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1 – 10 of over 4000H.J. Christian van der Krift, Arjan J. van Weele and Josette M.P. Gevers
This study aims to propose a tool for conceptualizing and operationalizing perceptual distance in client-contractor collaborations: the perceptual distance monitor (PDM). This…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to propose a tool for conceptualizing and operationalizing perceptual distance in client-contractor collaborations: the perceptual distance monitor (PDM). This paper explains how this monitor was developed and used to examine the impact of perceptual distance on project outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper developed the PDM by gathering quantitative survey data from client and contractor representatives. Structural equation modeling tested the predictive validity of perceptual distance on project outcomes.
Findings
The PDM enables a valid and reliable assessment of the perceptual distance between client and contractor in projects. Moreover, the PDM shows that project outcomes suffer if parties have different perceptions of project objectives, project managers’ competences and the level of trust in the collaboration. These findings confirm the predictive validity of the PDM.
Research limitations/implications
The study builds on survey data representing dyadic perceptions from 38 measurements in collaborative projects. This paper may not have identified all the effects of perceptual distance on project outcomes, as the analyses were conducted at the project level. This research underlines the importance of gathering dyadic data for studies in interorganizational settings.
Practical implications
Perceptual distance can be expected between clients and contractors, and higher perceptual distance is generally associated with lower project outcomes. Using the PDM, project managers can concretize, discuss and monitor this perceptual distance over time. The PDM provides project managers with a useful tool to prevent the escalation of conflicts and project failure.
Originality/value
Based on agency theory and social identity theory, this study provides a unique and validated conceptualization and operationalization of perceptual distance between client and contractor in interorganizational collaborations and supply chains.
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Goudarz Azar and Rian Drogendijk
Our study explores the performance implications of deviations in managers’ perceptions of “cultural distance” – one of the most important concepts in International Business…
Abstract
Our study explores the performance implications of deviations in managers’ perceptions of “cultural distance” – one of the most important concepts in International Business research – when expanding into foreign markets. Despite much research on “cultural distance,” few researchers have paid attention to the effect of deviations in managers’ perceptions of cultural distance on firm performance. This is important since managers formulate strategies for responding to the environment based on their perceptions of the firm’s environment. These perceptions, however, do not always coincide with actual environmental characteristics. Therefore, formulating strategies based on inaccurate data may result in erroneous forecasts, missed opportunities and, ultimately, business failure. We explore this empirically by comparing managers’ perceptions of cultural distance to export markets of Swedish SMEs to cultural distance measures based on secondary data and relate deviations of perceptions to the performance of these SMEs. Our results show that the larger the deviations of managers’ perceptions of cultural differences from “actual differences” as expressed in Hofstede scores on cultural dimensions, the lower the performance expressed in firms’ sales. The implications of the study are discussed.
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Jin Young Chung, Faiz I. Anuar, Hanyoung Go and Ulrike Gretzel
The purpose of this paper is to test if and how interactive thematic maps can encourage the formation of tourists' perceptual maps of attractions in a destination.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test if and how interactive thematic maps can encourage the formation of tourists' perceptual maps of attractions in a destination.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were derived from 365 online trip planners generated by users of the Amish Country web site from 1 August 2007 to 31 July 2008. Given the nature of the data set, network analysis techniques were used to analyze the data.
Findings
Network analysis findings demonstrate that the things to do (TTD) included in the interactive Heritage Trail map were more frequently bundled together in the saved trip plans than TTDs included in other sections of the web site. Further analysis suggests that some additional non‐Heritage TTDs could be included in the Heritage Trail map due to their perceptual proximity.
Practical implications
The findings provide evidence that interactive maps on web sites can play an important role in tourists' planning behavior, which has significant implications for online tourism marketing. The findings also provide insights as to how online behavioral data can be used to derive marketing intelligence.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the theoretical development of the role of interactive maps in travel planning and also illustrates the usefulness of network analysis for investigating tourism‐related issues.
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Xiaochen Liu, Yukuan Xu, Qiang Ye and Yu Jin
Fierce competition in the crowdfunding market has resulted in high failure rates. Owing to their dedication and efforts, many founders have relaunched failed campaigns as a…
Abstract
Purpose
Fierce competition in the crowdfunding market has resulted in high failure rates. Owing to their dedication and efforts, many founders have relaunched failed campaigns as a second attempt. Despite the need for a better understanding, the success of campaign relaunches has not been well-researched. To fill this research gap, this study first theorizes how founders’ learning may enhance their competencies and influence investors’ attribution of entrepreneurial failure. The study then empirically documents the extent and conditions under which such learning efforts impact campaign relaunch performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines 5,798 Kickstarter-relaunched campaigns. The founders’ learning efforts are empirically captured by key changes in campaign design that deviate from past business practices. Word movers’ distances and perceptual hashing algorithms (pHash) are used separately to measure differences in campaign textual descriptions and pictorial designs.
Findings
Differences in textual descriptions and pictorial designs during campaign failure–relaunch are positively associated with campaign relaunch success. The impacts are further amplified when the previous failures are more severe.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to examine the success of a campaign relaunch after an initial failure. This study contributes to a better understanding of founders’ learning in crowdfunding contexts and provides insights into the strategies founders can adopt to reap performance benefits.
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Fredrik Nordin and Jessica Lindbergh
The purpose of this paper is to offer an integrative model of foreign market learning, including different learning processes, antecedents and outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer an integrative model of foreign market learning, including different learning processes, antecedents and outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper makes a critical review of the relevant literature, drawing on a keywords-based search of three major databases and a range of other published work for a broader perspective on the subject.
Findings
The resulting integrative model shows in a number of ways how companies can learn and benefit from differences in foreign markets and what results this can lead to.
