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The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among chief executive officer (CEO) compensation, ownership and firm value. In addition, the determining factors of CEO compensation are examined.

This model is applied to data of the Taiwan stock market for 1995‐2004. The paper applies a two‐stage least squares regression for the panel data model and implements an F‐test, LM test and Hausman test to determine the best statistical method (that is, ordinary least squares method, fix effects model or random effects method).

The results offer some important insights that show CEO compensation, CEO ownership and firm value are interdependent. Firm size, board size, firm value, institution ownership and CEO ownership are positively associated with CEO compensation while firm age, research and development expenditure rates and firm risk are negatively associated with CEO compensation.

The on‐going expansion in the scale of the firm depends on managers having specialized knowledge. In particular, managers are responsible for the firm's entire operational conditions and future investment strategy. Providing an incentive compensation package can reduce agency costs between managers and shareholders. These findings also provide Taiwanese listed companies with a lesson, which suggests that the existence of the monitoring system can reduce the need for incentive alignment.

The study relies on data from publicly traded Taiwan firms, covering a ten‐year period. This study uses a simultaneous equation estimation procedure to investigate the relations among CEO compensation, CEO ownership and firm value. Two proxies for effective monitoring – board size and institutional ownership – are used. The paper attempts to discuss the influence on CEO compensation from the existence of the monitoring system.

The shipper selects a suitable shipping route and plans for a voyage in order to import and export cargo on the basis of published sailing schedules. The reliability of the sailing schedule will influence the shipper’s logistics expense, which means that the logistics costs will depend on the reliability of schedules published by container shipping companies. Therefore, it is important to consider factors which can cause delays would for container ships sailing on sea routes. The reliability of published sailing schedules can be affected by a number of different factors. This study adopts the multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method to estimate the importance of the delaying factors in a sailing schedule. In addition, the consistent fuzzy preference relations (CFPR) method is applied to identify the subjective importance (weights) of the delaying factors. The entropy weight method combined with the actual performance of the container shipping company are both used when estimating the objective importance (weights) of the delaying factors. According to the analysis results, the criteria can be divided into four quadrants with different management implications, which indicate that instructions for chase strategy, sailing schedule control, fleet allocation, transship operation arrangement and planning for ports in routes are often ignored by container shipping companies. Container shipping companies should consider adjusting their operational strategies, which would greatly improve their operational performance.

Social media-based brand communities (SMBBCs) have emerged as one of the most significant marketing tools due to their ability to create and maintain close relationships between SMBBCs and consumers. However, past studies have ignored intimacy toward SMBBCs, particularly the role of individual variances in their development. Researchers have revealed the significant impacts of individual differences in attachment styles on the development of brand–consumer relationships based on attachment theory. Accordingly, this study aims to explore the drivers of intimacy toward SMBBCs from the perspective of attachment theory.

This study examines a proposed model that integrates two attachment styles – attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety – self-disclosure on social media and intimacy toward SMBBCs through two samples in the context of brands’ Facebook fan pages.

The results show that attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety have significantly negative and positive effects on self-disclosure on social media, respectively, which contribute to intimacy toward SMBBCs.

The results offer brand managers significant implications for segmenting markets and developing relationship marketing strategies for their brand communities on social media.

This study is the first attempt to explore the driving factors of intimacy toward SMBBCs from the attachment theory perspective.

With society’s growing environmental concern, developing a green brand identity provides cities with opportunities to enhance their competitiveness. Nevertheless, few studies have explored green city branding and specifically considered the diverse perceptions of multiple stakeholders. Accordingly, this study aims to explore green city branding from the perceptions of multiple stakeholders.

Based on associative network theory, the study uses brand concept maps and network analysis approaches to construct and analyze the content and structure of mental models among local residents and foreign tourists for a green city brand. This study further seeks empirical support for the findings via a survey, using the sample case of Yilan County in Taiwan.

The results of this study reveal that foreign tourists possess a more diverse and heterogeneous brand perception than local residents. Additionally, the study uncovers significant green city brand associations regarding their influences on the behavioral decisions of local residents and foreign tourists.

This research is the first attempt to advance the knowledge of green city branding by empirically exploring the green city brand perceptions of multiple stakeholders based on associative network theory. The results provide brand researchers with different analytical perspectives on the existing knowledge about city brand perceptions and offer strategic information for city managers.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a perspective of brand-based analysis on green brand positioning differentiation through a network analysis approach.

This study employs centrality and distinctiveness as bases to develop a matrix framework of green brand positioning differentiation. The two dimensions are measured from the techniques of network analysis, including analysis of the core-periphery structure and adjacency matrix.

The results yield four clusters with different positions in a 2×2 matrix, including 23 core brands with high-positioning distinctiveness, ten core brands with low-positioning distinctiveness, ten peripheral brands with high-positioning distinctiveness, and seven peripheral brands with low-positioning distinctiveness.

The results contribute to providing brand researchers with different analytical perspectives on the existing knowledge about green brand positioning and offer strategic positioning information for green brand practitioners.

This research contributes to the literature in three ways. First, this research is a first attempt to offer a brand-based perspective on differentiation of green brand positioning. Second, this research advances the existing knowledge that uses network analysis on green brand positioning by offering different techniques for brand differentiation analysis. Finally, this research complements the strategic positioning information of the current business environment in the context of green branding.

This study aims to explore scientific discourses on vaccination in YouTube comments using the Connectivism theory as a foundational guide in the inquiry of understanding knowledge seeking and sharing. The authors sought to understand how individuals share and seek information by using external sources through URL links to validate their arguments.

Using content analysis, the authors extracted and analysed 584 random comments with URL links from eight YouTube videos scientifically addressing the purpose of vaccines. The comments were coded by stance (pro, anti, and neutral) and the type of resource to observe how their links were used.

