Search results

The paper aims to provide a decision-support model to ensure a proper use of the limited resources, financial and not, for the enhancement of the cultural heritage and comprehensive development of small towns from sustainable perspective.

The assessment model is set up using a multi-criteria method that combines elements of linear planning with a performance indicators system that may represent the complexity of the territory’s cultural identity as a result of existing cultural-historical assets.

The model reliability is tested in a case study in a Municipality in southern Italy. The case study’s findings highlight the advantages for the public/private operators, who can consciously choose which preservation and restoration projects to fund while taking into account the effects those decisions will have on the economic, social and environmental context of reference.

Due to the suggested operational approach and the selection of variables for accounting economic, social and environmental impacts by the renewal project, the research findings may not be generalizable. Therefore, it is recommended that researchers look into the suggested theories in more detail.

The study offers implications for designing a user-friendly tool to help decision-making processes from a private–public viewpoint in a reasonable allocation of financial resources among investments for cultural property asset enhancement.

The suggested operational approach provides a reliable information apparatus to depict the decision-making process under small-town development in accordance with sustainability dimensions.

The study aims to examine how different types of green brand ritual (GBR) influence customer engagement behavior and the mediation mechanisms and boundary conditions of the positive and negative pathways.

The study conducts two online experiments to collect data from a total of 940 consumers in China. Hypotheses are tested by independent samples t-test, two-way ANOVA and Hayes' PROCESS model.

Different kinds of GBR have different effects on customer engagement behavior. Internal GBR is more likely to play a positive role by inciting connectedness to nature. External GBR is more likely to play a negative role by inciting psychological resistance. This dual effect is especially pronounced for warm brands rather than competent brands.

The study pioneers the brand ritual into the field of interactive marketing and enriches its dual effect research. Additionally, the study figures out whether the category of brand ritual can trigger negative effect.

Inappropriate brand rituals are worse than no rituals at all. The results provide guidance for green companies to design effective brand rituals to strengthen the connection with consumers. Green brands should describe brand rituals in vivid detail and consciously lead consumers to immerse themselves in them.

To adapt to the rapidly changing market environment, firms must constantly adjust and change their knowledge base to develop new technologies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the improvement path of firms’ breakthrough innovation from the perspective of knowledge recombination in the context of dynamic change in the knowledge base. By analyzing the influencing mechanism of environmental dynamism on the relationship between the two, this paper provides a theoretical foundation for managers to make knowledge recombination decisions under a dynamic external environment while further enriching the firm’s innovation achievements.

Using data from 220 manufacturing firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share stock from 2010 to 2018, an extensive panel data set was constructed to investigate the effect of knowledge recombination, which was divided into recombination creation and recombination reuse, on firms’ breakthrough innovation. In addition, the authors differentiated environmental dynamism as market dynamism and technological dynamism and then examined its moderating role in the above relationships.

The research results show that various recombination behaviors of knowledge elements have a differentiated effect on firms’ breakthrough innovation presented as follows: Knowledge recombination creation is significantly positively correlated with firms’ breakthrough innovation, while knowledge recombination reuse is significantly negatively correlated with firms’ breakthrough innovation. In addition, environmental dynamism has a considerable moderating effect between knowledge recombination and firms’ breakthrough innovation further, emphasizing that the moderating effect on different types of knowledge recombination behaviors is significantly distinct.

First, given that this study refers to several Chinese noted databases to collect second-hand data for empirical analysis, future research could use first-hand data by collecting questionnaire survey and interview to provide a more practical and detailed research conclusion. Second, the authors focused on the contextual variable to explore the moderating role of environmental dynamism on the relationship between knowledge recombination and breakthrough innovation. Nevertheless, the indirect effects of other internal factors were not discussed. The authors advocate future studies to involve other moderators from employee social and phycological perspectives, such as trust in colleagues in the proposed theoretical models in this study.

This study is conducive for managers to attach great attention to knowledge management practices in the firm and to understand the critical role of knowledge recombination in affecting innovation performance under dynamic environmental changes. Moreover, this study provides practical guidance and serves as a reference for firms to strengthen their knowledge recombination ability as full utilization of existing knowledge elements and exploration of new knowledge values.

Primarily, from the perspective of dynamic changes in the knowledge base, this paper explores how the knowledge recombination behaviors affect firms’ breakthrough innovation, thereby enriching and extending the relationship theory between knowledge recombination capabilities and breakthrough innovation, while new and valuable ideas are provided in the study of issues related to the firms’ breakthrough innovation; Moreover, this study analyzes the moderating effects of diverse types of environmental dynamism on the relationship between knowledge recombination and firms’ breakthrough innovation from a multi-dimensional perspective proposing that the moderating effects of environmental dynamism on different knowledge recombination behaviors are distinct.

Online reviewers' identity information is an essential cue by which consumers judge reviews on ecommerce platforms. However, few studies have explored how prior anonymous reviews and focal reviews affect reviewers' preference for anonymity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate why reviewers seek anonymity in terms of prior anonymous reviews and focal reviews.

Based on restaurant reviews collected from meituan.com, one of the largest group-buying ecommerce platforms in China, this study employed logistic regression to examine how prior anonymous reviews and focal reviews are associated with reviewers' preference for anonymity.

Results show that the volume and sequence of prior anonymous review are positively associated with the likelihood of reviewers' preference for anonymity, whereas focal review valence is negatively correlated with this preference. Focal review length is positively correlated with reviewers' preference for anonymity but negatively moderates the roles of review valence and prior anonymous reviews on this preference.

This study expands the information disclosure literature by exploring determinants of user identity disclosure from a reviewer perspective. This research also offers a methodological contribution by employing a more accurate measure to calculate reviewers' preference for anonymity, enhancing the empirical results. Lastly, this work supplements the online review literature on how prior anonymous reviews and focal reviews are associated with reviewers' identity disclosure.

