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1 – 10 of over 2000
Article
Publication date: 16 July 2021

Yuyan Luo, Zheng Yang, Yuan Liang, Xiaoxu Zhang and Hong Xiao

Based on climate issues and carbon emissions, this study aims to promote low-carbon consumption and compel consumers to actively shift to energy-saving appliances. In this big…

Abstract

Purpose

Based on climate issues and carbon emissions, this study aims to promote low-carbon consumption and compel consumers to actively shift to energy-saving appliances. In this big data era, online reviews in social and electronic commerce (e-commerce) websites contain valuable product information, which can facilitate firm business strategies and consumer comparison shopping. This study is designed to advance existing research on energy-saving refrigerators by incorporating machine learning models in the analysis of online reviews to provide valuable suggestions to e-commerce platform managers and manufacturers to effectively understand the psychological cognition of consumers.

Design/methodology/approach

This study proposes an online e-commerce review mining and management strategy model based on “data acquisition and cleaning, data mining and analysis and strategy formation” through multiple machine learning methods, namely, Bayes networks, support vector machine (SVM), latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and importance–performance analysis (IPA), to help managers.

Findings

Based on a case study of one of the largest e-commerce platforms in China, this study linguistically analyzes 29,216 online reviews of energy-saving refrigerators. Results indicate that the energy-saving refrigerator features that consumers are generally satisfied with are, in sequential order, logistics, function, price, outlook, after-sales service, brand, quality and space. This study also identifies ten topics with 100 keywords by analyzing 18 different refrigerator models. Finally, based on the IPA, this study allocates different priorities to the features and provides suggestions from the perspective of consumers, the government and manufacturers.

Research limitations/implications

In terms of limitations, future research may focus on the following points. First, the topics identified in this study derive from specific points in time and reviews; thus, the topics may change with the text data. A machine learning-based online review analysis platform could be developed in the future to dynamically improve consumer satisfaction. Moreover, given that consumers' needs may change over time, e-commerce platform types and consumer characteristics, such as user profiles, can be incorporated into the model to effectively analyze trends in consumers' perceived dimensions.

Originality/value

This study fills the gap in previous research in this field, which uses small-sample data for qualitative analysis, while integrating management ideas and proposes an online e-commerce review mining and management strategy model based on machine learning methods. Moreover, this study considers how consumers' emotional and thematic preferences for products affect their purchase decision-making from the perspective of their psychological perception and linguistically analyzes online reviews of energy-saving refrigerators using the proposed mining model. Through the improved IPA model, this study provides optimizing strategies to help e-commerce platform managers and manufacturers.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 51 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 January 2024

Yuan Liang, Tung-Ju Wu and Yushu Wang

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated teleworking, which inadvertently led to an impaired communication between supervisors and employees, resulting in abusive supervision. Drawing…

Abstract

Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated teleworking, which inadvertently led to an impaired communication between supervisors and employees, resulting in abusive supervision. Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory and the social identity theory, this study aims to address this negative association by examining the mediating role of state mindfulness and the moderating role of COVID-19 corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the relationship between abusive supervision and counterproductive work behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

This research employs both qualitative and quantitative research designs. Data collection involved an experimental design with 117 participants (Study 1), a cross-sectional survey with 243 participants (Study 2) and semi-structured interviews with 24 full-time employees (Study 3).

Findings

The results reveal that state mindfulness acts as a mediator in the positive relationship between abusive supervision and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). Furthermore, COVID-19 CSR mitigates the relationship between abusive supervision and CWB within the organization, but not with the supervisor. Additionally, COVID-19 CSR moderates the impact of abusive supervision on state mindfulness.

Practical implications

The results emphasize the crucial role of CSR when employees encounter abusive supervision during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations and managers should adopt appropriate strategies to enhance employees' perception of CSR. Prioritizing the cultivation of state mindfulness is also recommended, and organizations can provide short-term mindfulness training to improve employees' state mindfulness.

Originality/value

This research contributes to the understanding of abusive supervision and CWB in the context of forced teleworking.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 37 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 October 2023

Li He, Shuai Zhang, Heng Zhang and Liang Yuan

The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem that mobile robots are still based on reactive collision avoidance in unknown dynamic environments leading to a lack of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem that mobile robots are still based on reactive collision avoidance in unknown dynamic environments leading to a lack of interaction with obstacles and limiting the comprehensive performance of mobile robots. A dynamic window approach with multiple interaction strategies (DWA-MIS) is proposed to solve this problem.

