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Article
Publication date: 13 April 2015

Hong Liu, Lu Ma and Panpan Huang

The purpose of this paper is to test the assertion that the relationship between corporation performance and organizational complexity follows an inverted U-shape curve, and a…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to test the assertion that the relationship between corporation performance and organizational complexity follows an inverted U-shape curve, and a corporation gains the best performance when its organizational complexity fits its environmental complexity.

Design/methodology/approach

This research did not directly measure environmental complexity to verify the relationship between corporation performance and complex environment, but measured organizational complexity to subtly display the effect of the organizational complexity on the corporation performance while controlled the environmental complexity. To do so, a set of corporations that shared the similar environment was selected, and then these corporations’ performance and organizational complexity were calculated, the related hypotheses were tested empirically.

Findings

The paper proved the inverted U-shape relationship between organizational complexity and corporation performance, and also found that different corporation chooses different complex adaptive way, so the inverted U-shape relationship displays hierarchy.

Research limitations/implications

Future research should search out to calculate corporation’s environment complexity the fitness of organizational complexity for testing hypotheses.

Practical implications

The regularity of relationship between organizational complexity and corporation performance is helpful for managers to understand that a way to improve a corporation’s performance is to enhance the fitness of organizational complexity and environmental complexity.

Social implications

Organizational complexity may be competitive advantage, but excessive growth of it will be harmful.

Originality/value

Usually organizational complexity is thought of as a negative factor to corporation performance and tends to be constrained, but this research explored the role of organizational complexity to corporation performance and the findings helps managers to understand when to enhance organizational complexity and when to weaken it. The methodology of calculating the fitness of organizational complexity and environmental complexity by fixing environment is a contribution to complexity theory research.

Details

Journal of Management Development, vol. 34 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0262-1711

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 August 2022

Yan Jiang, Weihan Lin, Xiaoshan Huang, Lian Duan, Yihua Wu, Panpan Jiang and Xingheng Wang

The purpose of this study is to propose and examine an integrated learning model for improving training effectiveness in workplace learning. Specifically, this study investigated…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to propose and examine an integrated learning model for improving training effectiveness in workplace learning. Specifically, this study investigated the effect of achievement goal-setting intervention across three groups of new employees from a multinational medical company. During a three-day remote training program, the role of each achievement goal orientation (AGO) in goal setting intervention and their relations with trainees’ applied learning strategies were examined. This study proposed and validated an integrated training model for improving remote workplace learning effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was based on two data sources, the pre- and posttests scores; time on task (deep learning: completing reflective practice) and time on content learning (surface learning: watching tutorials) retrieved from an adaptive learning platform. A total number of 133 participants were recruited in this study, and they were randomly assigned to three interventional groups. The intervention was grounded from the AGO theory and goal setting theory. A series of statistical analysis were conducted to examine the effect of each type of achievement goal setting as a prompt for new employees’ learning behavior and performance.

Findings

Results indicated that setting mastery goal at the beginning of the training program leads to productive learning outcomes. Compared with the groups being required to set performance goal (final rank) or not to set any goal for the training purpose, trainees’ who were assigned to set a mastery goal (final performance score) performed statistically significantly higher than the other groups. Additionally, learners who set mastery goal spent higher proportion of time on deep learning than learners from the other groups. The results proved mastery goal setting as an effective prompt for boosting workplace learning effectiveness.

Practical implications

Organizations and institutions can take setting mastery approach goals as a prompt at the beginning of the training to increase learning effectiveness. In this way, trainees are promoted to apply more deep learning strategies and achieve better learning outcomes while setting mastery goal for their training purpose.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to combine the intervention of goal setting and types of AGOs into workplace learning. This study adds to previous research on goal setting theory and AGO theory for the practical application and proposes an effective model for learners’ adaptive remote learning. Findings of this study can be used to provide educational psychological insights for training and learning in both industrial and academic settings.

