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Drawing on prior research on strengths use and job performance, this study aims to investigate how employees’ strengths use for tasks and strengths use for relationships jointly influence role breadth self-efficacy and subsequent job performance, specifically in- and extra-role performances.

To test the assumptions, the authors methodologically performed a polynomial regression with response surface analysis using data collected from multiple time points and sources (i.e. 312 employee–supervisor dyads in Chinese companies).

The results showed that the higher the congruence between strengths use for tasks and strengths use for relationships, the higher the employees’ role breadth self-efficacy. Employees’ role breadth self-efficacy was greater when both strengths use for tasks and strengths use for relationships were high. Furthermore, the congruence between strengths use for tasks and strengths use for relationships had indirect effects on in- and extra-role performances via role breadth self-efficacy.

This study uniquely contributes to the strengths use literature by offering a more nuanced understanding of the consequences of strengths use for tasks and strengths use for relationships in the Chinese context. It highlights the importance of both types of strengths use for improving employee performance in Chinese organizations. Furthermore, this study provides new theoretical insights into the relationship between strengths use and job performance by ascertaining the mediating effect of role breadth self-efficacy.

This study examines the relationship between streamers' product descriptions, customer comments and online sales and focuses on the moderating effect of streamer–viewer relationship strength.

Between June 2021 and April 2022, the structured data of 965 livestreaming and unstructured text data of 42,956,147 characters from two major live-streaming platforms were collected for the study. Text analysis and regression analysis methods were employed for data analysis.

First, the authors' analysis reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between comment length and product sales. Notably, comment volume and comment emotion positively influence product sales. Furthermore, the semantic richness, emotion and readability of streamers' product descriptions also positively influence product sales. Secondly, the authors find that the strength of streamer–viewer relationship weakens the positive effects of comment volume and comment emotion without moderating the inverted U-shaped effect of comment length. Lastly, the strength of streamer–viewer relationship also diminishes the positive effects of emotion, semantics and readability of streamers' product descriptions on product sales.

This study is the first to concurrently examine the direct and interactive effects of user-generated content (UGC) and marketer-generated content (MGC) on consumer purchase behaviors in livestreaming e-commerce, offering a novel perspective on individual decision-making and cue utilization in the social retail context.

Social media is widely regarded as a strategic resource to improve firm performance. However, there are mixed findings on how businesses can use social media for better performance. This study aims to propose and test a mechanism through which social media can influence firm performance.

A survey approach was used to collect data from 262 small businesses in South Africa. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) to assess the hypothesised relationships.

The findings support the significant role of social media in fostering firm performance. It is observed that the use of social media influences firm performance through three key customer-centric constructs: the strength of customer–firm relationships, customer orientation and customer co-creation. Additionally, the relationship between the strength of customer–firm relationships and firm performance is moderated by customer co-creation.

The study provides new insights into the mechanism through which social media fosters firm performance. Due to a lack of universality in establishing the direct effect of social media use on firm performance, providing evidence of an indirect path becomes vital for advancing knowledge on social media use in business. As such, this study contributes to the literature on social media and entrepreneurship by demonstrating a novel mechanism through which social media influences firm performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the replacement of natural coarse aggregate (NCA) with different percentages of recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) on properties of low calcium fly ash (FA)-based geopolymer concrete (GPC) cured at oven temperature. Further, this paper aims to study the effect of partial replacement of FA by ground granulated blast slag (GGBS) in GPC made with both NCA and RCA cured under ambient temperature curing.

M25 grade of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) concrete was designed according to IS: 10262-2019 with 100% NCA as control concrete. Since no standard guidelines are available in the literature for GPC, the same mix proportion was adopted for the GPC by replacing the OPC with 100% FA and W/C ratio by alkalinity/binder ratio. All FA-based GPC mixes were prepared with 12 M of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and an alkalinity ratio, i.e. sodium hydroxide to sodium silicate (NaOH:Na₂SiO₃) of 1:1.5, subjected to 90^°C temperature for 48 h of curing. The NCA were replaced with 50% and 100% RCA in both OPC and GPC mixes. Further, FA was partially replaced with 15% GGBS in GPC made with the above percentages of NCA and RCA, and they were given ambient temperature curing with the same molarity of NaOH and alkalinity ratio.