Design/methodology/approach

The algorithm firstly classifies the moving obstacle movement intention, based on which a rule function is designed to incorporate positive incentives to motivate the robot to make correct avoidance actions. Then, the evaluation mechanism is improved by considering the time cost and future information of the environment to increase the motion states. Finally, the optimal objective function is designed based on genetic algorithm to adapt to different environments with time-varying multiparameter optimization.

Findings

Faced with obstacles in different states, the mobile robot can choose a suitable interaction strategy, which solves the limitations of the original DWA evaluation function and avoids the defects of reactive collision avoidance. Simulation results show that the algorithm can efficiently adapt to unknown dynamic environments, has less path length and iterations and has a high comprehensive performance.

Originality/value

A DWA-MIS is proposed, which increases the interaction capability between mobile robots and obstacles by improving the evaluation function mechanism and broadens the navigation strategy of DWA at a lower computational cost. After real machine verification, the algorithm has a high comprehensive performance based on real environment and provides a new idea for local path planning methods.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. 51 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 January 2023

Joseph Deutsch, Pundarik Mukhopadhaya, Jacques Silber and Jing Yang

To explore income inequality in urban China, this paper investigates disparities between- and within-urban locals and rural migrants from 2002 to 2013, using three waves of the…

Abstract

To explore income inequality in urban China, this paper investigates disparities between- and within-urban locals and rural migrants from 2002 to 2013, using three waves of the China Household Income Project (CHIP) data. While the existing literature concentrates on the wage disparity between these two groups, our results show that the Gini among the migrants increased by 17.86% between 2007 and 2013 and that among the locals increased by 15.54% from 2002 to 2007. The urban–migrant average income gap decreased during the whole period mainly due to higher growth in migrants’ average income. Estimates based on Mincerian earnings functions for both groups reveal the significant role of the education, occupation and type of contract in determining the within-group inequality. In addition, using a recentred influence function (RIF), we observe that short-term and other types of contracts, duration of the job, in-system ownership, marriage and skill have inequality-enhancing effects for migrants. The variation of skills has a larger impact on the income disparity among migrants than on that among urban locals. The RIF-based Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition of the mean difference of incomes shows that labour market discrimination between the two groups is not significant; however, both pure explained and unexplained differences are significant when applying the RIF decomposition to the variance of the logarithms of incomes. While the type of contract significantly reduces the pure explained difference between migrants and urban locals, occupation has a positive impact on this difference between these two groups. The heterogenity analysis shows that the factors influencing incomes in these two groups are different. We recommend labour market intervention to reduce unreasonable occupational and sectoral disparities, especially in the net inflow provinces, to mitigate urban inequality in China effectively.

Details

Mobility and Inequality Trends
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-901-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 28 May 2012

Jing Liu

This study is designed to identify the policy shift on migrant children's11There are various definitions of migrant children in urban China. In this research, migrant children…

Abstract

This study is designed to identify the policy shift on migrant children's11There are various definitions of migrant children in urban China. In this research, migrant children refer to the children from rural areas who have resided with their parents at the urban areas for at least six months without local household registration status. education at national level in urban China22With the rapid socioeconomic development and urbanization in China, the definition of urban China is changing. In this research, urban China refers to the major cities in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing, and so forth. during the past decades. Meanwhile, it is expected to explore the policy limitations reflected by the practice at school level regarding accommodating migrant children's education.

This study is conducted through policy review regarding education for migrant children and analysis of data collected through questionnaires and interviews at one public junior high school in Beijing.

This study identifies a positive change of involving migrant children in urban public schools. However, there is a need for flexible mechanism that can fully accommodate various needs regarding migrant children's education in urban public schools.

The study argues the necessity of a multipartnership for establishing a sustainable public education system for accommodating migrant children education in urban public schools.

Being different from other research on the same issue in urban China, this study leads a new round of discussion on the quality education for migrant children.