Details

Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 35 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-5626

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 July 2020

Panpan Wang, Qian Huang and Robert M. Davison

The success of social commerce depends on consumers' willingness to participate in social commerce activities. Practitioners have attached increasing attention to facilitating…

4281

Abstract

Purpose

The success of social commerce depends on consumers' willingness to participate in social commerce activities. Practitioners have attached increasing attention to facilitating social commerce intention with influencer strategies. However, theoretical understanding or empirical investigation on the impact of digital influencers on consumers' social commerce intention is limited. This study aims to provide new insights into the drivers of two forms of social commerce intention: social shopping and social sharing intention. Based on the theoretical lens of social power, this study answers how digital influencers affect consumer satisfaction and ultimately boost their intention to conduct social commerce activities.

Design/methodology/approach

A field interview is conducted to determine the appropriate social power forms. An online survey on a large social commerce site in China with 310 respondents is conducted to test the proposed model.

Findings

Results indicate that expert power and referent power derived from digital influencers predict most of the consumers' economic satisfaction, whereas referent power and reciprocity power explain consumers' social satisfaction. Economic satisfaction affects social shopping and social sharing intention, whereas social satisfaction only influences social sharing intention.

Originality/value

This study sheds new light on the theoretical understanding of the effect of digital influencers through a lens of social power. It provides new insight into the determinants of social commerce intention. It also compensates for the neglect of social satisfaction in the social commerce context.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 34 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 April 2022

Panpan Wang and Qian Huang

Social commerce platforms are prevalent in the explosion of social media and e-commerce, and they enable conversations across a broad range of topics. However, their success…

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Abstract

Purpose

Social commerce platforms are prevalent in the explosion of social media and e-commerce, and they enable conversations across a broad range of topics. However, their success depends on consumers' willingness to invest their time, attention and money. Digital influencers have shown prominent effects on consumers in those social commerce platforms. This study, thus, aims to attempt to unravel the role of digital influencers in affecting consumer engagement and purchase behaviour in online social commerce communities.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed approach with a field interview, an online survey and secondary archive data are presented to confirm all the hypotheses.

Findings

Several forms of social power from digital influencers (including expert power, informational power, referent power and legitimate reciprocity power) could influence consumer engagement behaviours (including content participation and content creation). Moreover, the two types of consumer engagement behaviours could further influence consumer purchase likelihood in the social commerce community.

Research limitations/implications

Several forms of social power from digital influencers (including expert power, informational power, referent power and legitimate reciprocity power) could affect consumer engagement behaviours (including content participation and content creation). Moreover, the two types of consumer engagement behaviours could further affect consumer's purchase expenditure in the social commerce community.

Originality/value

This study draws on the theories of social power and social influence and integrates the literature on consumer engagement to explain how digital influencers affect consumer engagement and their purchase behaviour in an online social commerce community. Firstly, this work extends existing studies on the antecedents of consumer engagement in the social commerce communities by considering the role of digital influencers. Secondly, this research advances the theoretical understanding of the influence of digital influencers through a new lens of social power. The findings also contribute to community managers, users who pursue popularity and companies who target business goals.

Details

Internet Research, vol. 33 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1066-2243

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 December 2022

Panpan Wang, Qian Huang and Yu Zhang

This study aims to address how to facilitate more community members making purchases in social commerce communities. The research is expected to shed new light on the underlying…

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to address how to facilitate more community members making purchases in social commerce communities. The research is expected to shed new light on the underlying process by which individuals’ social networks influence their purchases in social commerce communities.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey and secondary archive data are presented to confirm all the hypotheses.

Findings

Community members’ out-degree ties show a positive effect on their attachment to other members, as well as to the community. Community members’ attachment to the community has a positive influence on their purchases made in the e-commerce modules of social commerce communities and mediates the effect of their attachment to community members. The study establishes a theoretical framework to reveal how community members’ social networks influence their purchases in social commerce communities.

Practical implications

The findings of this study provide new insights for managers and designers of new social commerce communities to inspire them to achieve their goal of keeping consumers making purchases in the e-commerce modules of social commerce communities.

Originality/value

Firstly, this study draws on attachment theory to explain why community members make purchases in a social commerce community. Then, the study enriches the research on social network ties and attachment theory by initially integrating the social network perspective with attachment theory to examine the effects of social network ties on different types of attachment.

