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The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles of perceived organizational support (POS) and work status (regular worker/contract worker) in moderating the relationship between participation in decision making (PDM) and perceived insider status (PIS).

Data were collected with survey questionnaires that were administered to a sample of 369 employees from a case company in Taiwan, for which both regular and contract workers constitute the main workforce. After confirming the reliability and validity of the measurements, the authors conducted hierarchical regression analysis to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The mean PIS for regular workers is smaller than that for contract workers in the case company. For the group of contract workers, the positive influence of PDM on PIS is greater for those with lower POS than for those with higher POS. However, the negative moderating effect of POS does not exist for the group of regular workers.

This study adds to the existing literature by showing that contract workers, classified as external workers, can experience PIS, and that POS negatively moderates the positive relationship between PDM and PIS for contract workers. The managerial implications are discussed.

To examine empirically the mediating role of relationship quality on the relationships between relational selling behavior, network quality, service recovery, and loyalty, and the moderating role of prior IT experience on the above relationships in ISP service.

Data were obtained via questionnaires from randomly selected ADSL customers of Chunghwa Telecom. The constructs were measured using existing scales. SEM was used to examine the effects.

Relational selling behavior, network quality, and service recovery indirectly influence loyalty through the mediation of relationship quality, consisting of satisfaction and trust. The effects of relational selling behavior on satisfaction and trust are stronger for inexperienced than for experienced customers. Those of network quality on satisfaction and trust are similar for both experienced and inexperienced customers. Those of service recovery on satisfaction and trust are stronger for experienced than for inexperienced customers.

There are three limitations. First, customer loyalty may be only partially reflected since it was measured by self‐reports. Second, there may exist common method variance. Third, the generalizability of the findings might be limited.

IT service organizations should invest in training programs and advertising campaigns, the ways of transferring information and services to users, to improve relationship quality. Managers should be careful not to try partnering initiatives with customers without knowing their prior IT experience.

This study presents a thorough understanding of how relational selling behavior, network quality, and service recovery indirectly influence loyalty through satisfaction and trust, and how prior IT experience moderates the above relationships in ISP service.

Many process capability indices have been proposed to measure process performance. In this paper, we first review C_p, C_pk, C_pm and C_pmk, and their generalizations, C_Np, C_Npk, C_Npm and C_Npmk, and then propose a new index S_pmk for any underlying distribution, which takes into account process variability, departure of the process mean from the target value, and proportion of nonconformity. Proportion of nonconformity can be exactly reflected by S_pmk. Its superiority over C_Npmk, a recently developed index, also taking into account process variability and departure from the target value, is demonstrated with several non‐normal processes. A method is proposed to estimate S_pmk, with illustrations.

The purpose of this paper is to further examine the mediation mechanism to account for the influence of brand experience on brand loyalty by integrating the experiential view of consumption and the appraisal theory of emotion.

An onsite interview survey was conducted in 21 stores of four service brands: Burger King, Cold Stone Creamery, McDonald’s and Starbucks Coffee. Confirmatory factor analysis is used for assessing validity and reliability. Structural equation modeling is used for examining construct relationships.

Brand awareness/associations, perceived quality and hedonic emotions mediate the relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty. Hedonic emotions play a powerful mediation role. Moreover, it is the experiential view of consumption rather than the appraisal theory of emotion that plays a dominant role in accounting for the influence of brand experience on brand loyalty.

This research extends previous studies on the relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty by adding hedonic emotions as a powerful affective mediator. Our research also contributes to practitioners by providing strategies for experiential marketing.

This study aims to explore the impact of the movement from “authoritarian democracy” to full democracy on the relationships between trust with economic growth and investment.

Simple regression models were applied to Taiwan as a case study.

Results indicate that: the direct effect of social trust on growth was significant regardless of the democratic power changeover; the indirect effect through fixed investment was significant only after the transfer of political power; and the direct effect of political trust on growth and the indirect effect through fixed investment were both significant only after the transfer of political power.

The time span of the data used for the regression models in this paper is only ten years, which constrains the number of control variables used in the model.

This study indicates that the political regime plays as a contingency to the essay of social capital and economic growth.

This paper first provides a detailed investigation to specify the effects of social trust on economic growth during the first democratic power changeover.

To examine bad credit experiences in the context of identity to understand the entanglement between bad credit and the deformation of identity.

A qualitative method using depth interviews and hermeneutical analysis.

Bad credit is a major life event and plays a critical role in identity. By restricting or eliminating identity construction and maintenance through consumption, identities are deformed. Consumer identities are deformed as they are consumed by the identity deformation process as normal patterns of consumption that have built and supported their identities are disrupted and demolished. Bad credit is overwhelmingly consumptive of consumers – it consumes their time, energy, patience, lifestyle, relationships, social connections, and perhaps most importantly, it consumes their identity as it deforms who they are.

Researchers need to examine more closely not just the creation and maintenance of identity, but also how identity is deformed and deconstructed through consumption experiences that can no longer be enjoyed.

