Search results

The technology acceptance model (TAM) has been one of the most influential theories in the information technology literature, but it has not been used in the marketing literature to understand consumer acceptance of international web sites. Thus, the purpose of this study is to use TAM to study international consumers' acceptance and use of MNEs web sites designed specifically for their country.

This study applies and extends the TAM to study the B2C international web sites of American and Japanese MNEs for Brazilian, German, and Taiwanese consumers. In total, there were 2,243 usable questionnaires and the structural equation modeling method was used to analyze the data.

This study provides strong support for the applicability of TAM in explaining international web site usage in Brazil, Germany, and Taiwan and shows that cultural adaptation is an important explanatory variable that should be included in the TAM when exploring cross‐cultural issues.

The value of this paper is that it not only extends the use of TAM to study user acceptance of international e‐commerce web sites, but also sees how the cultural adaptation of international web sites impacts the attitude and the purchase intention of consumers.

SME funding gaps in developing economies are substantial. Crowdfunding is an innovative way to raise funds that may be part of the solution for closing such gaps. The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of crowdfunding contribution intentions in the context of a developing country –Bangladesh.

The authors collect data by using a structured questionnaire distributed through Facebook. The analysis is based on data collected from 252 valid responses and uses the ordered probit regression for estimation. For robustness, the authors also estimate the hypothesized model using ordered logistic regression and OLS regression finding identical results.

The authors find that liking the campaign idea and positive media coverage of a crowdfunding campaign have a positive association with crowdfunding contribution intention. Surprisingly, personal relations, others' recommendation and the location of the campaign's owner were not significantly associated with crowdfunding contribution intention in our study. Moreover, respondents' location in Bangladesh (vs. abroad) and their age are positively associated with contribution intention, while education is negatively associated with intention.

Earlier studies focused on the determinants of ex post crowdfunding intentions in developed and more mature crowdfunding markets. The authors contribute by examining ex ante crowdfunding contribution intentions in the developing economy of Bangladesh, which is at the market's inception stage.

This study investigates the effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL) in information literacy curricula using library e-resources to enhance information literacy self-efficacy (ILSE) of students in two universities in Indonesia, in Java Island (University A) and Sumatra Island (University B).

A comparison of the effectiveness of the approach in the two universities forms the focus of the study, which has adopted a single group quasi-experimental design which was conducted in one online teaching-learning session. The authors compared the pre-test and post-test scores of 65 library and information science (LIS) students from both universities.

The results show that the treatment enhanced ILSE effectively. After the treatment, University A students performed better than those at University B.

The factors which affected the success of PBL using library e-resources have not been identified in this study, a task for a future qualitative research study.

This study will both inspire the use of library e-resources in learning activities and promote ILSE.

Integrating PBL with library e-resources provides opportunity to identify the advantages of library e-resources in supporting student ILSE, resulting a better learning achievement.

Scholarly research provides few insights into how integrating the western values of individualism and low power distance with the eastern values of collectivism and high power distance may influence cross-cultural conflict management. Following the framework of the theory of cooperation and competition, the purpose of this paper is to directly examine the impacts of organization-level collectivism and individualism, as well as high and low power distance, to determine the interactive effects of these four factors on cross-cultural conflict management.

This is a 2×2 experiment study. Data were collected from a US laboratory experiment with 80 participants.

American managers working in a company embracing western low power distance and eastern collectivism values were able to manage conflict cooperatively with their Chinese workers. Moreover, American managers working in a company valuing collectivism developed more trust with Chinese workers, and those in a company culture with high power distance were more interested in their workers’ viewpoints and more able to reach integrated solutions.

This study is an interdisciplinary research applying the social psychology field’s theory of cooperation and competition to the research on employee-manager, cross-cultural conflict management (which are industrial relations and organizational behavior topics, respectively), with an eye to the role of cultural adaptation. Furthermore, this study included an experiment to directly investigate the interactions between American managers and Chinese workers discussing work distribution conflict in four different organizational cultures.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

Country-of-origin (COO) effects on product evaluations have been widely applied in international marketing, albeit with mixed results. One stream of research values its importance in decision-making, whereas another stream posits that COO has little effect when compared to the greater diagnosticity of other product attributes. This suggests that how and along what other attributes (extrinsic or intrinsic) COO is presented play an important role in its relative impact. The purpose of this paper is to address these mixed results by applying one such framing perspective based on evaluation mode (i.e. separate versus joint evaluation) and preference reversals and their biasing effects to a study of COO and willingness to pay (WTP) for a product.

