the present study show that tax avoidance has a significant positive effect on earnings persistence. However, when the degree of tax avoidance is high, the “risk effect” of tax avoidance exceeds the “value effect”, and tax avoidance will reduce the persistence of earnings. This conclusion is even more prominent when the company is non-state-owned. Further research shows the increase of institutional investors’ shareholding ratio can improve “value effect” of tax avoidance, lessen “risk effect” of tax avoidance, and positively affect the relationship between tax avoidance and earnings persistence.
Practical implications
This study provides evidence for investors to understand the dual effect of tax avoidance on earnings persistence. The results may have implications for regulatory bodies. They can provide a better understanding of the corporate governance role of institutional investors in curbing opportunistic tax avoidance.
Originality/value
This study enriches the research on tax avoidance effects by analysing the impact of tax avoidance on earnings persistence. This study also compensates for the shortcomings of analysing earnings persistence mainly from the perspective of tax differences in the past, and promotes the study of the corporate governance effects of institutional investors under different levels of tax avoidance.
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Wei Chen, Zhuzhang Yang, Hang Yan and Ying Zhao
The construction industry is widely recognized as one of the most hazardous sectors in the world. Despite extensive research on safety management, a critical issue remains that…
Abstract
Purpose
The construction industry is widely recognized as one of the most hazardous sectors in the world. Despite extensive research on safety management, a critical issue remains that insufficient attention is devoted to safety practices in rural areas. Notably, accidents frequently occur during the construction of rural self-built houses (RSH) in China. Safety management tends to be overlooked due to the perceived simplicity of the construction process. Furthermore, it is essential to acknowledge that China currently lacks comprehensive laws and regulations governing safety management in RSH construction. This paper aims to analyze the behavior of key stakeholders (including households, workmen, rural village committee and the government) and propose recommendations to mitigate safety risks associated with RSH construction.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper applies evolutionary game theory to analyze the symbiotic evolution among households, workmen and rural village committee, in situations with or without government participation. Additionally, numerical simulation is utilized to examine the outcomes of various strategies implemented by the government.
Findings
Without government participation, households, workmen, and rural village committee tend to prioritize maximizing apparent benefits, often overlooking the potential safety risks. Numerical simulations reveal that while government involvement can guide these parties towards safer decisions, achieving the desired outcomes necessitates the adoption of reasonable and effective strategies. Thus, the government needs to offer targeted subsidies to these stakeholders.
Originality/value
Considering that during the construction phase, stakeholders are the main administrators accountable for safety management. However, there exists insufficient research examining the impact of stakeholder behavior on RSH construction safety. This study aims to analyze the behavior of stakeholders about how to reduce the safety risks in building RSH. Thus, the authors intend to contribute to knowledge in this area by establishing evolutionary game model. Firstly, this study carried out a theoretical by using tripartite evolutionary game to reveal the reasons for the high safety risk during building RSH. Practically, this research points out the important role of households, workmen and rural village committee in improving safety management in rural areas. Besides, some suggestions are proposed to the government about how to reduce construction safety risks in rural areas.
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Xiaojie Xu and Yun Zhang
The Chinese housing market has gone through rapid growth during the past decade, and house price forecasting has evolved to be a significant issue that draws enormous attention…
Abstract
Purpose
The Chinese housing market has gone through rapid growth during the past decade, and house price forecasting has evolved to be a significant issue that draws enormous attention from investors, policy makers and researchers. This study investigates neural networks for composite property price index forecasting from ten major Chinese cities for the period of July 2005–April 2021.
Design/methodology/approach
The goal is to build simple and accurate neural network models that contribute to pure technical forecasts of composite property prices. To facilitate the analysis, the authors consider different model settings across algorithms, delays, hidden neurons and data spitting ratios.
Findings
The authors arrive at a pretty simple neural network with six delays and three hidden neurons, which generates rather stable performance of average relative root mean square errors across the ten cities below 1% for the training, validation and testing phases.
Originality/value
Results here could be utilized on a standalone basis or combined with fundamental forecasts to help form perspectives of composite property price trends and conduct policy analysis.
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Dawu Shu, Shaolei Cao, Yan Zhang, Wanxin Li, Bo Han, Fangfang An and Ruining Liu
This paper aims to find a suitable solution to degrade the C.I. Reactive Red 24 (RR24) dyeing wastewater by using sodium persulphate to recycle water and inorganic salts.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to find a suitable solution to degrade the C.I. Reactive Red 24 (RR24) dyeing wastewater by using sodium persulphate to recycle water and inorganic salts.
Design/methodology/approach
The effects of temperature, the concentration of inorganic salts and Na2CO3 and the initial pH value on the degradation of RR24 were studied. Furthermore, the relationship between free radicals and RR24 degradation effect was investigated. Microscopic routes and mechanisms of dye degradation were further confirmed by testing the degradation karyoplasmic ratio of the product. The feasibility of the one-bath cyclic dyeing in the recycled dyeing wastewater was confirmed through the properties of dye utilization and color parameters.
Findings
The appropriate conditions were 0.3 g/L of sodium persulphate and treatment at 95°C for 30 min, which resulted in a decolorization rate of 98.4% for the dyeing wastewater. Acidic conditions are conducive to rapid degradation of dyes, while ·OH or SO4−· have a destructive effect on dyes under alkaline conditions. In the early stage of degradation, ·OH played a major role in the degradation of dyes. For sustainable cyclic dyeing of RR24, inorganic salts were reused in this dyeing process and dye uptake increased with the times of cycles. After the fixation, some Na2CO3 may be converted to other salts, thereby increasing the dye uptake in subsequent cyclic staining. However, it has little impact on the dye exhaustion rate and color parameters of dyed fabrics.
