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This paper aims to answer questions pertinent to whether or not services provided by smart hotels are really what customers are looking for, as well as to ascertain what are some unintended experiences guests may encounter. In essence, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first in the field to acknowledge the paradox of smart service.

This inquiry adopts a qualitative approach with data-driven from online customer reviews and semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis was undertaken to interpret review comments.

Results point to a new phenomenon, which is coined as the smartness paradox. In particular, customers on one hand enjoy an array of smart-infused experiences that jointly offer patrons a sense of a futuristic lifestyle. On the other hand, smart devices superimpose a number of hindrances that bring guests dismay and annoyance.

This investigation brings smart service failure to the fore to highlight several key failure themes that could jeopardize the entire operation with debased customers’ satisfaction and loyalty inclination.

The smartness-paradox framework used in the present inquiry entails both approach and avoidance consequences customers enact depending on their smart experiences.

Looking through an autoethnographical lens, the authors analyse the reclaiming of the heritage name of Indonesian Peranakan Chinese in the Netherlands with regard to their sense of belonging and (translocational) positionality. The discussion is situated in the realm of (post)colonial ties between the country of birth and their current country of residence, against the backdrop of assimilationist policies of President Soeharto’s “New Order” after the regime change following the September 30, 1965, coup attempt (G30S). The authors’ own reflections were studied in combination with interviews, both formal and informal, and desk research to compose a narrative of active memories and stories told. How was the state-imposed name change experienced? Why did they choose to reclaim their Chinese name when applying for Dutch citizenship rendered that opportunity? Where can the affective bonds be found?

The authors’ own reflections were studied in combination with interviews, both formal and informal, and desk research to compose a narrative of active memories and stories told. How was the state-imposed name change experienced? Why did they choose to reclaim their Chinese name when applying for Dutch citizenship rendered that opportunity? Where do the affective bonds lie?

The reclaiming of the heritage name has a different resonance in the sense of belonging for different generational cohorts. In the specific post-colonial Dutch context - for the generation of our interviewees and of our parents - it represents an active re-positioning of one’s self as having Chinese ancestry (the name I was born with), not because they wanted to renounce their Indonesian connection but because they were forced to make a choice. For us, the authors, it was more a matter of: because we were raised with this name.

This article is a response to the appeal to expand the scarce literature published on the Peranakan Chinese group in the Netherlands (e.g. Tjiook–Liem, 2017; Van der Meer and Eickhoff, 2017; Ang, 2005; Li, 1999) who live in a fascinating (post)colonial positionality comprising of Chinese ancestry, Indonesian background and the Dutch (new) home country. Studies on this group barely mention the consequences of name change for their belonging (Healy, 2020) and positionality (Anthias, 2012).

Motivated by the importance of gaining an understanding of the flow of transactions when assessing the effectiveness of internal controls for Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) compliance, concerns raised by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) of audit firm deficiencies in these areas and auditors’ use of both narratives and flowcharts to document the flow of transactions, this article aims to examine the impact of auditors creating flowcharts versus narratives on auditors’ transaction flow understanding and internal control evaluation performance.

This paper conducts a between-participants experiment examining auditor-created flowcharts versus narratives and different levels of documentation quality on auditors’ understanding of the flow of transactions and internal control evaluation performance.

This paper finds that auditors who create flowcharts gain a better understanding of the clients’ transaction flow and perform better on internal control evaluations than auditors who create narratives. Process results from a moderated-mediation model also show a moderating effect of quality and mediating effect of understanding.

These findings inform PCAOB policy decisions and inspection efforts and audit firms’ quality and process improvement efforts by providing initial support for having auditors create flowcharts to improve their understanding of the flow of transactions and internal control evaluation performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effect of auditor-created flowcharts compared to narratives on auditors’ understanding of the flow of transactions and internal control evaluation performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of different bullet screen types (functional vs social) on the continuous watching intention of consumers, as well as the influence mechanism. In addition, this study analyses the moderating role of consumer motivational orientation on the above effects.

