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This study aims to explore the perceptions about Chinese brands from the point of views of young Chinese consumers.

A qualitative method is used including focus groups and in-depth personal interviews with young Chinese consumers who are currently living and working in Australia.

Two key findings emerge from the results, namely, young Chinese consumers attach symbolic values to Chinese brands and Chinese brands are perceived positively by young Chinese consumers.

This study demonstrates that symbolic values (such as pride, lifestyle, feeling of home and being happy) constitute one of the primary motivations for young Chinese consumers’ purchase of domestic brands. The results of this study challenge the traditional view that Chinese brands are perceived negatively in the Chinese market.

This is one of the very few studies investigating how young Chinese consumers perceive brands from their home country rather than foreign brands.

To further promote application of BIM technology in construction of prefabricated buildings, influencing factors and evolution laws of willingness to apply BIM technology are explored from the perspective of willingness of participants.

In this paper, a tripartite game model involving the design firm, component manufacturer and construction firm is constructed and a system dynamics method is used to explore the influencing factors and game evolution path of three parties' application of BIM technology, from three perspectives, cost, benefit and risk.

The government should formulate measures for promoting the application of BIM according to different BIM application willingness of the parties. When pursuing deeper BIM application, the design firm should pay attention to reducing the speculative benefits of the component manufacturer and the construction firm. The design firm and the component manufacturer should pay attention to balancing the cost and benefit of the design firm while enhancing collaborative efforts. When the component manufacturer and the construction firm cooperate closely, it is necessary to pay attention to balanced distribution of interests of both parties and lower the risk of BIM application.

This study fills a research gap by comprehensively investigating the influencing factors and game evolution paths of willingness of the three parties to apply BIM technology to prefabricated buildings. The research helps to effectively improve the building quality and construction efficiency, and is expected to contribute to the sustainability of built environment in the context of circular economy in China.

Purpose – Social relations play an important role in a real community. Interaction patterns reveal relations among actors (such as persons, groups, firms), which can be merged to produce valuable information such as a network structure. This paper aims to present a new approach to extract inter‐firm networks from the web for further analysis. Design/methodology/approach – In this study extraction of relations between a pair of firms is obtained by using a search engine and text processing. Because names of firms co‐appear coincidentally on the web, an advanced algorithm is proposed, which is characterised by the addition of keywords (“relation keywords”) to a query. The relation keywords are obtained from the web using a Jaccard coefficient. Findings – As an application, a network of 60 firms in Japan is extracted including IT, communication, broadcasting, and electronics firms from the web and comprehensive evaluations of this approach are shown. The alliance and lawsuit relations are easily obtainable from the web using the algorithm. By adding relation keywords to named pairs of firms as a query, It is possible to collect target pages from the top of web pages more precisely than by only using the named pairs as a query. Practical implications – This study proposes a new approach for extracting inter‐firm networks from the web. The obtained network is useful in several ways. It is possible to find a cluster of firms and characterise a firm by its cluster. Business experts often make such inferences based on firm relations and firm groups. For that reason the firm network might enhance inferential abilities on the business domain. Also we might use obtained networks to recommend business partners based on structural advantages. The authors' intuition is that extracting a social network might provide information that is only recognisable from the network point of view. For example, the centrality of each firm is identified only after generating a social network. Originality/value – This study is a first attempt to extract inter‐firm networks from the web using a search engine. The approach is also applicable to other actors, such as famous persons, organisations or other multiple relational entities.

This study aims to evaluate the effect of cell immobilization on bioactive property of lactobacilli‐fermented soymilk.

Agrowastes from durian (Durio zibethinus), cempedak (Artocarpus champeden), and mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) were used as immobilizers for lactobacilli (Lactobacillus acidophilus FTDC 1331, L. acidophilus FTDC 2631, L. acidophilus FTDC 2333, L. acidophilus FTDC 1733, and L. bulgaricus FTCC 0411) in soymilk fermentation. Fermented soymilk was stored at different temperatures (4°C, 25°C and 37°C) for 168 h and sampled for analyses periodically.

Scanning electron micrographs showed that cells of lactobacilli were immobilized onto the matrix of agrowastes powder. The proteolytic activity was higher in soymilk supplemented with immobilized lactobacilli at 37°C and 25°C compared to that at 4°C. Soymilk fermented by cells immobilized on cempedak rind powder showed higher proteolytic activity (p<0.0001), followed by durian and mangosteen rinds powder (p<0.001). The highest ACE inhibitory activity was also found in soymilk fermented by cells immobilized on cempedak rind powder for all temperatures studied (p<0.0001). In addition, ACE inhibitory activity was higher in soymilk fermented at 37°C, compared to 25°C and 4°C (p<0.0001).