The workability, compressive strength, split tensile strength, flexural strength, water absorption, density, volume of voids and rebound hammer value of all the mixes were studied. Further, the relationship between compressive strength and other mechanical properties of GPC mixes were established and compared with the well-established relationships available for conventional concrete. From the experimental results, it is found that the compressive strength of GPC under ambient curing condition at 28 days with 100% NCA, 50% RCA and 100% RCA were, respectively, 14.8%, 12.85% and 17.76% higher than those of OPC concrete. Further, it is found that 85% FA and 15% GGBS-based GPC with RCA under ambient curing shown superior performance than OPC concrete and FA-based GPC cured under oven curing.

The scope of the present paper is limited to replace the FA by 15% GGBS. Further, only 50% and 100% RCA are used in place of natural aggregate. However, in future study, the replacement of FA by different amounts of GGBS (20%, 25%, 30% and 35%) may be tried to decide the optimum utilisation of GGBS so that the applications of GPC can be widely used in cast in situ applications, i.e. under ambient curing condition. Further, in the present study, the natural aggregate is replaced with only 50% and 100% RCA in GPC. However, further investigations may be carried out by considering different percentages between 50 and 100 with the optimum compositions of FA and GGBS to enhance the use of RCA in GPC applications. The present study is further limited to only the mechanical properties and a few other properties of GPC. For wider use of GPC under ambient curing conditions, the structural performance of GPC needs to be understood. Therefore, the structural performance of GPC subjected to different loadings under ambient curing with RCA to be investigated in future study.

The replacement percentage of natural aggregate by RCA may be further enhanced to 50% in GPC under ambient curing condition without compromising on the mechanical properties of concrete. This may be a good alternative for OPC and natural aggregate to reduce pollution and leads sustainability in the construction.

Assessing project criticality in a project portfolio (PP) is of great practical significance to improve robustness from damage. While project criticality assessment has increased diversity in approaches, the understanding of vulnerable project impacts is still limited. To promote a better understanding of assessing project criticality, a vulnerability measurement model is constructed.

First, integrating the tasks, projects and corresponding relationships among them, a project portfolio network (PPN) is constructed. Second, the project's vulnerability is measured by combining the topological structure and functional attributes. Third, project criticality is assessed by the vulnerability measurement results. Lastly, the proposed model is applied in a numerical example to illustrate its suitability and effectiveness.

For academia, this study provides a novel perspective on project vulnerability measurement and expands project criticality assessment tools. For practitioners, the straightforward model provides an effective tool for assessing project criticality and contributes to enhancing project portfolio management (PPM).

The impact of the task on the project is considered in this study. Topological structure and functional attributes are also integrated for measuring project vulnerability due to the impact of random attacks in an uncertain environment, providing a new perspective on the requirements of project criticality assessment and the measurement of project vulnerability.

Social recommendation has been recognized as a kind of e-commerce with large potential, but how social recommendations influence consumer decisions is still unclear. This paper aims to investigate how recommendations from different social ties influence consumers’ purchase intentions through both behavior and brain activity.

Utilizing behavioral (N = 70) and electroencephalogram (EEG) (N = 49) experiments, this study explored participants’ behavior and brain responses after being recommended by different social ties. The data were analyzed using statistical inference and event-related potential (ERP) analysis.

Behavioral results show that social tie strength positively impacts purchase intention, which can be fitted by a logarithmic model. Moreover, recommender-to-customer similarity and product affect mediate the effect of tie strength on purchase intention serially. EEG findings show that recommendations from weak tie strength elicit larger N100, N200 and P300 amplitudes than those from strong tie strength. These results imply that weak tie strength may motivate individuals to recruit more mental resources in social recommendation, including unconscious processing of consumer attention and conscious processing of cognitive conflict and negative emotion.

This study considers the effects of continuous social ties on purchase intention and models them mathematically, exploring the intrinsic mechanisms by which strong and weak ties influence purchase intentions through recommender-to-customer similarity and product affect, contributing to the applications of the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model in the field of social recommendation. Furthermore, our study adopting EEG techniques bridges the gap of relying solely on self-report by providing an avenue to obtain relatively objective findings about the consumers’ early-occurred (unconscious) attentional responses and late-occurred (conscious) cognitive and emotional responses in purchase decisions.

This research investigates performance determinants of service sector foreign-owned subsidiaries located in an emerging market. The focus is on the two dimensions of organizational networks (Who do you know?) and competencies (What do you know?).

Data were collected via a large-scale survey of managing directors located in the midrange emerging economy of Taiwan. The data are analyzed using partial least squares structured equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) techniques.