First, objective data were obtained through the crawler to test the proposed hypotheses. An objective data analysis (417 group sample) was conducted to analyse the relationship between the percentage of social bullet screens and consumers sustained growth ratio to indirectly test the primary effect. Second, a questionnaire survey was conducted to test (176 questionnaires) the mediating role of perceived social crowding. Finally, a simulated online contextual experiment (340 participants) is conducted to explore the moderating role of consumer motivational orientation.

First, functional bullet screens produce higher continuous watching intention and lower perceived social crowding than social bullet screens. Second, perceived social crowding mediates the relationship between bullet screen type and continuous watching intention. Third, consumers' motivational orientation type (task-motivated vs recreation-motivated) moderates the relationship among bullet screen type, perceived social crowding and continuous watching intention.

The results of this study shed light on the differential impact of different types of bullet screens (functional and social) on consumers' continuous watching intentions, which makes up for the lack of research on the content of bullet screens in the field of livestreaming. Meanwhile, compared with the previous positive psychological research perspective, this study explores the intermediate mechanism of bullet screen type on consumers' continuous watching intention through a negative psychological perspective, which helps e-commerce companies and streamers better understand the differential impact of different bullet screens. Finally, this study explores the joint influence effect of bullet screen and consumer motivation type, which fills the theoretical research gap of consumer motivation orientation type in the category of live-streaming.

This chapter explores the nature of military law and IHL during the cold war period. It explores what treaties were completed, Additional Protocols I and II of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the ad hoc international tribunals of the 1990s and 2000s, and examines the ICJ’s ruling of the legality of nuclear weapons.

Amidst the growing emphasis on privacy protection, this study aims to investigate how online interaction introduced in Lead Generation Ads (LGAs) affects consumers' Self-Disclosure Intention (SDI), particularly in the context of the Chinese advertising market.

This research employs two scenario-based online surveys to analyse in depth the impact of LGAs on consumers' SDI. The first study collects valid feedback from 220 consumers through an online questionnaire to assess the direct effect of perceived interactivity on SDI. The second study, using an experimental design with a sample of 265 participants, further explores the mediating roles of perceived control and perceived vulnerability in the relationship between perceived interactivity and SDI and examines the moderating effect of privacy invasion experience (PIE).

This study reveals the significant and positive influence of perceived interactivity on SDI, with perceived control acting as a mediator that enhances this effect. Conversely, perceived vulnerability weakens the positive impact of perceived interactivity on SDI. Additionally, we explore the moderating role of PIE and find that it significantly influences the relationship between perceived interactivity and SDI. These findings underscore the importance of considering consumer privacy sensitivity, particularly in the design of interactive marketing strategies and within highly interactive advertising environments.

Our research uncovers consumer privacy attitudes and behaviours in the Chinese market, providing insights into its unique dynamics of privacy and information disclosure. However, the geographical and cultural specificity of our study may limit its generalizability. Future studies should expand into various cultural and market contexts, considering the impact of digital technologies on consumer interactions and information disclosure, thereby enhancing the depth and applicability of global marketing strategies.

Advertising platforms should explore online interactive communication methods to enhance consumers' perceived interactions and alleviate privacy concerns. Also, platforms should be designed with system security in mind to prevent the leakage and misuse of consumer data, thus increasing consumers' SDI.

The study provides insights for marketers on designing more effective and privacy-sensitive online advertising strategies in the Chinese market. Understanding the factors influencing consumers’ willingness to share personal information can lead to more effective engagement in digital marketing campaigns.

By integrating interactivity theory with privacy computing theory, this research provides a new perspective on the role of online interaction in consumer privacy protection and information disclosure decisions. The findings not only enrich the theoretical frameworks of interactive marketing and privacy protection but also offer empirical support for marketing practitioners in regard to designing interactive advertising strategies, especially balancing consumer privacy protection with the enhancement of shopping intentions.

