James C. Brau, Drew Dahl, Hongjing Zhang and Mingming Zhou
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of regulatory reform on the asset allocation and capitalization of Chinese banks from 2002 to 2007, a period following China's…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of regulatory reform on the asset allocation and capitalization of Chinese banks from 2002 to 2007, a period following China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Design/methodology/approach
The evidence rejects a hypothesis that the four categories of banks operating in China – the Big Four, Majority State, Majority Private, and Majority Foreign banks have converged toward common targets. Supplemental analysis indicates that domestic banks, but not foreign banks, adjust equally to their targets.
Findings
The paper concludes that, although Chinese banking remained segmented during this unique transitional period, a more uniform pattern has emerged for those Chinese banks that are domestically owned.
Originality/value
The authors employ a methodology that is explicitly designed to determine if banks have converged toward common approaches to asset allocation and capitalization, which has not been studies previously.
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Mengyun Zhang, Hongjing Pu, Tianmuzi Yu and Shuyang Qu
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between digital transformation and excess employees. This research investigates the questions of when human−machine…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between digital transformation and excess employees. This research investigates the questions of when human−machine synergy can be achieved after a firm goes through digital transformation and whether there will be excess employees in the interim.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes A-share listed companies as research object in the period of 2011−2020 and a total of 24,718 samples are obtained. Hypothesis testing and regression analysis are performed in STATA.
Findings
This paper finds a human−machine mismatch in the short term, as evidenced by an increase in the rate of excess employees; however, with the progress of digital transformation, it can drive the achievement of human−machine synergy in the long term, and management efficiency plays a mediating role in this process. Further research showed that the effects of digital transformation on the number of employees, revenue generation per capita and profit generation per capita varied in both the short and long term. In addition, the characteristics of the company affect the relationship between digital transformation and excess employees.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the understanding of the impacts of digital transformation on the human capital structure of companies at a micro level. It also provides insights into how to improve human capital demand structure through digitalization, thus providing insights into labor market changes.
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Hongjing Cui, Taiyang Zhao, Slawomir Smyczek, Yajun Sheng, Ming Xu and Xiao Yang
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of self-worth on status consumption, focusing on the mediation of self-enhancement and self-compensation and the moderation of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of self-worth on status consumption, focusing on the mediation of self-enhancement and self-compensation and the moderation of power distance belief (PDB) in the relationship of threats to self-worth and consumer choice.
Design/methodology/approach
Experiments are used to collect data. Three studies are designed to test the relationship between self-worth, self-enhancement and self-compensation, PDB and status consumption. In total, 180 MBA students participate Study 1, 186 and 244 undergraduate students participate Studies 2 and 3, respectively. ANOVA and bootstrapping method are adopted to analyze the data by using SPSS version 19.0. Study 1 tests the influence of self-worth on status consumption; Study 2 examines the mediation role of self-enhancement and self-compensation; and Study 3 tests the moderation role of PDB.
Findings
Results indicate that situational self-worth perception has dual path effects on status consumption. Both improvements in – and threats to – self-worth have a positive impact on status consumption. Improvements in self-worth affect status consumption through the mediation of self-enhancement motives. Threats to self-worth affect status and non-status consumption through the mediation of the self-compensation motive. In the context of a threat to self-worth, compared with consumers with a low PDB, high-PDB consumers have higher purchase intention for status goods but not non-status goods.
Research limitations/implications
In this study, improvements in – and threats to – self-worth are momentarily manipulated. The authors present one product in each experiment, but what would happen if both status goods and non-status goods were shown to participants? Which one will the authors choose under different self-worth manipulations? And how long can the effects last? These questions should be answered in future research.
Practical implications
This research provides a venue for marketers to introduce and advertise status goods. Marketing practitioners should establish the link between self-worth and status consumption appeals. In the Asia-Pacific markets, Confucian value is important to consumers, and high power distance is important in Confucianism. Thus when developing markets in China, international companies should emphasize Confucian values in the design of advertisements or other promotional items. Further, marketing for status goods should attach importance to the expression of their symbolic meanings.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on self-worth and status consumption. It also explores the dual path of the effect of self-worth on status consumption. The motives of self-enhancement and self-compensation are first proposed and tested to explain the mechanism, which differentiates the study from prior work and gives a more reasonable explanation for status and compensatory consumption. The moderation role of PDB delineates the boundary for the effect of a threat to self-worth on status consumption.
