Search results

Psychological researches of colour reveal that a colour or a group of colours is associated with certain meanings or can cause certain feelings. These feelings of a colour are termed as colour emotions perceived by people. It is important for colour design of a product. Quantitative relationships between colours and the emotion they caused can assist designers to select right colour for the right design objects. The quantitative relationships can also contribute to the reduction of the lead time for colour design process as the colour emotion can be expressed by standard colour specification. A review was carried out in this paper to introduce the research works in quantifying colour emotion.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relevant aspects that influence foreign subsidiary’s performance and remain how they retain competitiveness in international markets during economic crisis. To investigate this effect, this research analyzes the behavior of Japanese subsidiaries located in European countries during the pre- and post-crisis periods that started in the USA in 2008 and spread all over the world.

This is a quantitative study with an analysis based on longitudinal data of foreign subsidiaries of Japanese multinational firms during the period 2006-2013. It applies a multiple linear regression with panel data using fixed effects models.

The findings show that within-firm factors related to local experiential knowledge, market entry through joint ventures with partners from the same nationality, and subsidiary management with a team of expatriates all have a positive impact on subsidiary performance during times of economic crisis. Moreover, within-country factors involving macroeconomic aspects related to inflation rate and population income indicators show a negative impact on performance. Finally, the results confirm that subsidiary performance is higher in the pre-crisis period, showing the importance of considering economic crisis aspects in longitudinal studies.

The result has implications for managers of multinational firms to understand which factors most impact the success of their foreign subsidiaries during times of economic crisis. In this way, managers can, with greater confidence, decide to reach the most important performance indicator in subsidiary management.

The majority of studies on economic crisis is based on an economic perspective and mostly investigates Asian and Argentinean crises. When considering a firm-level perspective, most research studies conducted on a subsidiary level are cross-sectional or use survival as a measure of performance. This paper applies a longitudinal study using subsidiary-level data and analyzes performance by sales and productivity measurement. In addition, it investigates whether or not within-country and within-firm factors impacted subsidiary performance during the 2008 economic crisis.

This paper goes above and beyond the prior research on entry mode by considering the organizational approach and examines entry mode selection between wholly-owned subsidiaries and joint venture by taking into account the existence of different types of joint ventures. In this way, this paper seeks to investigate whether or not a relationship exists between the first entry strategy decision of a particular firm and the prior foreign market entries made by other firms. Moreover, considering that foreign market entry is not a one-time decision, this study analyses whether or not prior entry in a particular country has influence on the choice of repeated entries in the same country.

This paper uses data of 1,470 subsidiaries established by Japanese electronics firms in 64 countries. The propositions are tested by applying a statistical t-test to compare the mean differences between the analyzed cases.

The findings revealed the legitimacy effect on the entry mode selection. Firms tend to follow the prior entry strategies of its rivals in the case of first time investors, while for subsequent investments, both prior entries made by the parent firm and competitors have great influence on the market access in a particular country. It suggests that the effect of market competition cannot be neglected when examining entry mode selection. Furthermore, there is a need to consider entry strategy as a dynamic rather than a static decision-making process.

The findings from this study are useful for scholars interested in advancing the knowledge on entry mode strategies of multinational companies.

Entomology is a useful tool when applied to engineering challenges that have been solved in nature. Especially when these special abilities of olfactory sensation, vision, auditory perception, fly, jump, navigation, chemical synthesis, exquisite structure and others were connected with mechanization, informationization and intelligentization of modern science and technology, and produced innumerable classical bionic products. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

All kinds of special abilities of insects and application status have been described and discussed in order to summarize the advanced research examples and supply bibliographic reference to the latters. Future perspectives and challenges in the use of insect bionics were also given.

In the period of life sciences and information sciences, insect bionics not only promoted the development of modern science and technology on the sides of mechanics, molecule, energy, information and control greatly but also provided new ideas and technologies for the crisis of science and technology, food, environment and ecosystem.

It may provide strategies to solve the problems and be a source of good ideas for researchers.

The test procedure for characterizing the tribological behavior of lubricants and materials for the system “piston ring/cylinder liner” outside of engines is now operational and validated. The test parameters presented in this paper (F_N=50 N; v=0.3 m/s, s=24 km) may act only as an indicator and should be used to the tasks regarded. It allows the check prior expensive engine testing, if a tribomaterial, tribocouple or new lubricant will reach a satisfactory engine performance. The introduction of piston ring segments and cylinder liner as specimen into the test rig as well as the volumetric wear determined by means of stylus profilometry represented a big step forward in order to increase the transferability of “tribotests” to engine tests on an acceptable level.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the cluster effect by decomposing the broad category of “clusters” into cluster size and technological knowledge spillovers. Further, this study questions whether all foreign firms benefit equally from participation in geographic clusters. Specifically, the paper examines the moderating roles of local ownership ties and a local market orientation with respect to the benefits of cluster size and technological knowledge spillover.

