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The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effects of institutional support on product and process innovation and firm performance and describe how dysfunctional competition influences relevant outcomes.

This study develops a research model based on institution-based view and tests it using structural equation modeling and empirical data collected from 300 manufacturers in China.

The results show that institutional support positively affects product and process innovation and firm performance. Both product and process innovation improve firm performance. The findings reveal that dysfunctional competition significantly reduces the positive effects of institutional support on product and process innovation but leaves the effects of institutional support and product and process innovation on firm performance unaffected.

This study contributes to innovation literature by providing insights into the impact of China’s institutional environment on manufacturing firms’ product and process innovation decisions. The findings also contribute to institution-based view literature by providing empirical evidence on the joint effects of institutional support and dysfunctional competition on product and process innovation and firm performance. This study can help manufacturers in China take advantage of institutional environment and adjust product and process innovation decisions accordingly.

Drawing on social identification theory, this research aims to explore an important mechanism – patients’ perceived empathy from a hospital, which is defined as caring, individualized attention provided by the hospital – that explains how service quality influences patients’ loyalty to the hospital.

This study adopts a structural equation modelling framework to estimate the mediation relationship between service quality and patient loyalty using two studies based on hospital employees and patients.

In Study 1, hospital staff survey data showed that service quality enhanced patients’ perceived empathy from the hospital. In Study 2, the authors confirmed and extended the findings of Study 1 by using patient survey data that suggested that patients’ empathy mediated the relationship between service quality and patients’ loyalty to the hospital.

The results of the two studies suggested that service quality increased patients’ empathy, which in turn improved patients’ loyalty to a hospital. The results extend the customer loyalty literature by exploring the critical antecedents and mechanisms of customer loyalty in the healthcare context. The studies interpret healthcare phenomena from the service aspect of fulfilling patients’ unique needs and providing a good hospital service experience. Moreover, the authors offer an insightful approach to explaining the service quality–patient loyalty linkage in the healthcare industry. Important theoretical and managerial contributions and suggestions for future research are discussed.

As a counterproductive interpersonal work behavior, knowledge hiding inhibits team creativity, hampers collaboration and ultimately has a detrimental impact on organizational performance. Drawing upon the impression management perspective. This study aims to investigate how and when employees’ political skill affects their knowledge-hiding behavior in real work contexts.

The authors tested the hypotheses using data gathered from 266 employees in China using a time-lagged research design.

The results indicate that political skill positively influences knowledge hiding through the supplication strategy. Moreover, the positive effect of political skill on this strategy is stronger under higher levels of competition.

A cross-sectional design and the use of self-report questionnaires are the limitations of this study.

The authors contribute to the literature on the emergence of knowledge hiding by identifying an impression management perspective. The authors also contribute to the literature on political skill by exploring the potential negative effects of political skill in the interpersonal interaction. Moreover, the authors enrich the understanding of the literature in competitive climate by introducing the impression management theory and exploring its influence on knowledge floating.

This paper aims to investigate the investment strategy of a two-sided platform on reducing transaction costs of two user sides and to study the pricing problem of the platform.

Mathematical derivation is used to compute the optimal decisions of a two-sided platform on pricing and investment. Numerical analysis is used to illustrate the findings.

It is found that the demand of one user side decreases in the maximal transaction costs reduction to this side but increases in the maximal transaction costs reduction to the other side. It is also found that a platform should never choose the investment in such a way that the maximal transaction costs reductions of two user sides are the same.

Several limitations exist in this paper, most of which exist due to the assumptions. These limitations could be good research directions in the future. For example, only one platform’s decision is considered, and platforms’ competition is not taken into account. Considering other platforms’ competition, the decisions of the users and the platform would be different.

From the transaction costs perspective, this paper finds that a platform should never choose the investment in such a way that the maximal transaction costs reductions of two user sides are the same. This conclusion has not been found in previous literature.

