Chanho Song, Tuo Wang, Hyunjung Lee and Michael Y. Hu
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the effects of referral rewards in referral reward programs (RRPs) are moderated through perceived social risk of a recommender.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the effects of referral rewards in referral reward programs (RRPs) are moderated through perceived social risk of a recommender.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 717 consumers are accessed through Amazon's Mechanical Turk worker panel. The authors use t-test and analysis of variance to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The findings show that consumers with high perceived social risk balance financial rewards with social risks, while low social risk consumers largely ignore these social risk elements surrounding a referral decision.
Originality/value
The inclusion of perceived social risk provides the opportunity to fully understand how a consumer goes about balancing social risk and referral rewards in making referral decisions. The concept of social risk has not been previously applied to this context.
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Hyunjung Rhee, Jinyoung Han, Minha Lee and Young-Wan Choi
This study explores the effects of interdisciplinary education on engineering students by observing students' competencies before and after the programme.
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the effects of interdisciplinary education on engineering students by observing students' competencies before and after the programme.
Design/methodology/approach
The effects of interdisciplinary education were studied over three years through the use of a survey to test the social competencies of organisational life and the interdisciplinary competencies of college students. A total of 5,185 responses were collected from engineering students who took part in interdisciplinary education programmes. The survey was conducted during weeks 3 and 14 of each semester, and a comparison test was used to reveal any changes.
Findings
Among the 12 competencies developed or adapted, leadership significantly improved during all six semesters. Analytical thinking, interpersonal competency, professional attitude, global-mindedness, and creative attitudes also improved in some of the semesters.
Research limitations/implications
It was not possible to control for the effect of classes that students were attending in addition to the targeted interdisciplinary class. However, this study was able to examine empirically the improvement of competencies for future engineers, and its findings provide a basis for future researchers to elaborate on other competencies as well.
Originality/value
The study recommends competencies needed by engineers working in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, examining the effects of interdisciplinary education on competency development. It contributes to strengthening the current trend in universities that seek to reform interdisciplinary education by empirically verifying its effectiveness.
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Ada S. Lo, Holly Hyunjung Im, Yong Chen and Hailin Qu
This study aims to investigate the impact of the loyalty program members’ satisfaction toward the hotel loyalty program benefits and the customer management relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of the loyalty program members’ satisfaction toward the hotel loyalty program benefits and the customer management relationship initiatives of individual hotels on the brand relationship quality (BRQ), i.e. their relationship quality with the hotel brand, and its outcomes. The moderating impact of membership level on the hypothesized relationships was also investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
A usable sample of 920 active members of a hotel loyalty program was obtained. Structural equation modeling with partial least squares method was used to estimate the structural relationships and to investigate the moderating effect of membership level.
Findings
Employee’s customer orientation, membership communication and hotel stay-related benefits are determinants of the loyalty program members’ BRQ. BRQ is also confirmed as a higher-order construct of three latent variables which include trust, satisfaction and commitment. Moderating effects of the membership were partially supported in this study. The strongest effect of BRQ is on members’ word of mouth followed by shares of purchase. BRQ is found to have negative relationship with members’ willingness to serve as marketing resource, but the impact was small.
Research limitations/implications
This is a cross-sectional study with a population of active loyalty program members of only one luxury hotel group. The sample size of the top-tier members is also smaller in comparison to the other two groups.
Practical implications
This study contributes to the understanding of the antecedents and consequences of BRQ and the body of knowledge about loyalty program for hotel industry.
Originality/value
This is one of the few studies investigating the effectiveness of hotel loyalty programs from the active members’ perspective and the moderating effect of membership level on the relationships among BRQ, its antecedents and its outcomes.
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This study aims to investigate the relationship between building smart factories in manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and firm performance and the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationship between building smart factories in manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and firm performance and the moderating effect according to product complexity and company size.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 206 companies selected in the list of SMEs, which had built smart factories, provided by the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Center in Korea. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique.
Findings
First, production automation and big data utilization are associated positively with productivity, but not significantly with export performance. Second, supply chain integration is associated positively with both productivity and export performance. Third, product complexity moderates negatively the relationship of productivity with each of production automation, big data utilization and supply chain integration while moderating positively the relationship between supply chain integration and export performance. Finally, company size does not moderate significantly the relationship between productivity or export performance with any of production automation, big data utilization and supply chain integration.
Originality/value
This study contributes theoretically to literature by demonstrating the usefulness of building smart factories and suggesting how SMEs build a smart factory to enhance productivity and export performance from a business perspective. Moreover, this study contributes practically by proposing that SMEs should put priority on supply chain integration over production automation and big data utilization and execute different strategies of building smart factories depending on product complexity.
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This study intend to investigate a theoretical model looking at how particular tourist emotions, such as “joy,” “love,” and “positive surprise,” might predict their behavior by…
Abstract
Purpose
This study intend to investigate a theoretical model looking at how particular tourist emotions, such as “joy,” “love,” and “positive surprise,” might predict their behavior by looking at how satisfied they are with their whole experience when visiting spas, and to examine the relationship of emotional experience, destination image, satisfaction and intention to revisit for spa tourism.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 345 individuals who traveled to Alleppey as domestic tourists participated in the research study. A non-probability (purposive) sampling method in this study. The structural model was analyzed using Structural Equation modeling (SEM), and the path coefficients were examined to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results supported the hypotheses, indicating that specific emotions, image of the destination, and satisfaction significantly impacted tourists' intentions to revisit Alleppey as a spa tourism destination. This study demonstrated that “emotions of joy, love, and positive surprise” have a considerable influence on the image of the destination and satisfaction. The findings reveal a substantial correlation between satisfaction and behavioral intention (“Intention to revisit”). The research suggests that a higher degree of satisfaction would encourage visitors to revisit the location.