Using the Database of Enterprises in China, this study examines a sample of 2,200 Taiwanese manufacturing firms operating in China from 2005 to 2007.

The paper found that increased cluster size and technological knowledge spillovers help to enhance foreign firms’ financial performance. The analysis also shows that local ownership ties and a local market orientation have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between cluster size, technological knowledge spillovers, and performance.

This study distinguishes between the effects of cluster size and technological knowledge spillovers, which is an important step toward demystifying the “black box” of cluster benefits. Further, due to the liability of foreignness and the lack of legitimacy that foreign firms face when operating in emerging economies, this study integrates the cluster perspective and the legitimacy perspective to discuss whether foreign firms can actively adopt strategic behaviors that will help to improve their legitimacy and enable them to better capture potential cluster benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether the new Chinese phenomenon of going global in groups represents a more advantageous market entry mode than the phenomena considered in previous studies.

In this empirical research paper, the authors draw upon the literature in academic journals and books regarding the Chinese special economic zones overseas to analyze and compare collective internationalization (i.e. going global in groups) with traditional market entry modes as per the ownership, location and internalization paradigm (OLI) and transaction cost approach (TCA).

The authors identified that financial and diplomatic support provided by the Chinese Government has reinforced internationalization in groups, thereby minimizing some structural risks in host countries. Pre-operational and operating costs have been lowered or shared among group members, and weighted average cost of capital has dropped due to the availability of specific funding lines with subsidized interest rates.

Given the lack of available literature on the topic, the authors based their study of the collective internationalization of Chinese firms on very few cases, most of which represent market entry in African countries.

The study calls attention to a new, more efficient and less risky characteristic of international entry modes, which implies that companies can reap multiple benefits by entering markets in global groups.

As literature addressing market entry modes focuses mostly on individual enterprises, this paper contributes to the identification of advantages in collective internationalization.

This paper aims to propose a new method to solve the two problems in fabric defect detection. Current state-of-the-art industrial products defect detectors are deep learning-based, which incurs some additional problems: (1) The model is difficult to train due to too few fabric datasets for the difficulty of collecting pictures; (2) The detection accuracy of existing methods is insufficient to implement in the industrial field. This study intends to propose a new method which can be applied to fabric defect detection in the industrial field.

To cope with exist fabric defect detection problems, the article proposes a novel fabric defect detection method based on multi-source feature fusion. In the training process, both layer features and source model information are fused to enhance robustness and accuracy. Additionally, a novel training model called multi-source feature fusion (MSFF) is proposed to tackle the limited samples and demand to obtain fleet and precise quantification automatically.

The paper provides a novel fabric defect detection method, experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves an AP of 93.9 and 98.8% when applied to the TILDA(a public dataset) and ZYFD datasets (a real-shot dataset), respectively, and outperforms 5.9% than fine-tuned SSD (single shot multi-box detector).

Our proposed algorithm can provide a promising tool for fabric defect detection.

The paper includes implications for the development of a powerful brand image, the development of “brand ambassadors” and for managing the balance between stability and change.

This work provides technical support for real-time detection on industrial sites, advances the process of intelligent manual detection of fabric defects and provides a technical reference for object detection on other industrial

Therefore, our proposed algorithm can provide a promising tool for fabric defect detection.

Whereas the USA is still the largest investment destination for Japanese companies, Japan also accounts as the second largest source of investment in the country. The purpose of this paper is to, empirically, examine the detailed motives of Japanese affiliates when investing in the Southeastern USA, adding to previous research at the national level.

This paper uses a qualitative approach based on the interviews of long-term Japanese investors in the manufacturing and wholesale trade industries in the Southeastern USA and applies text analysis to identify their motives.

The results show that Japanese firms engage in market- and efficiency-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI), and still apply a classic sequence of gradual and incremental market commitments. Market size and growth rate, reducing transaction or transportation costs, and integration within local value chains are the most important to them, whereas competition, creating an export base, lowering tax and accessing skilled labor are of little concern.

The goal of Japanese FDI in the USA is no longer to bypass tariffs but is still part of a complex industrial network of relations which drives further investment. This result can inform policy makers at the state level about the factors that can drive additional foreign investment, such as the establishment of industrial clusters.

This study offers current insights into the motives of Japanese FDI in two industries.

The paper focuses on legitimation and legitimation strategies applied by companies. Following the process of systematic review, we analyse empirical studies exploring legitimation and legitimation strategies from different theoretical perspectives. Using the key findings by reconnoitering and comparing the theoretical background, approaches, methodologies and findings of these empirical studies, we outline potential directions for research in the legitimation strategies of firms engaged in international business operations.