Search results

Vertical line extension is an attractive growth strategy that allows brands to address heterogeneous consumer needs and react to competitive pressure. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and summarize vertical line extension research to derive general insights into vertical upward and downward line extension.

Drawing on a systematic review of 536 academic articles and predefined inclusion criteria, this research identifies and evaluates all articles that add knowledge to the topic of vertical line extension (n = 64).

This research derives general insights in several vertical line extension-specific issues. Different forms of vertical line extension, conceptual differences between upward and downward extensions, as well as the role of perceived fit, extension degree and the parent brand are crucial for the study and evaluation of extension and parent brand feedback effects. Those effects are complex and often work in opposing directions not only for the parent brand but also for the extension. Future research needs to face that complexity as well as methodological issues and different research contexts to further advance the literature stream.

This paper provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art review of vertical line extension research characteristics and results. It provides new insights on the characteristics and effects of vertical line extensions and guides future research on the topic.

This paper aims to analyze the influence of organizational learning (OL) and service innovation (SI) on organizational performance of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) and examine the mediating role of SI.

Hypotheses were tested using the theoretical OL model of knowledge acquisition, distribution, interpretation and organizational memory (Huber, 1991; Lopez, Peon, & Ordas, 2005; Jiménez-Jiménez & Sanz-Valle, 2011), using structural equation modeling partial least squares analysis of a survey data set of Brazilian architectural firms.

Findings suggest that OL is significantly linked to SI and so is SI to organizational performance. However, neither the direct relationship between OL and organizational performance could be verified, nor the mediating effect of SI.

These results can offer KIBS managers insights that suggest that OL alone does not guarantee a significant impact in organizational performance, but it is a starting point for achieving SIs, that lead to performance improvement and competitive advantages.

This paper contributes to the knowledge production in the following ways: to the understanding of the relationship between OL and SI and its effect on organizational performance, traditionally overlooked in the literature; to the study of SIs, considering the importance of the service sector; and to the study of innovation processes in architectural firms, a sector traditionally understudied, because of the focus on large construction firms.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationships between Entrepreneurial Orientation, Organizational Learning Capability, Service Innovation and Organizational Performance. To this end, it was sought to analyze the mediating role of organizational learning capability and service innovation within entrepreneurial orientation and organizational performance relationship in knowledge-intensive organizations.

The sample consisted of 159 architecture and urbanism companies from Santa Catarina, Brazil. The study opted to use managers as key informants since they are the ones that have general information about the organization and are a valuable source for assessing the different variables of the organization. For data analysis, the PLS-PM algorithm (Partial Least Squares Path Modeling) was used.

Results showed that entrepreneurial orientation is a strong driver of service innovation and organizational performance. Organizational learning capability acts as a facilitator of innovation and has a positive influence on organizational performance. Another theoretical contribution of this study to organizational learning capability is the confirmation of its mediation in service innovation and organizational performance. Management needs to make its organization more proactive and creative, continually promoting new ideas. Architecture and urbanism organizations should pay more attention to maintaining and promoting entrepreneurial orientation permanently. The trend toward both proactivity and risk-taking can be an inherent advantage of these knowledge-intensive business services.

Few studies have explored the mediating role of organizational learning capability and service innovations in organizational performance. In particular, the combined effects of entrepreneurial orientation and organizational learning capability have been neglected by the knowledge-intensive organizations literature. The study is justified by providing a more complete view of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and the performance of knowledge-intensive organizations, highlighting the role of organizational learning capability and performance in service innovation.

This paper aims to empirically test the influence of brand characteristics on brand addiction, as well as the consumers’ behaviors caused by this construct.

The paper adopts a Web-based self-completion survey by achieving a total of 529 completed surveys. Then, structural equation modeling has been employed by using SPSS AMOS.

Results highlighted how the brand characteristics of self-expressiveness, innovativeness and authenticity have a positive influence on brand addiction; brand addiction leads consumers to feel emotions of irritability and to adopt obsessive and compulsive behaviors toward the brand.

Even if the choice of using a survey’s sample composed of students attending an Italian University ensures good internal validity of research (owing to the homogeneous character), the results are not generalizable (except for this population group).

The study identified two different spheres of brand addiction (one connected to the brand’s characteristics and the other to the consumers’ psychological-behavioral outcomes), along with possible strategies firms could adopt to strengthen the possibilities to transform their customers into addicted ones and to avoid/reduce the negative consequences deriving from brand addiction.

