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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role service quality, satisfaction and commitment play in word of mouth (WOM) formation among adult learners in Singapore.

The study used a quantitative survey of 165 adult students who were enrolled in part‐time undergraduate programmes at the Singapore Institute of Management, to examine the relationships of interest.

The impact service quality had on WOM formation was examined, with student satisfaction and commitment being modelled as mediators of this relationship. The results suggested functional service quality, rather than technical service quality, impacted on WOM formation, with student satisfaction playing an important mediating role. The study also showed that, although student satisfaction had a significant effect on both aspects of commitment (affective commitment and high‐sacrifice commitment), affective commitment led to WOM being given.

The study examined adult learners enrolled in part‐time undergraduate management programmes. Younger, full‐time students’ WOM may not be impacted in the same way.

Having a better understanding of WOM formation helps education institution managers focus on the “right” antecedents, which are functional service quality, satisfaction and affective commitment. The results also suggest broader responsibilities for such managers. If their goal is to increase student enrolments, in which WOM plays an important role, the management of student services is crucial and should be seen as a marketing tool, as well as an administrative process.

The relationships examined have not been investigated previously in an educational environment and the results suggest education managers need to understand them as they plays crucial roles in determining WOM, which plays a significant role in determining students’ educational preferences. If processes and strategies can be developed that improve service quality, satisfaction, commitment and WOM will all be positively influenced.

The two main objectives of this study are to systematically and formally test for differences in the impact of various determinants of e‐commerce adoption depending on the current level of e‐commerce, and to investigate the possible direct impact of the current level of adoption on the intention to further adopt.

A conceptual framework is developed from the literature. The model is tested using survey data from 98 small and medium‐sized enterprises in The Netherlands.

The results indicate significantly smaller effects of both knowledge and satisfaction for companies at the advanced level of e‐commerce compared with companies at the basic level. The current adoption level has a highly significant positive direct effect on adoption intention. These findings imply that at the higher levels of adoption the classical adoption determinants have less effect and other less explored factors are more important.

This study is one of the first empirical studies to deal with multiple levels of innovation adoption. It is concluded that, when innovations can be adopted at various levels, the determinants of innovation adoption vary between different levels of adoption. This finding deserves further attention from researchers, consultants and policy makers.

This study aims at contributing to the discussion related to what causes Canadian small and medium‐size enterprises (SMEs) to be reticent about accepting internet and e‐business technologies (IEBT) in their operations. The research also seeks to gain an understanding of the relative importance of each of the selected factors in the research setting.

A survey was conducted in the Atlantic region of Canada. Questionnaires were mailed to key SMEs' informants. Data analysis was performed using the partial least squares (PLS) approach. A research framework based on the technology‐organization‐environment (TOE) frameworks was used to guide the research effort. Such contingent factors as perceived benefits, management commitment/support, organizational IT competence, external pressure, information systems (IS) vendor support, and availability of financial support, were used to develop relevant hypotheses.

The study's findings indicated that perceived benefits, management commitment/support, and external pressure are significant predictors of IEBT acceptance in the sampled SMEs; the results did not show that organizational IT competence, IS vendor support, and availability of financial support positively influence IEBT acceptance in the sampled SMEs.

Policy makers, industry leaders, and small business operators wishing to understand some of the reasons why certain SMEs in the country lag in the adoption of IEBT and related technologies can benefit from the information provided in this study. The study also alerted the attention of local IS vendors and financial institutions to what can be done to strengthen IS adoption in Canadian small businesses.

A handful of previous research in Canada has researched IEBT adoption; however, some of these studies are dated. A such, this current investigation of IEBT acceptance in a less endowed part of the country is timely and welcoming; it also serves to complement other prior studies in the country and elsewhere. A scan of the extant literature indicates that no previous study in the country has modeled some of the factors (e.g. the availability of financial support) as were used herein. The inclusion of such a factor enriches insight in this area of study.

The study aims to adopt a multi‐stakeholder and inter‐organizational information systems (IOIS) approach for investigating the factors affecting the adoption of destination management systems (DMS) by various tourism stakeholders in Greece.

A literature review and focus groups were used for identifying and contextualizing the factors affecting the tourism stakeholders' decision to adopt DMS. In addition, a nationwide survey was conducted measuring the perceptions of various stakeholders in Greece about the factors influencing their DMS adoption.

The findings demonstrate that inter‐organizational and collaboration issues, secondary intra‐organizational and technological factors affect stakeholders' decision to adopt DMS. Significant different perceptions about the role and effectiveness of DMS were found between private and public tourism organizations, which highlight the need to manage the different (and sometimes conflicting) stakeholders' perceptions and interests.

Research can be conducted in different sectors to refine and test the findings about the factors influencing IOIS adoption in various social and environmental contexts. Future studies could also refine the findings by investigating not only the factors affecting the adoption of DMS but also the factors influencing their implementation and operations.

The findings reveal important factors that need to be considered for influencing the stakeholders' decision to adopt IOIS and DMS in tourism. Specifically, the study highlights the need to address the adoption of DMS as a socio‐technical project that primarily emphasizes the management of stakeholders' relations, perceptions and interests. The findings also reveal the organizational and behavioural changes that are required in order to transform the management and increase the effectiveness of public DMS, which in turn can significantly increase the DMS adoption.

The findings contribute to the tourism field by examining DMS from a multi‐stakeholder and IOIS approach. The study also contributes to the IOIS literature by contextualizing and providing evidence of IOIS results from the tourism industry, since contextualization is considered crucial for refining and enhancing the transferability of IOIS research. The study also further advances IOIS research by including and investigating the perceived importance of items about the social context of IOIS (i.e. interorganizational and collaboration issues) as explanatory factors of IOIS adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the innovative characteristics, benefits, and barriers influencing internet‐based information and communications technology (ICT) adoption among the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

A questionnaire‐based survey was used to collect data from 406 managers or owners of SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia.

