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This study aims to explore how the concept of extended self-influences luxury shopping tourism consumption among Chinese tourists. It explores why luxury shopping is important for Chinese tourists. Specifically, this study focuses on a strategically important emerging market segment: post-1990s female Chinese tourists.

To explore the link between the extended self and luxury shopping tourism consumption among post-1990s Chinese female tourists, this study adopted a qualitative and interpretive approach. A total of 22 semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out to collect the data.

This qualitative inquiry found that luxury shopping during overseas holidays has some subtle differences from luxury shopping in China, as the conceptualisation of luxury is highly context-based. Through a focus on gender and generational differences, the current study reveals that the idea of individuality has started to influence their luxury purchases.

The study shows how different selves are associated with luxury shopping. It thus provides empirical evidence regarding the reasons behind their motivation, especially for shopping overseas to get a good price and an exclusive and enjoyable luxury shopping experience abroad. Also, it was found that curiosity about buying luxury products is viewed as less favoured and logical shopping will be a future trend. Individuality is becoming a trend for younger consumers.

Theoretically, by linking the “extended self” with luxury shopping tourism, this study provides the social-psychological aspects of luxury shopping tourism. Instead of focusing on particular destinations, this study provides compressed but also focused inquiries to explore how the concept of the self-influences post-1990s female Chinese tourists’ shopping consumption while on holiday, and how this luxury shopping experience influences their concept of the self.

本文运用“延伸自我”概念对中国泳客在境外购买奢侈品的行为和意义进行探讨, 从而进一步了解中国游客对奢侈品的消费形态。 研究主要专注在中国90后女性市场, 女性市场已被许多学者以即市场营销人员认定为新兴市场领域。

通过22个深度访谈的所得数据表明境外奢侈品高买行为与自我概念有着紧密的联系, 并为消费者购买动机背后的原因提供了实证

在境外旅游过程中购买奢侈品有非常大的价格优势, 同时又能为消费者提供独特的购物体验, 中国90后女性的奢侈品购买行为日趋理性并在出行之前做好详细的购物计划, 个性的展示将成为中国年轻女性奢侈品消费的主导因素。

该研究的理论贡献是探索自我概念如何影响90年代后中国女性游客在境外旅行度假时的奢侈品购物行为, 以及这种奢侈品购物体验如何影响其自我概念。

关键词 购物，中国游客，女性， 延伸自我，自我概念

文章类型 研究论文

El estudio se dedica a explorar cómo influir el conceptöauto-extensión¨ al comportamiento de comprar los artículos de lujo en el extranjero entre los chinos turísticos, también a explorar la importancia de tal caso para ellos.

Este estudio ha adaptado un enfoque cualitativo entre 22 entrevistas en profundidad semiestructuradas para la recopilación de datos y muestra cómo se asocian diferentes seres con las compras de lujo.

Por lo tanto, se proporciona las pruebas evidentemente sobre las razones detrás de su motivación. Comprar artículos de lujo durante los viajes al extranjero tiene una gran ventaja de precio, al tiempo que las ofrece una experiencia especial. Estos actos se están volviendo más racionales y tienen planes de compras detallados antes de viajar. La exhibición de la personalidad se convertirá en el factor dominante en cuanto al consumo de artículos de lujo por parte de tales chinas.

Principalmente se enfoca a un nuevo campo del mercado en lo cual los consumidores son las chicas quienes nacieron después del año 1990.

This paper aims to analyse the conceptual bases of the related terms of “host” and “guest” in Chinese and reveal essential, though overlooked, cultural differences that relate to “hospitality” in Western and Chinese cultural contexts.

A presupposition of this conceptual investigation is that culture manifests itself linguistically. The analytic approach used here is textual analysis. Confucian classical texts are the main source of evidence for examining the conceptual commitments of the Chinese characters 主 and 客 and their corresponding practical expressions.

Cross-cultural comparison reveals asymmetries between the term “hospitality” and its Chinese translations, etymologically and culturally. This study demonstrates how the Chinese 主–客 paradigm is both hierarchal in nature and centred on the role and interests of the host. It further compares this paradigm with its Western counterpart along five different dimensions.

The specific Chinese norms for the host–guest paradigm synthesized here could prompt both academicians and operators to question the cultural attachments associated with hospitality by participants and the cultural differences in hospitality transactions and management. The cultural sensitivity modelled here is intended to facilitate harmony between a hospitality setting and the culture in which it is embedded.

This conceptual paper is the first in the Anglophone literature to explore the Chinese cultural roots of the concepts “host” and “guest”. The linguistic perspective used in this study allows the concept of “hospitality” to be studied cross-culturally and in an interdisciplinary way, addressing a blind spot in the extant hospitality literature.

The purpose of this paper is to combine the uncertain methods of type-2 fuzzy sets and data envelopment analysis (DEA) evaluation model together. A new type-2 fuzzy DEA efficiency assessment method is established. Then the proposed procedure is applied to the poverty alleviation problem.

