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Production industries are undergoing a digital transition, referred to as the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0, as a result of rapidly expanding advances in information and communication technology. The purpose of this research is to provide a conceptual insight into the impact of unique capabilities from the fourth industrial revolution on production and maintenance tasks in terms of providing the existing production companies a boost by making recommendations on areas and tasks of great potential.

A survey and a literature review are among the research methods used in the research. The survey collected empirical data using a semi-structured questionnaire, which provided a broad overview of the company's present condition in terms of production and maintenance, resulting in more comprehensive and specific information regarding the study topics.

The study points out that, the implementation of I4.0-technology leads to an increase in production, asset utilization, quality, reduced machine down time in industries, and maintenance. Sensor technology, big data analysis, cloud technologies, mobile end devices, and real-time location systems are now being implemented to improve production processes and boost organizational competitiveness. Moreover, the study highlights that data acquired throughout the production process is utilized for quality control, predictive maintenance, and automatic production control. Furthermore, I4.0 solutions help companies to be more efficient with assets at each stage of the process, allowing them to have a stronger control on inventories and operational-optimization potential.

The findings of the study was supported by empirical data collected through survey that provides an intangible understanding of the importance of distinctive capabilities from the I4.0 revolution on production and maintenance tasks. In this study, some recommendations and guidelines to enhance these tasks are provided that are vital for existing production companies.

This paper aims to explore avenue where suppliers and manufacturers are aligned with health-care providers to improve supply chain visibility. Supply chain finance is explored to link suppliers/manufacturers with health-care providers.

Existing literature on supply chain visibility in health care forms a basis to achieve the study purpose. Alignment calls also for financial health where supply chain partners’ working capital is readily available to execute joint supply chain plan.

There is a disjoint in supply chain alliance between suppliers/manufacturers and providers where providers are unable to trace the origin of supplies. Quality care suffers and cost of care rises as providers search for supplies on an emergency basis. This paper provides a framework where solution can be formulated.

Suppliers/manufactures form a direct strategic alliance with providers where product visibility enables health-care providers with a better patient management with lower cost of supplies. Inventory management and logistics cost will be lowered as better planning/forecasting is in place. This paper does not call for testing any hypothesis. Perhaps, next move along this line will be to investigate financial health of supply chain partners based on supplier relationship management practices.

This paper proposes health-care supply chain as an alternative solution to achieve the following twin purposes: controlling the cost while improving quality of care through supply chain finance. As far as we know, this study is the first attempt to achieve the goals.

The purpose of this study is to use the individual blade pitch control (IBC), reduce actively both the rotor hub vibratory loads and airframe vibration responses for the lift-offset compound helicopter at a high-speed flight condition.

The Sikorsky X2 technology demonstrator (X2TD) is used as the lift-offset compound helicopter. The X2TD lift-offset rotor is modelled and its rotor hub vibratory loads at a flight speed of 250 knots are predicted using a rotorcraft comprehensive analysis code, CAMRAD II, and the airframe structural dynamics is represented with a finite element analysis code, MSC.NASTRAN. When the propulsive trim methodology is applied for rotor trim, the best input condition for IBC using multiple harmonic inputs is searched to reduce the rotor vibration, while the rotor aerodynamic performance (the rotor effective lift-to-drag ratio) is improved or maintained at least. Finally, the reduction in airframe vibration responses is investigated when the best input condition for IBC with multiple harmonics is applied to the lift-offset rotor.

When the IBC with the single harmonic input using the 2/rev actuation frequency, amplitude of 2° and control phase angle of 120° (2P/2°/120°) is considered for X2TD rotor, the rotor vibration is reduced by about 26.37% only and the rotor effective lift-to-drag ratio increases slightly by 0.98%. When X2TD rotor uses the IBC with multiple harmonic inputs (2P/2°/45° + 5P/1°/90°), the rotor hub vibratory loads and airframe vibration responses are reduced by 44.69% and from 0.48 to 79.10%, respectively, while rotor effective lift-to-drag ratio is improved by 0.77%, as compared to the baseline without IBC.

This study is the first study to use the 2/rev actuation for IBC to the four-bladed lift-offset coaxial rotor and to investigate to obtain simultaneously the rotor vibration reduction, rotor performance improvement and airframe vibration reduction, using IBC with multiple harmonic inputs.

This study examines consumers' evaluations of product consumption values, purchase intentions and willingness to pay for fashion products designed using generative adversarial network (GAN), an artificial intelligence technology. This research investigates differences between consumers' evaluations of a GAN-generated product and a non-GAN-generated product and tests whether disclosing the use of GAN technology affects consumers' evaluations.

Sample products were developed as experimental stimuli using cycleGAN. Data were collected from 163 members of Generation Y. Participants were assigned to one of the three experimental conditions (i.e. non-GAN-generated images, GAN-generated images with disclosure and GAN-generated images without disclosure). Regression analysis and ANOVA were used to test the hypotheses.

