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Based on a theoretical framework of ambidexterity in technology sourcing beyond organizational and technological boundaries, this study aims to explore how start-ups balance technology sourcing in organizational ambidexterity (TSOA) to produce high venture performance.

A questionnaire survey is distributed among start-ups in the science and technology park of a university in eastern China, producing a total of 45 valid responses. The fuzzy-set approach to qualitative comparative analysis is used in this study.

The findings show that start-ups achieve high venture performance through external technology sourcing (external exploration and exploitation) in the initial stage. In the growth stage, start-ups adopt external and internal technology sourcing (internal exploration and exploitation) to produce high venture performance. The technology sourcing strategy in ambidextrous activity for start-ups is punctuated equilibrium and evolving from the external ambidexterity to internally and externally coordinate ambidexterity at entrepreneurial stages.

This study creatively adopts configuration-based thinking to investigate how to balance TSOA for high venture performance, extending the literature on technology sourcing and contributing to the balance theory of exploration and exploitation.

Increasing consumer choices in health care results in keener competition faced by providers. The existing nonlinear and asymmetric impact of patient perceived quality of care to their choices should provide insights for hospitals to deploy limited resources to areas that produces most significant and positive outcomes. This study aims to develop an algorithm for examining the nonlinear and asymmetrical relationships in the health-care domain with the hope to provide a more precise indication as to how specifically addressing patient experience with meaningful improvements of service quality.

Data were obtained through telephone surveys of 2,000 inpatients who had been hospitalized in a health system in 2006. After coding the original data, the authors conducted regression analysis and Z-test to investigate the nonlinear and asymmetrical relationship between patient recommendation and perceived hospital attributes.

“Spiritual care” is considered as a “delight” for patients. “Procedure efficiency”, “Compassionate care” and “Mutual communication” linearly related to patients’ likelihood to recommend the hospital (LTR) in the positive domains, but increasingly sensitive to LTR in negative domain.

Examining the asymmetry and the nonlinear relationship can detect diminishing effect of certain drivers for patient satisfaction. An emphasis on patients’ spiritual needs can provide the hospital with a unique opportunity to differentiate itself from other health-care providers which usually compete within the ordinary domain of services. The absence of “Procedure efficiency”, “Compassionate care” and “Mutual communication” will result in extremely negative word-of-mouth.

This study has developed an algorithm to examine the asymmetry and the nonlinear relationship between perceived hospital performance and patient satisfaction. The insights generated should help providers determine specific sets of priorities for improving services and hence strategize for optimal deployment of limited resources.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of solder composition and roughness on early wetting behavior and interfacial reaction under atmospheric conditions.

High-speed photography is used to observe the early wetting and spreading process of the solder on the substrate in real time. The morphology of intermetallic compounds (IMCs) was observed by scanning electron microscopy, and the composition of IMCs micro bumps was determined by energy dispersive spectroscopy.

With a roughness range of 0.320–0.539 µm, the solder is distributed in an elliptical trilinear pattern along the grinding direction. With a roughness range of 0.029–0.031 µm, the solder spreads in the direction of grinding and perpendicular, forming a perfect circle (except in the case of Sn63Pb37 solder). The effect of three types of solder on early wettability is Sn63Pb37 > Sn96.5Ag3Cu0.5 > Sn. The wetting behavior is consistent with the Rn∼t model. The rapid spreading stage (Stage I) is controlled by the interfacial reaction with n1 values between 2.4 and 4. The slow spreading stage (stage II) is controlled by diffusion with n2 values between 4 and 6.7. The size of Cu6Sn5 formed on a rough substrate is greater than that produced on a smooth substrate.

Investigating the effect of solder composition and roughness on early wettability. This will provide a powerful guide in the field of soft brazing.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a clear understanding of the impact of uncommon use of knowledge (adaptation and augmentation) on the performance of information systems (IS) departments, and to explore the effects of human-resources management (HRM) practices on uncommon use of knowledge.

A questionnaire-based survey was used to measure the constructs of the research model. A survey package was delivered to project managers or team leads and 133 responses were returned.

The empirical results indicate that knowledge adaptation has a significant effect on departmental performance, whereas knowledge augmentation is more important to innovation than to routine departmental performance. The results also show that, while knowledge adaptation can be enhanced by communication and an uncertainty-avoidance culture, knowledge augmentation is an outcome of shared decision-making, the use of teams, and innovation-based policies.

Given the positive impact of uncommon use of knowledge on IS department performance, future research should explore other factors besides HRM practices to boost it.

The results can serve as guidance for managers looking to select HRM practices to promote uncommon use of knowledge.

This study introduces knowledge adaptation and knowledge augmentation as the component processes of uncommon use of knowledge to the IS discipline, and empirically validates the antecedents and consequences of uncommon use of knowledge using survey data.