This study aims to investigate how firms of different sizes respond to competitive pressure from peers.

This study employs machine learning techniques to measure competitive pressure based on management discussion and analysis (MD&A) documents and then utilises the constructed pressure indicator to explore the relationship between competitive pressure and corporate risk-taking behaviours amongst firms of different sizes.

We find that firm sizes are positively associated with their risk-taking behaviours when firms respond to competitive pressure. Large firms are inclined to exhibit a high level of risk-taking behaviours, whereas small firms tend to make conservative decisions. Regional growth potential and institutional ownership moderate the relationships.

Utilising text mining techniques, this study constructs a novel quantitative indicator to measure competitive pressure perceived by focal firms and demonstrates the heterogeneous behaviour of firms of different sizes in response to competitive pressure from peers, advancing research on competitive market pressures.

This meta-analysis aims to examine and compare the pleasant ambient scent effects on consumers’ affective, cognitive and behavioural responses in the retail and hospitality sectors.

55 articles, including 102 effect sizes, are collected from electronic databases and search engines. The effect of pleasant ambient scents on consumer responses is examined using meta-regression analysis.

The results show a positive effect of pleasant ambient scent on all responses in both sectors, while the effects on cognitive and behavioural responses are stronger in hospitality than retailing. Moreover, the scent effects in hospitality research vary with method aspects, including sampling frame, research design, setting and location.

The findings provide theoretical insights on the sensory tangibilization of experience and methodological insights on designing scent research.

The stronger effect of pleasant ambient scents on cognitive and behavioural responses in a hospitality environment signals that contextual differences should not be neglected. Moreover, hospitality researchers need to stay vigilant to the methodological influence on the findings about scent effects. These findings enrich the sensory marketing literature, in which contextual comparison is scarce.

Based on social cognitive theory, this study aims to explore the psychological mechanism behind consumer verification behavior following tourism e-commerce live-streaming.

Based on grounded theory, data were collected through 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyzed.

This study identified that companies commonly use reminder messages and secondary promotions to facilitate the verification of tourism live-streaming products. Throughout this process, consumers undergo various psychologies related to verification. Specifically, they experience four positive verification psychologies: fear of missing out, anticipated emotions, status self-esteem and promotional perception. They also encounter two negative verification psychologies: psychological reactance and invasiveness. In addition, environmental factors such as the type of tourism live-streaming products and tourism destinations, along with individual trait factors like cognitive miserliness, tourism experience, autonomy, regulatory mode and impulsiveness, play significant roles in shaping verification behavior. These factors collectively influence the formation of verification behavior.

This study can provide recommendations for tourism companies to conduct marketing events following live-streaming. It is one of the earlier comprehensive studies discussing how to promote verification behavior following tourism e-commerce live-streaming. It helps to understand the psychological mechanism underlying the formation of verification behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an new online path planning method for porcine belly cutting. With the proliferation in demand for the automatic systems of pork production, the development of efficient and robust meat cutting algorithms are hot issues. The uncertain and dynamic nature of the online porcine belly cutting imposes a challenge for the robot to identify and cut efficiently and accurately. Based on the above challenges, an online porcine belly cutting method using 3D laser point cloud is proposed.

The robotic cutting system is composed of an industrial robotic manipulator, customized tools, a laser sensor and a PC.

Analysis of experimental results shows that by comparing with machine vision, laser sensor-based robot cutting has more advantages, and it can handle different carcass sizes.

An image pyramid method is used for dimensionality reduction of the 3D laser point cloud. From a detailed analysis of the outward and inward cutting errors, the outward cutting error is the limiting condition for reducing the segments by segmentation algorithm.

In complex environments, a spherical robot has great application value. When the pendulum spherical robot is stopped or disturbed, there will be a periodic oscillation. This situation will seriously affect the stability of the spherical robot. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a control method based on backstepping and disturbance observers for oscillation suppression.

This paper analyzes the mechanism of oscillation. The oscillation model of the spherical robot is constructed and the relationship between the oscillation and the internal structure of the sphere is analyzed. Based on the oscillation model, the authors design the oscillation suppression control of the spherical robot using the backstepping method. At the same time, a disturbance observer is added to suppress the disturbance.

It is found that the control system based on backstepping and disturbance observer is simple and efficient for nonlinear models. Compared with the PID controller commonly used in engineering, this control method has a better control effect.

The proposed method can provide a reliable and effective stability scheme for spherical robots. The problem of instability in real motion is solved.

In this paper, the oscillation model of a spherical robot is innovatively constructed. Second, a new backstepping control method combined with a disturbance observer for the spherical robot is proposed to suppress the oscillation.

Many studies have investigated dynamic positions and their importance, but there is less attention paid to how to enter more central positions. Interorganizational relationships are an important factor in network structural change. In Chinese society, firms allocate significant human, financial and material resources towards cultivating guanxi. The purpose of this study is to explore whether and how the three aspects of guanxi, namely renqing, ganqing and xinyong, can make firms more central, and to examine the mediating role of interaction.

The study used a mixed method to collect data from 256 Chinese Cops (complex product systems) firms. And, hypotheses were tested using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 26.0.

The results indicate that renqing, ganqing and xinyong have significant positive effects on the increase in centrality, but with varying magnitudes. Additionally, the interaction was found to mediate the relationship between the three aspects of guanxi (renqing, ganqing and xinyong) and the increase in centrality.

The study provides new insights to help firms become more central by combining guanxi (renqing, ganqing and xinyong) with change in centrality, enriching the literature on network dynamics and guanxi-related research. Moreover, the study provides managers with a clear understanding of how to use guanxi to make the firm more central in situations with limited resources.