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The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of different brand positions (underdog vs top dog) and comparative advertising on consumers’ brand attitudes. Additionally, this study also aims to demonstrate the effects of inspiration, self-relevance and empathy on the relationship between brand positioning and comparative advertising.

A two-by-three factorial design was employed with brand positions (underdog vs top dog) and three types of comparative advertising (noncomparative, indirect comparative and direct comparative) as the independent variables. Inspiration serves as the mediator, while self-relevance and empathy act as moderators and brand attitude is the dependent variable.

The results show that different brand positions significantly affect brand attitudes, with respondents having a better brand attitude toward the underdog brand. Brand attitude is partially mediated by inspiration. Self-relevance moderates the relationship between brand positioning and brand attitude. However, brand positioning, comparative advertising and empathy do not have interaction effects.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the effect of psychological variables on brand positioning and comparative advertising.

The results suggest that the underdog setting requires a real and honest story because consumers will spot a fake underdog story, which will damage consumer trust in the brand and harm the brand image.

There is a lack of research using psychological variables to demonstrate the effect of being the underdog brand. This study contributes to the literature by employing psychological variables to illustrate the effect of underdog positioning. These findings can help brands develop branding positioning strategies.

Population aging was a global trend, and the most obvious thing after aging was the change in skin appearance. Therefore, the active ingredients that delay skin aging were particularly noticed. Past studies had pointed out that Chinese herbal extracts can improve skin elasticity, reduce wrinkles and melanin precipitation. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether combining hydrolyzed collagen with Chinese herbal extracts can improve skin conditions and achieve anti-inflammatory effects.

Fifty subjects were randomly divided into collagen or placebo groups, and one bottle of collagen or placebo drink was used every day for four weeks, after which skin and inflammatory factors were tested.

In comparison with the baseline results, the skin parameters were improving after four-week intervention. In addition, the IL-6, IL-8, TNF-a were significantly decreased and tissue inhibitor matrix metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP-1) was increased after four-week hydrolyzed collagen intervention.

This study showed that hydrolyzed collagen combined with Chinese herbal extracts can improve the condition of the skin, and can also reduce inflammatory associated factors, thereby achieving anti-aging effects.

This study aims to construct a valid hierarchical sustainable human resource management (SHRM) model with interrelationships among its attributes in terms of qualitative information.

This study applies the fuzzy Delphi method to validate SHRM attributes and visualize the causal interrelationships among these attributes using a fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method.

This study finds that green performance management and compensation lead to human resource benefits and economic sustainability in the HRM model.

Open environmental communication, green human resource planning, green training and development, employee eco-friendly behavior and organizational culture are the top five criteria supporting practical improvement in the healthcare industry.

The emergence of new, unprepared, and inexperienced health care entities with inadequate human resource management (HRM) potentially causing social problems within the industry, SHRM is necessary to balance the social, environment, and economic performance and must be studied by both academicians and practitioners. However, the HRM application field is still in its infancy, which limits the understanding of its potential.

This paper aims to propose an integrative and result-driven health-care knowledge management (HKM) model and discuss the findings of a research that examines how the KM initiatives of a major private Brazilian hospital system are linked to its health-care performance outcomes.

Data were collected from a top-level Brazilian private hospital system (Mater Dei Healthcare System – MDHS), which is composed of three large hospitals internationally accredited by ISO 9001/2000, NIAHO and JCI. Multiple qualitative approaches were used to collect data such as 16 in-depth interviews with health professionals and managers, document analysis, participatory observation and benchmarking interviews with two reference hospital networks in Brazil.

The proposed health-oriented KM model is an expansion of the organizational knowing cycle model (Choo, 1996), adding absorptive capacity (ACAP) as a new construct. The paper discusses how ACAP integrates with sense-making, knowledge creation and decision-making processes within the health-care context. Information technology and clinical governance were identified as support factors to the HKM processes.

The paper presents a pragmatic and result-driven knowledge management (KM) model using health-care-welfare key performance indicators, as well as the emergence of KM as an integrative and strategic approach to hospital management.

The present study presents a knowledge-based perspective to clinical staff management, demonstrating the tangible results of KM initiatives that contribute to health and management performance outcomes.

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) continuously causes environmental and social problems. These formidable challenges lead to sustainable issues and are an increasingly urgent issue worldwide. Prior studies have neglected to link the triple bottom line (TBL) to a reliable estimation or empirical model for estimating CDW production performance and lack empirical sensitivity analysis in profit maximization. This study proposes an attribute analysis to build a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) to obtain profit maximization.

This study uses fuzzy set theory to develop a cost and benefit analysis (CBA) model to assess the sensitivity analysis in terms of its performance on addressing the environmental, economic and social aspects. The model is used to weigh the sum of benefits such as financial gain and total costs of actions taken to mitigate the negative impacts.

Based on the sensitivity analysis conducted, the environmental, economic and social mean scales were significantly changed, i.e. increased, and profits increased drastically. The results provide an insight into environmental legislation compliance, environmental investment and environmental impact as the cause attributes for the CDW recycling profit increase. The results prove that sensitivity analysis is viable to infer that a sustainable production performance can achieve more revenue and profit through an adequate selection of attributes regarding the TBL aspects to address the firm's uncertainty problem in multiple criteria analysis.

