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1 – 10 of 516Le Yi Koh, Ying Sien Peh, Xueqin Wang and Kum Fai Yuen
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a brand-new phenomenon in customer consumption patterns. This resulted from heightened health awareness brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a brand-new phenomenon in customer consumption patterns. This resulted from heightened health awareness brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic. There is a dearth of appropriate health psychology perspectives in the existing study examining the effect of COVID-19 on consumers’ use of crowdsourced logistics (CL) platforms. In order to provide unique and thorough insights into how consumer health concerns can affect consumers’ subjective views and their decisions to use CL, this study combines the health belief model and the technology acceptance model.
Design/methodology/approach
Five hundred valid responses from an online survey that was created and administered in Singapore were analysed using structural equation modelling.
Findings
The findings show that all of the suggested constructs have a favourable influence on consumers’ intentions to use CL. The suggested model also demonstrates high explanatory power, with perceived usefulness serving as the primary driver, followed by perceived ease of use and self-efficacy.
Originality/value
The study advances previous academic research on CL and offers guidance to CL companies and lawmakers for promoting sustainable and secured last-mile delivery.
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Evette Smith Johnson and Nanibala Immanuel Paul
The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to explore the development of Jamaica’s maritime education and training (MET) curriculum within the local education context…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to explore the development of Jamaica’s maritime education and training (MET) curriculum within the local education context. In this research, the story of the development and sustainability of the local MET curriculum in its 40-year journey from 1980 to present (post 2020), as communicated by various maritime stakeholders and archival documents, is chronicled.
Design/methodology/approach
The study utilized a qualitative orientation and was an embedded single-case study in its design. The entire local MET institution community and those legislatively and operationally allied to its sustained viability constituted the general population of this study. Non-probability sampling techniques were used to arrive at a maximum variation sample. Three sources of data were used in this study: individual interviews, focus group discussions and documents.
Findings
The Jamaican (local) MET curriculum was the brainchild of local perspicacity that was empowered by international benevolence. It was developed to satisfy market demands that existed at the time of its inception. These market requirements of the maritime industry are what impacted the development of the local MET curriculum over four decades. Several other factors led to the sustained viability of the local MET curriculum. These included the ability of the local MET curriculum to meet direct market needs and maintain its fitness for purpose.
Research limitations/implications
It is the view of the researcher that the findings of this study were limited by the fact that the voices of current students and employers from the four decades of the curriculum's existence are not represented in this initial study. The perspectives from these two sources would have broadened the description presented in this study.
Practical implications
This research has shown that specialized higher education (HE) institutions are better served in their business when they maintain a symbiotic relationship with the industry for which they are producing graduates.
Social implications
The treatment of HE as a service industry has gained traction globally. This would suggest that ‘product placement' in specialized HE is important to the growth, development and longevity of that course of study within the society in which it exists.
Originality/value
There is a dearth of national research on Jamaica's four-decades-old MET curriculum and the elements that lend to the sustained viability of same. This discussion of sustainability of the MET curriculum will benefit maritime educators and policymakers, who must continue to hone this curriculum so that it is fit for purpose. The study will also identify some of the elements of a sustainable, specialized HE curriculum. The elements identified herein can serve as exemplars and conceptual starting points for other contexts where the discussion of the sustainability of curriculum needs to be had.
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Rong Jiang, Bin He, Zhipeng Wang, Xu Cheng, Hongrui Sang and Yanmin Zhou
Compared with traditional methods relying on manual teaching or system modeling, data-driven learning methods, such as deep reinforcement learning and imitation learning, show…
Abstract
Purpose
Compared with traditional methods relying on manual teaching or system modeling, data-driven learning methods, such as deep reinforcement learning and imitation learning, show more promising potential to cope with the challenges brought by increasingly complex tasks and environments, which have become the hot research topic in the field of robot skill learning. However, the contradiction between the difficulty of collecting robot–environment interaction data and the low data efficiency causes all these methods to face a serious data dilemma, which has become one of the key issues restricting their development. Therefore, this paper aims to comprehensively sort out and analyze the cause and solutions for the data dilemma in robot skill learning.
Design/methodology/approach
First, this review analyzes the causes of the data dilemma based on the classification and comparison of data-driven methods for robot skill learning; Then, the existing methods used to solve the data dilemma are introduced in detail. Finally, this review discusses the remaining open challenges and promising research topics for solving the data dilemma in the future.
Findings
This review shows that simulation–reality combination, state representation learning and knowledge sharing are crucial for overcoming the data dilemma of robot skill learning.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no surveys that systematically and comprehensively sort out and analyze the data dilemma in robot skill learning in the existing literature. It is hoped that this review can be helpful to better address the data dilemma in robot skill learning in the future.