Article
Publication date: 17 November 2021

Bo Fang, Panpan Zhang and Sehoon Kim

The purpose of this paper is to explore recent national human resource development (NHRD) practices in China through a literature review focusing on programs and activities that…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore recent national human resource development (NHRD) practices in China through a literature review focusing on programs and activities that represent the roles and interactions among the government, industry and universities.

Design/methodology/approach

To effectively consolidate previous work and conceptualize the recent development of the NHRD practices in China, a semi-narrative literature review was used to explore and analyze NHRD-related functions and activities.

Findings

Findings from the literature review showed that although the central government still plays a predominant role in China, universities and corporations are increasingly playing a critical role in developing an innovative and skilled workforce. At the regional level, NHRD initiatives in China have been increasingly undertaken by universities, industry and government–industry–university collaborations. The authors also found a disparity between developed and underdeveloped regions in terms of NHRD in China.

Research limitations/implications

This study used the triple helix model as a framework that provides an insightful lens for researchers to examine how various social entities interact with each other and jointly contribute to NHRD. Further case studies are needed to generate evidence-based knowledge to the NHRD literature.

Practical implications

A more systematic NHRD leadership structure at both the national and local level is desired to unleash the potential of bottom-up development and active government–industry–university collaboration. To counter regional divergence in NHRD in China, intra- and cross-regional collaborations are helpful in improving resources distribution and workforce development.

Originality/value

Based on open system theory, this study focused on programs and activities that represent the roles and interactions among the government, industry and university in Chinese NHRD through the lens of the triple helix model. In addition, this study offers a conceptual model of Chinese NHRD to help scholars and practitioners understand the transitional efforts in NHRD.

Details

European Journal of Training and Development, vol. 47 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-9012

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 March 2020

Min Liu, Panpan Xu, Jincan Zhang, Bo Liu and Liwen Zhang

Power amplifiers (PAs) play an important role in wireless communications because they dominate system performance. High-linearity broadband PAs are of great value for potential…

Abstract

Purpose

Power amplifiers (PAs) play an important role in wireless communications because they dominate system performance. High-linearity broadband PAs are of great value for potential use in multi-band system implementation. The purpose of this paper is to present a cascode power amplifier architecture to achieve high power and high efficiency requirements for 4.2∼5.4 GHz applications.

Design/methodology/approach

A common emitter (CE) configuration with a stacked common base configuration of heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) is used to achieve high power. T-type matching network is used as input matching network. To increase the bandwidth, the output matching networks are implemented using the two L-networks.

Findings

By using the proposed method, the stacked PA demonstrates a maximum saturated output power of 26.2 dBm, a compact chip size of 1.17 × 0.59 mm2 and a maximum power-added efficiency of 46.3 per cent. The PA shows a wideband small signal gain with less than 3 dB variation over working frequency. The saturated output power of the proposed PA is higher than 25 dBm between 4.2 and 5.4 GHz.

Originality/value

The technology adopted for the design of the 4.2-to-5.4 GHz stacked PA is the 2-µm gallium arsenide HBT process. Based on the proposed method, a better power performance of 3 dB improvement can be achieved as compared with the conventional CE or common-source amplifier because of high output stacking impedance.

Details

Circuit World, vol. 46 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0305-6120

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 May 2018

Panpan Diao, Zhonggen Zhang and Zhenyong Jin

The purpose of this paper is to analyze agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) and input redundancies in different regions of China, and to bring out the policy implications…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) and input redundancies in different regions of China, and to bring out the policy implications for improving efficiency in agricultural production as well as environment protection.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the provincial panel data during 1995-2014, the agricultural productivity of China and its regional disparity are analyzed. First, the agricultural TFP and its decomposition are dynamically evaluated by means of data envelopment analysis-Malmquist productivity index. Second, the agricultural radial production efficiency in year 2014 and the input redundancy changes from 1995 to 2014 are measured based on the BCC-slacks-based measure model.

