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The purpose of this paper is to model the key influencers or predictors for usage of technology by sales professionals in India.

This study examines the effect of individual, organizational and social factors on the use of technology. The method used for primary research is survey, and data have been collected from 556 sales professionals from across four industries in India. The empirical analysis consists of confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling.

Confirmatory factor analysis has been used to validate the constructs, namely, peer usage, support service, perceived usefulness, attitude, usage and performance. Based on the results, it has been concluded that attitude and peer usage have a direct effect on the use of technology. Support service affects peer usage and perceived usefulness affects attitude. This model helps us understand the direct and indirect predictors of use of sales technology (ST), and its effect on sales performance.

The limitation of this study is that data pertain to India only.

The findings of this paper will help sales managers and organizations develop strategies to increase the acceptance and use of new technologies, and also strengthen their arguments for convincing the various stakeholders about the benefits and relevance of the ST.

The paper attempts to build and validate a parsimonious model taking into account peer usage (social factor) and support service (organizational factor) in addition to perceived usefulness and attitude.

This study aims to examine factors affecting Chinese adolescents’ purchase intention for local brands; this study focuses on the effects of perceived social status value and materialistic values.

A theoretical model relating perceived social status value of brands to purchase intention, including materialistic values as a moderator, was developed and tested, using a sample of 587 Chinese adolescent respondents. Another experimental study examined the variability of the moderation of materialistic values across different levels of peer pressure in a product usage occasion.

Perceived social status value associated with local and foreign brands significantly influences purchase intention for local brands. Moreover, influence of perceived social status value of local versus foreign brands on local brand purchase intention is greater for materialistic adolescents. Additionally, the moderation of materialistic values is found in a product usage occasion with high peer pressure, but not in an occasion with low peer pressure.

The findings show that perceived social status value associated with brands shapes purchase intention for local brands. The moderating effect of materialistic values is complex and suggests further research. The study’s scope is limited to Chinese adolescents.

The findings provide understanding of the drivers of purchase intention, and thus serve as a guideline for Chinese firms and foreign marketers seeking to enter the growing Chinese market, as well as consumer educators in China.

This study contributes to the limited empirical research into the factors shaping country-of-origin effects. Moreover, the findings suggest the need to consider the moderating role of materialistic values on purchase intention for local brands.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of antecedent factors on collaborative technologies usage among academic researchers in Malaysian research universities.

Data analysis was conducted on data collected from 156 academic researchers from five Malaysian research universities. This study employed an extensive quantitative approach of a structural equation modeling method to evaluate the research model and to test the hypotheses.

The main findings of this study are that personal innovativeness, task-technology fit, and perceived peer usage are significant predictors of individual usage of collaborative technologies; perceived managerial support and subjective norm were found not to be significant predictors to perceived usefulness and individual usage; and perceived usefulness is a significant mediator to individual usage in that it had fully mediated personal innovativeness whereas partially mediated peer usage.

The results provide practical insights into how the Malaysian higher education sector and other research organizations of not-for-profit structure could enhance their collaborative technologies usage.

This research is perhaps the first that concentrates on collaborative technologies usage in Malaysian research universities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine small business owners’ informal advice-seeking from peers, with a focus on the opportunities afforded by the internet for owners to acquire assistance from other owner-managers outside their local community.

Over 600 owner-managers in a rural US state were surveyed about their advice-seeking during the previous year from peers in the same community, from non-local peers they had met in person, and from peers known only online. Mixed effects logistic regression analysis was used to test both main effects of business and owner characteristics on advice-seeking and interactions with type/location of peer advisors.

Most owners had received advice from peers, and one-third had received advice online from a peer whom they had never met in person. Business performance was not associated with overall use of peer advice, but did interact significantly with source; the use of online-only advisors was associated with business growth, suggesting the possible benefit of weak ties. Over two-thirds of respondents reported having used social media and/or online forums to access advice or support from other owners (both those met in person and those not), with women and younger owners more likely to rely on such tools.

This study shows that entrepreneurial research needs to consider peer advisors beyond local networks as potential resources for small business owners. While previous research has examined entrepreneurs’ use of social media for marketing, this study shows its utility for accessing advice.

E‐resource usage statistics contain a wealth of information, but mining that information from the massive amounts of data can be time consuming, expensive, and dangerous. Focuses on the practical aspects of getting some use out of usage statistics. Recent national studies in the USA and efforts to standardize the gathering and interpretation of e‐resource usage statistics show promise for accelerating the adoption and diffusion of reliable, meaningful usage information. The article concludes with some speculation about the overall value and long‐term potential for e‐resource usage statistics.

