Yang Yi, Yang Sun, Saimei Yuan, Yiji Zhu, Mengyi Zhang and Wenjun Zhu
The purpose of this paper is to provide a fast and accurate network for spatiotemporal action localization in videos. It detects human actions both in time and space…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a fast and accurate network for spatiotemporal action localization in videos. It detects human actions both in time and space simultaneously in real-time, which is applicable in real-world scenarios such as safety monitoring and collaborative assembly.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper design an end-to-end deep learning network called collaborator only watch once (COWO). COWO recognizes the ongoing human activities in real-time with enhanced accuracy. COWO inherits from the architecture of you only watch once (YOWO), known to be the best performing network for online action localization to date, but with three major structural modifications: COWO enhances the intraclass compactness and enlarges the interclass separability in the feature level. A new correlation channel fusion and attention mechanism are designed based on the Pearson correlation coefficient. Accordingly, a correction loss function is designed. This function minimizes the same class distance and enhances the intraclass compactness. Use a probabilistic K-means clustering technique for selecting the initial seed points. The idea behind this is that the initial distance between cluster centers should be as considerable as possible. CIOU regression loss function is applied instead of the Smooth L1 loss function to help the model converge stably.
Findings
COWO outperforms the original YOWO with improvements of frame mAP 3% and 2.1% at a speed of 35.12 fps. Compared with the two-stream, T-CNN, C3D, the improvement is about 5% and 14.5% when applied to J-HMDB-21, UCF101-24 and AGOT data sets.
Originality/value
COWO extends more flexibility for assembly scenarios as it perceives spatiotemporal human actions in real-time. It contributes to many real-world scenarios such as safety monitoring and collaborative assembly.
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Yuan Sun, Shuyue Fang, Anand Jeyaraj and Mengyi Zhu
This study aims to explore how communication visibility affects employees’ work engagement from the negative perspective of employees’ perceived overload in the context of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how communication visibility affects employees’ work engagement from the negative perspective of employees’ perceived overload in the context of enterprise social media (ESM) and the role of ESM policies in the relationship between communication visibility and perceived overload.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines how communication visibility (i.e. message transparency and network translucence) affects employees’ perceived overload (i.e. information overload and social overload), which in turn affects employees’ work engagement, and how ESM policies moderate the relationship between communication visibility and perceived overload. Partial least squares (PLS) analysis was conducted on data gathered from 224 ESM users in workplaces.
Findings
Communication visibility has significant positive impacts on perceived overload, perceived overload has significant negative impacts on work engagement and ESM policies negatively moderate the relationships between communication visibility and perceived overload, except for the relationship between message transparency and social overload.
Practical implications
The findings provide new insights for organizational managers to formulate ESM policies to mitigate perceived overload and guidance for ESM developers to improve ESM functions to alleviate perceived overload.
Originality/value
This study provides empirical evidence to explain the role of communication visibility and perceived overload in employees’ work engagement, which contributes to the existing literature on the negative impacts of communication visibility.
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Jinqiang Zhu, Lu Xin and Mengyi Li
This study aimed to investigate the underlying boundary conditions under which boundary-spanning behaviour has a positive or negative effect on innovative behaviour.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to investigate the underlying boundary conditions under which boundary-spanning behaviour has a positive or negative effect on innovative behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
A multi-wave and multi-source research design was adopted to collect data. Data were analysed using the multilevel structural equation modelling and latent moderated structural equation approach.
Findings
The results showed that boundary-spanning behaviour was significantly and negatively associated with employees' innovative behaviour via ego depletion when employees' intrinsic motivation or organisational support was low. Additionally, boundary-spanning behaviour was significantly and positively associated with employees' innovative behaviour via ego depletion when employees' intrinsic motivation or organisational support was high.
Originality/value
This research suggests that the consequences of boundary-spanning behaviour are conditional, explaining the contrasting conclusions in this regard.
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Yuan Sun, Zhu Mengyi and Anand Jeyaraj
This paper aims to investigate whether and how enterprise social media (ESM) affordances affect employee agility.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate whether and how enterprise social media (ESM) affordances affect employee agility.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines a model in which the four ESM affordances (i.e. visibility, association, editability and persistence) impact employee agility through the three basic psychological needs satisfaction (i.e. perceived autonomy, perceived relatedness and perceived competence) of employees. Mplus 7.4 was used to analyze survey data gathered from 304 employees who used ESM in the workplace.
Findings
The authors’ findings show that all four ESM affordances contribute to perceived relatedness and perceived competence; visibility and association affordances also have positive impacts on perceived autonomy; and all three psychological needs satisfaction positively impact employee agility.
