Zhi‐Qiang Lian, Yuan‐Xian Gu and Hong‐Wu Zhang
Based on the unilateral CT images of a patient in stage III for osteonecrosis of the femoral head, three subject‐specific three‐dimensional finite element models of proximal femur…
Abstract
Based on the unilateral CT images of a patient in stage III for osteonecrosis of the femoral head, three subject‐specific three‐dimensional finite element models of proximal femur are developed by reverse engineering method, including normal model, necrosis model and prothetic model. Based on the same CT set, the material properties are assigned to each finite element model. Then, by finite element analysis, the process of bone grafting for osteonecrosis of the femoral head is simulated. The results indicate that when the necrosis parts of femoral head are removed, the stresses and displacements of proximal femur increase correspondingly, but after the surgery of bone grafting, the stresses and displacements of proximal femur efficiently decrease and become more close to the normal state. The results are useful for a better understanding of the procedure of the bone grafting surgery.
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The advent of online live streaming platforms (OLSPs) and online health communities (OHCs) has expedited the integration of traditional medical services with Internet new media…
Abstract
Purpose
The advent of online live streaming platforms (OLSPs) and online health communities (OHCs) has expedited the integration of traditional medical services with Internet new media technology. Since the practice of physicians conducting live streaming is a relatively new phenomenon, the potential cross-platform effects of such physicians’ live streaming have not received adequate attention.
Design/methodology/approach
This study collected data from 616 physicians specializing in cardiology, obstetrics and gynecology and neurology between April and November 2022 on Live.Baidu.com and WeDoctor.com. It constructed a panel data set comprising a total of 4,928 observations over an 8-month period and validated the model using empirical analysis with the fixed-effects method.
Findings
We find evidence of cross-platform influence in online healthcare. Physicians’ live streaming behavior (whether live or not and the heat of their streams) on OLSPs positively impacts both their consultation and reputation on OHCs. Additionally, physicians’ ability positively moderates the relationships between live streaming heat and their performance (in terms of consultation volume and reputation) on OHCs. However, ability does not moderate the relationship between physicians’ live streaming status (live or not) and their performance (in terms of consultation and reputation) on OHCs. Furthermore, the attractive appearance of the physicians also significantly moderates the impact in a positive way.
Originality/value
This is one of the pioneering studies on physicians’ live streaming. The study offers vital guidance for physicians and patients utilizing dual platforms and holds significant reference value for platform operators (such as OLSPs and OHCs) aiming to optimize platform operations and for the government in policy formulation and industry regulation.
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Forces of globalization have driven international convergence in corporate governance and accounting considerably over the past few decades. Nevertheless, despite the global…
Abstract
Forces of globalization have driven international convergence in corporate governance and accounting considerably over the past few decades. Nevertheless, despite the global trend, convergence of corporate governance and financial reporting remains a subject of debate. This research monograph critically examines whether China’s convergence with Anglo-American corporate governance principles and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is likely to produce the expected outcomes of improving the transparency and comparability of accounting information in Chinese firms. In this chapter, we discuss the motivation for and the significance of the study; describe the issues associated with the adoption of internationally acceptable standards and principles in China; explain the theoretical framework used to inform the study and research methodology; and present the aim and objectives of the monograph.
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Xueqin Lei, Hong Wu, Zhaohua Deng and Qing Ye
The purpose of this research is to investigate how postpartum mothers conduct self-disclosure on social media may obtain social support and therefore improve their depressive mood.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to investigate how postpartum mothers conduct self-disclosure on social media may obtain social support and therefore improve their depressive mood.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors extract variables of self-disclosure by manual coding postpartum mothers' 835 posts from a parenting social media in China. The ordinary least squares model and the binary logistic regression model are used to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The study suggests that both mothers' superficial level disclosure and personal level disclosure positively affect online social support received, and the effect of personal level disclosure on social support is much greater than that of superficial level disclosure. Online social support received is related to the content of the post and reduces mothers' depressive mood. The authors further find that the association between personal level disclosure and depressive mood is fully mediated by social support.
Research limitations/implications
The data are collected from a parenting social network. Although it is the major parenting social media with the most users in China, the generalizability of this model and the findings to other social media need additional research.
Practical implications
This study offers implications for researchers and practitioners with regard to social media uses and impacts, which also has important implications for policy and interventions for the mental health of mothers.