Details

Living on the Boundaries: Urban Marginality in National and International Contexts
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-032-2

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2016

Yuxian Eugene Liang and Soe-Tsyr Daphne Yuan

What makes investors tick? Largely counter-intuitive compared to the findings of most past research, this study explores the possibility that funding investors invest in companies…

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Abstract

Purpose

What makes investors tick? Largely counter-intuitive compared to the findings of most past research, this study explores the possibility that funding investors invest in companies based on social relationships, which could be positive or negative, similar or dissimilar. The purpose of this paper is to build a social network graph using data from CrunchBase, the largest public database with profiles about companies. The authors combine social network analysis with the study of investing behavior in order to explore how similarity between investors and companies affects investing behavior through social network analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

This study crawls and analyzes data from CrunchBase and builds a social network graph which includes people, companies, social links and funding investment links. The problem is then formalized as a link (or relationship) prediction task in a social network to model and predict (across various machine learning methods and evaluation metrics) whether an investor will create a link to a company in the social network. Various link prediction techniques such as common neighbors, shortest path, Jaccard Coefficient and others are integrated to provide a holistic view of a social network and provide useful insights as to how a pair of nodes may be related (i.e., whether the investor will invest in the particular company at a time) within the social network.

Findings

This study finds that funding investors are more likely to invest in a particular company if they have a stronger social relationship in terms of closeness, be it direct or indirect. At the same time, if investors and companies share too many common neighbors, investors are less likely to invest in such companies.

Originality/value

The author’s study is among the first to use data from the largest public company profile database of CrunchBase as a social network for research purposes. The author ' s also identify certain social relationship factors that can help prescribe the investor funding behavior. Authors prediction strategy based on these factors and modeling it as a link prediction problem generally works well across the most prominent learning algorithms and perform well in terms of aggregate performance as well as individual industries. In other words, this study would like to encourage companies to focus on social relationship factors in addition to other factors when seeking external funding investments.

Details

Internet Research, vol. 26 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1066-2243

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 March 2017

Woojin Lee, HeeKyung Sung, Eunju Suh and Jinlin Zhao

The purpose of this study was first to examine how goal-oriented attendees and experiential-oriented attendees were related with their overall satisfaction and loyalty of the…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was first to examine how goal-oriented attendees and experiential-oriented attendees were related with their overall satisfaction and loyalty of the destination with respect to international food and wine festival. It also investigated how these relations are mediated by different dimension of experiential consumption values such as consumer return on investment (CROI, active value), escapism (active value) and service excellence (reactive value) and aesthetics (reactive value).

Design/methodology/approach

Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to and collected from attendees at the 2011 Food Network South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami, Florida. A total of 450 subjects were collected from attendees indicating a response rate of about 88 per cent. Total 13 hypotheses were tested using structural equation model (SEM) with AMOS, and the results were interpreted adapting Mathwick’s (2001) typology of experiential value.

Findings

The findings indicate that goal-oriented attendees had stronger relationship with reactive experiential values such as service excellence and aesthetics than active values, whereas experiential-oriented attendees had more significant relations with active experiential values such as CROI and escapism than reactive values. In addition, CROI, escapism and service excellence were found to have a positive influence on the overall satisfaction with the festival; in turn, the attendees’ satisfaction had a positive effect on their intention to revisit the destination. Further, the results demonstrated that all experiential values, including CROI and escapism (active values), and service excellence and aesthetics (reactive values), played a mediating role between goal-oriented/experientially oriented attendee and satisfaction with the festival.

Practical implications

The festival organizers and managers should understand what drives the attendees’ participation in the festival. Implementing experiential marketing through various dimensions of experiential value can attract more potential attendees, provide unique experiences and create favorable perception toward the destination.

Originality/value

The research is original in terms of conceptualizing and empirically testing the relation between experiential consumption values and behavior loyalty within the special events and festivals with a specific focus on international food and wine festival. A finding of particular importance here is verifying the unique characteristics of goal-/experiential-oriented attendees in festival settings and determining the linkages between these different attendees and active/reactive experiential values, not to mention the relation with the overall satisfaction and loyalty to the festival destination.

Details

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 29 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-6119

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 June 2016

Lihong Song, Qiang Liang, Yuan Lu and Xinchun Li

Based on the stakeholder theory, this study aims to investigate Chinese entrepreneurial firms’ selective satisfaction of Stakeholder demands on corporate social performance (CSP).

Abstract

Purpose

Based on the stakeholder theory, this study aims to investigate Chinese entrepreneurial firms’ selective satisfaction of Stakeholder demands on corporate social performance (CSP).