Government agencies may want to reexamine policies toward the granting of credit to reduce the incidence of loading up consumers with credit they are not able to pay for. The deformation of identity may result in anti-social behavior, although our study does not address this directly.

This study is different from previous work in several ways. We focus on identity deformation due to bad credit. By analyzing a crisis response that transcends the specific impetus of bad credit, we extend identity theory by developing an insight into “identities-in-crisis.” We also provide a theoretical framework and explore how consumers’ identities are deformed and renegotiated.

Customer experience (CX) has become a major concern of business managers around the world and is considered a determinant factor of continuing corporate success. Despite the growing number of research studies focusing on the topic, knowledge remains underexamined in general, and specifically in terms of online users. Understanding how online platforms inspire travel experience is increasingly pertinent as visual contents acquire insignificance. This is especially relevant when travel is restricted such as during the COVID-19 outbreak. Nevertheless, there is a gap in the literature research on online CX in online visitor attractions. The study aimed to investigate the visitors' reviews of online visits during the lockdown. The research has followed the Netnography approach as modern qualitative research to understand the online CX of visiting virtually the attractions.

The results revealed three dimensions of cyber-tourist experiences related to the tourism-driven with its four subdimensions, the emotional reaction and expectation, and satisfaction and behavior intentions. The study adds to the better knowledge of the modern research methods dealing with the cyber-customer experience (CCX) by examining the Netnography method.

This research is a pioneering attempt to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on tourists' experience and to highlight the opportunities for tourism practitioners to profit from the online presence, to be more accessible, and to increase their traffic to guaranty their online visibility.

As China's educational policy and reforms continue to evolve and adjust to shifting social, economic, and political conditions, this chapter provides a template for conceptually framing education research on and in China. To do so this chapter first identifies focus areas in comparative education research related to China, which reflect researcher perspective, perceived advantage, and demonstrated resistance to these educational policy reforms. The authors develop a conceptual framework for comparatively understanding education research on and in China, which focuses on the intersection of comparative education themes, institutional change agents or methods, and Chinese educational reform topics. This conceptual framework specifically accounts for overlap, complexity, and the evolving nature of educational policy reform in China. This chapter concludes by emphasizing the importance of comparative education researchers, national policymakers, and consumers of the research using new data and methods as they become available to continue to revise understandings of Chinese educational policy and reform.

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is becoming a crucial health problem worldwide. Continued and high-speed mutations of this virus result in the appearance of new manifestations, making the control of this disease difficult. It has been shown that well-nourished patients have strong immune systems who mostly have short-term hospitalization compared to others. The purpose of this study is to review the major nutrients involved in the immune system reinforcement and to explain nutritional aspects during the recovery of COVID-19.

In this review paper, the mechanistic role of nutrients in boosting the immune system and the nutritional aspects during the recovery of COVID-19 patients were discussed. Papers indexed in scientific databases were searched using antioxidants, COVID-19, inflammation, immune system, macronutrient, micronutrient and probiotic as keywords from 2000 to 2022.

Because of the adverse effects of drugs like thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and hypercholesterolemia, a balanced diet with enough concentrations of energy and macronutrients could increase the patient's durability. The inflammatory cytokines in a vicious cycle delay patients’ rehabilitation. The main mechanistic roles of micronutrients are attributed to the downregulation of virus replication and are involved in energy homeostasis. Dysbiosis is defined as another disturbance among COVID-19 patients, and supplementation with beneficial strains of probiotics helps to exert anti-inflammatory effects in this regard. Being on a well-planned diet with anti-inflammatory properties could reverse cytokine storms as the major feature of COVID-19. Future studies are needed to determine the safe and effective dose of dietary factors to control the COVID-19 patients.

Being on a well-planned diet with anti-inflammatory properties could reverse cytokine storms as the major feature of COVID-19. Future studies are needed to determine the safe and effective dose of dietary factors to control the COVID-19 patients.

This paper investigated the organizational adoption of big data analytics (BDA) in the context of supply chain planning (SCP) to conceptualize how resources are orchestrated for organizational BDA adoption and to elucidate how resources and capabilities intervene with the resource management process during BDA adoption.

This research elaborated on the resource orchestration theory and technology innovation adoption literature to shed light on BDA adoption with multiple case studies.

A framework for the resource orchestration process in BDA adoption is presented. The authors associated the development and deployment of relevant individual, technological and organizational resources and capabilities with the phases of organizational BDA adoption and implementation. The authors highlighted that organizational BDA adoption can be initiated before consolidating the full resource portfolio. Resource acquisition, capability development and internalization of competences can take place alongside BDA adoption through structured processes and governance mechanisms.

A relevant discussion identifying the capability gap and provides insight into potential paths of organizational BDA adoption is presented.

The authors call for attention from policymakers and academics to reflect on the changes in the expected capabilities of supply chain planners to facilitate industry-wide BDA transition.

This study opens the black box of organizational BDA adoption by emphasizing and scrutinizing the role of resource management actions.