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This study conceptualizes a form of luxury consumption in which luxury brands collaborate with unconventional non-luxury partners. These unconventional luxury brand collaborations are growing in popularity among Chinese luxury consumers of the post-1990s generation. Luxury brands are exploring new branding strategies due to the growing commercial importance of Chinese luxury consumers.

An in-depth qualitative study informs this paper. Interviews with young adult luxury consumers self-identifying as Chinese reveal a growing interest for luxury brands that collaborate with odd partners in social media and online culture.

Unconventional collaborations between luxury brands and non-luxury partners catalyze shifting meanings of luxury through the following juxtapositions: ephemeral instead of timeless, trendy rather than inaccessible, and playful in contrast with traditional. First, young Chinese consumers construct luxury meanings through ephemerality, like digital possessions, social media fame and fleeting experiences. Second, luxury meanings emerge in trendiness among social media influencers and online culture rather than in the seemingly inaccessible taste regimes of the upper class. Third, younger consumers appreciate fun, rebellious and over-the-top aesthetics in luxury brands.

The study contributes to the nascent field of unconventional luxury by conceptualizing how unusual, odd and unexpected collaborations constitute new forms of luxury consumption. The shifting meanings of luxury consumption that this study conceptualizes raise new opportunities and challenges for luxury brands. One of such is the release of limited collections with non-luxury partners seemingly at the opposite spectrum of design, image and values. Moreover, the study adds nuance to the understanding of luxury consumption among young Chinese consumers.

The number of patents in China has grown rapidly in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how patents impact economic development in China.

This paper developed an empirical model by using panel data of 42 China's patent-intensive industries to investigate the economic contribution made by Chinese patent-intensive manufacturing industries.

This paper found that the intensity of valid patents is strongly positively related to economic growth. The intensity of yearly added patents presented an inverse U-shaped and a U-shaped curve with the economy made by China’s patent-intensive industries. The correlativity mainly depended on whether the patent intensity converges near the economic indicators. Meanwhile, from the perspective of input–output efficiency, for China’s patent-intensive industries, R&D institutes were overinvested, followed by R&D intensity and R&D staff.

Investigating patent influence on economic development is quite complex research. Existing studies have mainly focused on patent protection in legal systems, but have not provided a definitive answer to what the real influence is. This study sought to narrow this gap from the patent economy perspective.

This study aims to compare the purchase intention of counterfeit outdoor products between Taiwan and Hong Kong consumers.

A total of 584 respondents from Hong Kong (n = 247, 42%) and Taiwan (n = 337, 58%) were recruited for the study. Data analysis was performed by using structural equation modelling techniques.

The results showed that consumers' perceived risk had a negative influence on attitude and intention to purchase counterfeit outdoor products. Moreover, attitude towards buying counterfeit outdoor products, perceived behavioural control and subjective norm had positive impacts on purchase intention. Brand consciousness, however, had a negative influence on purchase intention. The multi-group analysis identified significant differences between Hong Kong and Taiwanese respondents.

This study provides a better understanding of how these factors affect purchase intention of counterfeit outdoor products across different cultures.

This study aims to explore how and why self-discrepancy affects materialism and impulsive buying and the extent to which subjective well-being mediates the relationship between self-discrepancy, materialism and impulsive buying.

The authors have tested the hypothesis with a convenience sample (N = 434) from Lithuania. Descriptive analysis, principal components analysis (PCA), serial mediation hypothesis tested with model 81 from regression-based path analysis modeling tool PROCESS Macro for IBM® SPSS® Statistics 24.7 statistical software.

The serial and parallel mediation analysis results indicated that greater self-discrepancy was related to poorer life satisfaction, which was related to greater materialism centrality, which promoted greater impulsive buying. Also, the greater the self-discrepancy, caused more occurrence of negative affect, which relates to increased materialism happiness, which triggers impulsive buying. Self-discrepancy was negatively associated with the frequency of positive affect, which was positively related to materialism, which stimulates impulsive buying.

The study was dominated by younger respondents. The survey was conducted during the lockdown of the Covid-19 virus pandemic.

There is little empirical evidence to support the reasoning behind why self-discrepancy predicts a higher degree of materialism, which increases impulsive buying. This study suggests the mechanism of how subjective well-being affects relationships of self-discrepancy on materialism and impulsive buying.

The purpose of the paper is to propose and demonstrate a novel approach for addressing the challenges of path planning and obstacle avoidance in the context of mobile robots (MR). The specific objectives and purposes outlined in the paper include: introducing a new methodology that combines Q-learning with dynamic reward to improve the efficiency of path planning and obstacle avoidance. Enhancing the navigation of MR through unfamiliar environments by reducing blind exploration and accelerating the convergence to optimal solutions and demonstrating through simulation results that the proposed method, dynamic reward-enhanced Q-learning (DRQL), outperforms existing approaches in terms of achieving convergence to an optimal action strategy more efficiently, requiring less time and improving path exploration with fewer steps and higher average rewards.