The research method is the DEA model, which is an effective method for efficiency assessment of social–economic systems. Considering the existence of the same efficiency values that cannot be ranked in the proposed DEA model, the balance index is introduced to solve the ranking problem of decision-making units effectively.

The results show that the proposed method can not only measure the efficiency of the existence of uncertain information but also deal with the ranking of multiple efficient decision-making units.

This paper selects type-2 fuzzy DEA model to express a lot of uncertain information in efficiency evaluation problems. We use the parameter decomposition method of type-2 fuzzy programming or the type-2 expectation values indirectly. The balance index is proposed to further distinguish the multiple effective decision-making units. Furthermore, this paper selects rural poverty alleviation in Hainan Province as a case study to verify the feasibility of the method. The relative efficiency values in different years are calculated and analyzed.

Over the past several decades, there has been an increasing trend towards inter-city cooperation, which is an efficient policy option to deal with the challenges from globalization, regionalization and the externalities resulting from urban entrepreneurialism. Specific to China, the city governments, which mainly refer to prefecture-level and county-level governments, have also made many attempts to cooperate with respect to their local economic development and public affairs. Nevertheless, the results of these initiations to cooperate vary to a great extent. Based on a review of regional pollution governance in the Xiaoqing River area, tourism cooperation initiatives at Weishan Lake and transport integration between Jinan and Laiwu. The findings demonstrate that China's idiosyncratic institutional background has a significant impact on the shaping of inter-city cooperation. For the most part, leading small groups (LSGs) and their leadership property tend to determine the effectiveness of inter-city cooperation.

To examine the effect of the LSGs, we categorize them into three types, groups with strong leadership, weak leadership and self-forming leadership. Through reviewing regional pollution governance in the Xiaoqing River area, tourism cooperation initiatives at Weishan Lake and transport integration between Jinan and Laiwu, we try to probe the role of leading groups in the settlement of cross-administrative border issues.

Based on these three cases, the conclusion can be drawn that the leadership type of the LSG can exert an important influence on the efficiency of inter-city cooperation. If there is a leader with a higher administrative rank or authority, the cooperation can be quite efficient. Otherwise, the cooperative ending might be very negative. In terms of the operation principle, we can infer that even though the cities are always self-development oriented, the leader with higher authority or a strong coordinating capacity can convince and persuade the city leaders to overcome their self-centered behavior template and boost the cooperation to March on smoothly. Also, it means that the LSG is constrained by its personalistic characteristic. Key command derives from the person who chairs the LSG other than specific rules and norms. If the lead of the LSG leaves his position, the cooperation might just become paralyzed. From this point of view, the lack of legal basis remains to be the LSGs' significant deficiency and the future reform should attach more importance to the legalization of the LSGs so the operation of LSGs can be more standard and stable.

Many scholars have proposed their own theoretical models to explain the reason some cities successfully and effectively form cooperative relations, while the other cities do not. However, their models do not consider the idiosyncratic context of China or, how and to which extent LSGs can promote cooperation. Therefore, this paper seeks to probe which path in the context of China cities usually follows in the formation of joint efforts, and what role LSGs play in enabling cities to cooperate.

The purpose of this paper is to achieve stable grasping and dexterous in-hand manipulation, the control of the multi-fingered robotic hand is a difficult problem as the hand has many degrees of freedom with various grasp configurations.

To achieve this goal, a novel object-level impedance control framework with optimized grasp force and grasp quality is proposed for multi-fingered robotic hand grasping and in-hand manipulation. The minimal grasp force optimization aims to achieve stable grasping satisfying friction cone constraint while keeping appropriate contact forces without damage to the object. With the optimized grasp quality function, optimal grasp quality can be obtained by dynamically sliding on the object from initial grasp configuration to final grasp configuration. By the proposed controller, the in-hand manipulation of the grasped object can be achieved with compliance to the environment force. The control performance of the closed-loop robotic system is guaranteed by appropriately choosing the design parameters as proved by a Lyapunove function.

Simulations are conducted to validate the efficiency and performance of the proposed controller with a three-fingered robotic hand.

This paper presents a method for robotic optimal grasping and in-hand manipulation with a compliant controller. It may inspire other related researchers and has great potential for practical usage in a widespread of robot applications.

At present, the enzyme washing process is widely used in hemp garment in the industry. However, it has many disadvantages. First, it is inefficient and labor-intensive, which can only be produced in small quantities and will take much time for workers to check. Second, its cost is high. The strength loss of the garment is up to 20 percent, with a bad damage. Presently, the enzyme washing process of the gray fabric is not industrialized. The purpose of this paper is to obtain a stable and efficient process for the enzyme washing of the gray fabric.

The whiteness, weight loss rate, strength, dyeing property and fabric style of enzyme washed gray fabrics were studied.

