Kyle B. Murray, Jianping Liang and Gerald Häubl
This paper seeks to review current research on assistive consumer technologies (ACT 1.0) and to discuss a series of research challenges that need to be addressed before the field…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to review current research on assistive consumer technologies (ACT 1.0) and to discuss a series of research challenges that need to be addressed before the field can move towards tools that are more effective and more readily adopted by consumers (ACT 2.0).
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper. The perspective, commensurate with the current research and areas of expertise, is that of consumer researchers.
Findings
The paper argues that, while substantial advances have been made in the technical design of ACTs – and the algorithms that power recommendation systems, there are substantial barriers to wide‐scale consumer adoption of such tools that need to be addressed. In particular, future ACT designs will need to better integrate current research in human judgment and decision making to improve the ease with which such tools can be used.
Originality/value
From the perspective of consumer researchers, the paper highlights a set of key areas of enquiry that have the potential to substantially advance assistive consumer technology research.
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Jianping Liang and Vinay Kanetkar
This paper aims to improve understanding of the effects of price endings on consumers' choice behavior. The research study described here was driven by three central questions…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to improve understanding of the effects of price endings on consumers' choice behavior. The research study described here was driven by three central questions. First, do consumers process a price holistically or process each digit as a stimulus? Second, do consumers “round” prices? Third, do price endings such as 9 or 0 have specific effects on purchase intentions?
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a discrete choice experiment where consumers responded to two‐digit prices. Tomato soup and backpacks were the two product categories selected for the study. A total of 188 university students who had purchased these products completed an online survey indicating their choices for one of the four alternative products, with an option of not purchasing anything. Tomato soup prices were varied from 40 cents to 99 cents (every potential price ending was included) and backpack prices varied from $30 to $59 (no pennies). Each respondent made 20 choices for each product and the resulting database was used to construct the nested logit models.
Findings
Estimated models suggest that consumers do not process price holistically. In other words, respondents processed prices by splitting numbers into two parts. Furthermore, the use of truncation and the effects of “odd/even” and “0” appeared to be statistically significant for both canned soup and backpack products. Although there was rounding of prices for the soup category, there was no statistically significant support for that in the backpack category. Finally, the effect of a 9‐ending was statistically significant for the backpack category but not for the soup category.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that consumers may not process prices holistically. This, in turn, means that price endings are likely to influence consumer price sensitivity and both retailer and manufacturer profits.
Originality/value
This is the first paper that examines price endings for all numbers from 0 to 9. In addition, the use of a discrete choice modeling method to infer individual choice behaviour in this context is new and innovative.
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China has showed its eagerness in using its economic strength in the very recent years. Is China going to be a major sanctioning state like the United States or the European…
Abstract
China has showed its eagerness in using its economic strength in the very recent years. Is China going to be a major sanctioning state like the United States or the European Union? This chapter argues that although there have been an increasing number of economic sanctions imposed by China with its expanding national interests and growing diplomatic problems, China will still keep a low profile in using economic sanctions because of the restraining factors such as the WTO rules, inherent problems in its economy, the pursuit of a good reputation and its strategy of peaceful development. Thus the frequency and tactics of using economic sanctions may vary according to its rising economy and changing international situation, but that will go in a very limited way.
Feng Dai, Jianping Qi and Ling Liang
The purpose of this paper is to reveal some basic characteristics in social and economic process, and lay the analytic foundation for advance‐retreat course (ARC).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reveal some basic characteristics in social and economic process, and lay the analytic foundation for advance‐retreat course (ARC).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents the analytic model of stochastic ARC (SARC), which is based on the partial distribution and partial process (belonging to the probability theory and stochastic process), and describes some important characteristics of social and economic process in a quantitative method.
Findings
The successful socio‐economic process, including many biological process, are usually divided into three basic stages: the weak growth, the quick development and the swift decline. In general, rapid growth brings with it the weak persistence, and slow growth brings with it the strong persistence. The socio‐economic fluctuations are mainly caused by the excessive environmental pressures. The duration of the socio‐economic growth is inverse with the environmental pressure.
Research limitations/implications
All the basic variables and parameters in an ARC model should be no less than zero.
Practical implications
Based on US GDP (chained) price index data (1940‐2005), American economic process in recent 70 years is analyzed, and the analysis indicates, American economic motivity is clearly insufficient after 2008, and the present economic recovery will be very arduous and prolonged.
Social implications
The environmental pressures will become the main problem for future global socio‐economic development.
Originality/value
SARC model in this paper presents a special way to analyze the social development and economic growth, and is helpful to related academic research and socio‐economic decision making.