A three between-subject (joint evaluation, separate evaluation-domestic and separate evaluation-foreign) experimental design was used to assess whether evaluation mode moderates COO effects on product evaluations.

Similar results are mirrored across three/four countries. When evaluated separately, consumers value an inferior domestic-made product more than a superior foreign-made one. However, when the domestic- and foreign-made products are presented in joint evaluations, the better foreign-made product is favored.

A number of limitations in terms of countries, consumers within the countries and products studied are addressed along with future research that may address these factors and test the robustness of domestic–foreign preference reversals.

The results of this study reveal practical insights to marketers. Marketing managers for better-quality foreign brands are encouraged to engage in comparative advertising appeals and sell their products in retail stores that hold both domestic and foreign products, whereas marketers for domestic products should create a selling environment that facilitate only a separate evaluation mode to enhance WTP.

This paper provides insights on the diagnosticity of COO when presented alongside intrinsic attributes and the role of evaluation mode in shaping consumers’ preferences. This research suggests that COO has different effects in different evaluation modes, thus explaining some of the mixed results in literature regarding its importance. On the one hand, COO has a decisive effect on product evaluations when products are presented separately. On the other hand, COO effect is overridden by intrinsic cues, which become more apparent when products are presented jointly. Overall, these results demonstrate the robustness of the preference reversal effect across countries and products.

Motivated by the heated discussion with regard to the Chinese milk powder incident, this paper aims to explore the determinants of Chinese managers’ moral judgment. Are Chinese professional managers’ moral judgments on an ethical dilemma influenced by their commitment to the norms and values recognized by a prestigious professional association outside of China? Do Chinese managers’ moral development and level of relativism impact their ethical decisions?

A structured survey was conducted, generating 544 valid responses from Chinese managers.

The results showed that moral maturity and relativism, independently and together, were significantly related to Chinese managers’ moral judgment on a hypothetical business dilemma, though no significant effect was found for their commitment to ethics codes.

The findings confirm the important role of moral development and relativism in Chinese mangers’ moral judgment and suggest the need for further research on the impact of professional ethics codes.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

This paper describes a multiple‐criteria decision support system (MCDSS) for the selection of the most appropriate contractor. The system can accommodate the unique characteristics of a project in addition to the qualifications and capabilities of those contractors assessed. The system first evaluates the list of contractors by matching their qualifications with specific project conditions. A short list of eligible contractors is thus selected and further the MCDSS compares the current capabilities of the short listed contractors and their plans for the project under consideration, to select the most appropriate contractor. The Delphi method was used to evoke expertise and obtain reliable assessment values for all criteria related to the contractor qualification, while the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to assess the specific project conditions. The system can be easily modified to adopt specific conditions of the proposed project and also to facilitate the decision maker in explaining the reasons for the elimination of excluded contractor.

Purpose: The insurance business is confronted with coordination difficulties that necessitate a high level of mobility, flexibility, and the capacity to analyse heterogeneous, location-dependent data from different sources and qualities. Recent innovations in emerging technologies have given the insurance industry new organisational options. When coupled with data analytics, crowdsourcing in the insurance industry facilitates solving complex issues with the wisdom of crowds. The notion of incorporating crowdsourcing and big data into the mainstream activities of insurance management is developed in this article, as are the ramifications and gains of collective intelligence achieved by Crowdsourcing and the added value of crowdsourcing insurance activities.

Design/methodology/approach: This chapter is a conceptual work that builds on relevant literature.

Findings: This chapter analyses what insurance industry managers should consider when coordinating crowdsourced activities and how they may benefit from collective intelligence combined with data analytics in terms of efficient and real-time response management for the insurance industry. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how they may use crowdsourcing to exploit information and benefit from invoking additional resources and eliminating the institutional voids present in the industry.

Practical implications: Exemplary applications that take advantage of crowdsourcing and data analytics would help the insurance sector respond flexibly, efficiently, and effectively in real time.

Originality/value: This chapter offers new collaborative ways to enhance the decision-making of insurance industry managers. The relevance of overcoming institutional voids is expanded, and repercussions from the given framework are suggested using data analytics.