CHING L. LIAO and CHING S. CHANG
A microstructural finite element model (MFEM) for granular material considering the microstructure of material is presentented. In the MFEM method, a volume of large number of…
Abstract
A microstructural finite element model (MFEM) for granular material considering the microstructure of material is presentented. In the MFEM method, a volume of large number of particles is represented by an element consisting of a few nodal points. The stiffness matrix of the element is then formulated based on the contact stiffness and the packing arrangement of the particles. The method can be easily applied in the framework of finite element technique to solve boundary value problems in practical situations. Applicability of the model is evaluated by comparing the results of MFEM model with that from DEM model.
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Thi Tuan Linh Pham, Guan-Ling Huang, Tzu-Ling Huang, Gen-Yih Liao, T.C.E. Cheng and Ching-I Teng
Online games are widely adopted electronic applications that facilitate flow experiences, which is a highly enjoyable experience for players, thus motivating further engagement in…
Abstract
Purpose
Online games are widely adopted electronic applications that facilitate flow experiences, which is a highly enjoyable experience for players, thus motivating further engagement in online gameplay. During gameplay, players set gaming goals, and they must make cognitive efforts to achieve these goals. However, we do not know how goal-setting and cognitive gaming elements (game complexity and game familiarity) create flow, indicating a research gap. To fill this gap, we use the cognitive gaming elements in the literature and the theoretical elements of goal-setting theory to build a model.
Design/methodology/approach
Conducting a large-scale online survey, we collect 3,491 responses from online game players and use structural equation modeling for data analysis.
Findings
We find that challenging goals, game complexity, game familiarity and telepresence are positively linked to player-perceived flow, explaining 45% of the variance. The new finding is that challenging goals can strengthen the link between game complexity and flow. We also find that telepresence can strengthen the link between game familiarity and flow.
Originality/value
Our study provides the novel insight that gaming goals and cognitive gaming elements can generate player-perceived flow. This insight can help game makers design gaming elements to accommodate players' cognitive efforts to achieve in-game goals, thus creating flow and effectively increasing players' game engagement.
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Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior…
Abstract
Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.
Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.
TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.
The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.
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Gen-Yih Liao, Thi Tuan Linh Pham, Tzu-Ling Huang, T.C.E. Cheng and Ching-I Teng
Online games are prevalent internet applications and are known for satisfying the various needs of users. Nonetheless, little is known about whether online games could be a resort…
Abstract
Purpose
Online games are prevalent internet applications and are known for satisfying the various needs of users. Nonetheless, little is known about whether online games could be a resort for users encountering workplace frustration. Explaining how workplace frustration and users' need satisfaction affect loyalty of online gamers, this study aims to formulate hypotheses and develop a framework based on the self-determination theory (SDT).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use an online survey to collect 848 responses and use structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The authors find that workplace frustration, autonomy need satisfaction and competence need satisfaction are positively related to online gamer loyalty. Moreover, workplace frustration enhances the link between competence need satisfaction and online gamer loyalty.
Originality/value
The authors are the first to use SDT to identify the three antecedents and the moderator of online gamer loyalty. Our findings offer a key message that game providers could design effective means to retain their gamers by understanding their gamers' workplace frustration and informing them that playing games could alleviate the associated negative feelings.
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Thi Tuan Linh Pham, Han-Chung Huang, Fan-Chen Tseng, T.C.E. Cheng and Ching-I Teng
Flow, or total concentration with intrinsic enjoyment, has been recognized as being able to enhance online gamer loyalty. However, some gamers who experience flow do not exhibit…
Abstract
Purpose
Flow, or total concentration with intrinsic enjoyment, has been recognized as being able to enhance online gamer loyalty. However, some gamers who experience flow do not exhibit strong loyalty, posing the vital research question asking for whom flow would not enhance loyalty. Limited knowledge on this issue may lead game providers to assume that flow is influential in strengthening loyalty among all gamers, thus leading to suboptimal resource allocation and reduced effectiveness in retaining gamers. The purpose of the paper is to examine how gaming experience and gaming intensity moderate the impact of flow on online gamer loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
In the paper, the hypotheses were tested using responses from 273 gamers.
Findings
The findings show that flow and gaming experience positively impact gamer loyalty. Gaming experience reduces the positive relationship between flow and gamer loyalty. However, gaming intensity does not reduce.
Practical implications
Game providers should focus on creating a flow experience to strengthen the loyalty of gamers with short-gaming experience. However, game providers should devise other means to strengthen loyalty among gamers with long-gaming experience.
Originality/value
The study challenged the assumption of flow theory, i.e. that flow always determines loyalty. Instead, the paper offers a moderator – gaming experience – which sets a boundary condition for this theory. Flow works well only among gamers with relatively short-gaming experience. The study also extended the literature on gaming experience by uniquely indicating its attenuating effect on the relation between flow and loyalty.
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Gen-Yih Liao, Tzu-Ling Huang, Alan R. Dennis and Ching-I Teng
Online games are popular applications of Internet technology, with over 2.8 billion users worldwide. Many players engage in team gameplay, indicating that online games are…
Abstract
Purpose
Online games are popular applications of Internet technology, with over 2.8 billion users worldwide. Many players engage in team gameplay, indicating that online games are suitable media through which players connect with their friends. However, past studies have not examined the ability of games to assist players in connecting with their friends, indicating a gap. To fill this gap, the authors propose a new concept, the friend-connecting affordance, which is the ability of an online game to enable players to contact friends within the game.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors built a model to explain how games' friend-connecting affordances influence game loyalty. The authors gathered responses from 1,347 online players and used structural equation modeling to test the model.
