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This study aims to (1) investigate the association between companies' investment in occupational safety and their financial performance and (2) discuss the importance of occupational safety to overall performance.

Occupational safety is often considered to be a practice that can yield suboptimal return on investment. However, it is not known whether this belief is substantiated by evidence. A mapping review of the eligible research literature (N = 36) regarding firms' investment in occupational safety and their financial performance, published between 1945 and2018, was carried out in the Web of Science database.

By dispelling myths regarding return on investment associated with occupational safety, the findings of this study underscore financial gains firms can obtain by promoting occupational safety measures in their organizations.

These issues are important because they can help policymakers understand the pressures companies face in terms of occupational safety and financial performance sustainability.

This paper explores the role of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a tourism recovery drawcard to boost China's inbound tourism after COVID-19.

This paper employed a mixed method involving a cross-disciplinary literature review along with reflections from experts in TCM and health communication to inform tourism management. Specifically, this paper examines TCM and its potential benefits as a medical tourism drawcard to combat COVID-19. The selected literature focusses on the image and merits of TCM to frame how this medical philosophy can be used to position China as a tourist destination. Reflections on the use of TCM as a tourism marketing tool can guide promotional strategies from the Chinese government and destination managers during and after COVID-19.

The Chinese government, the tourism industry (e.g. destination managers), the media and tourists must focus on three aspects of the role of TCM: to provide medical benefits to travellers amid COVID-19 and beyond, elevate China as a destination for global medical tourists and be leveraged as a tool for economic recovery.

The paper builds a tourism recovery framework for stakeholders to adopt tailored TCM communication strategies to boost its inbound tourism programme.

This paper is the first academic paper to review TCM comprehensively and critically in relation to China tourism and post-COVID-19 recovery measures.

The interaction of consumers and technology has become a challenge for companies and marketing professionals. Technological acceleration has transformed how business is conducted and the consumer-company relationship. The need to establish communication with (potential) consumers to promote engagement with the brand highlights the importance of using mobile instant messaging (MIM). In this context, this paper aims to investigate the use of MIM as a tool for interaction between companies and consumers.

This article investigates, through a systematic literature review (SLR), the state of the art of scientific research regarding the use of MIM as a tool for interaction between companies and consumers. To analyze the selected articles, the authors used a research protocol composed of three stages: (1) planning, (2) conducting and (3) disseminating knowledge.

This study made four main contributions to the MIM field: (1) extends the literature on MIM, focusing on the perspective of companies and consumers; (2) expands the ongoing discussions, suggesting the limited availability of research on MIM as a tool for interaction between companies and consumers; (3) development of a typology composed of three classes, namely “Consumer relationship,” “Social interaction and technology, and “Social media as channels strategy”; (4) the fourth contribution concerns identifying future research areas and answering questions.

This article is the first to investigate, through a SLR, the state of the art of scientific research regarding the use of MIM as a tool for interaction between companies and consumers.

Currently, ubiquitous smartphones embedded with various sensors provide a convenient way to collect raw sequence data. These data bridges the gap between human activity and multiple sensors. Human activity recognition has been widely used in quite a lot of aspects in our daily life, such as medical security, personal safety, living assistance and so on.

To provide an overview, the authors survey and summarize some important technologies and involved key issues of human activity recognition, including activity categorization, feature engineering as well as typical algorithms presented in recent years. In this paper, the authors first introduce the character of embedded sensors and dsiscuss their features, as well as survey some data labeling strategies to get ground truth label. Then, following the process of human activity recognition, the authors discuss the methods and techniques of raw data preprocessing and feature extraction, and summarize some popular algorithms used in model training and activity recognizing. Third, they introduce some interesting application scenarios of human activity recognition and provide some available data sets as ground truth data to validate proposed algorithms.

The authors summarize their viewpoints on human activity recognition, discuss the main challenges and point out some potential research directions.

It is hoped that this work will serve as the steppingstone for those interested in advancing human activity recognition.

Audit firm diversification can take many forms. Strategic management theory suggests that if the diversification has a narrow focus, it can have a positive effect on performance through knowledge spillover. However, if the diversification is too wide, the lack of economies of scope may cause an even negative impact on performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of an audit firm’s diversification strategy on audit quality.

Specifically, the authors test whether auditors can benefit from knowledge spillover in their area of specialization.

The authors find that the magnitude of discretionary accruals and the balance of below-the-line item are significant lower for clients from narrowly diversified area than those from a widely diversified area, suggesting a higher audit quality due to possible knowledge spillover. In addition, the authors find such benefits are more pronounced with clients with high earnings volatility.

This study extends the studies on auditor industry specialization by examining the effect of audit firms’ diversification on audit quality and assessing potential differences on audit quality between narrow and wide diversification.

With the development of social networking service and WeMedia, virtual brand community has become a typical platform of value co-creation and customers have become a core subject of value co-creation. The high proportion of negative members and even zombie members has become an obstacle to the sustainable development of many communities. Then, how to maintain and promote the sustainable development of virtual brand community? The purpose of this article is to examine how customers prefer community or brand.