This paper aims to propose a stable and precise recognition and pose estimation method to deal with the difficulties that industrial parts often present, such as incomplete point cloud data due to surface reflections, lack of color texture features and limited availability of effective three-dimensional geometric information. These challenges lead to less-than-ideal performance of existing object recognition and pose estimation methods based on two-dimensional images or three-dimensional point cloud features.

In this paper, an image-guided depth map completion method is proposed to improve the algorithm's adaptability to noise and incomplete point cloud scenes. Furthermore, this paper also proposes a pose estimation method based on contour feature matching.

Through experimental testing on real-world and virtual scene dataset, it has been verified that the image-guided depth map completion method exhibits higher accuracy in estimating depth values for depth map hole pixels. The pose estimation method proposed in this paper was applied to conduct pose estimation experiments on various parts. The average recognition accuracy in real-world scenes was 88.17%, whereas in virtual scenes, the average recognition accuracy reached 95%.

The proposed recognition and pose estimation method can stably and precisely deal with the difficulties that industrial parts present and improve the algorithm's adaptability to noise and incomplete point cloud scenes.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of “BroncoCut-X” (copper core-ZnCu50 coating) electrode on the machining of Ti-3Al-2.5V in view of its extensive use in aerospace and medical applications. The machining parameters are selected as Spark-off Time (ST_off), Spark-on Time (ST_on), Wire-speed (S_w), Wire-Tension (WT) and Servo-Voltage (S_v) to explore the machining outcomes. The response characteristics are measured in terms of material removal rate (MRR), average kerf width (KW) and average-surface roughness (SA).

Taguchi’s approach is used to design the experiment. The “AC Progress V2 high precision CNC-WEDM” is used to conduct the experiments with ϕ 0.25 mm diameter wire electrode. The machining performance characteristics are examined using main effect plots and analysis of variance. The grey-relation analysis and fuzzy interference system techniques have been developed to combine (called grey-fuzzy reasoning grade) the experimental response while Rao-Algorithm is used to calculate the optimal performance.

The hybrid optimization result is obtained as ST_off = 50µs, ST_on = 105µs, S_w = 7 m/min, WT = 12N and S_v=20V. Additionally, the result is compared with the firefly algorithm and improved gray-wolf optimizer to check the efficacy of the intended approach. The confirmatory test has been further conducted to verify optimization results and recorded 8.14% overall machinability enhancement. Moreover, the scanning electron microscopy analysis further demonstrated effectiveness in the WEDMed surface with a maximum 4.32 µm recast layer.

The adopted methodology helped to attain the highest machinability level. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first investigation within the considered parametric range and adopted optimization technique for Ti-3Al-2.5V using the wire-electro discharge machining.

Effective customer journey design (ECJD) is considered a key variable in customer experience management and an essential source of brand meaning and pro-brand behavior. Although previous research has confirmed its importance for driving brand attitudes and loyalty, the role of consumer-brand identification as a social identity-based influence in this relationship has not yet been discussed. Drawing on construal level and social identity theories, this paper aims to investigate whether effective journeys and the resulting overall journey experience are equally powerful in driving brand loyalty among customers with different levels of consumer-brand identification.

The present article develops and tests a research model using data from the European and US service sectors (N = 1,454) to investigate how and when ECJD affects service brand loyalty.

Across two cultural contexts, four service industries and 33 service brands, the results reveal that ECJD is a crucial driver of service brand loyalty for customers with low consumer-brand identification. Moreover, the findings show that different aspects of journey effectiveness positively impact the valence of customers’ experience related to those journeys – a process that is ultimately decisive for their brand loyalty.

This study is unique because it generates theoretical and practical knowledge by combining the literature streams of customer journey design, customer experience and branding. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that consumer-brand identification is a critical boundary condition to be considered in the relationship between ECJD and brand loyalty in services.