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Logistics managers need to collect timely and accurate data on customers′ needs, as well as customer perceptions of the firm′s and competitors′ performance levels. Today, a large number of companies collect this from their salesforce – a good, inexpensive and timely source of customer and competitive information but caution is needed since a majority of salespeople are inaccurate. Reviews the conceptual issues associated with using the salesforce to collect information and reports results of an empirical study which examined the accuracy of salesforce information.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the determinants of players’ continuance intentions to play Pokémon GO (PG) and ultimately make in-app purchases, mainly from the perspectives of psychological, social and gaming motivational factors.

The research model was empirically assessed based on 362 validated responses from current players of PG in Malaysia. Analysis was carried out using the partial least squares path modeling method.

The results indicated that enjoyment, network externalities, community involvement and the need-to-collect significantly influence players’ continuance intention. Furthermore, the findings reveal that flow and nostalgia have indirect effects on players’ continuance intention, which in turn significantly influences their purchase intention.

This study provides empirical support for an integrated model for understanding the antecedents of the players’ behavioral intentions that incorporates psychological, social and gaming motivational factors in the context of an augmented reality mobile game.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanism by which uses and gratification (U&G) constructs predict continuance intention to play (ContInt) the augmented reality game Pokémon Go (PG), through multiple serial mediation technique, with enjoyment and flow as mediators. The model also integrates other motivational factors specific to PG, namely, network externality and nostalgia and investigates the process by which they influence ContInt through players’ inherent need-to-collect animated monsters and online community involvement, respectively.

The model was tested using 362 validated responses from an online survey of PG players in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyse the data. The predictive relevance of the model was tested via partial least squares-Predict.

ContInt is influenced through various mechanisms. Enjoyment is the most important mediator, mediating three U&G predictor constructs (achievement, escapism, challenge and social interaction) and the outcome ContInt. Flow did not have any influence on ContInt unless coupled with enjoyment as a serial mediator. Network externality and nostalgia were found to only influence ContInt through mediators, online community involvement and need-to-collect Pokémon Monsters, respectively. Overall, the results show evidence of four indirect-only mediation paths and one complementary partial mediation path.

Provides support for an integrated model incorporating psychological, social and gaming motivational factors. While most other studies focus on direct relationships, we focus on indirect relationships through multiple sequential mediation analysis, following the recent modern mediation analysis guidelines. Contrary to previous findings, flow was not an important factor in predicting ContInt for gaming and nostalgia does not link directly to ContInt.

This paper aims to study whether the recycling of a third party competes with the trade-in service of a manufacturer, and explores the optimal trade-in and third-party collection authorization strategies for the manufacturer.

According to whether to authorize a third party to collect its used products, the manufacturer has two choices: one is not authorization (NA); the other is authorization (A). This paper uses profit-maximization model to investigate the optimal decisions of the manufacturer and the third party under NA and A, respectively, and then explores which choice is better for the manufacturer.

It is observed that there is a competition between trade-in service and third-party recycling when the durability parameter of the used product is relatively small. Moreover, when the durability parameter of the used product is relatively large, A is always better choice for the manufacturer; otherwise, NA is a better choice except for the case that the unit trade-in subsidy is low and the salvage of the used product is high.

These results provide managerial insights for the manufacturer and the third party to make decisions in the field of recycling.

This paper is among the first papers to study the competition between trade-in program and third party’s collecting program under government’s trade-in subsidy policy. Moreover, this paper presents the conditions under which the manufacturer should authorize or not authorize the third party to collect its used products.

When a study involves human participants, researchers need to ensure their safety and protect their identities. How do potential participants know what they are agreeing to contribute, and how and why the research is being conducted? Informed consent describes the process and agreements that answer such questions. Conventional consent protocols focused on preresearch discussions between the researcher and the potential participant, resulting in a signed document that verified the agreement. In research conducted with, on, or through social media, there are fewer opportunities for conversational explanations of formal documents. Simply posting legalistic documents is ineffective because Internet users typically do not read such materials before verifying agreement. Researchers need to understand communities, contexts, and communication styles of target participants and settings in order to provide information in familiar, user-friendly ways. Based on a review of literature about informed consent, and a study of current practices used by companies that need to verify agreements online, practical research suggestions are offered. Qualitative researchers who want to collect data through active interactions with human participants will find these examples and recommendations of use when designing their studies.