Research limitations/implications
The sample of subject-specific contributions to the literature may have been insufficient, and a wider selection of keywords to identify them might have captured a richer variety of concepts and opinions.
Originality/value
The integrative model contributes to the literature on foreign market learning and innovation and serves as a basis for future studies and current management strategy.
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Xi Y. Leung, Billy Bai and Mehmet Erdem
The purpose of this study is to develop a typology of social media messages to compare the effectiveness of different message strategies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop a typology of social media messages to compare the effectiveness of different message strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 1,837 messages from 12 hotel brand Facebook pages were content-analyzed. Applying both correspondence analysis and multivariate analysis of variance, the study compared message strategy across hotel-scale levels and explored the effectiveness of different message strategies.
Findings
A typology of four-type message format and six-type message content was developed. The picture message was the best message format. Product, brand and involvement messages were shown to be more effective than information, reward and promotion messages. Promotion message was the least effective message content type.
Research limitations/implications
The major limitation of this study is the generalizability owing to the sample selection process. There is also the limitation on exclusion of control variables, selection of the three effectiveness measures and evolving social media technology.
Practical implications
The typology of Facebook message strategy developed in the study provided guidelines for hotel marketers to create messages on Facebook pages and track effectiveness. Hotels should also take full advantage of the picture format and product, brand and involvement contents.
Originality/value
This study created a new typology of social media message strategy consisting of two dimensions. It also provided empirical evidence to support the application of message strategy theory in the hotel social media marketing area.
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Christopher Henry and James F. Peters
The purpose of this paper is to present near set theory using the perceptual indiscernibility and tolerance relations, to demonstrate the practical application of near set theory…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present near set theory using the perceptual indiscernibility and tolerance relations, to demonstrate the practical application of near set theory to the image correspondence problem, and to compare this method with existing image similarity measures.
Design/methodology/approach
Image‐correspondence methodologies are present in many systems that are depended on daily. In these systems, the discovery of sets of similar objects (aka, tolerance classes) stems from human perception of the objects being classified. This view of perception of image‐correspondence springs directly from Poincaré's work on visual spaces during 1890s and Zeeman's work on tolerance spaces and visual acuity during 1960s. Thus, in solving the image‐correspondence problem, it is important to have systems that accurately model human perception. Near set theory provides a framework for measuring the similarity of digital images (and perceptual objects, in general) based on features that describe them in much the same way that humans perceive objects.
Findings
The contribution of this paper is a perception‐based classification of images using near sets.
Originality/value
The method presented in this paper represents a new approach to solving problems in which the goal is to match human perceptual groupings. While the results presented in the paper are based on measuring the resemblance between images, the approach can be applied to any application that can be formulated in terms of sets such that the objects in the sets can be described by feature vectors.
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Cristina B. Gibson, Jay Conger and Cecily Cooper
In this chapter, we propose a theory of perceptual distance and its implications for team leadership and team outcomes. Perceptual distance is defined as the variance in the…
Abstract
In this chapter, we propose a theory of perceptual distance and its implications for team leadership and team outcomes. Perceptual distance is defined as the variance in the perceptions of the same social stimulus, which in this case, is either a team leader's behavior or the team's behavior. The general research question that we will address is, “What are the consequences of perceptual distance for team process and outcomes?” Our basic argument is that the relationship between perceptual distance and team processes and outcomes is moderated by two key cultural characteristics: power distance and collectivism. For example, depending upon the dynamics of power distance, large differences in perceptions of a team leader's behavior can negatively impact team productivity. Similarly, depending upon the dynamics of collectivism, significant variations in perceptions of team cohesion can negatively influence conflict resolution.
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This paper seeks to propose a new non‐intrusive method for the assessment of speech quality of voice communication systems and evaluate its performance.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to propose a new non‐intrusive method for the assessment of speech quality of voice communication systems and evaluate its performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The method is based on measuring perception‐based objective auditory distances between the voiced parts of the output speech to appropriately matching references extracted from a pre‐formulated codebook. The codebook is formed by optimally clustering a large number of parametric speech vectors extracted from a database of clean speech records. The auditory distances are then mapped into equivalent subjective mean opinion scores (MOSs). The required clustering and matching processes are achieved by an efficient data‐mining tool known as the self‐organizing map (SOM). The proposed method was examined using a wide range of distortion including speech compression, wireless channel impairments, VoIP channel impairments, and modifications to the signal from features such as AGC.
Findings
The experimental results reported indicate that the proposed method provides a high level of accuracy in predicting the actual subjective quality of the speech. Specifically, the second version of the method, which is based on the use of bark spectrum (BS) analysis, is more accurate in predicting the MOS scores compared with its first and third versions (which are based on BS analysis and mel frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC), respectively), and outperforms the ITU‐T PESQ in a large number of test cases, particularly those related to distortion caused by channel impairments and signal level modifications.
Research limitations/implications
It is believed that the prototype developed of the proposed objective speech quality measure is sufficiently accurate and robust against speaker, utterance and distortion type variations. Nevertheless, there are still possible directions for further improvements and enhancement. In general there are three areas that could be pursued for further improvements: widening the coverage of speaker variations of the system's codebook; formulating and using a perceptual speech model that provides true speaker‐independent representation of speech; and implementing the proposed measure as a stand‐alone system, preferably for real‐time applications.
Practical implications
Being an output‐based method, the proposed method can be employed for monitoring and assessing telecommunications networks under both live traffic conditions and off‐line evaluation.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a new output‐based, non‐intrusive method for the assessment of speech quality that is sufficiently accurate and robust. To the best of the author's knowledge, no reliable output‐based objective speech quality assessment method has to date been reported or formally recognised.
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