Search results

In the Western world, Carl Jung was the first to posit a theory of synchronicity to explain the startling divinatory power of the I Ching. Yet long before his time and unbeknownst to the West, the Chinese had already institutionalized as their tradition, simple practices for enabling decisions grounded on the synchronous concept. The purpose of this paper is to explain the process from within the context of Chinese Buddhist spirituality.

The approach here is to provide the background of Han Chinese Buddhism in modern China and within it, the wide practices of Kuan Yin spirituality and introducing the tools that the Chinese devised for consulting the Goddess of Mercy, as Kuan Yin is otherwise known. Then a discussion is made, for the first time, of the underlying mechanics as well as the mind and energy aspects. Having so introduced the religious background, spirituality, tools and mechanics, the processes of temple consultations for decisions are then explained. In the discussion, a framework for classifying decisions is outlined along with probability concepts. There is also the requirement for the inquirer to seek a metaphorical interpretation of the poetic imagery as contained in the Qian (a slip of paper).

Through writing this paper, the author wishes readers, both managerial and those in research, to understand what is still the approach (even more widely in China now than before) in how the Chinese – in and outside of China – approach the task of making major, complex decisions. These practices which date from antiquity clearly suggest the Chinese had gone beyond Jungian synchronicity in translating the theory into practice for decision making. In other words, they had long recognized the need for tools, techniques and approaches to help them make complex, difficult decisions: decisions that often go beyond the rational boundaries of the mind.

With the rising impact of the Chinese on the global economy and society, there is clearly a need for works that explain major Chinese processes such as the making of decisions. The art of decision making by the Chinese on the basis of what Jung theorized as synchronicity should become much better understood by researchers and managers.

There are very few academic papers exploring the process of Kuan Yin consultation in decision making by the Chinese. Yet this can be seen across many temples in everyday China and overseas Chinese communities as well as in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The understanding of such processes is necessary for anyone, who wishes to grasp the minds of the Chinese as regards the process involved in the making of major decisions.

This study aims to examine the mechanism of action of ethical leadership by testing the direct and indirect effects of ethical leadership on employee work outcomes (i.e. individual job satisfaction, work engagement and customer-oriented behavior) and the moderating effects of group job satisfaction on the relationship between ethical leadership and its consequences.

A hierarchical linear model is used. The valid sample is composed of 285 front-line service personnel in 56 work groups from five hotels and five golf clubs in South China.

Results indicate that group job satisfaction has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between ethical leadership and employee work engagement. That is, compared with that in groups with high job satisfaction, the relationship between ethical leadership and employee work engagement is significantly more positive in groups with low job satisfaction. Employee work attitudes (including individual job satisfaction and work engagement) mediate the effect of ethical leadership on employee customer-oriented behavior.

The main limitations are as follows. First, some of the reported relationships may be affected by common method bias, as our study collected data from a single source. Second, whether the findings can be generalized to other industries in other countries remains unknown. Third, as the current study is based on a cross-sectional design, establishing causality is difficult among the study variables.

The findings show that the managers in hospitality and tourism companies should adopt ethical leadership to enhance employee customer-oriented behavior by improving positive work attitudes. At the same time, hospitality and tourism companies should improve group job satisfaction as a substitute for ethical leadership in the absence of ethical leadership.

A key contribution of this research is demonstrating how and when the effects of ethical leadership occur by analyzing the mediating and moderating effects in the same study. This study systematically examines the mediating effect of employee work attitudes on the influence of ethical leadership on employee work behavior and discusses the moderating effect of the group-level variable. The findings extend ethical leadership theory and make a contribution to the existing research on discussing the substitutes for the leadership model.

Online retailers have become gradually popular to offer consumers installment payment services in the past few years. This paper aims to study how to determine the duration and rate of installment payment services, as well as the price of products to increase online retailers’ profits.

By modeling the utility functions, the behavior of consumers for strategic choosing the payment method and payment timing is analyzed. Thus, the market segments are obtained through the comparison of the consumer’s utilities. Combined with the given assumptions, the installment payment strategies for online retailers is investigated. This paper focuses on the impact of installment payment services on consumers’ purchasing behavior and online retailers’ profits by modeling and comparative analysis. No installment payment service as a benchmark, it is demonstrated whether online retailers can obtain more profits by offering installment payment services or what are the applicable conditions for installment payments.

If the installment payment service is offered, online retailers can gain more profits and need to adopt appropriate strategies based on different market conditions. During the depression or the peak shopping season, online retailers should take the strategy of free installment rate, and moderately increasing the product price of no installment service. When market demand is stable or during non-peak season, online retailers need to set a higher installment rate and maintain the product price without installment service. Finally, online retailers should determine the maximum duration of installments they can afford based on own risk control cost and allow consumers to freely choose the length of the installment within the duration limit.

First, the authors deeply analyze consumers’ payment and purchase behavior when the online retailer offers the installment payment service. Then, it is theoretically proved why many online retailers have offered installment payment services to consumers from a profit perspective. Finally, this paper proposes the optimal duration of installments, installment rate and product price in different market environments for online retailers, to provide theoretical basis and managerial insights for the development of installment payment service in online shopping.

The purpose of this paper is to locate those entrepreneur human capital elements which significantly influence an enterprise's growth performance, within both high‐tech and traditional enterprises, thereby helping entrepreneurs understand that human capital elements will provide different impacts within different industries.