Researchers continue to address the concept of self-disclosure because it is foundational for helping social networking sites (SNS) function and thrive. Nevertheless, the authors' literature review indicates that uncertainty remains around the underlying mechanisms and factors involved in the self-disclosure process. The purpose of this research is to better understand the self-disclosure process from the lens of dual-process theory (DPT). The authors consider both the controlled factors (i.e. self-presentation and reciprocity) and an automatic factor (i.e. social influence to use an SNS) involved in self-disclosure and broaden The authors proposed a model to include the interactive facets of enjoyment.

The proposed model was empirically validated by conducting a survey among users of WeChat Moments in China.

As hypothesized, this research confirms that enjoyment and automatic processing (i.e. social influence to use an SNS) are complementary in the SNS self-disclosure process and enjoyment negatively moderates the positive relationship between controlled factor (i.e. self-presentation) and self-disclosure.

Theoretically, this study offers a new perspective on explaining SNS self-disclosure by adopting DPT. Specifically, this study contributes to the extant SNS research by applying DPT to examine how the controlled factors and the automatic factor shape self-disclosure processes and how enjoyment influences vary across these processes – enriching knowledge about SNS self-disclosure behaviors. Practically, the authors provide important design guidelines to practitioners concerning devising mechanisms to foster more automatic-enjoyable value-added functions to improve SNS users' participation and engagement.

Drawing upon relative absorptive capacity (AC) perspective, this study proposes a research model connecting R&D investment, three types of supply chain AC—AC from suppliers, customers and university and research institutes (U&RIs)—and firm innovativeness and investigates the contingent effects of dysfunctional competition on the link between R&D investment and supply chain AC.

The authors used data collected from 262 manufacturers in three areas of China to empirically examine the conceptual model. The corresponding hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling and regression analysis.

The empirical results demonstrate that AC from customers and AC from U&RIs play significant mediating roles in the relationship between R&D investment and firm innovativeness. Moreover, R&D investment has a significantly greater effect on AC from U&RIs under high levels of dysfunctional competition.

First, by conceptualizing AC from a relative view, this study discloses the unique roles of knowledge from different supply chain partners in realizing the benefits of R&D investment in innovation. Second, the exploration of the contingent roles of dysfunctional competition in the emerging economy of China enriches insights on the roles of institutional environment on knowledge absorption and the knowledge on relative AC in emerging economies.

This study aims to investigate the antecedents and outcomes of excessive use of personal social media at work. The prevalence of personal social media in the work environment can easily lead to excessive use and negative consequences. Understanding the predictive factors and negative consequences of employees' excessive use of personal social media at work is important to develop their appropriate use of social media and improve their job performance.

Based on dual-system theory and the person-environment fit model, this study develops a research model to examine the effect of habit and self-regulation on excessive use of personal social media at work and that of the outcomes of excessive use on employee job performance through strain. This study conducts a questionnaire survey on 408 employees to test the research model and hypotheses empirically.

Results suggest that the imbalance between habit and self-regulation drives excessive personal social media use of employees at work. Furthermore, excessive use of personal social media has a strong impact on employee strain, which can significantly decrease job performance.

First, this study considers excessive use of personal social media at work as a result of two different cognitive systems, that is, an automatic system and a controlled system, thereby extending the dual-system theory to explain excessive use of personal social media in the work context. Second, unlike previous studies that focused on the outcomes or explored the antecedents of excessive social media use at work respectively, the study employs the person-environment fit model and examines the systematic influence of excessive social media use at work from a broad perspective by linking its antecedents and outcomes.

This study aims to examine the impact of information communication technology-enabled work during non-working hours (ICT-enabled WNWHs), as a source of stress, on employee behavioral outcomes –in-role job performance, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) that benefit organizations and OCBs that benefit individuals, through emotional responses – work exhaustion, nonwork exhaustion and organization-based self-esteem. As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdowns demonstrated that employees frequently engage in ICT-enabled WNWHs, studying stress induced by ICT-enabled WNWHs is essential for understanding employee adaptation to the work-from-home trend that emerged from COVID-19 lockdowns.