The results in the paper show that cell immobilization enhances the bioactive property of fermented soymilk, in terms of proteolysis and in‐vitro ACE inhibitory activity.

The aim of this study is to develop a soy‐based cream cheese (SCC) with textural characteristics comparable to that of commercial dairy cream cheese (DCC) via the addition of microbial transglutaminase (MTG), soy protein isolate (SPI) and maltodextrin (MD).

Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed in this study to determine the effects of MTG, MD and SPI on firmness of SCC.

The second‐order model generated via RSM was significant with only a 9.76 per cent variation not explained by the model. The coefficient of regression revealed that MTG, MD and SPI showed significant linear effects (P<0.0001) on the firmness of SCC, while MTG and SPI showed significant quadratic effects. The model successfully predicted and developed a SCC model with similar firmness as that of DCC; via the combination of 2.57 per cent (w/w) of MTG, 19.69 per cent (w/w) of SPI and 19.69 per cent (w/w) of MD. Physicochemical analyses revealed that SCC possessed lower fat content, reduced saturated fatty acid and zero trans fat. Further rheological measurements revealed that SCC was more solid‐like at room temperature, but less elastic at refrigerated temperature compared to DCC. SEM and SDS‐PAGE analyses affirmed that the textural changes of SCC were attributed to MTG‐induced cross‐linking.

The research demonstrated that a non‐dairy cream cheese could be developed using soy. In addition, the SCC also contained better nutritional properties compared to its dairy counterpart.

Suggests that misunderstandings frequently occur when trying to understand Chinese language and culture, and so gives the implied meaning of various Chinese expressions and sayings such as greetings, thanks, respect, age, congratulations and taboo subjects.

This meta-analysis aims to aggregate empirical findings from extant inter-firm opportunism literature.

First, a quantitative summary on the bivariate relationships between the antecedents and the consequences of opportunism is offered. Second, a multivariate analysis is employed to identify significant antecedents of opportunism and the process variables that mediate the relationship between inter-firm opportunism and organizational performance.

Results reveal that goal congruence has the largest influence on inter-firm opportunism, followed by cultural sensitivity, communication, and environmental volatility, norms, governance emphasis, and relative dependence. These important antecedents represent significant research directions for inter-firm opportunism. In addition, inter-firm opportunism affects organizational performance through a mediating process including commitment, functional conflict, overall satisfaction, and trust. Commitment is found to act as a major moderating construct between inter-firm opportunism and its other significant consequences in the revised model.

This study widens the horizon on inter-firm opportunism research by examining a much greater number of effect sizes and by employing a more complex framework of the mechanism mediating the inter-firm opportunism-organizational performance relationship and does so more effectively than any individual research work.

Past decades have witnessed significant contributions to theories of the firm, innovation and economic growth from two closely related paradigms, namely, the Capabilities School and National Innovation Systems Approach. Unlike the neoclassical models of the firm and growth, these two paradigms place emphasis on the knowledge and learning process in understanding economic development. Despite being closer to reality in their treatment of economic issues than their neoclassical school counterpart, the two paradigms have not put human agency in the forefront of their analysis. This paper constructs a theory of national capabilities in the subjectivist perspective, which is then extended to understand firm and national capabilities and competitiveness. While this paper recognizes the influence of institutions on firms' decision making, unlike contemporary evolutionary literatures, the subjectivist perspective highlights the fact that all institutions are the coordinating effort of human actions which attempt to interpret external events or make sense out of social or economic interactions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the variety of food in which it has been applied as a prebiotic and functional ingredient, the concentrations used there in, the tests that have been conducted on these fortified foods and briefly reviews the history and characteristics of inulin.

The review included articles from 1999-2013. The papers which reported inulin concentrations used, the purpose of the application and tests on final product, were mainly selected. Articles were collected in electronic databases such as Elsevier-Science Direct, Emerald, Springer Link, Wiley and Redalyc.

The interaction inulin-food with different food matrices is complex, and is not always technologically favorable for the product. Moreover, additional to evaluations of sensory, physicochemical and rheological characteristics, it is essential to carry out measurements in the food, of such characteristics as prebiotic content, and prebiotic activity in vivo and in vitro, and assess potential adverse reactions in order to define suitable doses of consumption.

The paper highlights the importance of conducting in vitro and in vivo testing of potential prebiotic inulin-supplemented food in order to define dose that benefit health and do not cause unacceptable gastrointestinal distress.