Following the growing adoption of social media, many entrepreneurs are launching personal social media channels. This study focuses on the effect of entrepreneurs' shared information on We Media platforms on the value relevance of their earnings.

Using entrepreneurs' We Media data collected from A-share-listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2010 to 2018, this study investigates the effect of the data on the value relevance of earnings using the modified Ohlson model. The authors applied textual analysis to retrieve entrepreneurial We Media data acquired manually from Weibo.

We Media platforms can increase the value relevance of earnings. Entrepreneurs can enhance investor trust by establishing social ties with investors. Investors are more likely to recognize earnings information publicized by enterprises, owing to internal consistency. Particularly, value relevance improves significantly with more personal information being posted and more “likes” being acquired on entrepreneurs' We Media accounts. This positive effect is more obvious in privately owned and highly marketized regions.

The findings extend the research on the economic consequences of We Media as an important information channel, enrich the research on the social media posting behavior of entrepreneurs and provide a reference for enterprises to instill trust using new information disclosure methods and for governments to establish a safe internet environment to promote the sustainable development of the capital market.

Rosewood, as the most internationally traded endangered species, is subject to a series of restrictive trade policies globally. China has historically been the largest importer of rosewood in the world. The fluctuation of China’s rosewood import prices will have a profound impact on the global rosewood trade pattern. This study, therefore, assessed the impact of restrictive trade policies on China’s rosewood import prices to explore the fluctuation rule of rosewood trade prices under restrictive policies.

The study built a partial equilibrium framework about the formation mechanism of rosewood import price bubbles under supply constraints. On this basis, with China’s daily import prices of major rosewood species, the generalized supremum augmented Dickey–Fuller (GSADF) and backward supremum augmented Dickey–Fuller (BSADF) tests were applied to explore the effect of restrictive trade policies on China’s rosewood import prices.

The empirical analysis revealed that there were multiple price bubbles for five of the seven rosewood species. The largest bubbles were always created before and after the deployment of supply constraints. The empirical results for the counterfactual examples implied that price bubbles would not have occurred if restrictive rosewood trade policies had not been implemented. The above findings indicated that these measures tended to trigger significant price bubbles in China’s rosewood imports.

The effect of restrictive rosewood trade policies on rosewood trade prices had not yet been explored in previous research studies. This study empirically analyzed the effect of restrictive trade policies on China’s rosewood import prices using econometric models.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the critical success factors (CSFs) between two groups of European mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in China and Chinese M&As in Europe.

In the paper, a mixed-method research design which combines primary case study with secondary questionnaire survey is applied.

The findings from the case study show the main differences with respect to CSFs between the two groups are related to: importance of relationship building in Chinese culture, Chinese culture trait of high power distance, Chinese decision process, complicated Chinese approval process for foreign companies doing M&As in China, integration of acquired Chinese/European company, and relatively new phenomenon of Chinese acquisitions in Europe. The Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test from the questionnaire survey provides statistical support for significant difference between the two groups regarding the factor of involvement and commitment of acquiring companies’ entrepreneurial CEO/chairman in the M&A process.

This paper is among the first attempts to conduct a comparative study which provides new insights into the differences between the CSFs in European M&As in China and in Chinese M&As in Europe.

The purpose of this paper is to examine predictors of obtaining global certification (ISO 9000) in an emerging market by focusing on ownership structure and total quality management (TQM) commitment.

This paper adapts the theory of planned behavior to explain organizations that obtain global certification in an emerging market (China). Using 269 service firms at different stages of ISO 9000 certification (a proxy for goal-directed behavior/excellence by organizations), the study examines the influence of ownership structures (a proxy for perceived behavioral control) and TQM commitment (a proxy for attitude toward a behavior), using a probit model.

The results showed that ownership structures that were state-owned enterprises, privately owned enterprises and township-village enterprises (TVEs) had a lower probability of obtaining global certification. However, TQM commitment moderates the relationship between ownership structure and obtaining ISO 9000 certification for POEs and TVEs. The study found stronger results for a subsample of organizations that intended to obtain ISO 9000 certification. Among organizations without ISO 9000 certification, we examined organizations that began the learning process for ISO 9000 and those that had not, and found differences based on competitive pressures, ownership structures, and the moderating effect of TQM commitment.

Future research may consider manufacturing organizations and other countries to further validate the findings of our study.

Creating strong TQM commitment can be an effective means for POEs and TVEs to obtain ISO 9000 certification.

This study is the first to adapt the theory of planned behavior for an organization-level analysis of ISO 9000 certification, especially in the service operations setting. The study found that TQM commitment selectively moderates ownership structures in explaining the probability that an organization obtained ISO 9000 certification.