A quantitative survey comprising 1,178 employees in China was conducted, and the data reliability and validity were confirmed. Partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis was employed to test the hypotheses.

The study results empirically proved that, although ICT-enabled WNWHs had significant effects on employee behavioral outcomes, the related emotional responses were the mediators of the stress transmission mechanism that directly affected employee behavioral outcomes. Notably, work exhaustion and organization-based self-esteem partially mediate the stress transmission mechanism, while nonwork exhaustion exerts a full mediating effect.

This study proposes the stress transmission mechanism of ICT-enabled WNWHs and delineates emotional responses regarding the work environment attributes of ICT-enabled WNWHs, an approach rarely seen in prior IS studies. To our best knowledge, this study is the first to identify and empirically demonstrate organization-based self-esteem as one among the emotional responses to ICT-enabled WNWHs. Furthermore, it expands understanding of the holistic impacts of ICT-enabled WNWHs, which is lacking in information systems (IS) literature.

Given the importance of online social network (OSN) media features, many studies have focused on how different types of OSNs with various media features influence users’ usage and engagement. However, a recent literature review indicates that few empirical studies have considered how different types of OSNs with different information accessibility levels influence users’ beliefs and self-disclosure. By comparing two OSN platforms (OSNs with high-level information accessibility vs OSNs with low-level information accessibility), the purpose of this paper is to address this opportunity by investigating the differential impacts of the two platforms on individuals’ psychological cognition – particularly users’ social exchange beliefs – and explaining how these beliefs translate into OSN self-disclosure.

This study used a factorial design approach in an experimental setting to examine how different levels of information accessibility (high vs low), influence the social exchange beliefs (i.e. perceived social capital bridging, perceived social capital bonding and perceived privacy risks) of OSN users and subsequently influence OSN self-disclosure.

The results show that users on OSNs with high-level information accessibility express significantly higher perceived social capital bridging and perceived privacy risks than users on OSNs with low-level information accessibility. However, users on OSNs with low-level information accessibility express higher social bonding beliefs than users on OSNs with high-level information accessibility, indicating that there are different effect mechanisms toward OSN self-disclosure.

The focus of this research helps unveil the complex relationships between OSN design features (e.g. information accessibility), psychological cognition (e.g. social capital bridging, social capital bonding and privacy risks) and OSN self-disclosure. First, it clarifies the relationship between information accessibility and self-disclosure by examining the mediating effect of three core social exchange beliefs. Second, it uncovers the distinct effects of high-level information-accessible OSNs and low-level information-accessible OSNs on OSN self-disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how supplier concentration influences a buyer firm's R&D intensity. This study proposes a mediation and moderation model to test this relationship in the Chinese household appliance industry. Specifically, this study tests the mediation effect of operational slack on the relationship between supplier concentration and R&D intensity and the moderation effect of financial constraints on this relationship.

Drawing upon real options theory and resource dependence theory, the proposed relationships are tested with the Chinese household appliance market using financial data from listed companies over a ten-year span from 2012 to 2021. Fixed effects (within-group) panel regression models are used to test the hypotheses. In addition, the authors use the bias-corrected bootstrap method to test the mediation effect.

The authors find that supplier concentration negatively affects a buyer firm's R&D intensity and that internal operational slack mediates this relationship. Interestingly, financial constraints from the external financing organization weaken the negative relationship between the buyer firm's supplier concentration and R&D intensity.

Based on the argument of real options theory and resource dependence theory, this study provides novel insights into the issue of how concentration on several major suppliers may reduce buyer firms' R&D intensity. First, this study introduces operational slack as a form of internal uncertainty that mediates the supplier concentration–R&D intensity relationship. Second, this study suggests that the effect of supplier concentration on R&D intensity is contingent upon firms' financial constraints from external financial organizations, disclosing a synergetic interactive effect of supplier concentration and financial constraints on firms' R&D activities. Third, this study is conducted in the unique institutional context of China, providing meaningful insights into the relationship between supplier concentration and R&D intensity.