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Pengcheng Cao, Xi Chen, Hongjing Dong and Ying Dai
The purpose of this paper is to obtain a theoretical model to analyze the effective modulus of cement paste in early age, including the setting and hardening periods, which has a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to obtain a theoretical model to analyze the effective modulus of cement paste in early age, including the setting and hardening periods, which has a great impact on mechanical properties of concrete structure.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a power law approximation, a generalized mixture rule is used to construct the relationship between the effective modulus and hydration degree. In addition, a new model of the dependence of the Poisson's ratio on the hydration degree and water cement ratio is proposed for cement paste in early age.
Findings
The effective Young's modulus, storage shear modulus and Poisson's ratio of cement pastes with different water cement ratios and hydration degrees are studied by the presented model. The model can be applied to simulate the behavior of early-age cement paste at both the setting and the hardening periods. Compared with the experimental results, the correctness of the model is validated.
Originality/value
This work presents a mathematical model that can effectively estimate the effective Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio in the hardening period, and the storage shear modulus in the setting period of cement pastes.
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Charu Verma and Pradeep Kumar Suri
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of big data through patentometric insights for R&D decision-making.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of big data through patentometric insights for R&D decision-making.
Design/methodology/approach
This study assesses the inventive activity through ‘big data’ patents, registered by inventors worldwide, using WIPO Patentscope database. The objective is to use the insights from patentometrics for R&D decision-making. The data from WIPO PatentScope (https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/search.jsf) was searched for current patent scenario in area of ‘big data’. The data was further organized and cleaned using the Google ‘OpenRefine’. Data was pre-processed to remove all null values. Cleaned data was analyzed using programming language ‘R’, MS Excel (charts and Pivot tables) and free data visualization tool called ‘Tableau Public’, to get insights for R&D decision-making.
Findings
The key insights included trends (patents with years of publication), top technologies trending the current space, top organizations leading in these technologies and the top inventors who are publishing patents in these technologies through leading organizations were drawn. Details in Section 5 in the paper.
Research limitations/implications
Global patent data is multi-lingual and spreads across a set of multiple databases. Domain experts may be required to assess, identify and extract the relevant information for analysis and visualization of multi-lingual distributed data sets. Government organizations generally have multi-dimensional goals that may be more toward societal benefits. On the other hand, the commercial companies are more focused on profit. Therefore, the performance management process has to be really effective because it is critical for getting value in the government sector.
Practical implications
Insights from patent analytics serve as the important input to R&D managers as well as policymakers to assess the global needs to plan the national orientation according to the global market. This will help further for R&D projects prioritization, planning, budget allocations, human capital planning and other gamut of R&D management and decision-making.
Social implications
Facilitation for R&D institutions (government as well as private) to formulate the research strategy for the domains or research areas to delve into. R&D decisions will be completely data-driven making them more accurate, reliable, valid and informed. These insights are very relevant for policymakers as well to facilitate the need assessment to determine the National priorities, make improvements in meeting societal country-level challenges during the resource allocation at top and subsequently at all other levels.
Originality/value
Data analytics of global patents in “big data” till 2019 to get insights to facilitate R&D decision-making.
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Weizhen Wang, Yukari Nagai, Yuan Fang and Masami Maekawa
The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between human emotions and wearable technologies for interactive fashion innovation. To consider the reasons why smart clothing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between human emotions and wearable technologies for interactive fashion innovation. To consider the reasons why smart clothing should satisfy the internet of things (IoT) technical functions and human emotional expression simultaneously, to investigate the manner in which artistic design perspectives and engineering methods combined effectively, to explore the R&D elements of future smart clothing based on the IoT technology.
Design/methodology/approach
This study combines artistic design perspectives with information-sensing engineering methods as well as kansei evaluation method. Micro-sensors and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) embedded in couples clothing prototype. The first experiment step in the design and production of prototype clothing, and do the initial emotional evaluation. The second experiment is the comparative evaluation of the prototype and other typical smart clothing.
Findings
The interactive clothing prototype was proven to correlate well with human emotional expressive patterns. The evaluation I indicated the prototype can stimulate the emotional response of the participants to achieve a higher score in the activate sensor state. Evaluation II revealed that in the process of interactive clothing design, the technical functionality should synchronize with the requirements of human emotional expression.
Originality/value
This study builds the research and development theoretical model of interactive clothing that can be integrated into daily smart clothing life design, and analyze the methods and means of blending IoT smart information-sensing technology with emotional design. By means of this experimental demonstration of human-centered interactive clothing design, the authors provide smart clothing 3.0 evolutionary roadmap and propose a new concept of internet of clothes (IoC) for further research reference.