The paper provides a response to the call for more studies into the brand addiction analysis by empirically testing possible antecedents and outcomes, thus enriching the existing quantitative research focused on this concept.

This article discusses the consequences of unethical leadership, particularly, the leader-follower relationship in the delivery of agricultural advisory services in Tanzania. It analyses the means through which ethical leadership framework can be used to address the problem of unethical leadership in this context.

The article uses a comparative case study design to explain the position of ethical leadership in the delivery of agricultural advisory services in two local governments: Morogoro Municipality in Eastern Tanzania, and Hai District in Northern Tanzania.

The research shows that the delivery of agricultural extension services in Tanzania is guided by formal rules, which define the roles and responsibilities of local government officials and field workers. These roles and responsibilities are driven by national-level guidelines written by the Ministry of Agriculture. The guidelines define the key responsibilities of village, Ward and District level Agricultural Extension Officers. In developing the working schedule, agricultural extension workers at the village and ward levels are guided by an annual calendar that defines the seasons of the year and the relevant knowledge required by farmers. Nevertheless, the implementation of these schedules is compromised by a lack of resources and morale of field workers who in turn, cope through charging for the services, which is considered as their prime motives.

The findings can be of interest to national and local government policymakers and officials dealing with the delivery of agricultural advisory services in Tanzania.

The farmers used several information sources to gather information about the climatic variability and modern agricultural practices to cope with climate change. The choice of adaptation strategies and the successful implication of adaptation strategies depend on accurate, timely information on the climate variability and precise technical details of adaptation strategies. By keeping the importance of climate information and agricultural extension information in the center, this study aims to conduct a micro-level evaluation of farmers’ choice of climate information, agriculture extension services and agricultural credit sources. This study’s primary objective is to understand how the different sources of climate information and agricultural extension influence farm household adaptation decisions.

This study has been conducted in three subs agro-climatic zone of the Middle Gangetic Plain region, which falls in India’s Bihar state. This paper has randomly selected seven districts from these three subs agro-climatic zone to collect the data. The analysis of this study is based on survey data collected from 700 farm households. This study has used descriptive statistics and a logistic regression model to assess the sources of climate information, agricultural extension and credit sources and how these sources influence farm households’ adaptation decisions.

The result of this study shows farmers are using different traditional (sharing experience, newspaper and radio), information and communication technology (mobile and TV) and institutional arrangements (agricultural officer and meteorological department) in the study area. The study’s finding identifies different farm households’ different sources and how these options farming farmers’ adaptation decisions. The study further revealed that institutional factors such as extension services and access to information on climate change increase the probability of adopting knowledge-intensive adaptation strategies such as soil conservation, water conservation, crop insurance and planting horticulture and vegetables.

The study has conducted a micro-level assessment of adaptation behavior at the local level to understand the factor influencing the adaptation decision. This study’s finding is useful in designing the appropriate policy framework for the farm household’s capacity building to enhance their technical skills and awareness toward the institutional arrangements.

This paper’s finding pointed out institutional arrangements’ requirement to improve adaptive capacity to make long-term strategic decisions to cope with climate change.

Developing waterway-waterway transfer is an important path for Shanghai's container logistics to innovate service models. Taicang Express Line, a typical case of service model innovation, plays an important role in elevating the standing of Shanghai Port as a container hub port and in developing China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. From the three dominant transfer service models, the waterway-waterway transfer for container logistics of Taicang Express Line has the traits and experience in streamlining logistics processes, innovating logistics clearance models, saving logistics operating costs, offering port logistics cooperation experience for replications and promoting integration of regional port logistics resources. However, it also harbors issues in infrastructure construction, staffing, container resources allocation and transportation, transportation efficiency and policy innovation. In the future, efforts should be invested to strengthening the construction and staffing of port logistics infrastructure, optimizing the container resources allocation and transport of port logistics systems, improving the logistics transportation efficiency of Taicang Express Line, and pushing forward innovation of the synergistic policy mechanism for regional port logistics.