The results showed that URL links were composed of quotes, questions, and opinions. Many sources came from research papers, conspiracy websites, or other videos. Some of the comments did not accurately reflect the information from research papers and showed little scientific reasoning. This suggests the need for critical evaluation among individuals when finding information online.

The findings can be expanded to explore different types of information literacy practices in the comment section of social media for both informal and formal environments.

YouTube is useful in fostering scientific discourse and information-seeking/sharing practices among individuals. However, considering the inaccuracy of content deliverance, educators and individuals will need to consider how to teach/conduct information literacy skills when implementing social media for educational purposes.

Only a few studies have conducted research on comments using URL links, the originality of sources and how the sources were used in argumentation.

The purpose of this study is to propose a hybrid system to combine the self‐organizing map (SOM) of a neural network with the data‐mining (DM) method for course recommendation of the e‐learning system.

This research constructs a hybrid system with artificial neural network (ANN) and data‐mining (DM) techniques. First, ANN is used to classify the e‐Learner types. Based on these e‐Learner groups, users can obtain course recommendation from the group's opinions. When groups of related interests have been established, the DM will be used to elicit the rules of the best learning path. It is ideal for this system to stimulate learners' motivation and interest. Moreover, the hybrid approach can be used as a reference when learners are choosing between classes.

In order to enhance the efficiency and capability of e‐learning systems, the SOM method is combined to deal with cluster problems of DM systems, SOM/DM for short. It was found that the SOM/DM method has excellent performance.

This research is limited by the fact that its participants are from a business college of a university in Taiwan, and it is applied by SOM/DM to recommend courses of e‐learners. This research is useful in the domain of the e‐learning system.

The results of this research will provide useful information for educators to classify their e‐learners or students more accurately, and to adapt their teaching strategies accordingly to retain valuable e‐learners subject to limited resources. The experiments prove that it is ideal to stimulate learners' motivation and interest.

This paper aims to investigate the question concerning whether gender diversity in the boardroom matters to lenders or not?

To answer this question, the authors use the data from 2009 to 2015 of all A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. The authors use ordinary least squares regression and firm fixed effect regression to draw our inferences. To check and control the issue of endogeneity the authors use one-year lagged gender diversity regression, two-stage least squares regression, propensity score matching method and Heckman two-stage regression.

The results suggest that the presence of female directors on the board reduces managerial opportunistic behavior and information asymmetry and, consequently, creditors’ perceptions about the probability of loan default and the cost of debt. The authors find that lenders charge 4 per cent less from borrowers that have at least one female board member than they do from borrowers with no female board members. The authors also find that the board structure (i.e. gender diversity) of government-owned firms also matters to lenders, as government-owned firms that have gender-diverse boards have a lower cost of debt (i.e. 5 per cent lower interest rate).

The findings have implications for individual borrowers and for regulators. For example, borrowers can get debt financing at lower rates by altering their boards’ composition (i.e. through gender diversity). From the regulatory perspective, the results support recent legislative initiatives around the world regarding female directors’ representation on boards.

This paper makes several contributions. First, beyond the recent studies on boardroom gender, the authors investigate the relationship between gender diversity in the boardroom and the cost of debt. Second, the authors extend the literature on the association between government ownership and cost of debt by first time providing evidence that the board composition (e.g. gender diversity) of government-owned firms also matters to the lenders. The other contributions are discussed in the introduction section.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the individual and organizations best use Web 2.0 social networking technologies to improve its relationships with customers.

The theoretical background used in the paper was the familiarity-liking theory and prospect theory to understand the extent of user satisfaction with the services. Online survey from Second Life users was conducted to investigate customer satisfaction in Web 2.0 social networks and recent development on information technologies.

The findings suggested that IT development is the inseparable part of Web 2.0 and enables to understand customer satisfaction as well as their perception on online technology. Both customer satisfaction and IT development has positive influence on consumer's service enjoyment and experience.

The generalizability of the paper is limited. The survey data in this study have some common method bias. The possibility of the existence of the common method bias cannot be completely eliminated.

The paper provides the significance of customer satisfaction for organizations, researchers, managers, and policy makers. The paper provides validated measurements to facilitate evaluation of several major user satisfaction constructs.

The recent development of information and communication technology (ICT), especially the internet and its related technologies has become the main force of the development of online social network. The number of Web 2.0 users has been growing so rapidly that it has become an important channel for marketers to reach their customers.

Building on the transaction cost theory and power structure literature, this paper aims to investigate the extent to which firms use two safeguarding mechanisms (supply chain relational investments and electronic collaboration) in different network dependency contexts in order to protect their portfolios of business relationships.

Empirical evidence is gathered though a survey data conducted with 159 firms in the wireless communication sector. The paper tests the assumption that the two safeguarding mechanisms are used to a greater extent in interdependency‐intensive networks than in other supply chain contexts.

This empirical study suggests that: in a network‐dependent context, relational investments allow firms to safeguard their portfolios of relationships; electronic collaboration seems to be a safeguarding mechanism for firms in downstream‐dependent network contexts; in general, firms appear to use both relational investments and electronic collaboration to manage their relationships in a supply chain network; and the knowledge‐based theory may explain the strong relationship between upstream and downstream use of electronic collaboration.

Overall, the present study complements the extant literature on supply chain management and inter‐firm electronic collaboration by showing how an important structural characteristic of supply chain networks (i.e. dependency) operates on the choice of using two key safeguarding mechanisms.

Results stress the importance of these safeguarding mechanisms in joint actions such as collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment.

The paper addresses interdependencies from a network perspective which encompasses the firms' complete portfolio of relationships.