Search results

This paper aims to test the effects of social presence (SP) and other related factors, including trust, self-construal and brand familiarity, in affecting consumers’ purchase intention of live-streaming workout courses.

Three between-subjects, Web-based experimental studies were conducted. There were separately 108, 208 and 284 valid questionnaires collected in the three studies. Moderation and mediation analyses were performed to test the research hypotheses.

Users’ sense of SP when watching live-streaming courses positively affects their willingness to purchase courses, and users’ sense of trust plays a mediating role in the influence of users’ SP on their purchase intention. In addition, when users belong to dependent self-construal rather than independent self-construal, their trust in live-streaming courses plays a stronger mediating role in the influence of users’ SP on their purchase intentions. What is more, when users have high brand familiarity rather than low brand familiarity, their trust in online live-streaming plays a stronger mediating role in the influence of users’ SP on their purchase intentions.

This research delineates the effects of SP on the consumption of live-streaming courses, thus further adding to the understanding of the role of real-time interaction in determining consumer behavior. It also highlights the roles of self-construal and brand familiarity as mediating influences on the relationship between SP and consumer trust.

Loyalty membership is widely used as a marketing strategy to secure customer’s loyalty in many business sectors. The purpose of this paper is to focus on loyalty membership of customer in Malaysian luxury hotels, specifically, in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by looking into the perceived value of economic, interaction and psychological needs.

Quantitative cross-sectional research was conducted to explore the feedback from customers who have loyalty membership with a luxury hotel. Surveyed data of 489 respondents were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

There is a significant positive relationship between the psychological needs and perceived value. The relationship between the perceived value and customer’s loyalty is also significant and positive. However, there is no significant relationship between the economic value and the interaction constructs with the perceived value. The perceived value functions as a mediator for the economic value, interaction and psychological needs in respect of customer’s loyalty.

Hotel management should prioritise addressing the elements of psychological needs to enhance the perceived value from the customers’ perspective. The strength of the perceived value indirectly stimulates customer’s loyalty to a hotel, followed by the interaction and economic value from the customer value perspective to ensure customer’s loyalty.

This research highlights on how customers can be secured by a luxury hotel chain through a loyalty membership strategy. The knowledge generated from this research is expected to provide insights to practitioners on how to enhance their loyalty membership marketing strategy.

The authors consider a dynamic emission-reduction technology investment decision-making problem for an emission-dependent dyadic supply chain consists of a manufacturer and a retailer under subsidy policy for carbon emission reduction. The consumers are assumed to prefer to low-carbon products and formulate a supply chain optimal control problem.

The authors adopt differential game to analyze investment strategies of cost subsidy coefficient with respect to vertical incentive of a manufacturer and a retailer. A comparison analysis under four different decision-making situations, including decentralized decision-making, centralized decision-making, maximizing social welfare, is obtained.

The results show that the economic benefit and environmental pressure have a win–win performance in centralized decision-making. In four different game models, equilibrium strategies, profits and social welfare show changing diversity and have a consistent development trend as time goes on.

The authors estimate the demand function is a linear function in this paper. According to the consumers’ preference to low-carbon products, consumer’s awareness meets the law of diminishing marginal utility like advertising goodwill accumulation. The carbon-sensitive coefficient might be a quadratic expression, which will complicate the problem and be consistent with reality.

It captures that there is a necessity to strengthen cooperation and exchange of carbon emission technology among the enterprises by simulation of different decision-makings when government granted cost subsidy.

The results provide significant guidelines for the supply chain to make decision-makings of emission-reduction technology investment and relevant government departments to determine emission subsidies costs.

An endogenous subsidies coefficient is produced by the social welfare function. Distinguished from previous study, it also considered the influences of carbon emission trade policy and consumer preference.

To modernize budgeting system is a challenge issue in many developing countries. To some scholars (Schick, 1998a, 1998b; Ma, 2009a), developing countries must first put into place basic budgetary controls before moving to more advanced models of budgeting. This approach of “basic first,” however, is questioned by others (e.g., Andrew, 2006). Drawing on China's recent budget reforms, this essay reconfirms the validity of the “basics first” approach. In China, budget reform since 1999 has begun to install budgetary controls for state finance, leading to an enhancement of budgeting capacity and financial accountability. However, governments at the same time have begun to be plagued by the unexpected problem of delays in spending and the accumulation of significant underexpenditures. Contrary to what many people may believe, we contend that this somewhat odd problem arises not because the new budgeting system has exercised too much control but rather because the new system is not yet effective in exerting budgetary controls.

Due to the harsh underground environment in coal mining, the surface of hydraulic support columns corrodes severely, resulting in significant economic losses. Therefore, a highly corrosion-resistant coatings is needed to extend the service life of the columns.

This study aims to compare the corrosion resistance of ST-Cr₃C₂-NiCr (sealed treatment Cr₃C₂-NiCr) coatings with industrially applied chromium plating. The corrosion failure mechanism of the coatings was investigated.