Under some necessary research assumptions, the statistical analysis described in this paper uses data collected from a questionnaire survey and is performed under the SPSS16.0 Program.

An enterprise growth model is built from the perspectives of entrepreneur human capital. Analysis shows that human capital elements of the same entrepreneur have different impacts on the performance of business growth in different industries. The theoretical model provides a better explanation of the high‐tech enterprises' growth performance. Innovation and business growth performances from a high‐tech enterprise have greater reliance on human capital of entrepreneurs than the traditional industries.

Most current studies of the human capital of entrepreneurs focus on the analysis of background characteristics, but inadequate attention has been given to the relationship between human capital and the enterprises' growth performance, as well as to the comparative analysis of entrepreneurs' human capital in high‐tech enterprises and traditional enterprises. This paper, however, compares and analyzes such relationships between high‐tech enterprises and traditional enterprises.

This paper presents a review concerning the analytical and inverse methods of small punch creep test (SPCT) in order to evaluate the mechanical property of component material at elevated temperature.

In this work, the effects of temperature, specimen size and shape on material properties are mainly discussed using the finite element (FE) method. The analytical approaches including membrane stretching, empirical or semi-empirical solutions that are currently used for data interpretation have been presented.

The state-of-the-art research progress on the inverse method, such as non-linear optimization program and neutral network, is critically reviewed. The capabilities of the inverse technique, the uniqueness of the solution and future development are discussed.

The state-of-the-art research progress on the inverse method such as non-linear optimization program and neutral network is critically reviewed. The capabilities of the inverse technique, the uniqueness of the solution and future development are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether Chinese philosophy can have positive results in long‐term training.

The paper examined its effect based on Kirkpatrick's model. The qualitative data were the interviews, observations, and documents from 2004 to 2012. The quantitative data included three questionnaires for the employees and the customers distributed in 2005, 2006, and from 2009 to 2011, with 3,601 valid ones in total.

The results show that using Chinese philosophy as training content can increase trainees' training motivation. In addition, better training motivation can bring positive reaction, learning, and motivation for transfer. Second, at the individual level, Chinese philosophy can increase the employees' motivation for transfer and workplace spirituality. Third, at the organizational level, it shows an enhancement of service quality (SQ).

First, human resource (HR) practices can take the country's cultural features into account and do not necessarily have to adopt Western management theories and practices. Second, the “best practice” can be a useful reference for HR managers in the Chinese organizational context. Finally, the training contents are not necessarily about knowledge or skills. For the service industries with intensive interaction with customers, enhancing work attitude can further increase SQ.

First, Chinese philosophy involves the concepts of business management. Second, this longitudinal research pointed out that Chinese philosophy can enhance employees' workplace spirituality; and further, it enhanced the SQ. Third, the training evaluation result is more comprehensive for it includes individual level and organizational level.

The purpose of this study is to detail the design and development of a robust and practical perception system for autonomous material handling robots (AMHRs) operating within industrial stockyards. This system aims to support simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) while generating large-scale spatial cognition, ensuring accurate, low-latency, and scalable operations in demanding industrial environments.

The proposed perception system integrates multimodal perception sensors, efficient algorithms and commercial hardware devices to o provide SLAM-based large-scale spatial cognition for distributed AMHRs. The system’s design emphasizes practicality, efficiency and readiness for real-world deployment, ensuring it meets the stringent requirements of accuracy, latency and scalability.

Experiments conducted in a real industrial stockyard environment demonstrate the practicality and robustness of the perception system. The system exhibits high performance in state estimation, stockpile modeling accuracy and motion spatial cognition, confirming its effectiveness for AMHR operations.

The developed system was practically used at Tianjin Port, demonstrating the potential for widespread industrial application, offering a scalable and efficient solution for AMHR operations. Its integration into diverse industrial settings can lead to significant improvements in material handling processes, contributing to enhanced productivity and operational efficiency.

This work presents an innovative perception system that combines advanced SLAM-based spatial cognition akin to that of the brain with practical deployment considerations. The system’s design and implementation address the specific challenges of AMHRs in industrial environments, providing a novel solution for enhancing the operational efficiency and adaptability of autonomous robots in stockyards and similar settings.

Despite extensive research on personality and leader emergence, very little is known about the process by which employees become or emerge as leaders based on their performance. Integrating functional leadership theory and a behavior perspective, the authors aim to explore the parallel multiple behavioral mediators in the conscientiousness–leader emergence link.

By integrating a field survey study and two experimental studies, the authors use parallel multiple mediation analysis to explore the mechanisms by which conscientiousness leads to high levels of leader emergence.

Conscientiousness is positively associated with employee leader emergence. Employee functional behaviors are positively associated with leader emergence. The authors consistently found that the effect of conscientiousness on leader emergence is primarily explained by increases in task- and change-oriented behaviors but not relations-oriented behaviors.

Organizations can design relevant training programs to cultivate and enhance employees' functional behavior, as the study findings suggest that an effective way to translate employees' conscientiousness into their leader emergence is to improve their task- and change-oriented behaviors.

This research highlights the consistent and important role of employees' functional behaviors in the form of task- and change-oriented behaviors linking conscientiousness to leader emergence.