Originality/value
First, this study adapted SDT to explore how ESM influences employee agility. Second, this study enriches the relevant research on the antecedents of employee agility and also provides new evidence and theoretical support for employee agility. Third, this study effectively expands the antecedents and outcomes of employee basic psychological needs satisfaction in the domain of ESM and agility.
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Syeda Ikrama and Syeda Maseeha Qumer
This case study is designed to enable students to understand the reasons behind the launch of a beauty brand grounded on traditions and culture, understand the strategies adopted…
Abstract
Learning outcomes
This case study is designed to enable students to understand the reasons behind the launch of a beauty brand grounded on traditions and culture, understand the strategies adopted by Florasis to establish its presence in the C-beauty space and emerge successful, analyze the positioning of a C-beauty brand in a highly competitive beauty market, identify the issues and challenges faced by a C-beauty brand in its efforts to disrupt the C-beauty space and suggest strategies that Florasis can adopt to emerge as a market leader in the global beauty industry.
Case overview/synopsis
Set in 2021, the case study discusses about the emerging C-beauty brand Florasis innovative strategies to promote the brand. Florasis was founded in 2017 with a vision to become a century old national makeup brand of China. Florasis was successful in getting on board a story-telling experience that featured traditional Chinese culture, aesthetics and heritage. It sold cosmetic products with retro packaging, concepts derived from traditional Chinese style, promoting a sense of national pride and nostalgia. The case study highlights the innovative strategies Florasis adopted like influencer marketing through key opinion leaders and key opinion customers, celebrity endorsements, user co-creation programs, social content and network marketing, brand crossovers and collaborations, etc. In April 2021, Florasis became the No. 1 cosmetic company in China with a gross merchandise value of 218m yuan and further the total sales for second quarter of 2021 reached 830m yuan, endorsing its supremacy over other global and local beauty brands in China. However, with success came along a set of challenges. Some analysts pointed that the brand was slow in innovating its product line-up, it focused more on promotions and advertisements and the brand positioning with a single sales channel, the cost performance and quality of the products and excessive marketing campaigns targeting a niche segment. Going forward, what should Florasis do to conquer the global beauty space? Can Florasis aspire to become a digitally empowered global beauty brand? Has it got the momentum? Will its direct-to-consumer model and unprecedented marketing and promotion gimmicks, help it achieve the lead in the global beauty space?
Complexity academic level
This case study is suitable for students of the graduate and undergraduate programs in management.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only.
Subject code
CSS 8: Marketing.
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Deepanjana Varshney and Nirbhay Krishna Varshney
Workforce agility (WFA) is an emergent research topic in volatile times. However, there is a lack of research in understanding the leadership dimension that triggers such an…
Abstract
Purpose
Workforce agility (WFA) is an emergent research topic in volatile times. However, there is a lack of research in understanding the leadership dimension that triggers such an attribute in organizations. Our study aims to understand the impact of workforce agility on empowering leadership behavior and employee performance dimensions (task performance, contextual performance and counterproductive work behavior).
Design/methodology/approach
We collected data from 236 employees using reliable, validated scales and conducted various statistical analyses.
Findings
Our results demonstrated that WFA (1) partially mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and contextual performance (CP), (2) has not mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and counterproductive behavior (CWB) and (3) mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and task performance (TP).
Practical implications
Our research has practical implications for management practitioners. It suggests hiring and developing an agile workforce through appropriate training and development programs can significantly impact organizational performance. Furthermore, it provides insights into building leadership capabilities that sustain workforce agility practices, empowering leaders to make informed decisions.
Originality/value
Our research fills a significant gap in the existing literature by exploring the effects of WFA on leadership and performance. This novel approach provides a fresh perspective on the dynamics of organizational behavior, making it a valuable addition to the field.
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According to extensive analysis, employee agility is influenced by teamwork, coordination and the organizational environment. However, less consideration has been given to the…
Abstract
Purpose
According to extensive analysis, employee agility is influenced by teamwork, coordination and the organizational environment. However, less consideration has been given to the role of work stressors (challenge, hindrance) in influencing employee agility. To address this research gap, this study sheds light on how the use of enterprise social media (ESM) for social and work purposes influences employee agility through work stressors.
Design/methodology/approach
This research also explores how ESM visibility enhances the interaction between work stressors and employee agility by using primary data obtained from Chinese workers. A total of 377 entries were analyzed using AMOS 24.10 tools. All the hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).