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Zhiwei Zhang, Zhe Liu, Yanzi Miao and Xiaoping Ma
This paper aims to develop a robust navigation enhancement framework to handle one of the most urgent needs for real applications of autonomous vehicles nowadays, as these corner…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a robust navigation enhancement framework to handle one of the most urgent needs for real applications of autonomous vehicles nowadays, as these corner cases act as the most commonly occurred risks in potential self-driving accidents.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the main idea is to fully exploit the consistent features among spatio-temporal data and thus detect the anomalies and build residual channels to reconstruct the abnormal information. The authors first develop an anomaly detection algorithm, then followed by a corresponding disturbed information reconstruction network which has strong robustness to address both the nature disturbances and external attacks. Finally, the authors introduce a fully end-to-end resilient navigation performance enhancement framework to improve the driving performance of existing self-driving models under attacks and disturbances.
Findings
Comparison results on CARLA platform and real experiments demonstrate strong resilience of the authors’ approach which enhances the navigation performance under disturbances and attacks.
Originality/value
Reliable and resilient navigation performance under various nature disturbances and even external attacks is one of the most urgent needs for real applications of autonomous vehicles nowadays, as these corner cases act as the most commonly occurred risks in potential self-driving accidents. The information reconstruction approach provides a resilient navigation performance enhancement method for existing self-driving models.
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The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) model to examine whether network externality, personalization and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) model to examine whether network externality, personalization and sociability as environmental feature antecedents to learners’ learning engagement (LE) can influence their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs).
Design/methodology/approach
Sample data for this study were collected from learners who had experience in taking MOOCs provided by the MOOC platform launched by a well-known university in Taiwan, and 371 usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.
Findings
This study proved that learners’ perceived network externality, personalization and sociability in MOOCs positively affected their cognitive LE, psychological LE and social LE elicited by MOOCs, which jointly led to their LP in MOOCs. The results support all proposed hypotheses, and the research model accounts for 76.2% of the variance in learners’ LP in MOOCs.
Originality/value
This study uses the S–O–R model as a theoretical base to construct learners’ LP in MOOCs as a series of the inner process, which is affected by network externality, personalization and sociability. It is worth noting that three psychological constructs including cognitive LE, psychological LE and social LE are used to represent learners’ organismic states of MOOCs usage. To date, hedonic/utilitarian concepts are more often adopted as organisms in previous studies using the S–O–R model, and psychological constructs have received lesser attention. Hence, this study’ contribution on the application of capturing psychological constructs for completely expounding three types of environmental features as antecedents to learners’ LP in MOOCs is well documented.
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The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to explore whether media richness and social interaction as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to explore whether media richness and social interaction as environmental feature antecedents to nurses’ learning engagement (LE) can affect their continuance intention of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and task performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Sample data for this study were collected from nurses at five university-/medical university-affiliated hospitals in Taiwan. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, and 303 (60.6%) usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.
Findings
This study proved that nurses’ perceived media richness and social interaction in MOOCs positively influenced their behavioral LE and psychological LE elicited by MOOCs, which jointly caused their continuance intention of MOOCs and, in turn, enhance their task performance. The results support all proposed hypotheses and the research model, respectively, explains 84.3% and 63.7% of the variance in nurses’ continuance intention of MOOCs and task performance.
Originality/value
This study uses the S-O-R model as a theoretical base to frame nurses’ continuance intention of MOOCs and task performance as a series of the internal process, which is affected by environmental stimuli (i.e. media richness and social interaction) and organismic states. Noteworthily, while the S-O-R model has been extensively used in prior literature, little research uses this paradigm to expound nurses’ continuance intention of MOOCs in the work settings. Besides, there is a dearth of evidence on the antecedents of nurses’ task performance in the context of MOOCs. Hence, this study’s empirical evidence contributes significantly to the existing literature on bridging the gap of limited evaluation for the research on the impact of nurses’ MOOCs learning on their task performance in the work settings, which is very scarce in the S-O-R view.
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The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to examine whether media richness (MR), human-system interaction…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to examine whether media richness (MR), human-system interaction (HSI) and human-human interaction (HHI) as technological feature antecedents to medical professionals’ learning engagement (LE) can affect their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs).
Design/methodology/approach
Sample data for this study were collected from medical professionals at six university-/medical university-affiliated hospitals in Taiwan. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 309 (51.5%) usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.
Findings
This study certified that medical professionals’ perceived MR, HSI and HHI in MOOCs positively affected their emotional LE, cognitive LE and social LE elicited by MOOCs, which together explained their LP in MOOCs. The results support all proposed hypotheses and the research model accounts for 84.1% of the variance in medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs.