Originality/value
This paper makes theoretical contributions to the literature of social penetration theory and social support by (1) dividing self-disclosure into superficial level disclosure and personal level disclosure according to the intimacy of self-disclosure; (2) empirically investigating the direct effect of online self-disclosure on social support and the mediating effect of social support between online self-disclosure and mothers' depressive mood.
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Waiting time, as an important predictor of queue abandonment and patient satisfaction, is important for resource utilization and patient experience management. Medical…
Abstract
Purpose
Waiting time, as an important predictor of queue abandonment and patient satisfaction, is important for resource utilization and patient experience management. Medical institutions have given top priority to reforming the appointment system for many years; however, whether the increased information transparency brought about by the appointment scheduling mechanism could improve patient waiting time is not well understood. In this study, the authors examine the effects of information transparency in reducing patient waiting time from an uncertainty perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Leveraging a quasi-natural experiment in a tertiary academic hospital, the authors analyze over one million observational patient visit records and design the propensity score matching plus the difference in difference (PSM-DID) model and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to address this issue.
Findings
The authors confirm that, on average, improved information transparency significantly reduces the waiting time for patients by approximately 6.43 min, a 4.90% reduction. The authors identify three types of uncertainties (resource, process and outcome uncertainty) in the patient visit process that affect patients' waiting time. Moreover, information transparency moderates the relationship between three sources of uncertainties and waiting time.
Originality/value
The authors’ work not only provides important theoretical explanations for the patient-level factors of in-clinic waiting time and the reasons for information technology (IT)-enabled appointment scheduling by time slot (ITASS) to shorten patient waiting time and improve patient experience but also provides potential solutions for further exploration of measures to reduce patient waiting time.
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Yang Song, Hong Wu, Jingdong Ma and Naiji Lu
As a standard source of capital for entrepreneurs, crowdfunding has recently gained wide attention in business and academia. With scientific endorsement, some research is…
Abstract
Purpose
As a standard source of capital for entrepreneurs, crowdfunding has recently gained wide attention in business and academia. With scientific endorsement, some research is conducted to explore the antecedents of online crowdfunding success. The factors that can influence the backers’ investment which is the key to success are information from prior backers’ and creators’ behaviors. Based on the signaling theory, the purpose of this paper is to systematically investigate the dynamic influences and interaction effects of signals with different forms (action-based or opinion-based signals) and sources (creator-sourced or backer-sourced signals) on backers’ investment behaviors over a project-funding cycle.
Design/methodology/approach
A panel data set of 3,010 projects with 640,625 transaction records from April 28, 2013 to September 31, 2017 is collected from a famous online crowdfunding platform – Zhongchou.cn in China and the negative binomial panel data model with fixed effect is used to obtain our empirical results.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that the work of different signals is significantly effective at the early stage of a project and decreases with time. Furthermore, our results show that there are both synergistic effect and substitution effect among different signals. Specifically, the direction of interaction effect depends on the forms of signals and the backers’ sensitivity toward that signal, and the interaction effects are also dynamic.
Originality/value
This paper has shed light on the roles of different signal types and their interactions in influencing funding behavior over a project-funding cycle, enriched the literature on crowdfunding and provided both theoretical and practical implications.
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Xiaochen Zhang and Huifang Yin
The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of information disclosure by unlisted bond issuers on the stock price informativeness of listed firms in the same industry.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of information disclosure by unlisted bond issuers on the stock price informativeness of listed firms in the same industry.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes advantage of information disclosure during the bond issuance and examines the spillover effect of unlisted bond issuers' information disclosure on listed firms in the stock market. The sample is composed of A-share firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2007 to 2018. All the data are obtained from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research and WIND databases. The impact of bond market information disclosure on price informativeness of listed firms in the same industry is identified through multivariate regression analyses.
Findings
Empirical results show that price informativeness of listed firms has a significantly positive association with the information disclosure of same-industry unlisted bond issuers. Further analyses show that the above finding is more significant when information disclosure of bond issuers is a more important channel for acquiring industry information (i.e. when industry is more concentrated, when economic uncertainty is high, and when industry information is less transparent) and understanding the industry competitive landscape (i.e. when bond issuers are relatively large, when bond issuers and listed firms have more direct product competition, when bond issuance firms are large-scale state-owned business groups), and when there are more cross-market information intermediaries (i.e. more cross-market institutional investors and more sell-side analysts). This paper indicates that information disclosure of bond issuers has a positive spillover effect on the stock market.
