Search results

Live streaming e-commerce, which integrates real-time video interaction with online shopping, has quickly become a popular sales channel. It not only allows for immediate feedback but also builds a sense of trust and connection between streamers and consumers. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), we investigate how central and peripheral route factors affect consumers’ trust building and purchase intentions. Additionally, we identify consumer involvement as a key moderator affecting the relationship between central route factors and trust in product as well as the relationship between peripheral route factors and trust in streamer.

To test the research model, we collected data from 423 consumers on TaoBao Live.

The findings show that information completeness, accuracy and currency positively affect trust in the product, while perceived physical characteristic similarity, streamer humor attractiveness and passion attractiveness positively affect trust in the streamer. Trust in the streamer positively influences trust in the product, which subsequently impacts purchase intention. Moreover, involvement moderates the effects of information accuracy, currency, perceived physical characteristic similarity and passion attractiveness on trust.

First, we examine the direct influence of product- and streamer-related cues on consumer trust and purchase intention through distinct pathways. Second, we adopt ELM to explain the process of consumer trust building by investigating how central and peripheral route factors influence purchase intention through consumer trust in live streaming settings. Third, we incorporate involvement as a crucial moderator, shedding light on the boundary conditions of trust building in live streaming e-commerce.

The success of social commerce depends on the actual transactions of consumers, which will be prevented in the presence of high uncertainty. However, attention paid to the uncertainty reduction strategies in social commerce is limited, especially from a unified theoretical framework. Based on uncertainty reduction theory (URT), this paper aims to investigate how three uncertainty reduction strategies (i.e. situational normality, perceived effectiveness of social commerce institutional mechanisms (PESIM) and swift guanxi) affect perceived uncertainty in social commerce, which in turn affects buyers' purchase intention and purchase behavior. The moderating effects of PESIM on the relationships between the other two strategies and perceived uncertainty were also tested.

In this study longitudinal data from 211 buyers who have usage experience of Xiaohongshu were collected to test the proposed model and hypotheses.

Results show that the three uncertainty reduction strategies significantly reduce perceived uncertainty. PESIM negatively moderates the relationships between situational normality and perceived uncertainty, swift guanxi and perceived uncertainty. Perceived uncertainty is negatively related to purchase intention. Purchase intention positively affects purchase behavior.

This study focuses on the role of uncertainty reduction mechanisms in promoting purchase behavior through uncertainty reduction and sheds light on the relationships among situational normality, PESIM, swift guanxi and perceived uncertainty based on URT, which have not been extensively studied from a theoretical perspective in social commerce contexts. Besides, this study investigates the moderating role of PESIM, which improves the understanding of the role of swift guanxi and situational normality in reducing perceived uncertainty under the boundary condition of PESIM.

This study aims to investigate the impact of family ownership on cooperative research and development (R&D). Drawing on the ability and willingness paradox framework in family business research, the authors suggest that family ownership influences cooperative R&D via two opposing mechanisms: power concentration and wealth concentration. It also deepens the current understanding of the boundary conditions of informal institutions for the impact of family ownership on cooperative R&D by investigating the moderating role of political ties.

The authors analyze a panel of 610 Chinese manufacturing family firms and 2,127 firm-year observations from 2009 to 2017. Fixed effects regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses, with the two-stage Heckman model to address sample selection bias.

The research findings indicate that family ownership has an inverted U-shaped relationship with cooperative R&D and political ties moderate the relationship in such a way that the inverted U-shaped relationship will be steeper in firms with more political ties than in firms with fewer political ties.

Family ownership influences firms’ cooperative R&D through the positive effect of power concentration and the negative effect of wealth concentration. Family owners should, therefore, take advantage of concentrated power, for instance, by adapting quickly and committing sufficient resources to cooperative R&D opportunities, while controlling path-dependent relationship development caused by concentrated family wealth. The effect of political ties on the relationship between family ownership and cooperative R&D is found to be a double-edged sword.

This study extends the ability and willingness paradox framework and provides novel insights into cooperative R&D in family businesses by integrating power concentration and wealth concentration associated with family ownership. Moreover, this study provides a contingency perspective and introduces the moderating role of political ties in shaping cooperative R&D in family firms.

This study aims to develop a bimodal nano-silver paste with improved mechanical property and reliability. Silicon carbide (SiC) particles coated with Ag were introduced in nano-silver paste to improve bonding strength between SiC and Ag particles and enhance high-temperature stability of bimodal nano-silver paste. The effect of sintering parameters such as sintering temperature, sintering time and the proportion of SiC particles on mechanical property and reliability of sintered bimodal nano-silver structure were investigated.

Sandwich structures consist of dummy chips and copper substrates with nickel and silver coating bonded by nano-silver paste were designed for shear testing. Shear strength testing was conducted to study the influence of SiC particles proportions on the mechanical property of sintered nano-silver joints. The reliability of the bimodal nano-silver paste was evaluated experimentally by means of shear test for samples subjected to thermal aging test at 150°C and humidity and temperature testing at 85°C and 85 per cent RH, respectively.

Shear strength was enhanced obviously with the increase of sintering temperature and sintering time. The maximum shear strength was achieved for nano-silver paste sintered at 260°C for 10 min. There was a negative correlation between the proportion of SiC particles and shear strength. After thermal aging testing and humidity and temperature testing for 240 h, the shear strength decreased a little. High-temperature stability and high-hydrothermal stability were improved by the addition of SiC particles.

Submicron-scale SiC particles coated with Ag were used as alternative materials to replace part of nano-silver particles to prepare bimodal nano-silver paste due to its high thermal conductivity and excellent mechanical property.

This study investigates business model innovation in small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) and its impact on firm growth.