Developing waterway-waterway transfer is an important path for Shanghai's container logistics to innovate service models. Taicang Express Line, a typical case of service model innovation, plays an important role in elevating the standing of Shanghai Port as a container hub port and in developing China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. From the three dominant transfer service models, the waterway-waterway transfer for container logistics of Taicang Express Line has the traits and experience in streamlining logistics processes, innovating logistics clearance models, saving logistics operating costs, offering port logistics cooperation experience for replications and promoting integration of regional port logistics resources. However, it also harbors issues in infrastructure construction, staffing, container resources allocation and transportation, transportation efficiency and policy innovation. In the future, efforts should be invested to strengthening the construction and staffing of port logistics infrastructure, optimizing the container resources allocation and transport of port logistics systems, improving the logistics transportation efficiency of Taicang Express Line, and pushing forward innovation of the synergistic policy mechanism for regional port logistics.

Change of climate is attributed to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere observed over comparable periods. The purpose of this paper is to explore smallholder farmers' perceptions of climate change and compare it with meteorological data, as well as to identify perceived adaptation barriers and examine the factors that influence the choice of adaptation options in eastern Ethiopia.

In total, 384 sample households were chosen from four districts of the zone. A cross-sectional survey was used to conduct the study. Primary data was acquired through key informant interviews, focus group discussions and semistructured interviews, whereas meteorological data was collected from the National Meteorological Service Agency of Ethiopia. A Mann–Kendall statistical test was used to analyze temperature and rainfall trends over 33 years. A multivariate probit (MVP) model was used to identify the determinants of farmers' choice of climate change adaptation strategies.

The result indicated that temperature was significantly increased, whereas rainfall was significantly reduced over the time span of 33 years. This change in climate over time was consistently perceived by farmers. Smallholder farmers use improved varieties of crops, crop diversification, adjusting planting dates, soil and water conservation practices, reducing livestock holdings, planting trees and small-scale irrigation adaptation strategies. Moreover, this study indicated that sex of the household head, landholding size, livestock ownership, access to extension, access to credit, social capital, market distance, access to climate change-related training, nonfarm income, agroecological setting and poverty status of the households significantly influence farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies.

Further research is required to evaluate the economic impact of each adaptation options on the livelihood of smallholder farmers.

Institutional variables significantly influenced how farmers adapted to climate change, and all of these issues might potentially be addressed by improving institutional service delivery. To improve farm-level adaptation, local authorities are recommended to investigate the institutional service provision system while also taking demographic and agroecological factors in to account.

This study compared farmers' perceptions with temperature and rainfall trend analysis, which has been rarely addressed by other studies. This study adopts an MVP model and indicated the adaptation strategies that complement/substitute strategies each other. Furthermore, this study discovered that the choice of adaptation options differed between poor and nonpoor households, which has been overlooked in previous climate change adaptation research.

This research addresses the diverse characteristics of existing railway steel bridges in China, including variations in construction age, design standards, structural types, manufacturing processes, materials and service conditions. It also focuses on prominent defects and challenges related to heavy transportation conditions, particularly low live haul reserves and severe fatigue problems.

The study encompasses three key aspects: (1) Adaptability assessment: It begins with assessing the suitability of existing railway steel bridges for heavy-haul operations through comprehensive analyses, experiments and engineering applications. (2) Strengthening: To combat frequent crack defects in the vertical stiffener end structure of girder webs, fatigue performance tests and reinforcement scheme experiments were conducted. These experiments included the development of a hot-spot stress S-N curve for this structure, validating the effectiveness of methods like crack stop holes, ultrasonic hammering and flange angle steel. (3) Service life extension: Research on the cruciform welded joint structure (non-fusion transfer type) focused on fatigue performance over the long life cycle. This led to the establishment of a fatigue S-N curve, enhancing Chinese design codes.

The research achieved several significant outcomes: (1) Successful implementation of strengthening and retrofitting measures on a 64-m single-span double-track railway steel truss girder on an existing heavy-duty line. (2) Post-reinforcement, a substantial 26% to 32% reduction in live haul stress on bridge members was achieved. (3) The strengthening and retrofitting efforts met design expectations, enabling the bridge to accommodate vehicles with a 30-ton axle haul on the railway line.

This research systematically tackles challenges and defects associated with Chinese existing railway steel bridges, providing valuable insights into adaptability assessment, strengthening techniques and service life extension methods. Furthermore, the development of fatigue S-N curves and the successful implementation of bridge enhancements have practical implications for improving the resilience and operational capacity of railway steel bridges in China.