Originality/value
The novelty of the research is that the authors examine industry information spillover from unlisted firms to listed firms leveraging on unlisted firms' information disclosure in bond markets.
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Jiaying Li, Zhaohua Deng, Richard David Evans, Shan Liu and Hong Wu
In China, healthcare services have historically been expensive and difficult to access, with resources being unfairly distributed, often being centralized in large hospitals in…
Abstract
Purpose
In China, healthcare services have historically been expensive and difficult to access, with resources being unfairly distributed, often being centralized in large hospitals in major cities. In rural regions, hospitals often suffer from limited supplies, including human capital and equipment. E-health technologies have received significant attention from governments and citizens, with online healthcare communities (OHCs) providing easier communication between patients and doctors. Although doctors play a pivotal role in the success of OHCs, they are often unsure how to attract patients, with limited research focusing on this. The purpose of this paper is to explore how doctors can take initiatives in OHCs, from the joint perspectives of individual effort (i.e. intrapersonal factor) and identity in medical teams (MTs) (i.e. interpersonal factor), based on attribution theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Hierarchical linear regression was conducted on data from 3,170 doctors participating in 865 online MTs, to examine the effects of individual effort and identity in MTs on individual performance. Individual effort included central effort (log-in frequency to OHC) and peripheral effort (articles published on doctors' homepages). Identity in MTs was represented as the identity of team leader and multiple team membership (MTM).
Findings
This study found that the main variables – central and peripheral effort, and leader and MTM identity – all had significant and positive impacts on the service quantity (SQ) of both written and telephone consultations. Although positive effects could be experienced in most conditions that were congruent with the logic of identity theory, the interaction terms demonstrated complex influences. Specifically, leader identity did not moderate the effect of article effort in written consultation, while MTM identity could not moderate the relationship between frequency effort and SQ in telephone-consultation services. Further, the leader identity negatively moderated the relationship between article effort and SQ in telephone consultations. Thus, for doctors with the leader identity, the impact of article effort on SQ was weaker. In summary, both aspects were proved to play important roles in individual SQ.
Practical implications
This study provides empirical findings through focusing on the SQ of both written and telephone consultations in OHCs, thereby enabling healthcare providers to take initiatives and ultimately improve the efficiency and provision of delivered healthcare services. It is worth mentioning that doctors possessing the identity of team leader should be cautious that the more articles published by them may not lead to envisaged telephone-consultation performance, according to the negative moderating effect of leader identity on the relationship between article effort and SQ during telephone consultations.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the OHC literature by investigating how doctors' efforts and identity in OHCs affect individual performance, based on attribution theory and identity theory. Further, we provide healthcare practitioners with an improved understanding of these dimensions to improve autonomy regarding service provision in OHCs.
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Enterprises realize that customers are their most important asset and recognize that a high level of customer satisfaction can only be achieved by enhancing service quality. Thus…
Abstract
Purpose
Enterprises realize that customers are their most important asset and recognize that a high level of customer satisfaction can only be achieved by enhancing service quality. Thus, how enterprises acquire customer knowledge by which to initiate and maintain customer relationships, as well as to enhance service quality has become an important issue. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a questionnaire and statistical analytical techniques to explore the impact of customer knowledge and customer relationship management (CRM) on service quality.
Findings
The results indicated that customer knowledge has a positive influence on service quality and CRM is the partial intervening variable between customer knowledge and service quality. That is, customer knowledge enhances the CRM, while CRM, in turn, increases service quality and provides competitive advantages.
Research limitations/implications
This research explored the impact of customer knowledge and CRM on service quality based on the company's perception and there was no validation on the customers' perception of the company. Therefore, it is suggested that future research should involve company staff, current customers, and latent customers to strengthen the triangulation.
Practical implications
The results found that customer knowledge is indeed an important source of competitive advantage. Hence, enterprises should acquire valuable customer knowledge in order to enhance the relationship with customers, as well as enhance their service quality.
Originality/value
There is still little related literature investigating the relationships amongst customer knowledge, CRM, and service quality. Hence, this study applies questionnaire methods as the main research tools in order to conduct an in-depth investigation into the influence of customer knowledge and CRM on service quality. Furthermore, this research is expected to provide enterprises with valuable suggestions for management practices.