This paper obtained data through an online questionnaire survey to test the proposed hypotheses of this study.

The findings of this study indicated that practical and social values not only promote customers to be loyal toward community but also drive customers to be loyal toward brand and their influence on community loyalty is greater than on brand loyalty, but entertainment value does not significantly affect community and brand loyalty. The effect of practical and social values on community loyalty is fully mediated by the effect of brand loyalty, and the effect of practical and social values on brand loyalty is fully mediated by the effect of community loyalty.

This research enriches the research study’s results of value co-creation theory and customer assets, thus providing a new perspective for research on customer loyalty.

Variable fractional delay filtering is an important technology in signal processing; the research shows that all-pass variable fractional delay (VFD) filters achieve higher design accuracy than FIR VFD filters; therefore, the design, analysis and implementation of all-pass VFD filters are of great importance.

In this paper, a two-stage approach for the design of general 1-D stable VFD all-pass filters is proposed. The method takes the desired group delay range [N−1, N], where N is the filter order.

The design algorithm is decomposed into two design stages: first, a set of fixed delay all-pass filters are designed by minimizing a set of objective functions defined in terms of approximating error criterion and filter stability constraint. Then, the design result is determined by fitting each of the fixed delay all-pass filter coefficients as 1-D polynomials. A design example together with its comparisons with those of the recent literature studies is given to justify the effectiveness of the proposed design method.

An illustrating design example shows that the method proposed can achieve better filter performances than the existing ones.

The increase in demand variability created by manufacturing enterprises presents new challenges for increasing resource usage and sharing flexibility. For this reason, it is of great importance to research manufacturing grids and their service modes. The purpose of this paper is to establish a systematic strategy and a system tool for manufacturing grid systems.

A manufacturing service oriented manufacturing grid (MSoMG) system is presented with open grid service architecture as the system architecture and GT3.9 as a development tool. A framework is proposed to support MSoMG by providing advisory tools and methods for uncertain information analysis and processing, multi-objective decision making of manufacturing grid service execution, manufacturing grid service performance prediction based on knowledge template, and flexible manufacturing grid service scheduling and solution. The methodology of the adopted rough set is discussed in detail. Finally, the design support strategies for MSoMG are investigated to guide the coordination of manufacturing activities.

Many conventional methods and models become very limited for manufacturing grid service with uncertain information. The processing of uncertain information and reasonable application flow can help to improve the completion rate and reliability of manufacturing grid services.

This research provides a solid foundation for manufacturing gird operations and can promote the use of a manufacturing grid mode.

A MSoMG system is presented. The manufacturing grid service with uncertain information is considered as well as design support strategies.

This paper studies how Chinese consumers respond to foreign goods in the post‐WTO era. Specifically, it examines brand sensitivity as a mediator and product cues as moderator of purchase intention. Additionally, it examines consumer preferences for different products and consumption plans for the subsequent five years. The survey sample is drawn from a population of foreign product users from 34 cities in 18 provinces in China. Results provide evidence that brand sensitivity mediates the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and purchase intention; product cues moderate the effect of ethnocentrism on purchase intention. As the first study to link consumer ethnocentrism directly to brand sensitivity and purchase intention, this research provides some managerial implications. Global marketers can offset the negative effect of ethnocentrism by emphasizing brand image of its products, taking advantage of specific product cues, or by providing more comprehensive after‐sale service to reduce the perceived risk of purchasing imports. Also, price is still a hurdle that prevents Chinese consumers from mass consumption of foreign products. Global firms should not overestimate the purchasing power of Chinese consumers. This study represents a “snapshot” of Chinese consumers’ decision making at a time when their economic system is undergoing rapid change.

This paper offers insights into the consumption motives and purchasing behaviour of that market segment in Taiwan against the background of increasing consumption of luxury fashion brands by young female consumers in Asian countries.

Analysis of data collected using face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 23 fashion-conscious females aged 18-32 years was completed and new empirical insights are offered.

The study found a high level of involvement in the world of luxury fashion retailing. Asian consumers devoured media commentary, drew inspiration from female celebrities and treated information-seeking and discussion of luxury fashion brands with friends as a serious and enjoyable pursuit. The social status conferred by expensive fashion wear motivated them to spend on luxury brands even if their discretionary income was limited. Potential guilt in so doing was assuaged by rationalising that the quality was good and the purchase would be long lasting. Marketers targeting this valuable segment should communicate appeals to an aspirational lifestyle in traditional and social media, effective at reaching young women.

The study reported in this paper contributes to the limited published research into the luxury-marketing sector in Asia by examining the buying behaviour of female Strawberry Generation consumers in Taiwan. It is the first to research and investigate the meanings attached to luxury by these individuals in the collectivist culture of Taiwan, as well as their motivations, and the factors influencing their purchase of luxury fashions. The study thus contributes with new knowledge to the buying of luxury fashion products by young female Taiwanese consumers, which may be extended to other collectivist cultures in Asia.