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses the survey data from privately owned companies in China, which is collected by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce in three years of 2006, 2008 and 2010.

Findings

This paper suggests a contingency model of CSP: entrepreneurial firms selectively perform corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues rather than all CSP dimensions. Furthermore, this study illustrates that international operations, such as overseas exports, would strengthen the above positive relationships between foreign ownership and selected CSR issues.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the understanding of CSR activities in Chinese entrepreneurial firms, which are more selective when performing social issues. In addition to the theoretical contribution, this work suggests a contingency model to the stakeholder theory, indicating the moderating factors to the entrepreneurial firms’ motivation to perform specific social responsibilities.

Details

Chinese Management Studies, vol. 10 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-614X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 19 February 2024

Shangkun Liang, Rong Fu and Yanfeng Jiang

Independent directors are important corporate decision participants and makers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, this paper interprets the listing order of independent…

Abstract

Purpose

Independent directors are important corporate decision participants and makers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, this paper interprets the listing order of independent directors as independent directors’ status, exploring their influence on the corporate research and development (R&D) behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper studies A-share listed firms in China from 2008 to 2018 as the sample. The main method is ordinary least square (OLS) regression. We also use other methods to deal with endogenous problems, such as the firm fixed effect method, change model method, two-stage instrumental variable method, and Heckman two-stage method.

Findings

(1) Higher independent directors’ status attribute to more effective exertion of supervision and consultation function, and positively enhance the corporate R&D investment. The increase of the independent director’ status by one standard deviation will increase the R&D investment by 4.6%. (2) The above effect is more influential in firms with stronger traditional culture atmosphere, higher information opacity and higher performance volatility. (3) High-status independent directors promote R&D investment by improving the scientificity of R&D evaluation and reducing information asymmetry. (4) The enhancing effect of independent director’ status on R&D investment is positively associated with the firm’s patent output and market value.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to understanding the relationship between the independent directors’ status and their duty execution from an embedded cultural background perspective. The findings of the study enlighten the improvement of corporate governance efficiency and the healthy development of the capital market.

Details

China Accounting and Finance Review, vol. 26 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1029-807X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 July 2017

Song Yang and Ron Berger

The purpose of this study is to examine the emergences of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have changed the way human beings communicate and interact. In the…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the emergences of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have changed the way human beings communicate and interact. In the past few years, this has become crucial in the context of business, especially in start-up fund raising. Access to venture capital financing is a crucial issue in the entrepreneurial finance literature. To further explore the use of social media for entrepreneurs, the authors have explored how entrepreneurs use social media for fund-raising purposes. The authors have used Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to collect entrepreneurs’ funding data from Crunchbase and entrepreneurs’ social media data from Facebook and Twitter. The results show that social media is significant for start-ups in their success or failure in fund raising. Investing energy into utilizing online social media and exhausting these platforms consciously contributes to the financial success of start-ups. Therefore, start-ups which are popular among online fans and followers can manage to raise larger amounts of funding in the early stages.

Design/methodology/approach

This research relies on a wide range of quantitative data, which was obtained from three different online sources which includes Facebook, Twitter and CrunchBase. The use of a variety of internet technologies have been linked to increases in individuals’ social network diversity, which likely increases access to social capital at the individual level (Hampton and Wellman, 2003). The dataset was retrieved by using APIs, which enables the collection of novel metrics, from various sources that provide a well-structured dataset (Priem and Hemminger, 2010). Hypotheses were tested on a longitudinal dataset from 2000 to 2013, comprising general and investment data and social media metrics of start-ups. First, a sample from the database was selected to ensure data availability and reliability. After sampling, all the selected companies’ Twitter and Facebook activities were observed and metrics were analysed. SPSS was used to conduct correlation and regression analyses.

Findings

This study analysed whether start-ups’ social media convention is able to influence investors’ choices, especially the amount of total funding given. The paper showed that innovative start-up companies were able to benefit from communicating on social media platforms. Start-ups, which were using Facebook and Twitter effectively, focusing on valuable social media metrics, received larger amount of funding in total. Furthermore, it was observed that as their business grew, they intended to put more effort into online social networking. It confirmed the idea that businesses are using social media consciously.

Originality/value

This is the only paper that the authors could find that examines the relationship between fundraising and activity on social networks.

Details

Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management, vol. 8 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2053-4620

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 2000