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The purpose of this study is to investigate the influencing mechanism of consumers' continuous purchase intention toward the subscriber-based knowledge payment platforms (SBKPPs).

This study obtained 226 valid samples through questionnaire surveys and used partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) methods to elucidate the complex causal patterns of consumers' continuous purchase intention toward the SBKPPs.

The findings revealed that perceived utilitarian value, perceived hedonic value and perceived social value directly affected consumers' continuous purchase intention, while content quality and service quality indirectly affected consumers' continuous purchase intention. In addition, this study also demonstrated that all factors must be combined to play a role, and there exist four configurations resulting in consumers' continuous purchase intention toward the SBKPPs.

The results can help researchers and practitioners better understand the causal patterns of consumers' continuous purchase intention toward the SBKPPs.

This study contributes to the knowledge payment literature by investigating consumers' continuous purchase intention toward the SBKPPs. This study also provides practical enlightenment for the SBKPPs' marketing.

This paper discusses a knowledge based information retrieval model with hierarchical thesaurus. The model computes the conceptual distance between a query and an object and both are indexed with weighted terms from a hierarchical thesaurus. The hierarchical thesaurus is represented by a hierarchical‐concept graph (HCG) in which nodes represent concepts and directed edges represent generalisation relationships. Rada et al. have developed a similar model. However, their model considered only a binary indexing scheme and revealed some counter‐intuitive results. Our proposed model extends theirs by allowing the index term and the edge of the HCG to be weighted. A new concept mapping method is devised to overcome Rada's counter‐intuitive results. In addition, a scheme for allowing Boolean operators in user queries is provided with a formula for computing conceptual distance from negated index terms. Experimental results have shown that our model simulates human performance more closely than Rada's model.

The purpose of this study is to investigate (1) how female blog users' perceived benefits (i.e. perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, community identification and perceived norm of reciprocity) influence their perceived social capital on fashion blogs, (2) the influence of structural social capital and cognitive social capital on users' relational social capital and (3) the influence of relational social capital on blog loyalty.

Structural equation modeling was performed using 530 useable data collected through an online survey.

The result indicated that perceived usefulness and the norm of reciprocity led to the development of cognitive social capital, while community identification and the norm of reciprocity led to the development of structural social capital. Cognitive and structural social capital both led to the development relational social capital, which in turn influenced blog loyalty.

This study provides insights for a fashion brand marketing strategy that uses fashion blogs to target relevant consumers. It helps firms to understand the factors that lead people to embed their resources in a blog and to learn how the different perceived benefits impact blog users' contributions to the community.

Virtual communities are increasing in popularity and changing the way apparel fashion information is learned and shared by consumers. According to Agins, consumers, as opposed to élite designers, are now dictating fashion trends and pinpointing the ideal places of distribution. The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the fashion‐related discussion which is taking place on perhaps the best known of these communities, MySpace.com. The three research questions driving this study include: “What are consumers saying about fashion within this particular virtual community?”; “What commonalities exist among the plethora of fashion‐related information available in this context?”; and “What kinds of insights can marketers draw from the categories of fashion‐related information being presented in MySpace.com?”

Content analysis was selected as the method for investigation. Within the forum Fashion and Style, the subgroup FashionLOVERS was selected for investigation because it represented a general discussion of fashion. The first 200 forum topical areas with five or more posts were selected for analysis. A total of 6,623 individual posts were examined and each of the three authors independently reviewed the posts noting the general topical categories of content. Interrater reliability for the coders was computed.

Eight recurring categories of fashion related information were identified in the study. The four most popular discussion categories were personal style, brands and designers, tips and advice, and retailers. The prevalence of these four topics suggests that consumer driven marketing is a growing and influential component of fashion marketing.

This study makes an important contribution to the study of virtual communities. Results provide insight into the complex, multi‐layered, interactive fashion‐related communication that occurs within virtual communities.

Fashion marketers and retailers are encountering an untapped resource with these virtual communities. Findings highlight the power of consumers in virtual communities and suggest a need for fashion marketers and retailers to closely monitor communication within virtual communities.

This research is particularly valuable because it provides insight into the popular virtual community, MySpace.com. Detailed investigation into types of fashion information that are shared with community members is presented and discussed.

It is assumed that consumers consume games to experience hedonic and utilitarian value. However, there is no conceptual model or empirical evidence that supports this hypothesis in the game context or clarifies whether these consumption values have dual mediated or individual effects. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to model the relationship between hedonic and utilitarian consumption and game purchase and usage.

This research question is answered through two studies. In Study One, qualitative interviews with 18 gamers were implemented to explore the relationship between hedonic and utilitarian consumption and, game purchase and usage behaviour. In Study Two, we surveyed 493 consumers and conducted confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling across four game types to model this relationship.

The paper concludes that hedonic rather than utilitarian consumption positively impacts purchase and usage. Support was also found for the utilitarian‐hedonic dual mediation model (UHDM). Therefore, utilitarian consumption has an indirect causal effect on game purchase or usage through hedonic consumption.