Research limitations/implications
The research suggests that a higher degree of satisfaction would encourage visitors to revisit the location. This research offers vital information for developing, planning, and putting into practice tourism policies in the spa tourism sector. This article focuses on domestic travelers who travel to Alleppey, so the conclusions may not be relevant to research utilizing foreign tourists.
Originality/value
According to the literature study, and to the authors` knowledge, only limited number of studies that look at spa tourism from a wellness perspective. Additionally, Alleppey is used in the study as the study’s setting, providing insight into the visitor experiences of this expanding spa tourism business. This study gives understanding about how emotional experience predicts behavioral intentions.
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Hyunjung Han, Hyunsook Han and Taehoon Kim
The purpose of this paper is to propose the swimsuit patternmaking method suitable for the body shapes of middle-aged women and to propose the swimsuit pattern development…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose the swimsuit patternmaking method suitable for the body shapes of middle-aged women and to propose the swimsuit pattern development procedures that enable automated swimsuit patternmaking.
Design/methodology/approach
To propose the patternmaking method of the swimsuit, which is suitable for the body shape of middle-aged women, the swimsuit patterns were developed in three stages in this study. The measurements of the middle-aged woman body model were compared with the size of the developed pattern in each stage, and the optimal stretch rate of the fabric was defined. In total, 22 items were used for size analysis of developed patterns in each stage.
Findings
The swimsuit patternmaking method proposed in this study was derived by considering the body shapes of middle-aged women, desired design and fabric characteristics. Also, a series of processes, including obtaining a raw pattern from the surface of the three-dimensional (3D) human body, designing patterns by the expert, evaluating patterns, drafting the final pattern and the final patternmaking method, was presented.
Practical implications
This study has great significance to provide a manual of swimsuit patternmaking for middle-aged women, which has high tightness and movement compatibility.
Originality/value
The swimsuit patternmaking method proposed in this study is relatively simple because it is based on the human body measurements and delivers the lines and the calculated values clearly and objectively rather than the patterner's intuition does so that it is suitable for the automation of the swimsuit patternmaking for the middle-aged women.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of environmental uncertainty (EU) on supply chain management (SCM) in Korea, and assess the moderating role of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of environmental uncertainty (EU) on supply chain management (SCM) in Korea, and assess the moderating role of organizational culture.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative data analysis was conducted on data that were collected from 125 Korean manufacturing firms listed on the Korean Stock Exchange. First, structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized paths. Second, multi-group analysis was used to explore the possibility of differences between groups with diverse organizational cultures. Before testing the measurement model, confirmatory factor analysis was run to test the reliability and validity of the measurement items.
Findings
The findings indicate that all the hypotheses on the relationships between EU, SCM antecedents and SCM activities are supported except the relationship between commitment and cooperation. The outcome of the multi-group analysis shows that the impact of EU on SCM antecedents varies across organizational cultures.
Originality/value
This study proposes managerial guidelines for implementing effective SCM in response to EU and emphasize that these are consistent with organizational culture.
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Hyunjung Park and Sung Joo Park
This paper aims to elucidate the collaborative mechanism of knowledge collaboration in online communities. The effects of participant communication behaviors enabling knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to elucidate the collaborative mechanism of knowledge collaboration in online communities. The effects of participant communication behaviors enabling knowledge collaboration, such as public discussion, private messaging and registration, are comprehensively investigated in relation to individual and group performances.
Design/methodology/approach
Eight communication categories of participants are defined according to their communication behaviors, and the average number of knowledge contributions at the individual level and the helpfulness toward collaboration efficiency at the group level are compared across the participant categories.
Findings
The results show that simultaneous participation in both task-oriented public discussion and relationship-oriented private messaging has a synergistic effect in promoting individual knowledge sharing, and that additional registration – disclosing one’s identity – significantly enhances efficiency in group collaboration. The role of public discussion appears to be as significant as that of private messaging with regard to online knowledge collaboration.
Practical implications
First, encouraging members to participate in both task-oriented discussion and casual personal communication is important for eliciting more knowledge contributions. Second, although social capital based on one-to-one private messaging has attracted much attention with respect to knowledge sharing, many-to-many public discussions that more deeply and broadly influence knowledge conversion should be more highly emphasized. Third, the perceptions of shared value and reputation based on registration also need to be cultivated to increase collaboration efficiency.
Originality/value
In contrast to most previous research that focused on only one type of communication, this study offers a big-picture view of the relationship between communication and online knowledge collaboration by adopting a comprehensive approach to participant communication behavior. A systematic classification of communication behaviors enables this work to illuminate the diverse effects of different communication types or styles on both individual- and group-level performances, thereby improving the understanding of the overall collaborative mechanism. This study thus provides fresh insights on effective management of online communities.