Findings
The findings revealed that ESM use (social and work) negatively impacts challenge and hindrance work stressors. The results also reflect that challenge stressors have a significant impact on employee agility, whereas hindrance stressors are negatively related to it. Furthermore, the outcome also indicated that increased ESM visibility reinforces the connection between challenge stressors and employee agility. However, ESM visibility did not indicate a significant moderating impact on the link between hindrance stressors and employee agility.
Originality/value
This study describes how ESM usage effects agility of stressed employees. This research also explores how ESM visibility improves the interaction between work stressors and employee agility. The study results contribute to growing research on social media and employee agility and suggest several points of guidance for managers.
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Maryam Hina, Najmul Islam and Amandeep Dhir
There is little empirical evidence on how blockchain affordances may encourage consumers to make sustainable choices. Thus, this paper examines how blockchain affordances affect…
Abstract
Purpose
There is little empirical evidence on how blockchain affordances may encourage consumers to make sustainable choices. Thus, this paper examines how blockchain affordances affect consumers’ sustainable consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
We focus on three blockchain affordances: transparency, traceability, and immutability in this paper. By integrating the affordance lens and theory of consumption values (TCV), we develop a research model wherein we posit that blockchain affordances influence several consumption values, which then affect consumers’ intention to purchase sustainable products. In the study, we designed a scenario and user interface for a novel blockchain-based app for sustainable consumption in the context of the fashion industry and surveyed 295 European consumers to examine the study’s research model. We then analyzed the collected data using the partial least squares technique.
Findings
The results show that blockchain affordances positively affect consumption values, including efficiency, social impression, trust, and sustainability information clarity. In turn, these values influence the consumers’ purchase intention of sustainable products. Additionally, our post hoc analysis shows that these consumption values fully mediate the effect of blockchain affordances on consumers’ purchase intention, where trust and sustainability information clarity is found to have a higher impact.
Originality/value
Empirical research studies focusing on understanding blockchain’s effect on sustainable consumption values have been limited in prior literature. This study, drawing on the affordance lens, proposes distinct blockchain affordances and empirically validates their impact on consumers’ sustainable purchase intention. By integrating TCV, it highlights the mediating mechanism that drives blockchain’s impact on consumers’ purchase intention. We empirically identify the values that mediate the effects of blockchain affordances on consumers’ purchase intention; further, we discuss implications for research and practice based on the study findings.
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The study aims to explicate how Metaverse boosts learners’ cognition, decision confidence and active participation in Metaverse-based learning (MBL).
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to explicate how Metaverse boosts learners’ cognition, decision confidence and active participation in Metaverse-based learning (MBL).
Design/methodology/approach
A survey is designed with 523 respondents. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is conducted using online data to verify a research model.
Findings
Results demonstrate that Metaverse-related characteristics, namely interactivity, corporeity, persistence, immersion and personalized experience, aid in strengthening learners’ cognitive processing and decision confidence, whilst escapism does not influence decision confidence in MBL. Furthermore, user-related dimensions, including personal innovativeness and perceived trendiness, are the underlying motivations for decision confidence. Additionally, cognitive processing is positively associated with decision confidence, which considerably fosters learners’ active participation in MBL.
Originality/value
Limited studies have been conducted to illuminate a mechanism of cognitive processing, decision confidence and active participation among learners toward MBL in light of the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) paradigm. Therefore, a substantial amount of knowledge is supplemented to enlighten whether learners in a developing country may generate their engagement with MBL.
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Mahmood Al-khassaweneh and Omar AlShorman
In the big data era, image compression is of significant importance in today’s world. Importantly, compression of large sized images is required for everyday tasks; including…
Abstract
In the big data era, image compression is of significant importance in today’s world. Importantly, compression of large sized images is required for everyday tasks; including electronic data communications and internet transactions. However, two important measures should be considered for any compression algorithm: the compression factor and the quality of the decompressed image. In this paper, we use Frei-Chen bases technique and the Modified Run Length Encoding (RLE) to compress images. The Frei-Chen bases technique is applied at the first stage in which the average subspace is applied to each 3 × 3 block. Those blocks with the highest energy are replaced by a single value that represents the average value of the pixels in the corresponding block. Even though Frei-Chen bases technique provides lossy compression, it maintains the main characteristics of the image. Additionally, the Frei-Chen bases technique enhances the compression factor, making it advantageous to use. In the second stage, RLE is applied to further increase the compression factor. The goal of using RLE is to enhance the compression factor without adding any distortion to the resultant decompressed image. Integrating RLE with Frei-Chen bases technique, as described in the proposed algorithm, ensures high quality decompressed images and high compression rate. The results of the proposed algorithms are shown to be comparable in quality and performance with other existing methods.