The results suggest that internet‐based ICT adoption provides a low cost yet effective communication tool for customers. However, security continues to be a major barrier. Finding on cost as a barrier is mixed. The inferential statistics reveal that relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability, and security are significant factors influencing internet‐based ICT adoption.

The study focuses only on the SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia.

The findings offer valuable insights to policy makers in general and to the SMEs in particular on the significance of the measured characteristics and the associated benefits and barriers of internet‐based ICT adoption.

The study is perhaps one of the first to comprehensively address internet‐based ICT adoption among the SMEs through the use of a wide range of variables.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the critical factors for the diffusion of web technologies in supply chain management (SCM) functions, based on the technology‐organizational‐environment model, and to identify the benefits resulting from diffusion.

Data were collected, via an internet survey, from 251 respondents, ranging from middle‐level to top‐level managers, from firms which currently utilize web technologies for their supply chain activities. Structural equation modelling was employed for five factors: relative advantage; competitive pressure; complexity; trialability; and top management support, which have been hypothesized to affect the diffusion of web technologies in SCM functions.

The results suggest that all the factors except trialability are significant predictors of web technologies' diffusion in supply chain functions. The results show also that by diffusing web technologies, organizations can enhance their supply chain activities.

The survey was conducted in a Malaysian context, using a limited set of variables, thus limiting the generalizability of the findings.

This study provides a greater understanding of managers' perception of web technology diffusion in their organizational SCM functions, and benefits realizing from diffusion of web technology, such as operational efficiency.

Those interested in adopting web technologies in their supply chain activities may find these results helpful in guiding their efforts.

This study aims to compare linear programming and stable marriage approaches to the personnel assignment problem under conditions of uncertainty. Robust solutions should exhibit reduced variability of solutions in the presence of one or more additional constraints or problem perturbations added to some baseline problems.

Several variations of each approach are compared with respect to solution speed, solution quality as measured by officer-to-assignment preferences and solution robustness as measured by the number of assignment changes required after inducing a set of representative perturbations or constraints to an assignment instance. These side constraints represent the realistic assignment categorical priorities and limitations encountered by army assignment managers who solve this problem semiannually, and thus the synthetic instances considered herein emulate typical problem instances.

The results provide insight regarding the trade-offs between traditional optimization and heuristic-based solution approaches.

The results indicate the viability of using the stable marriage algorithm for talent management via the talent marketplace currently used by both the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force for personnel assignments.

Since the launch of the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) in 2003, Hong Kong cinema is believed to have confronted drastic changes. Hong Kong cinema is described to be dying, lacking creative space and losing local distinctiveness. A decade later, the rise of Hong Kong – China coproduction cinema under CEPA has been normalized and changed the once pessimism in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Hong Kong cinema adjusted its production and creation in the first 10 years of CEPA.

Beginning with a review of the overall development, three paradigmatic cases are examined for reflecting upon what the major industrial and commercial concerns on the Hong Kong – China coproduction model are, and how such a coproduction model is not developed as smooth as what the Hong Kong filmmakers expected.

Collectively, this paper singles out the difficulties in operation and the limit of transnationality that occur in the Chinese context for the development of Hong Kong cinema under the Hong Kong – China coproduction model.

This is the author’s research in his five-year study of Hong Kong cinema and it contributes a lot to the field of cinema studies with relevant industrial and policy concern.

This research outlines the Hong Kong film industry with examination of key actors, directors, films, and production companies within the martial arts genre of Hong Kong Action Cinema. Hong Kong Film Award winners and nominees, core films within genres, and core reference works both general and theoretical from experts in the field of Hong Kong martial arts film research have been highlighted. Web sites are suggested that provide reviews of Hong Kong martial arts films, biographical information on a variety of actors and actresses as well as comprehensive bibliographic information on select films. Also included are commercial Web sites that provide Hong Kong martial arts films.

As evidence mounts on the importance of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to national and international economies and the opportunities presented to them by the internet, it becomes important to understand the key issues which determine internet adoption and utilisation. With literature on SME internet adoption fragmented and incoherent, there is also a need for conceptual framework development and testing to provide more focused research in this important area. Several researchers have also highlighted a need for research which concentrates more on specific industrial sectors rather than taking a more generalist approach to SME internet adoption. Within this evolving research context, the agri‐food industry makes a particularly relevant area of study, which this paper aims to study.

This paper addresses this purpose by conducting a study of 50 Northern Ireland SME agri‐food companies. The study utilises and tests a conceptual framework derived from the extant literature in relation to the determinants of SME web site adoption and utilisation.

The findings of this study point to the need for SME agri‐food companies to develop an awareness of the internet's efficacy for their business and a subsequent dynamic strategic approach in adoption and utilisation. However, the lack of marketing ability and negative industry norms prevalent within developed economy agri‐food industries will contribute negatively to internet adoption and utilisation. These will need to be addressed if the internet, and web site adoption and utilisation in particular, are to provide an effective business tool. The research findings support the conceptual framework's usefulness as a research tool. The findings point to the importance of marketing ability and industry norms in relation to their impact on the central determinants of internet adoption by the SME agri‐food companies studied.

In this paper it is contended that a lack of marketing ability and negative industry attitudes towards internet adoption and utilisation will constrain levels of awareness of the efficacy of the internet as a business tool for the individual businesses researched. The findings reveal that this will subsequently contribute to a lack of strategic web site development and subsequent utilisation.