The study was based on analyzing data collected through a questionnaire survey. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses.

Business model innovation has a positive effect on SME growth in the manufacturing sectors. Moreover, growth is also achieved through the indirect effect of business model innovation on customer trust and commitment.

Managers will benefit from understanding how business model innovation can help their companies to overcome resource constraints and achieve sustained growth. When manufacturing SMEs engage in modular or structural changes to their business model, they may find it worthwhile to focus on maintaining a relationship of trust and commitment with their customers.

This study highlights business model innovation as a unique and important, yet underexplored, factor in manufacturing SME growth. The findings also untangle the complex processes of customer relationship management by which business model innovation improves manufacturing competitive advantage for SMEs.

In this paper, a new flexible piezoresistive pressure sensor which uses non-woven fabric as the flexible substrate and sliver nanowires (AgNWs) as the conductive materials was reported.

The compression test of the pressure sensors was carried out at different compression frequencies and found that the sensors had more than 5,000 times reusability at high frequency.

When pressure sensors were applied to different parts of the human body, such as fingers, elbows, knees and throat, the sensors respond differently to different degrees of movement.

The proposed pressure sensor has broad application prospects in the human motion detection.

Users frequently target rival brands through direct criticism or indirect customer insults, yet the impact of such attacks on brand advocacy remains unexplored. The purpose of this study is to classify online attacks into brand-targeted attacks and consumer-targeted attacks and further investigate their differential impacts on brand advocacy and the underlying mechanism and a boundary condition of those impacts.

Three experimental studies using different types of brands (electronics, universities and sports footwear) are conducted to examine the effects of brand-related attack targets on brand advocacy.

This research shows that consumer-targeted attacks trigger higher brand advocacy through increasing perceived identity threat than brand-targeted attacks. Moreover, the effect of consumer-targeted attacks (versus brand-targeted attacks) on brand advocacy is mediated by perceived identity threat and mitigated when consumers’ identification with the attacked brand is strong.

The study’s findings yield practical applications for marketers and brand managers, assisting them in understanding consumers’ reactions to brand attacks. This study serves as a reference for firms to consider leveraging the association between brand identification and brand-related attack targets and uniting with loyal brand fans to manage online brand conflicts.

The present study extends prior literature on customer-brand relationships in the context of online attacks. Through investigating the impacts of brand-targeted and consumer-targeted attacks on brand advocacy, this research offers theoretical insights into consumers’ responses to online attacks with different targets.

This study aims to examine new product development (NPD) performance to identify effective knowledge update strategies and assess the impact of environmental uncertainty on these dynamics. It aims to understand how different knowledge potentials and organizational routines interact to enhance product outcomes. The specific subsidiary context enriches understanding by identifying challenges and opportunities that are not typically visible in broader organizational studies.

A survey of 310 business managers was conducted to measure their knowledge potential and organizational routine updating. The hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis to determine the optimal combinations of knowledge and practice updates for NPD performance.

Results indicate that both knowledge potential and organizational routine updating significantly enhance subsidiary performance. Specifically, knowledge accumulation paired with routine creation and knowledge difference paired with routine revision optimally boosts product development. Moreover, this study reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental uncertainty and the effectiveness of these combinations, suggesting a complex interplay that affects NPD performance.

This study enhances understanding of NPD performance by integrating resource concordance theory with empirical analysis of knowledge and organizational strategy adaptations. It underscores the moderating role of environmental uncertainty, offering new theoretical insights into enhancing product development performance. Although the focus on subsidiaries limits broader applicability, it provides valuable insights into the nuanced NPD dynamics in these specific entities, suggesting avenues for future research to expand this study’s findings across different organizational types.

The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth understanding about the indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot, which is useful for motivating the further investigation on the inspection of electrical equipment. Currently, electric energy has a strong correlation with the economic development of the country. Intelligent substations play an important role in the transmission and distribution of the electricity; the maintenance of the substation has attracted intensive attention due to the requirement of reliability and safety. The indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot has increasingly become the main tool to realize the unmanned. Hence, a systematic review is conducted systematically reviewing the current technical status of the indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot and discuss the existed problems.

In this paper, the most essential achievements in the field of indoor-orbital electrical inspection robots were reported to present the current status, and the mechanical structures and key inspective technologies were also discussed.

Four recommendations are provided from the analyzed review, which have made constructive comments on the overall structural design, functionality, intelligence and future development direction of the indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot, respectively.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic review study on indoor-orbital electrical inspection robots; it fills the theoretical gap and proffers design ideas and directions for the development of the indoor-orbital electrical inspection robot.

As an ancient art form, embroidery has strong practicality and artistic value. However, current embroidery style migration models produce images with unclear textures and a lack of stitch detail. So, in this paper, we propose a cyclic consistent embroidery style migration network with texture constraints, which is called Texture Cycle GAN (TCGAN).

The model is based on the existing Cycle GAN network with an additional texture module. This texture module is implemented using a pre-trained Markovian adversarial network to synthesize embroidery texture features. The overall algorithm consists of two generative adversarial networks (for style migration) and the Markovian adversarial network (for texture synthesis).

Qualitative and quantitative experiments show that, compared with the existing convolutional neural network style transfer algorithm, the introduction of the texture-constrained embroidery style transfer model TCGAN can effectively learn the characteristics of style images, generate digital embroidery works with clear texture and natural stitches and achieve more realistic embroidery simulation effects.

By improving the algorithm for image style migration and designing a reasonable loss function, the generated embroidery patterns are made more detailed, which shows that the model can improve the realism of embroidery style simulation and help to improve the standard of embroidery craftsmanship, thus promoting the development of the embroidery industry.