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Z.F. Zhang, Wei Liu, Egon Ostrosi, Yongjie Tian and Jianping Yi
During the production process of steel strip, some defects may appear on the surface, that is, traditional manual inspection could not meet the requirements of low-cost and…
Abstract
Purpose
During the production process of steel strip, some defects may appear on the surface, that is, traditional manual inspection could not meet the requirements of low-cost and high-efficiency production. The purpose of this paper is to propose a method of feature selection based on filter methods combined with hidden Bayesian classifier for improving the efficiency of defect recognition and reduce the complexity of calculation. The method can select the optimal hybrid model for realizing the accurate classification of steel strip surface defects.
Design/methodology/approach
A large image feature set was initially obtained based on the discrete wavelet transform feature extraction method. Three feature selection methods (including correlation-based feature selection, consistency subset evaluator [CSE] and information gain) were then used to optimize the feature space. Parameters for the feature selection methods were based on the classification accuracy results of hidden Naive Bayes (HNB) algorithm. The selected feature subset was then applied to the traditional NB classifier and leading extended NB classifiers.
Findings
The experimental results demonstrated that the HNB model combined with feature selection approaches has better classification performance than other models of defect recognition. Among the results of this study, the proposed hybrid model of CSE + HNB is the most robust and effective and of highest classification accuracy in identifying the optimal subset of the surface defect database.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this paper is the development of a hybrid model combining feature selection and multi-class classification algorithms for steel strip surface inspection. The proposed hybrid model is primarily robust and effective for steel strip surface inspection.
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Liang Xiao and Shu Wang
The rapid growth of m-commerce and mobile marketing has flooded the users with homogeneous contents that raise little user interest making the users' browsing pattern on these…
Abstract
Purpose
The rapid growth of m-commerce and mobile marketing has flooded the users with homogeneous contents that raise little user interest making the users' browsing pattern on these contents aimless free browsing. However, the interface that presents the mobile marketing contents triggers much user attention, especially the layout. Without significant usability defects, the layout poses influences on the user's aesthetic experience. Identifying the layout attributes that affect user aesthetic preference is critical to the design of mobile marketing interfaces since they influence users' interaction intention, cognitive process, and decision-making.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, 6 layout attributes that quantify the aesthetic design of the interface layout and 3 eye-movement indicators that connect to human aesthetic preference were identified through literature research. An eye-tracking experiment measuring the 3 eye-movement indicators on 6 pairs of interface layout materials corresponding to the 6 layout attributes was conducted. The experiment was designed to mimic the free browsing context in mobile marketing. The materials were divided into Liked/Disliked preference groups according to the response of the subjects. Analysis of indicators on materials between the L/D groups shows that the attributes of balance, centricity, density, simplicity, and symmetry affect user aesthetic preferences.
Findings
Analysis of the attribute value levels shows that balance, centricity, and density are responsible for addressing users' aesthetic preferences for a disliked interface layout. The study suggests an attribute set for quantitatively optimizing the aesthetic design of mobile marketing system interfaces and provides evidence for the visual attention and cognitive process under the free browsing context.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the field both theoretically and practically: (1) it provides support for optimizing the interface layout of mobile marketing systems quantitatively from the aesthetic perspective. (2) It promotes the cognitive attention theory by providing evidence for the cognitive process of interacting with mobile marketing interfaces from the perspective of visual attention and cognitive fluency. (3) It expands the objects of visual perception from traditional or symbolic artworks (such as logos) to the abstract visual stimuli of interface layout. (4) It suggests an optimization tool of five quantification layout attributes for mobile marketing businesses and platforms to aesthetically improve their marketing interfaces to improve user experiences.
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Linhua Sang, Dongchun Xia, Guodong Ni, Qingbin Cui, Jianping Wang and Wenshun Wang
The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence mechanism of job satisfaction and positive affect on knowledge sharing among project members in Chinese construction…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence mechanism of job satisfaction and positive affect on knowledge sharing among project members in Chinese construction industry, and test the moderating role of organizational commitment between them in order to find a new approach from the perspective of psychology to improve the knowledge sharing performance within project management organizations in China constantly.
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical study was used based on confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression analysis with a sample of 540 project members from 80 project management organizations in China.
Findings
Research results showed that job satisfaction and positive affect of project members both have a significant positive impact on knowledge sharing; organizational commitment could moderate the influence of job satisfaction and positive affect on knowledge sharing among project members partially within the Chinese context.
Research limitations/implications
A questionnaire study from China only represents the relationship and regular pattern within a shorter time interval in the Chinese context. It is necessary to continue to implement a longitudinal study in a relatively long period in future research.
Practical implications
Knowledge sharing among project members can be enhanced through improving job satisfaction and positive affect, and strengthening project members’ organizational commitment can amplify the influence effect of job satisfaction and positive affect on knowledge sharing.
Originality/value
This paper clarifies the direct influence mechanism of project members’ job satisfaction and positive affect on explicit knowledge sharing (EKS) and tacit knowledge sharing (TKS), and further tests the partial moderating effect of organizational commitment on the influence relationship of job satisfaction and positive affect on EKS and TKS.