Findings

The results showed that the overall agricultural TFP of China grew 4.3 percent annually during 1995-2014, mainly as a result of technical progress. However, the declines of technical efficiency and scale efficiency slowed down the agricultural TFP growth. The TFP growth in the Western region and Central region far exceeded the Eastern region in last few years. In 2014, most effective decision-making units were in the Western region. The input redundancies in the agricultural production increased substantially after 2006, especially for the pesticide use amount, reservoir capacity and agricultural machinery power.

Originality/value

Combining the dynamic and static analyses, the paper fulfilled the study of China’s agricultural productivity and the input redundancies in recent years, and also presented the regional disparities.

Details

China Agricultural Economic Review, vol. 10 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-137X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 June 2020

Fuli Zhou, Panpan Ma, Yandong He, Saurabh Pratap, Peng Yu and Biyu Yang

With an increasingly fierce competition of the shipbuilding industry, advanced technologies and excellent management philosophies in the manufacturing industry are gradually…

Abstract

Purpose

With an increasingly fierce competition of the shipbuilding industry, advanced technologies and excellent management philosophies in the manufacturing industry are gradually introduced to domestic shipyards. The purpose of this study is to promote the lean management of Chinese ship outfitting plants by lean production strategy.

Design/methodology/approach

To promote the lean implementation of Chinese shipyards, the lean practice of ship-pipe part production is highlighted by lot-sizing optimization and strategic CONWIP (constant work-in-process) control. A nonlinear programming model is formulated to minimize the total cost of ship-pipe part manufacturing and the particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based algorithm is designed to resolve the established model. Besides, the pull-from-the-bottleneck (PFB) strategy is used to control ship-pipe part production, verified by Simulink simulation.

Findings

Results show that the proposed lean strategy of the programming model and strategic PFB control could assist Chinese ship outfitting plants to leverage competitive advantage by waste reduction and lean achievement. Specifically, the PFB double-loop control strategy shows better performance when there is high productivity and the PFB single-loop control outperforms at lower productivity scenarios.

Practical implications

To verify the effectiveness of the proposed lean strategy, a case study is performed to validate the formulated model. Also, simulation experiments realized by FlexSim software are conducted to testify results obtained by the constructed programming model.

Originality/value

Lean production management practice of the shipyard building industry is performed by the proposed lean production strategy through lot-sizing optimization and strategic PFB control in terms of ship-pipe part manufacturing.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 50 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 September 2020

Fuli Zhou, Yandong He, Panpan Ma and Raj V. Mahto

The booming of the Internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques contributes to knowledge adoption and management innovation for the healthcare industry. It…

Abstract

Purpose

The booming of the Internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques contributes to knowledge adoption and management innovation for the healthcare industry. It is of great significance to transport the medical resources to required places in an efficient way. However, it is difficult to exactly discover matched transportation resources and deliver to its destination due to the heterogeneity. This paper studies the medical transportation resource discovery mechanism, leading to efficiency improvement and operational innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

To solve the transportation resource semantic discovery problem under the novel cloud environment, the ontology modelling approach is used for both transportation resources and tasks information modes. Besides, medical transportation resource discovery mechanism is proposed, and resource matching rules are designed including three stages: filtering reasoning, QoS-based matching and user preferences-based rank to satisfy personalized demands of users. Furthermore, description logic rules are built to express the developed matching rules.

Findings

An organizational transportation case is taken as an example to describe the medical transportation logistics resource semantic discovery process under cloud medical service scenario. Results derived from the proposed semantic discovery mechanism could assist operators to find the most suitable resources.

Research limitations/implications

The case study validates the effectiveness of the developed transportation resource semantic discovery mechanism, contributing to knowledge management innovation for the medical logistics industry.

Originality/value

To improve task-resource matching accuracy under cloud scenario, this study develops a transportation resource semantic discovery procedure from the viewpoint of knowledge management. The novel knowledge management practice contributes to operational management of the cloud medical logistics service by introducing ontology modelling and creative management.

Details

Journal of Intellectual Capital, vol. 22 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1469-1930

Keywords

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