Functional, social and epistemic consumption values positively affect willingness to pay in the GAN-generated products. Relative to non-GAN-generated products, willingness to pay is significantly higher for GAN-generated products. Moreover, evaluations of functional value, emotional value and willingness to pay are highest when GAN technology is used, but not disclosed.

This study evaluates the utility of GANs from consumers' perspective based on the perceived value of GAN-generated product designs. Findings have practical implications for firms that are considering using GANs to develop products for the retail fashion market.

For centuries, people have raised money for many purposes, and funding projects utilizing the Internet began to spread in earnest after 2010. However, there is a notable lack of research on crowdfunding projects, especially those involving sports. Given this background, this study's objective is to compare whether motivational factors may work differently depending on crowdfunding type and to analyze the impact of such factors on investments.

This study was conducted using stimulation through artificially modified newspaper articles to measure crowdfunding motivation and investment intention. To clarify research questions, this study applied multiple regression analysis.

Findings indicate that philanthropic motives and interest in projects influenced the intention to decide on funding and often had positive word-of-mouth effects. In equity-based projects, philanthropic motives and a desire to be recognized acted as drivers for both behaviors. In reward-based projects, philanthropic motives determined investment intentions, and recognition motivation and interest factors influenced word-of-mouth intention.

This study investigated the motivations and consequent intentions for crowdfunding in the field of the professional sports industry, which had substantive future implications for the business of sports.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the stadium occupancy rate on television viewers’ game quality perception and stadium visit intention (VI).

An experiment was conducted in which two groups were asked to watch video clips of professional soccer games with low- and high-stadium occupancy rates.

The results indicate that the higher the stadium occupancy, the higher is perceived game quality and the greater is stadium VI.

The paper provides useful information on the effect of the stadium occupancy rate on perceived game quality and VI.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the status of recent Korean four-year college students’ acquisition of vocational qualification certificates (hereinafter “certificates” or “qualifications”), the factors that influence certificate acquisition, and the resulting employment and wage effects.

Regression analysis was conducted on the data from the Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey.

The results showed that females and medicine and education majors had higher rates of vocational qualifications, as did the students in provincial as compared to metropolitan areas and students with high grades. In terms of effects on labor market outcomes, vocational qualifications exert a moderate degree of positive influence on employment rate, wage at the time of initial employment, and current wage (i.e. there is a persistent wage effect).

This study will provide policy implications to decrease youth unemployment in Korea and worldwide as well as to build employment services supporting the acquisition of vocational qualifications across various disciplines.

This study investigates the mediating effect of perceived value in the relationship between team identification and purchase intention towards licensed apparel within two different price settings (market price and 40% above market price). Considering adaptation level theory, cognitive dissonance theory and dual information processing, it is hypothesised that team identification will directly influence purchase intention when the price of a product decreases. Two models (partial mediation and full mediation) were constructed in each price setting and tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results indicate that the partial mediation model better fits the data for the 70,000 Won setting and the full mediation model was a better fit for the 90,000 Won setting.

This study aims at examining the role of the e-store brand personality congruence/incongruence of a multichannel apparel retailer in the formation of consumers' perceived e-store brand fit and e-store patronage intention, based on the concept of image congruence.

An online survey was conducted with a US national sample of 458 female consumers (20–50 years old) who had shopped for clothing online.

Results revealed that e-store brand personality incongruence in three personality dimensions had a negative impact on consumers' e-store patronage intention directly as well as indirectly by reducing the consumers' global perception of the e-store brand fit. Further, the retailer's relevance to the consumer moderated the relationship between the perceived e-store brand fit and e-store patronage intention in that this relationship was significantly greater among consumers with a high (vs low) perceived self-relevance of the retail brand.

The findings highlight the importance of symbolically integrated cross-channel brand management for multichannel apparel retailers by clearly identifying their brand personality and carefully crafting it into their e-store interface design and e-store visual merchandising to convey the brand personality.

This study expands the application of image congruence to the cross-channel image congruence phenomenon in multichannel retailing environments by examining the e-store brand image congruence employing both direct and indirect approaches.

Advertising clutter has fueled the rise of nontraditional advertising methods. The current study, conducted in India, adopted the consumer socialization framework to assess product placement attitudes and behaviors.

A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to gauge consumers' responses to product placements. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to analyze the relationship between different variables.

The results revealed that young Indian adults are positive about product placements as they believe that incorporating brands into the content adds realism. The authors found that socialization agents significantly impact viewers' attitudes toward product placements which in turn influence their purchase intentions. The authors also found that product acceptability impacts consumers' purchase intentions.

This paper provides important insights into consumers' perceptions of product placements. Based on the findings, marketers can formulate effective product placement strategies.

Most of the studies existing in this area have been conducted in the developed markets except a few which have been conducted in the emerging markets. Hence, the present study is an attempt to fill this research gap. This study is among the first to establish a relationship between product acceptability and consumers' purchase intentions.