The design adopted in this paper to achieve its purposes involves the following key components: (1) Combination of Q-learning and dynamic reward: the paper’s design integrates Q-learning, a popular reinforcement learning technique, with dynamic reward mechanisms. This combination forms the foundation of the approach. Q-learning is used to learn and update the robot’s action-value function, while dynamic rewards are introduced to guide the robot’s actions effectively. (2) Data accumulation during navigation: when a MR navigates through an unfamiliar environment, it accumulates experience data. This data collection is a crucial part of the design, as it enables the robot to learn from its interactions with the environment. (3) Dynamic reward integration: dynamic reward mechanisms are integrated into the Q-learning process. These mechanisms provide feedback to the robot based on its actions, guiding it to make decisions that lead to better outcomes. Dynamic rewards help reduce blind exploration, which can be time-consuming and inefficient and promote faster convergence to optimal solutions. (4) Simulation-based evaluation: to assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach, the design includes a simulation-based evaluation. This evaluation uses simulated environments and scenarios to test the performance of the DRQL method. (5) Performance metrics: the design incorporates performance metrics to measure the success of the approach. These metrics likely include measures of convergence speed, exploration efficiency, the number of steps taken and the average rewards obtained during the robot’s navigation.

The findings of the paper can be summarized as follows: (1) Efficient path planning and obstacle avoidance: the paper’s proposed approach, DRQL, leads to more efficient path planning and obstacle avoidance for MR. This is achieved through the combination of Q-learning and dynamic reward mechanisms, which guide the robot’s actions effectively. (2) Faster convergence to optimal solutions: DRQL accelerates the convergence of the MR to optimal action strategies. Dynamic rewards help reduce the need for blind exploration, which typically consumes time and this results in a quicker attainment of optimal solutions. (3) Reduced exploration time: the integration of dynamic reward mechanisms significantly reduces the time required for exploration during navigation. This reduction in exploration time contributes to more efficient and quicker path planning. (4) Improved path exploration: the results from the simulations indicate that the DRQL method leads to improved path exploration in unknown environments. The robot takes fewer steps to reach its destination, which is a crucial indicator of efficiency. (5) Higher average rewards: the paper’s findings reveal that MR using DRQL receive higher average rewards during their navigation. This suggests that the proposed approach results in better decision-making and more successful navigation.

The paper’s originality stems from its unique combination of Q-learning and dynamic rewards, its focus on efficiency and speed in MR navigation and its ability to enhance path exploration and average rewards. These original contributions have the potential to advance the field of mobile robotics by addressing critical challenges in path planning and obstacle avoidance.

The purposes of two experiments were to examine how brands may create a broad brand impression and benefit brand extensions by crafting logo frames.

Two experimental studies were conducted. Study 1 examines how removing and breaking logo frames expands perceived brand breadth. Study 2 considers the implication of this logo frame effect and indicates the impact of logo frames on brand extension scenarios.

Removing and breaking logo frames could expand perceived brand breadth and, in turn, benefits the brand extensions, especially for promotion-focused consumers. However, prevention-focused people held favorable brand extension attitudes when the brand logo constructs a complete frame due to its perceived trustworthiness.

As an initial exploration, this study conceptualizes and manipulates logo frames as full framed, partial framed and open logo. Future research studies could include further design features in the examination.

If a brand seeks to be broad, removing or breaking its logo frame is an alternative. However, consequential negative impressions on brand extension attitudes among prevention-focused customers should be considered.

This study is the first investigation into the impacts of logo frame patterns on consumers’ perception of brand breadth and the consequent extension attitudes.

Ship chandlers’ trucks are now facing challenges owing to their job characteristics, which will lead to low productivity of trucks, congestions and pollutions at the port. The aim of this paper is to identify important causes and the effects of low truck productivity at the port under the demand of sustainable development.

Based on the literature review, potential causes and relevant analysis are developed and carried out by using a systematic approach, incorporating in-depth interviews with experts, cause analysis and risk management process.

Results from the research framework showed that a lack of communication with the port, late arrival of ships, truck congestion and fragmented deliveries are the most important factors that led to low truck productivity at the port. A solution that combines an integrated system that shares real-time information with the port, a consolidation hub and a truck-pooling platform is proposed to comply with green port concepts, together with factors considerations.

Although the operation of ship chandlers’ trucks is a derived business in overall port operations, it is an indispensable element at the port. The findings present a new insight to the relationship between ship chandlers’ trucks productivity and port operation efficiency for industry practitioners and port policymakers.

This study aims to extend the understanding of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) by investigating the international EO (IEO) from the perspective of the international performance of born global firms. The born global firm's EOs toward global firms led to innovation and dynamic organizational capabilities and to improve the firms' international performance and development.

It is a hypothesis that IEO predicted that utilization of export promotion programs (EPPs) would be positively associated with international performance. The samples of 405 respondents were collected from born global firms to acquire higher international performance of firms in China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and mediation analysis are processed to test the proposed hypotheses empirically.

The results from the SEM test revealed that the network relationships and utilization of EPPs fully mediate the effect of IEO on international performance. These results indicate that not only IEO is an important factor of network relationships but also the utilization of EPPs and international performance for born global firms. IEO can motivate managers to find the right network relationships and ultimately improve company performance. The IEO of the initiative has strong impact on the performance of international firms.

There is a comprehensive view among the relationships of IEO, entrepreneurial competencies and the network utilization of government EPPs, international performance in the context of born global firms. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in detail.