The results demonstrated that the ST-Cr₃C₂-NiCr coatings exhibited excellent corrosion resistance. After sealing treatment, the corrosion potential of Cr₃C₂-NiCr coatings was −0.215 V, and the corrosion current density of Cr₃C₂-NiCr coatings was lower than that of the plated parts.

ST-Cr₃C₂-NiCr coatings prepared by supersonic atmospheric plasma spraying could provide excellent corrosion resistance in the coal industry.

The low porosity and the presence of the NiCr phase were crucial factors contributing to the preferable corrosion resistance exhibited by the ST-Cr₃C₂-NiCr coatings. The corrosive process of the coatings involved layer-by-layer delamination of surface oxide film, sub-surface pitting, formation and degradation of sub-surface passive film, as well as severe block-like delamination.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a different perspective about the role that information plays in the integration process of migrant workers by exploring the views and opinions of individuals and organizations that work with these communities on a daily basis. The study proposes a new perspective of Ager and Strang’s framework of integration by looking at its different elements through the perspective provided by Gibson and Martin’s (2019) concept of information marginalization and Dervin’s sense-making notion of resistance.

Ten intermediaries working with migrants were interviewed using semi-structure interviews. They were analyzed using an integrative approach of deductive and inductive content analysis and rendered categories drawn from the theoretical frameworks and categories that emerged from the data.

The content analysis of the data revealed that information marginalization is characterized by the lack of cultural knowledge and lack of language proficiency that impact the migrants abilities to fulfill their everyday needs, experience a safe and stable environment. Information marginalization results in migrants experiencing self-protective behaviors such as secrecy and an inability to trust information sources that are not contextualized by insiders. Findings show that information resistance can be overcome by making information available in relevant formats and distributed through trusted sources.

The study revises the notion of information marginalization by trying to understand the social and cultural gap that from both sides of the issues of integration.

The study presents a different perspective of the role of information in the integration process of migrants by examining the views and opinions of intermediaries working with these populations. Also, the study reframes existing notions of information marginalization and resistance by addressing both sides of the cultural and social gap embodies marginalization.

This systematic review sought to examine the research body on acquisitive offending among female offenders, specifically exploring what factors may take females closer towards engaging in acquisitive offending and what factors may support desistance from this behaviour.

A systematic review was conducted, using the recommended guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. A total of 8,129 initial articles were identified from the search terms, 77 articles were deemed suitable to meet the inclusion criteria and are explored in the results section. Papers were screened for quality appraisal and risk of bias.

Ten factors were identified that took females closer towards offending. Five factors were identified that took females away from offending. Based on the findings, four typologies of female acquisitive offenders were identified: short-term orientation (adolescent); mental health orientation; life-course persistent (theft); and acquisitive diversity (including robbery and burglary).

Future research would benefit from exploring a more rich understanding of the mechanisms that underpin why females engage in acquisitive offending and what factors contribute towards their desistance. A wider range of bio-psycho-social factors, which may increase the risk of acquisitive offending, should also be considered in future research alongside ways in which interventions may be gender-responsive.

This review provides insight into the differing functions and typologies of female acquisitive offending. Interventions for each of these typologies are considered within the review.

The transition from high school to university poses many challenges for university students including dietary behaviors’ change and subsequent obesity risk. More tailored interventions and promotions to establish a healthier eating habit are needed to reduce obesity risks. The purpose of this paper is to investigate food intake differences on obesity risk among university students in China through exploring the differences of food intakes with gender, the year in college and body mass index (BMI).

Cross-sectional study was carried in five universities which were randomly selected in all the universities located in different geographical areas of Beijing, China. The sample consisted of 631 university students whom aged from 18 to 25 years. t-tests and one-way ANOVA tests were used to find differences of food intakes with gender, the year in college and BMI.

Having more consumption of food with high protein, high fat and high sugar, but less consumption of fruits and vegetables, may give university students a greater chance to be obese, and food intakes were significantly varied in different genders among Chinese university students.

There is a lack of evidence for investigating the differences of food intakes with gender on obesity among young adults in China. Findings of this study indicated that the food intakes of male students might make them more prone to obesity than female students, and suggested more tailored interventions, food marketing strategies and promotions on controlling students’ food intakes for a healthier life are needed.

This article assesses the development of flood relief and recovery, and their narratives, as political sites for the central and local governments to negotiate each other's standing and role in imperial Japan.

The article examines local flood narratives, most prominently from Okayama, to assess how imperial Japan's central government intruded into the periphery through disaster relief, and how the localities negotiated and challenged Tokyo's political agenda on the ground and through these narratives.

The above sources reveal that the national government attempted to use flood experiences to unite the pluralizing society by three main means: building meteorological stations, relief laws, and through the imperial being. The process was systematized gradually, and local prefectures aided and challenged Tokyo's attempts. The prefectures also used disasters to try to bring unity within their community.

Historical flood narratives are often used to mine data from which future preventative and management measures are constructed. The article suggests the narratives' political nature, and hence the nuances that must be considered in these efforts.