Originality/value
This study uses the S-O-R model as a theoretical base to construct medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs as a series of the psychological process, which is affected by MR and interaction (i.e. HSI and HHI). Noteworthily, three psychological constructs, emotional LE, cognitive LE and social LE, are adopted to represent medical professionals’ organisms of MOOCs adoption. To date, hedonic/utilitarian concepts are more commonly adopted as organisms in prior studies using the S-O-R model and psychological constructs have received lesser attention. Hence, this study enriches the S-O-R model into an invaluable context, and this study’s contribution on the application of capturing psychological constructs for completely explaining three types of technological features as external stimuli to medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs is well-documented.
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The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to explore whether gamification and personalization as environmental…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to explore whether gamification and personalization as environmental stimuli to learners’ learning engagement (LE) can affect their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs) and, in turn, their learning outcomes in MOOCs.
Design/methodology/approach
Sample data for this study were collected from learners who had experience in taking gamified MOOCs provided by the MOOCs platform launched by a well-known university in Taiwan, and 331 usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Findings
This study demonstrated that learners’ perceived gamification and personalization in MOOCs positively influenced their cognitive LE and emotional LE elicited by MOOCs, which jointly explained their LP in MOOCs and, in turn, enhanced their learning outcomes. The results support all proposed hypotheses and the research model, respectively, explaining 82.3% and 65.1% of the variance in learners’ LP in MOOCs and learning outcomes.
Originality/value
This study uses the S-O-R model as a theoretical base to construct learners’ learning outcomes in MOOCs as a series of the psychological process, which is influenced by gamification and personalization. Noteworthily, while the S-O-R model has been extensively used in prior studies, there is a dearth of evidence on the antecedents of learners’ learning outcomes in the context of MOOCs, which is very scarce in the S-O-R view. Hence, this study enriches the research for MOOCs adoption and learning outcomes into an invaluable context.
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Beatriz Jacob and Pilar Mosquera
Despite the significant growth of project management as a field, it remains undervalued as a recognised career path within many organisations. This study aims to address this gap…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the significant growth of project management as a field, it remains undervalued as a recognised career path within many organisations. This study aims to address this gap by investigating the factors that contribute to the sustainability of project managers’ careers. Specifically, this research assesses the role of career motivation, organisational support and supervisor support in enhancing career sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 224 project managers, a conceptual model is tested using partial least squares.
Findings
Career motivation, supervisor support and organisational support all play crucial roles in enhancing project managers’ perception of career sustainability. Supervisor support positively influences career motivation, and the latter mediates the relationship between supervisor support and one dimension of career sustainability – resourcefulness. Besides, organisational support is positively related to resourcefulness. The model demonstrates a good explanatory power of career sustainability, especially resourcefulness.
Research limitations/implications
The use of a convenience sample limits generalisability. Future research should include diverse cultural contexts and longitudinal designs to better establish causal relationships.
Practical implications
Organisations should develop programmes to enhance project managers’ career motivation and provide tailored supervisor support. Investing in both tangible and intangible resources will help sustain their career paths.
Originality/value
This study advances the project management literature by integrating personal and contextual factors into a comprehensive model of career sustainability. It highlights the synergistic effects of career motivation, organisational support and supervisor support.
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Chao Zhang, Fang Wang, Yi Huang and Le Chang
This paper aims to reveal the interdisciplinarity of information science (IS) from the perspective of the evolution of theory application.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to reveal the interdisciplinarity of information science (IS) from the perspective of the evolution of theory application.
Design/methodology/approach
Select eight representative IS journals as data sources, extract the theories mentioned in the full texts of the research papers and then measure annual interdisciplinarity of IS by conducting theory co-occurrence network analysis, diversity measure and evolution analysis.
Findings
As a young and vibrant discipline, IS has been continuously absorbing and internalizing external theoretical knowledge and thus formed a high degree of interdisciplinarity. With the continuous application of some kernel theories, the interdisciplinarity of IS appears to be decreasing and gradually converging into a few neighboring disciplines. Influenced by big data and artificial intelligence, the research paradigm of IS is shifting from a theory centered one to a technology centered one.
Research limitations/implications
This study helps to understand the evolution of the interdisciplinarity of IS in the past 21 years. The main limitation is that the data were collected from eight journals indexed by the Social Sciences Citation Index and a small amount of theories might have been omitted.
Originality/value
This study identifies the kernel theories in IS research, measures the interdisciplinarity of IS based on the evolution of the co-occurrence network of theory source disciplines and reveals the paradigm shift being happening in IS.
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