Game development for consumers online, on wireless devices and on consoles should place greater emphasis on the practical implications of hedonic consumption. Attention could be focused on perceived enjoyment, self‐concept, self‐congruity and self‐efficacy as the primary drivers of use and purchase. Practical solutions should also be developed to develop the UHDM effect.

This is the first paper in the game context to explore and model the relationship between hedonic, utilitarian consumption and the UHDM effect on game purchase and usage. This paper is also unique because it provides results across four game groups: all games (ALL), Sports/Simulation/Driving (SSD), Role Playing Game/Massively Multiplayer Online Role‐Playing Game Strategy (RPG), and Action/Adventure/Fighting (AAF).

Drawing on signaling theory and social capital theory, this study aims to examine the underlying mechanisms and contingencies of the relationships between social capital (SC) and collaboration in buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs). This is achieved by evaluating the mediating effect of psychological contract fulfillment (PCF) and the moderating roles of guanxi orientation and market uncertainty.

The current study used a survey method to collect data from 271 buyers in China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderated regression analysis were applied to examine the hypotheses.

The positive effect of structural and relational SC on buyers’ collaborative behaviors is partially mediated by buyers’ PCF. In contrast, the positive effect of cognitive SC on collaboration is fully mediated by buyers’ PCF. Guanxi orientation strengthens the indirect effect of buyers’ PCF on the cognitive SC-collaboration relationship and relational SC-collaboration relationship. Market uncertainty amplifies the relational SC-collaboration relationship.

Prior studies have presented mixed evidence of the effect of SC on collaboration and have paid little attention to the underlying mechanisms and conditions moderating the effect. This research proposes a theoretical model that integrates signaling theory and social capital theory to explore how three dimensions of SC can enhance buyer collaboration through buyers’ PCF under different levels of guanxi orientation and market uncertainty.

A thesaurus may be viewed as a graph, and document retrieval algorithms can exploit this graph when both the documents and the query are represented by thesaurus terms. These retrieval algorithms measure the distance between the query and documents by using the path lengths in the graph. Previous work with such strategies has shown that the hierarchical relations in the thesaurus are useful but the non‐hierarchical relations are not. This paper shows that when the query explicitly mentions a particular non‐hierarchical relation, the retrieval algorithm benefits from the presence of such relations in the thesaurus. Our algorithms were applied to the Excerpta Medica bibliographic citation database whose citations are indexed with terms from the EMTREE thesaurus. We also created an enriched EMTREE by systematically adding non‐hierarchical relations from a medical knowledge base. Our algorithms used at one time EMTREE and, at another time, the enriched EMTREE in the course of ranking documents from Excerpta Medica against queries. When, and only when, the query specifically mentioned a particular non‐hierarchical relation type, did EMTREE enriched with that relation type lead to a ranking that better corresponded to an expert's ranking.

The purpose of this paper is to discover user-generated visual merchandising (VM) directives that could guide VM in physical stores as well as shed light on future development of customizable virtual stores for online retailing.

Applying a facet theory approach, our research involved consumers (n=145) in co-designing VM directives in a 3D virtual store in collaboration with target corporation. In total, 67 virtual shops in three product categories, i.e., women’s ready-to-wear, boy’s Cherokee, and men’s swim wear, were content analysed, along with written reports.

The research findings focused on the three facets of VM: merchandising presentation (fixturing, product density, manner of presentation, and product adjacency), in-store environment (layout and interior), and in-store promotion (signage). The research revealed the elements that these facets contain and the relationships between the elements. The findings suggest that retailers should design an ecological instead of a merely utilitarian environment; clear section identity helps shoppers find a sense of ownership and boundaries; and stores should also present a lifestyle solution instead of a merchandise selection.

The research contributes both original creations of VM directives and a methodical framework that moves the subject of VM from the physical to the virtual environment and shifts the traditional in-house function of VM to an open innovation in which consumers participate.

This paper aims to develop a climbing robot to help people inspect lamps of high-mast lighting.

The robot consists of driving mechanism, suspension mechanism and compression mechanism. The driving mechanism is realized by link chains and sprockets, which are arranged opposite to each other, to form a dual caterpillar mechanism. The compression mechanism squeezes the caterpillar, and rubber feet “grasps” the steel rope to generate enough adhesion forces. The suspension mechanism is used to compensate the contraction or extension of the chains. The robot is equipped with a DC motor with a rated power of 250 W and a wireless module to communicate with the operator’s console. The dynamic model of the robot and the control strategy is derived, and the stability of the controller is proofed.

The payload experiment shows the robot can afford up to 3.7 times payload versus its own weight. Even when the payload is 30 kg, the robot can maintain a speed of the 1 m/s. The experiments also show that the tracking error of the robot reaches zero.

The proposed moving mechanism has a high load/weight ratio, which is a verified solution for the cable inspection purpose.

A rope climbing robot for high mast lighting inspection is proposed. The developed mechanism can reach a speed of 1 m/s with the payload of 30 kg, while its own weight is only 15.6 kg. The payload/weight ratio of the robot is 2.24; this value is rather good in many climbing robots reported in other renowned journal.