Findings
The authors found that friend-connecting affordances and team participation influence game loyalty. Gaming intensity and gaming history can moderate the impact of friend-connecting affordances.
Originality/value
This new affordance can be realized through various game elements, offering unique and actionable insights to game makers. The authors also compared the friend-connecting affordances among a number of popular online games, providing insights specific to each game and increasing the practical value of the findings.
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Shih-I Tai, Tzu-Ling Huang, Hsin-Yi Huang, Chieh-Ni Wu, T.C.E. Cheng and Ching-I Teng
Online games are highly popular Internet applications. Some games enable players to save game progress and accumulate experiences or changes to avatars during gameplay, whereas…
Abstract
Purpose
Online games are highly popular Internet applications. Some games enable players to save game progress and accumulate experiences or changes to avatars during gameplay, whereas some other games do not, requiring players to restart from the beginning each time. That is, games differ in avatar accumulability. However, we do not know whether games should be designed to permit avatar accumulability or not and how it affects players’ gameplay experience and therefore game outcomes, indicating gaps. Research addressing these gaps can inform game makers in designing games that effectively strengthen their players’ game loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
We used social identity theory (SIT) to construct a theoretical model. To test this model, three waves of survey data were gathered from the same 778 participants.
Findings
These findings uniquely indicate that avatar accumulability fosters avatar identification and increases players’ focused immersion, thus increasing players’ loyalty.
Practical implications
Game providers could include game features that enable players to accumulate their avatars’ in-game skins, levels, items (weapons and equipment) and experience points. This accumulability can help strengthen players’ game loyalty.
Originality/value
Overall, our study extends SIT by adding a new trigger (avatar accumulability) and two novel consequences of avatar identification (image protection and focused immersion) in avatar-related systems (games or gamified systems). The new trigger offers an actionable means to apply SIT, while the novel consequences verify the value of applying SIT to study online games.
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Shu-hsien Liao, Retno Widowati and Ching-Yu Lee
TikTok, a social media application (app), was originally positioned as a short music video community suitable for young users, and the app is user-generated content (UGC) short…
Abstract
Purpose
TikTok, a social media application (app), was originally positioned as a short music video community suitable for young users, and the app is user-generated content (UGC) short video of vertical music. Users can make their own creative videos. Following the rhythm of the music, users can shoot various video content, personal talents, life records, performances, dances, plot interpretations, etc. However, what are the profiles and preferences of TikTok users, whereby the social media app is mainly developed by UGC? What is the impact of TikTok on the development of social media? In addition, what is UGC's social media model for user interactions in social networks? The purpose of this paper is to address and study these proposed issues.
Design/methodology/approach
All questionnaire items are designed as nominal and ordinal scales (not Likert scale). The obtained data from questionnaires are put into the relational database (N = 2,011). This empirical study takes Taiwan TikTok users as the research object, implements data mining analytics to generate user profiles through clustering analysis and further uses association rules’ analysis to analyze social media apps in social network interaction and social apps’ development by proposing two patterns and several meaningful rules.
Findings
This study finds that social media apps is a valuable practical research topic on online social media development. In addition, besides the TikTok, the authors eagerly await subsequent research to provide more valuable findings of social media apps in both theory and practice.
Originality/value
This study presents the research evidences that social media apps such as TikTok will be able to transcend the current development pattern of social media and make good use of the media and technology innovation of apps in social development and social informatics.
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Ching‐Jong Liao and Chih‐Hsiung Shyu
Almost all inventory models assume that lead time is prescribed andthus is not subject to control. In many practical situations, however,lead time is controllable; that is, lead…
Abstract
Almost all inventory models assume that lead time is prescribed and thus is not subject to control. In many practical situations, however, lead time is controllable; that is, lead time can be shortened, at the expense of extra costs, so as to improve customer service, reduce inventory investment in safety stocks, and improve system responsiveness. Although some authors recognise the advantage of short lead time and suggest that it should be considered a variable for management to control instead of a given, there is a lack of a suitable inventory model for determining the optimal lead time. A probabilistic inventory model in which the lead time is a decision variable is presented. It is assumed that the demand follows normal distribution and the lead time consists of n components each having a different cost for reduced lead time. The objective is to determine the lead time that minimises the sum of the expected holding cost and the additional cost.
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Gen-Yih Liao, Tzu-Ling Huang, T. C. E. Cheng and Ching-I Teng
Online gamers form communities and offer game makers various revenue sources. Gamers' continual revenue contributions should depend on their commitment to gaming communities…
Abstract
Purpose
Online gamers form communities and offer game makers various revenue sources. Gamers' continual revenue contributions should depend on their commitment to gaming communities (CGC), where they rely heavily on communication media that carry rich information or provide enhanced media richness. However, no study has yet examined how to use the four elements of media richness to fuel gamers' CGC, revealing a research gap. Seeking to fill this gap, this study constructs a research framework and formulates hypotheses based on media richness theory (MRT).
Design/methodology/approach
This study obtained responses from 1,971 online gamers and applied structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses.
Findings
This study finds that the four media richness elements have selective impacts on network convergence and interdependence that result in CGC. Moreover, compared with interdependence, network convergence has a stronger impact on CGC.
Originality/value
The findings offer online game makers insights that will enable them to design the communication functions in games to support the formation of strongly connected gamer communities. Moreover, the findings advance MRT by showing its ability to explain the formation of online gaming communities.