The results show the importance of intraorganizational network strength as a key determinant of subsidiary performance, and that combinations of interorganizational network strength and competencies can determine performance in several subsidiaries.

This article offers new insights by testing a theoretical framework based on network perspective and the competence-based view of the firm in an emerging market context. It also offers an additional twist by employing symmetric (PLS-SEM) and nonsymmetric (fsQCA) methods to test the framework. This allows to arrive at robust conclusions about the complementarity and substitutability of the applied theories. This research also contributes to the current literature by providing fine-grained insights into the nature and impact of competencies and networks. It is also one of the few studies to focus specifically on service sector subsidiaries.

This study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion of how consumers approach shopping directly via social media by explicating decisions related to trust on social media and how various types of electronic word of mouth (eWOM; ratings and reviews, recommendations and referrals and social media communities) contribute to these decisions.

A total of 198 respondents with experience shopping directly via social media were instructed to select the platform on which they had the most shopping experience (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.) to answer relevant survey questions. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for analyzing the results.

Findings reveal that eWOM provided by strong ties (recommendations and referrals; social media communities) is superior to weak ties (ratings and reviews). Surprisingly, ratings and reviews do not significantly relate to trust in the retailer, suggesting that this information may be necessary but not sufficient for trusting retailers on social media.

This research distinguishes trust decisions related to shopping on social media and clarifies how each type of eWOM uniquely influences trust in the retailer by using tie strength theory.

This study aims to practically determine the optimum proportion of aggregates to attain the desired strength of geopolymer concrete (GPC) and then compare the results using established analytical particle packing methods. The investigation further aims to assess the influence of various amounts of recycled aggregate (RA) on properties of low-calcium fly ash-based GPC of grade M25.

Fine and coarse aggregates were blended in various proportions and the proportion yielding maximum packing density was selected as the optimum proportion and they were compared with analytical models, such as Modified Toufar Model (MTM) and J. D. Dewar Model. RAs for this study were produced in laboratory and they were used in various amounts, namely, 0%, 50% and 100%. 12M NaOH solution was mixed with Na₂SiO₃ in the ratio of 1:2. The curing of concrete was done at the temperatures of 60° and 90 °C for 24, 48 and 72h.

The experimentally obtained optimum proportion of coarse to fine aggregate was 60:40 for all amounts of RA. Meanwhile, MTM and Dewar Model resulted in coarse aggregate to fine aggregates as 40:60, 45:55, 55:45 and 55:45, 35:65, 60:40, respectively, for 0% 100% and 50% RAs. The compressive strength of GPC elevated with the increase in curing regime. In addition, the ultrasonic pulse velocity also displayed a similar trend as that of strength.

The GPC with 50% RAs may be considered for use, as it exhibited superior properties compared to GPC with 100% RAs and was comparable to GPC with natural aggregates. Furthermore, compressive strength is correlated with split tensile strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity.

This paper aims to examine how character strengths have an important dual role in mental health in both promoting well-being and mental wellness and also in reducing symptoms and suffering. While there are many studies that have touched upon variables that character strengths can enhance for mental well-being or reduce for suffering, the author actually knows very little about how character strengths might relate to or impact mental health.

A large-scale study of 12,050 individuals was conducted to explore the self-perceived character strengths that are most helpful for mental health, for handling physical adversity, for handling social adversity and for fostering psychological well-being.

Some character strengths showed a general effect – showing a strong perceived impact across multiple domains – such as love, perspective, kindness, hope, humor and curiosity. Other character strengths showed a specific effect in that there was a strong perceived impact in one domain, such as perseverance and self-regulation for physical health, spirituality and social intelligence for social health and creativity for mental health. A strength-based approach to understanding and managing emotions was substantially more preferred than cognitive or behavioral approaches. Other findings examined the character strengths most desired to be improved upon for mental health.

The research strategy was cross-sectional, thereby causality cannot be determined. Because of the large sample size, researchers are encouraged to consider examining the findings in intervention studies.

This study indicates that character strengths are highly relevant for mental health, all 24 character strengths are possible pathways to impact mental health (some more than others) and individuals can readily connect ways they can use their character strengths to positively improve their well-being and manage their suffering.

Character strengths and their substantial positive potential provide an avenue for public impact on a large scale.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first known study to directly examine multiple intersections among mental health and character strengths in a large sample.