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Based on message source theory, the purpose of this paper is to use positive electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM) settings to examine the influence of message source credibility on brand attitude (brand trust, brand affection, and purchase intention). The current study also uses the elaboration likelihood model to examine the moderating effect of product involvement on the relationships between message appeals (rational vs emotional) and brand attitude, as well as between message source credibility and brand attitude.

Data were collected via internet questionnaires. Based on the internet investigation and pretest, this study chose the stimuli for research products, virtual brands, eWOM, and message source credibility. Via a 2 (notebooks vs shampoo) *2 (appeal: rational vs emotional) experimental design, 211 effective samples were collected to verify the hypotheses of this study.

The results, for both notebooks and shampoo, are: the positive eWOM message with higher message source credibility indicates a better brand attitude than the eWOM message with lower message source credibility, and this effect is not moderated by the degree of product involvement, indicating its robustness. Second, with a high degree of product involvement, the rational appeal indicates a better brand attitude than the emotional appeal; no significant difference is found when product involvement drops to a low level.

Previous research investigating the moderating effect of involvement on the effects of message‐appeal types and the message source credibility of eWOM is rare. The main contribution of this study is to fill this gap.

This paper explores the potential competitive advantages from the development of an internal network of subsidiaries and external network of alliances. Given the broad scope and lack of systematic investigation in prior research, clinical field research was conducted in eleven Japanese subsidiaries in China. Our in‐depth interviews revealed that there are benefits and costs associated with the development of both subsidiary networks and alliance networks. While there are exploitation and exploration benefits from subsidiary network development, internationalizing firms (especially smaller firms) are subject to the liability of foreignness. Alliance network development is an effective way to mitigate this liability if internationalizing firms choose the right alliance strategy.

Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of private investor's fair preference on the governmental compensation mechanism based on the uncertainty of income for the public-private-partnership (PPP) project.

Based on the governmental dilemma for the compensation of PPP project, a generalized compensation contract is designed by the combination of compensation before the event and compensation after the event. Then the private investor's claimed concession profit is taken as its fair reference point according to the idea of the BO model, and its fair utility function is established by improving the FS model. Thus the master-slave counter measure game is applied to conduct the behavior modeling for the governmental compensation contract design.

By analyzing the model given in this paper, some conclusions are obtained. First, the governmental optimal compensation contract is fair incentive for the private investor. Second, the private fair preference is not intuitively positive or negative related to the social efficiency of compensation. Only under some given conditions, the correlation will show the consistent effect. Third, the private fair behavior’s impact on the efficiency of compensation will become lower and lower as the social cost of compensation reduces. Fourth, the governmental effective compensation scheme should be carried out based on the different comparison scene of the private claimed portfolio profit and the expected revenue for the project.

This study analyzes the effects of private investor's fair preference on the validity of governmental generalized compensation contract of the PPP project for the first time; and the governmental generalized compensation contract designed in this study is a pioneering and exploratory attempt.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Though prior studies have attempted to explore the various effects of managing information technology (IT) investment on firm performance, the mechanism through which management of IT impact on firm performance rests less clear. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of managing IT and business-IT alignment on firm performance.

Drawing on the resource-based theory and process theory, this study examines how managing IT impacts business-IT alignment and firm performance. The primary survey of 182 responses from IT and business managers from Sri Lanka was empirically examined.

The findings reveal that managing IT has a positive and strong impact on business-IT alignment and firm performance. Further, business-IT alignment partially mediates between managing IT investment and firm performance relationships.

Today, businesses have invested a massive amount of money in IT investment, and the return on this investment is always a serious concern for managers and industry practitioners. This study finding proposes meaningful insights on managing IT, business-IT alignment and firm performance.

This study opens up the black box on the above nomological linkage and contributes to the literature by extending the theoretical lenses while suggesting insightful and practical implications.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The traditional methods have difficulty to inspection various types of copper strips defects as inclusions, pits and delamination defects under uneven illumination. Therefore, this paper aims to propose an optimal real Gabor filter model for inspection; however, improper selection of Gabor parameters will cause the boundary between the defect and the background image to be not very clear. This will make the defect and the background cannot be completely separated.

The authors proposed an optimal Real Gabor filter model for inspection of copper surface defects under uneven illumination. This proposed method only requires a single filter by calculating the specific convolution energy of the Gabor filter with the image. The Real Gabor filter’s parameter is optimized by particle swarm optimization (PSO), which objective fitness function is maximization of the Gabor filter’s energy average divided by the energy standard deviation, the objective makes a distinction between the defect and normal area.

The authors have verified the effect with different iterations of parameter optimization using PSO, the effects with different control constant of energy and neighborhood window size of real Gabor filter, the experimental results on a number of metal surface have shown the proposed method achieved a well performance in defect recognition of metal surface.

The authors propose a defect detection method based on particle swarm optimization for single Gabor filter parameters optimization. This proposed method only requires a single filter and finds the best parameters of the Gabor filter. By calculating the specific convolution energy of the Gabor filter and the image, to obtain the best Gabor filter parameters and to highlight the defects, the particle swarm optimization algorithm’s fitness objective function is maximize the Gabor filter's average energy divided by the energy standard deviation.

The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is especially relevant in the context of Indonesian Airline companies. Therefore, many airline customers in Indonesia are still in doubt about it, or even do not use it. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for e-services adoption and empirically examines the factors influencing the airlines customers in Indonesia in using e-services offered by the Indonesian airline companies. Taking six Indonesian airline companies as a case example, the study investigated the antecedents of e-services usage of Indonesian airlines. This study further examined the impacts of motivation on customers in using e-services in the Indonesian context. Another important aim of this study was to investigate how ages, experiences and geographical areas moderate effects of e-services usage.

The study adopts a positivist research paradigm with a two-phase sequential mixed method design involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. An initial research model was first developed based on an extensive literature review, by combining acceptance and use of information technology theories, expectancy theory and the inter-organizational system motivation models. A qualitative field study via semi-structured interviews was then conducted to explore the present state among 15 respondents. The results of the interviews were analysed using content analysis yielding the final model of e-services usage. Eighteen antecedent factors hypotheses and three moderating factors hypotheses and 52-item questionnaire were developed. A focus group discussion of five respondents and a pilot study of 59 respondents resulted in final version of the questionnaire.

In the second phase, the main survey was conducted nationally to collect the research data among Indonesian airline customers who had already used Indonesian airline e-services. A total of 819 valid questionnaires were obtained. The data was then analysed using a partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique to produce the contributions of links in the e-services model (22% of all the variances in e-services usage, 37.8% in intention to use, 46.6% in motivation, 39.2% in outcome expectancy, and 37.7% in effort expectancy). Meanwhile, path coefficients and t-values demonstrated various different influences of antecedent factors towards e-services usage. Additionally, a multi-group analysis based on PLS is employed with mixed results. In the final findings, 14 hypotheses were supported and 7 hypotheses were not supported.

The major findings of this study have confirmed that motivation has the strongest contribution in e-services usage. In addition, motivation affects e-services usage both directly and indirectly through intention-to-use. This study provides contributions to the existing knowledge of e-services models, and practical applications of IT usage. Most importantly, an understanding of antecedents of e-services adoption will provide guidelines for stakeholders in developing better e-services and strategies in order to promote and encourage more customers to use e-services. Finally, the accomplishment of this study can be expanded through possible adaptations in other industries and other geographical contexts.