Purpose. To offer a range of practical suggestions for library staff and others who intend to collect and analyze data that describe their networked services. Method/approach. Based on the author's experience in completing a number of funded research projects on this topic, working directly with libraries in collecting networked statistics and implementing the findings from those efforts, and observing best practices at those libraries. Findings. Factors dealing with understanding the evaluation context, planning, training, organization, determining appropriate data collection methods, managing data, and knowing the target audience for reporting are all‐important. Details a number of specific factors and strategies that can be used to increase the success of collecting networked statistics. Practical implications. Thinking about the preparation needed to collect networked statistics and how the process can be handled as efficiently as possible before the effort begins can help ensure that the library staff uses its time as wisely as possible in the data collection process, collects high quality and useful data, integrates these data into other library data, can draw upon the data for future purposes through a management information system, and uses the data to improve overall library decision making, planning, and meeting community information needs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the understanding of industrial safety signs and messages by registered and non‐registered safety officers in Hong Kong with ten different user factors, and examine the relationship between cognitive sign features and sign comprehensibility.

The research methodology includes the survey development and appropriate statistical analyses. In total, 92 Hong Kong Chinese participated voluntarily in the study. A questionnaire survey was used to collect information about demographics, personal experience on safety and health issues, experience of reviewing safety sign information, comprehension scores, and the ratings of sign features for 30 industrial safety signs used in Hong Kong. The effect of ten user factors on sign understanding for the design of highly usable safety signs was examined.

Of the ten factors tested, only the factor of possession of registered safety officer (RSO) status was a significant predictor of comprehension performance. As expected, comprehension scores varied with the cognitive sign features of familiarity, concreteness, simplicity, and meaningfulness.

The currently used industrial safety signs should be redesigned as soon as possible, with careful consideration of cognitive sign features. To make the results more generally applicable, further research is needed to collect more data, particularly from females.

This research suggests that an effective education program for promoting the intended messages of industrial safety signs in various industries and work environments should be conducted as soon as possible. Safety officers, especially those who work in the construction industry need to play a more prominent role in ensuring workplace safety, and in transferring safety knowledge to the workers.

There is a need to enhance RSOs' risk perception and to increase awareness of the importance of safety signs through training programs, so as to improve workplace safety and organizational safety culture. The redesigned safety signs need to be launched with a public education program.

The paper's findings emphasize the need to create awareness of the importance of industrial safety and promote understanding of safety sign meanings amongst people in their work environments. Useful information for the design and use of safety signs was generated.

This purpose of this article is to solve the problem of bidding on keywords in newly set-up search engine advertising campaigns. Advertisers setting up search engine advertising campaigns for the first time need to place bids on keywords, but typically lack experience and data to determine ranks that maximize a keyword’s profit (generally referred to as a cold-start problem).

The authors suggest that advertisers collect data from the Google Keyword Planner to obtain precise estimates of the percentage increases in prices per click and click-through rates, which are needed to calculate optimal bids (exact approach). Together with the profit contribution per conversion and the conversion rate, the advertiser might then set bids that maximize profit. In case advertisers cannot afford to collect the required data, the authors suggest two proxy approaches and evaluate their performance using the exact approach as a benchmark.

The empirical study shows that both proxy approaches perform reasonably well, the easier approach to implement (Proxy 2) sometimes performs even better than the more sophisticated one (Proxy 1). As a consequence, advertisers might just use this very simple proxy when bidding on keywords in newly set-up search engine advertising campaigns.

This research extends the stream of literature on how to determine optimal bids, which so far focuses on campaigns that are already running and where the required data to calculate bids are already available. This research offers a novel approach of determining bids when advertisers lack the aforementioned information.