The results showed that the enzyme treated fabric has soft handle, smooth surface, good elasticity and high levelness, as well as low strength reduction rate under the optimized condition of bath ratio of 1:12, cellulase dosage of 0.3 percent, pectinase dosage of 1 g/L, treatment temperature of 55°C, treatment time of 80 min and pH of 6.

First, the process is environment friendly, green and sustainable and, second, it will make the industrialization of the enzyme washing process of gray fabrics, with a high commercial value.

By modelling China’s property price changes and their effect on GDP, this study aims to develop a more general model of the costs and benefits driving price bubbles.

The authors develop a five-sector dynamic model (using data from China and seven other comparator jurisdictions), resulting in a bubble risk factor. The authors then correlate this risk factor with changes in property prices and resulting changes in GDP.

The authors find that economic structures (the way GDP, property prices and other variables change relative to each other) can change during/after a financial crisis. The authors also find that price disequilibria can help predict the risk of a property price fall – which thus reverberates into GDP change.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no dynamic models of price bubbles exist (though many exist of financial bubbles). The authors provide both theoretical novelties (such as providing a model of risk using non-linear differential equations) and practical ones (showing when we can expect Chinese GDP to fall).

This study investigates the impact of insider-ownership of publicly traded firms on their performance, cost of debt (COD) and cost of equity. We use a sample of 104 non-finance listed companies of Pakistan for the period from 2006 to 2016. Our study is conducted in Pakistan as a developing country in which insider-ownership is dominant, and a weak external corporate governance mechanism increases the payoffs from insider-ownership. We use feasible generalized least square (FGLS) regression methods to examine these hypotheses. Based on agency theory, we find that insider-ownership enhances firm performance. Furthermore, our results show that insider-ownership reduced the COD and equity. Higher ownership decreases the opportunistic behavior of insiders. It also reduces the creditor’s perception of the likelihood of default on loan payments and reduces agency issues among shareholders. The insider will invest in positive NPV projects which will help maximize shareholders’ wealth and minimize the COD. Similarly, the relationship between insider-ownership and cost of equity is significant but negative. Supporting the convergence of interest increase in ownership helps in aligning the goals of managers and stakeholders whereby the insider will focus on value creation by minimizing equity cost.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of inhomogeneities on the rolling contact fatigue (RCF) life in elastohydrodynamically lubricated (EHL) point contacts.

A numerical model for predicting the RCF life of inhomogeneous materials in EHL contacts was established by combining the EHL model and the inclusion model through the eigen-displacement and then connecting to the RCF life model through the subsurface stresses. Effects of the type, size, location and orientation of a single inhomogeneity and the distribution of multiple inhomogeneities on the RCF life were investigated.

The RCF life of a half-space containing manganese sulfide (MnS) inhomogeneity or the mixed inhomogeneity of aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃) and calcium oxide (CaO) was longer than that for the case of Al₂O₃ inhomogeneity. For a single ellipsoidal MnS inhomogeneity, increases of its semi-axis length and decreases of its horizontal distance between the inhomogeneity and the contact center shortened the RCF life. Furthermore, the relationship between the depth of a single MnS inhomogeneity and the RCF life was found. For the half-space containing multiple inhomogeneitites, the RCF life decreased remarkably compared with the homogeneous half-space and showed discreteness.

This paper implements the prediction of the RCF life of inhomogeneous materials under EHL condition.

This paper investigates the dynamic pricing strategy of a firm for the successive-generation products under the conditions of the limited trade-in duration and strategic customers. Further, it explores the effect of a limited trade-in duration on the choice of the myopic and strategic customers, besides the optimal dynamic pricing and trade-in strategy of the firm.

Based on the choice behavior of the myopic and strategic customers, the authors have developed a two-period game-theoretic analytical model to decide the optimal retail prices of the successive-generation products and the optimal trade-in rebate when the firm adopts a dynamic pricing strategy and then investigate three extensions of the basic model to discuss the change in the results owing to the relaxation of certain conditions.

The authors find from the results that, in terms of profit maximization, it is better to extend the limited trade-in duration, and hence, the firm should implement a dynamic pricing strategy. However, in the situation of using a static pricing strategy, the firm should extend the limited trade-in duration only if the incremental value of the new generation products is below a certain threshold. Moreover, the firm should use a dual rollover strategy instead of a single rollover one. If all customers in the market are myopic, then the firm should also extend the limited trade-in duration.

This study mainly discusses the impact of limited trade-in duration on the firm's dynamic pricing strategy when facing strategic customers, which provides several directions for future research. First, if the government offers subsidies to consumers, how will strategic consumers make purchase decisions? How would the enterprise make its pricing decision? Second, when asymmetric information exists between consumers and firms, how will it affect consumers' choice behavior and firms' pricing decisions? All these issues are worth exploring in the future.

These results offer certain managerial insights for the firm in the decision making on pricing within the trade-in program.

This is the first work to study the dynamic pricing strategy of the firm for the successive-generation products under the conditions of the limited trade-in duration and strategic customers. Further, this work discusses the changes in results owing to the relaxation of certain conditions.