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In the era of digital evolution, companies are increasingly deploying digital platforms to optimize operational efficiencies and to connect with customers more directly. However, little is known about whether and how companies can leverage digital platforms to enhance their brand prestige. Integrating insights from the resource-based view of the firm into the branding literature, this study aims to compare and distinguish the effects of the two digital platform functions, technical and social functions, on a company’s brand prestige. This study also assesses the moderating roles of two institutional factors, market uncertainty and brand imitation.

This study estimates a moderated regression model using a survey of 240 companies in China that deploy digital platforms. This study uses SPSS 24.0 to perform regression analysis.

The study finds that technical functions positively, whereas social functions negatively affect brand prestige. Moreover, the technical functions of digital platforms are more beneficial for companies to build their brand prestige when the market is turbulent and the extent of brand imitation is high, whereas, under the same conditions, social functions lead to lower brand prestige.

There are several limitations of this study that offer future research opportunities. First, due to the difficulties of data collection, measures were taken from the same source for which common method bias could be a potential concern. Second, this study considered two institutional boundary conditions in these models. Future research should consider mediators as well as other potential moderators to understand the underlying mechanisms of how digital platforms affect brand prestige. Third, future studies may develop better constructs to manifest these two types of digital platform functions. Finally, this sample was limited to companies in China.

This study provides important implications for companies leveraging digital platforms to build brands. First, companies must distinguish between the different functions of digital platforms. The findings reveal that companies that leverage digital platforms to build brand prestige are suggested to make greater use of technical functions yet should be cautious in developing social functions. Second, this research suggests although market uncertainty and brand imitation are not conducive to enhancing brand prestige, it is possible for companies to take advantage of these unfavorable environments to better serve niche customers.

Prior marketing studies emphasize the benefits of digital platforms and largely overlook the double-edged sword effect of digital platforms on companies’ brand building. This study contributes to the marketing literature by revealing the benefits of technical function and the challenges of social function in driving brand prestige in complex institutional settings.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the technical efficiency and production risk in China's rice production and examine the effect of factor market reform on these two agricultural performance metrics.

Using an unbalanced farm-level panel data with 2,193 observations on 329 rice farms from 2004 to 2016, the authors estimate a translog stochastic production frontier model that accounts for both technical inefficiency and production risk. A one-step procedure through the maximum likelihood method that combines the stochastic production frontier, technical inefficiency and production risk functions is used to circumvent the bias problem often found in the conventional two-step model.

Estimation results show that both land and labor market reforms significantly improved the level of technical efficiency over the years, although the effect of land market deregulation is of a much higher magnitude compared to the latter. The land market reform, however, has also increased the risk of production. The authors further find that a higher proportion of hired labor in total labor cost helps lower production risk, while also acting to decrease technical efficiency. Additionally, agricultural subsidies not only increased the output variability but also lowered technical efficiency

First, the authors evaluate the effect of market deregulation on technical efficiency and production risk under a stochastic frontier framework that simultaneously accounts for both production performance metrics, which is important from a statistical point of view. Further, the authors exploit both cross-sectional and time-series variations in a panel setting to more accurately estimate the technical inefficiency scores and production risk for individual farmers, and investigate how the exogenous land and labor market reforms influence these two production performance measures in China's rice farming. This is the first study in the literature to analyze these questions under a panel framework.

Describes how the changing educational environment demands continuous school‐based teacher education (SBTE) for school development, teacher effectiveness and quality assurance. Suggests that SBTE should help teachers and the school to perform technical, human, political, cultural and educational functions at five levels. Asserts that the functions of SBTE can contribute to the strategic management process, facilitate whole‐school development and enhance school effectiveness. Argues that a thorough understanding of the multi‐functions of SBTE is necessary for effective design and implementation of the content and activities of teacher education in school. Provides a comprehensive framework for practitioners and researchers to understand the complex nature and potential contribution of SBTE in both local and international contexts.

This paper aims to conceptualise and measure the technical aspects of the division of labour (DoL) with a new survey indicator of technical complexity (ITC) at work.

Two technical criteria skills and functions are used to distinguish positions in the DoL and to cluster and rank them into a 28‐category ordinal survey ITC. The indicator's construct‐validity is tested by assessing the correlation between these criteria and occupational activities' levels of substantive and organizational complexity, as uncovered by categorical principal component analysis. Criterion‐validity is assessed by testing the indicator's ability to predict occupational prestige, absolutely and relatively to other indicators.

The indicator shows high levels of construct and criterion‐validity.

The paper contributes to a better understanding and measurement of technical constraints in the DoL, facilitating a future evaluation of their impact on class inequalities.

I think I should at the outset explain something of the origin of this paper, and how it came to be written. As some of you may be aware, an article appeared in the issue of The Engineer for 13th February, 1953, on ‘Library service for industry’. In many respects it was a very useful and informative article, but at one point it claimed that ‘the activities of an information department usually revolve round the library’, the inference being, of course, that in information work the librarian is the ‘king pin’. As I disagreed strongly with that view, I wrote a letter to the editor pointing out what I regarded as an error in the article. Somewhat to my surprise a long correspondence ensued, and showed two rather striking features. The first was that the point I had raised was sidetracked, and there developed an almost bitter argument as to whether or not there is any difference between a librarian and an information officer. The second feature was that nearly all of the correspondents were engaged in technical information work, and almost without exception they assumed that no other kind of information work exists.

The automation of technical service functions has led to many changes in workflows and culture. Recent enhancements have leveraged systems developed by materials vendors of books and serials to further enhance library efficiency, resulting in adjustments to how work is assigned both inside and outside the library. Future developments are expected in technical service functions following the same trends, as well as changes that will provide ways to manage the emerging electronic products.

Explores inter‐functional differences between marketing and other departments from a decision‐making perspective, with particular emphasis on managers’ perceptions of problems. Problems are differentiated along two main axes: operational‐strategic and structured‐unstructured. The concept of decision‐making context is introduced as the ratio of problem types encountered. To differentiate managers on an individual level, the construct of perception type is examined. Suggests that, by relying on certain psychological functions in preference to others, individuals will attempt to formulate and solve problems in disparate ways. Based on a survey comparing top and middle marketing managers with managers from technical areas, significant differences are found in terms of perceptions of decision‐making context. Perception type is also found to be a significant factor, explaining more variance in decision‐making context than inter‐functional differences. The implications for managerial action are explored both in terms of developing inter‐functional relations and enhancing the effectiveness of inter‐functional teams.

In an emerging global competitive environment, the Malaysian semiconductor industry is facing threats from low cost countries with limited innovative capabilities. It urges for improvement in competitiveness of the Malaysian semiconductor industry. This study focuses on the perspectives of the managers towards the enhancement of competitiveness. Through a focus group interview and data collected from 200 managers working in semiconductor‐manufacturing units in Malaysia, the study identified twenty‐two competitive factors for the improvement of competitiveness of the semiconductor industry in Malaysia. Since the collected data did not form a normal distribution, nonparametric tests such as Chi‐squire test and Mann‐Whitney U test were used to test the framed hypotheses. Based on the analysis, ten key competitive factors were identified out of the identified twenty‐two competitive factors through focus group interview. Further, the study also highlighted the differences in the opinion of competitive factors of technical and non‐technical job functioning managers.

Analyses how the high proportion of temporary employment affects the firm's technical efficiency. Uses the stochastic frontier approach to measure the technical efficiency of the Spanish manufacturing firms during the period 1990‐2001. A negative relation between technical efficiency and the proportion of temporary jobs has been obtained. Also, shows that permanent employment makes an important contribution to output while temporary does not.