This research aims at understanding the routes public e-marketplaces take, in the motor carrier spot market, to generate trust among participants.

This work borrows cue signaling theory and an e-marketplace content analysis instrument from information systems literature. Our primary data captures differences in usage of a broad spectrum of cues between motor carrier spot e-marketplaces and a control sample.

Transportation e-marketplaces use graphical cues more frequently than the control sample, display these cues on their “operational path” (where users click to conduct transactions) and try to generate beliefs in participants' integrity and competence.

The motor carrier online spot market constitutes a relevant test bed for trust-related theories. Several levels of trust-building conceptualizations are tested; the cue level shows the most potential. This paper extends cue signaling theory in the transportation e-marketplace context and calls for further work on operational path cues to enrich swift trust theories.

This study helps e-marketplace designers by identifying essential and facultative cues for the motor carrier spot market.

Research on public spot e-marketplaces in the motor carrier context is scant. The context is described in detail to show its specificities in structures and behaviors. This helps to contribute to both practice and research. By evolving an existing research instrument from information systems literature, this study ensures replicability (problematic in academic research) .

This study aims to explore the relationships between consumer data vulnerability, peer privacy concerns and consumers' continued usage intention of sharing accommodation platforms, as well as the moderating effects of the various benefits perceived by consumers.

Data were collected from 327 consumers of sharing accommodation platforms in China. Partial least squares (PLS)-structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to test the research hypotheses.

The results suggest that both consumer data vulnerability and peer privacy concerns have negative effects on consumer's continued usage intention of sharing accommodation platforms, which can be further mitigated by consumer perceived economic, social and emotional benefits. This study also finds that consumer data vulnerability has a positive effect on consumer's peer privacy concerns.

This study gives that managers of sharing accommodation platforms a better understanding of how consumers respond to their data vulnerability on sharing accommodation platforms. In addition, this study also highlights the measures that platforms may employ to mitigate the negative influence of consumer data vulnerability and consumers' peer privacy concerns, as well as the measures to reduce consumers' peer privacy concerns.

While previous studies mainly examined the driving forces of consumers' engagement in sharing accommodation, this study focuses on the impediment. With communication privacy management theory to explore the relationships between consumer data vulnerability, peer privacy concerns and continued usage intention of sharing accommodation platforms, as well as the moderating effects of consumers' perceived benefits, this study facilitates a more comprehensive understanding of consumers' engagement in sharing accommodation.

The purpose of this paper is to check the veracity of educators’ apprehensions about peer assessments by comparing them with the actual peer assessment scores. It also explores the levels of satisfaction and current usage of peer assessment tools among educators.

The first phase of this study aims at providing insights into the educators’ apprehensions, their satisfaction and usage levels of peer assessments. The second phase involves analysis of peer assessment scores of 539 students in 117 teams. Findings from statistical analysis of peer assessment scores are compared against the apprehensions of educators.

The results do not support the apprehensions among educators about peer assessments. Findings on the usage, satisfaction levels of educators and their future intentions of using peer assessments are also presented in this paper.

Studies with larger sample size, qualitative in-depth research on experiences, designs and conditions of successful peer assessments and studies based on users’ experiences of peer assessments will help in getting richer insights in this area.

Results of this study indicate a need for educators to shed their apprehensions and adopt online or offline peer assessments tools with trust and confidence.

This study is important due to the existence of contrary views, inconsistent results and lack of adequate familiarity about the use, efficacy and practice of peer assessments. Though previous studies have tried to establish the reliability of peer assessments, this study finds that educators are still apprehensive about peer assessments. This is a unique study as no previous research has attempted a comparative study to check the veracity of the apprehensions of educators about peer assessments using the actual peer assessment scores.

This paper investigates the adoption, structure, and function of dispute resolution procedures in the nonunion workplace. Whereas grievance procedures in unionized workplaces have been an important area of study in the field of industrial relations, research on dispute resolution procedures in nonunion workplaces has lagged behind. As a result, our knowledge of the development of nonunion procedures remains relatively limited. Similarly, with a few noteworthy exceptions (e.g. Lewin, 1987, 1990), our knowledge of workplace grievance activity is almost entirely based on research conducted in unionized settings. Given the major differences in the institutional contexts of union and nonunion workplaces in the United States, existing ideas about workplace dispute resolution developed in the unionized setting will likely require significant modification in order to understand dispute resolution procedures and activity in the nonunion workplace. Issues relating to dispute resolution in the nonunion workplace are of increasing importance to public policy given the combination of continued stagnation in levels of union representation and mounting concerns over rising levels of employment litigation in the courts. Knowing what nonunion dispute resolution procedures look like and how they function will help answer the question of what role these procedures may play in the future governance of the workplace.