Originality/value
The recommended technology not only reduces the quantity of dyeing wastewater but also enables the recycling of inorganic salts and water, which meets the requirements of sustainable development and clean production.
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Kim-Lim Tan, Ivy S.H. Hii, Yijing Huang and Yaru Yan
Companies allowing employees to self-report business expenses face the risk of expense fraud because some occasionally engage in dishonest behavior to receive reimbursements for…
Abstract
Purpose
Companies allowing employees to self-report business expenses face the risk of expense fraud because some occasionally engage in dishonest behavior to receive reimbursements for their use. Drawing on the technology acceptance model, this study aims to investigate the effects of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived security on the trust in e-reimbursement systems and the relationship with honest disclosure intention.
Design/methodology/approach
A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 254 respondents, with the partial least squares structural equation modeling used to analyze the data.
Findings
The findings showed that perceived security and perceived usefulness explained trust in e-reimbursement systems, whereas perceived ease of use had no significant effect on it. Corporate governance and trust in e-reimbursement systems have a positive relationship with whistleblowing intention. At the same time, corporate governance mediates the relationship between trust in e-reimbursement systems and honest disclosure intention.
Originality/value
This study sheds light on using e-reimbursement systems within organizations to prevent fraudulent reimbursements and offers recommendations to management on enhancing employees’ intention to engage in honest disclosure behavior through e-reimbursement systems.
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Eugine Tafadzwa Maziriri, Brighton Nyagadza, Tinashe Chuchu and Gideon Mazuruse
This study aims to determine the antecedents that influence attitudes towards the use of environmentally friendly household appliance products and consumers' green purchase…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to determine the antecedents that influence attitudes towards the use of environmentally friendly household appliance products and consumers' green purchase intention among consumers in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 329 consumers in Harare, Zimbabwe's commercial capital who were served from five using a structured questionnaire via an online web-based cross-sectional survey. Hypothesised relationships were tested through structural equation modelling with the aid of Smart PLS software.
Findings
Green product awareness, social influence, perceived benefit and attitude towards green appliances were found to have a significant positive effect on green purchase intention.
Research limitations/implications
The study's findings may not be generalised to other contexts as sample data was only collected in Zimbabwe. Complementary cross-sectional research studies can be done in other parts of the world to enable cross-cultural comparisons and methodological validations.
Practical implications
The green appliance and energy saving practices are vastly growing, with many multinational appliance companies introducing green products within their product lines and adopting the concept of sustainability through modifications in production, design and consumption of household appliance products that encompass fewer harmful consequences on the environment in response to their concerns about the scarcity of natural resources, environmental well-being and the potential detriment of future generations.
Originality/value
Notwithstanding the limitations of the current study, the results have the potential to contribute to an improved understanding of influence attitudes towards the use of environmentally friendly household appliance products.
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This paper constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model between the government, the core enterprises of film copyright export and imports and uses the system dynamics model to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model between the government, the core enterprises of film copyright export and imports and uses the system dynamics model to simulate and find the optimal selection results of single and mixed government incentives under dynamic changes, aiming to promote the development of foreign trade of film copyright and innovation and development of the film industry so as to improve the overall social benefits of the film industry and provide policy enlightenment for enhancing the import power of foreign core enterprises to introduce domestic film copyrights.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, a tripartite evolutionary game model of the government, the core enterprises of film copyright export and imports is constructed, the evolution process of cooperation strategy is derived, the impact of innovation income coefficient, mixed incentive policy and single incentive policy on the evolution results is analyzed, and the system dynamic model is used to simulate to find the optimal selection results of single and mixed government incentives under dynamic changes, so as to provide reference for the government’s dynamic incentive decision-making.
Findings
The results show that export-oriented core firms are more sensitive to mixed incentives, while import-oriented core firms respond more quickly to single incentives. The large innovation income coefficient has a negative impact on the willingness of import-oriented core enterprises to cooperate. The study proposes measures to increase the willingness of core companies to participate.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the fact that numerical simulation is based on simulation, there may be a certain gap between it and the actual situation. Therefore, it is necessary to further use actual data to conduct empirical analysis on the theoretical model.
Practical implications
This article mainly focuses on analyzing the impact of strategy choices and related parameters of various entities on the incentive mechanism and studying the foreign trade cooperation strategies of film copyright export enterprises under policy support from a theoretical model perspective. Furthermore, research has proven that in order to effectively enhance the willingness of foreign import core enterprises to participate in the foreign trade of domestic film copyrights, the government needs to coordinate the use of single incentive policies and mixed incentive policies. This study provides a major contribution for policymaker to develop film copyright import and export trade.
Social implications
Based on the research conclusions, this paper puts forward management countermeasures to further improve the development of the film copyright import and export trade. The first is to enrich government incentive methods and stimulate the vitality of film copyright and foreign trade market entities. The second is to guide the core enterprises of film copyright export to increase investment in innovation and stimulate the endogenous driving force of industrial development. Finally, lengthen the foreign trade industry chain of film copyright and increase the income of film derivatives.
Originality/value
Firstly, this paper applies the research methods of evolutionary game and system dynamics simulation to the field of foreign trade research on film copyright and expands the research perspectives and methods of the film industry. Secondly, by analyzing the “cost-benefit incentive” relationship of the evolutionary game of government export-oriented core enterprises and importing core enterprises, an evolutionary game model is constructed, the quantitative point of tripartite interest decision-making is solved and the research object of the evolutionary game method is expanded. Finally, the system dynamics model is used to simulate and find the optimal selection results of single and mixed government incentives under dynamic changes, so as to provide reference for the government’s dynamic incentive decision-making.
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