This study builds a CBA model to maximize profits for recycled CDW material by linking of environmental, economic and societal aspects for recycled CDW assessments. It considers a sustainability structure with criteria based on TBL aspects to assess production performance to realize the Sustainable Development Goals and presents fuzzy set theory and sensitivity analysis to solve the uncertainty problem in the construction industry.

This study develops an integrated zero waste discharge planning approach for improving resource efficiency in a pulp-and-paper manufacturing firm.

The objectives of this study are to (1) identify the environmental, technical and social metrics in resource efficiency; (2) utilize fuzzy multi-objective programming and the hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm to solve the fuzzy problem; and (3) develop an assessment for resource efficiency improvement in an industrial case study.

The findings demonstrate the superiority of hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm in generating optimal results for a pulp-and-paper manufacturing firm.

The findings demonstrate the superiority of hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm in generating optimal results for a pulp-and-paper manufacturing firm.

Resource efficiency is a multi-objective problem in an uncertain environment. In particular, zero waste discharge planning involves minimizing the total cost and maximizing the waste material recovery rate, wastewater reuse, and waste heat recovery.

This study empirically tests the impact of the Dark Triad personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) and co-worker competitiveness on knowledge sabotage.

A model was constructed and tested by means of Partial Least Squares with data from 150 participants recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

The individual personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are significant predictors of individual knowledge sabotage behavior, whereas co-worker Machiavellianism and psychopathy trigger co-worker knowledge sabotage. Out of the three Dark Triad traits, individual and co-worker psychopathy emerged as the strongest knowledge sabotage predictor. Co-worker competitiveness has a positive effect on co-workers’ knowledge sabotage behavior. There is a relatively strong relationship between co-worker and individual knowledge sabotage which suggests that knowledge sabotage is a form of contagious workplace behavior. Individuals underestimate their negative behavior and traits and/or overestimate those of their fellow co-workers.

Managers should realize that the Dark Triad personality traits could predispose certain individuals to engage in extremely harmful counterproductive knowledge behavior. They need to ensure that individuals with these traits are not hired or are identified during their probation periods. It is recommended that organizations include knowledge sabotage measures in their periodic employee surveys. Organizations should help their employees objectively re-evaluate their own traits and knowledge behavior as well as those of their colleagues to ensure that their reciprocating knowledge behavior is more aligned with the reality in their organization.

This study offers a reliable and valid quantitative survey instrument to measure the presence of knowledge sabotage.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a cradle-to-cradle (C2C) zero discharge production planning system with a fuzzy hybrid optimization model that uses fuzzy comprehensive evaluation to establish fuzzy indicators, and then defuzzify the fuzzy indicators to construct a fuzzy multiobjective programming (FMOP) model.

The FMOP model pursues overall satisfaction using a particle swarm optimization algorithm to produce the best output values for the maximum waste paper recovery rate, the condensate reuse quality and minimum total cost of the zero discharge production planning system.

Recovered waste heat is seldom recycled and consumed in Taiwan. There is a need to capture and utilize heat recovery and use it in the production process supply. In contrast, waste materials are used as resources to perform waste paper recovery and recycle the waste heat of evaporation collection in the production process.

This paper develops a system to establish the best output value for an overall high satisfaction level. According to the results, the waste paper recovery rate is 99.8 percent, condensate reuse quality water is 102.6 tons and the total cost of the zero discharge production planning system is NT$1,312,012.

Understanding people’s intentions to be an internet entrepreneur is an important issue for educators, academics and practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale to measure internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

Based on an analysis of 356 responses, a scale of internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy is validated in accordance with established scale development procedures.

The internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy scale has 16 items under three factors (i.e. leadership, technology utilization and internet marketing and e-commerce). The scale demonstrated adequate convergent validity, discriminant validity and criterion-related validity. Nomological validity was established by the positive correlation between the scale and, respectively, internet entrepreneurship knowledge and entrepreneurial intention.

This study is a pioneering effort to develop and validate a scale to measure internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The results of this study are helpful to researchers in building internet entrepreneurship theories and to educators in assessing and promoting individuals’ internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy and behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the wastewater discharge and a zero-wastewater-discharge (ZWD) reproduction plan is designed for a paper mill in Taiwan.

The proposed model of ZWD reproduction planning is established using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation and Taguchi method to determine the overall wastewater recovery rate. Still the prior studies failed to address a systematic approach to optimize the waste water recovery rate.

The optimal solution for clean water is 500 tons, recovery electrodialysis reversal is 345 tons, the wastewater reuse performance is 1.3 and waste heat recycling performance is 0.8, the larger number is performed well. The results shows that the maximum overall waste water recovery rate is 97.8 percent.

A paper mill is strived for improving their sustainable development. In real situation, there is a need to address the qualitative information and qualitative data to carry out the optimal ZWD reproduction planning.