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To introduce the concept of cultural equity and provide a theoretical framework for managing cultural equity in multi-cultural markets.

Recent research on the social psychology of globalization, cross-cultural consumer behavior, consumer culture, and global branding is reviewed to develop a theoretical framework for building, leveraging, and protecting cultural equity.

Provides an actionable definition for a brand’s cultural equity, discusses consumer responses to brands that relate to cultural equity, identifies the building blocks of cultural equity, and develops a framework for managing cultural equity.

Research conducted mainly in large cities in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Generalizations to less developed parts of the world might be limited.

A very useful theoretical framework for managers interested in building cultural equity into their brands and for leveraging this equity via new products and the development of new markets.

The paper integrates past findings across a variety of domains to develop a parsimonious framework for managing cultural equity in globalized markets.

Fluctuations in the tender price index have an adverse effect on the construction sector and the economy at large. This is largely due to the positive relationship that exists between the construction industry and economic growth. The consequences of these variations include cost overruns and schedule delays, among others. An accurate forecast of the tender price index is good for controlling the uncertainty associated with its variation. In the present study, the efficacy of using an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for tender price forecasting is investigated. In addition, the Box–Jenkins model, which is considered a benchmark technique, was used to evaluate the performance of the ANFIS model. The results demonstrate that the ANFIS model is superior to the Box–Jenkins model in terms of the accuracy and reliability of the forecast. The ANFIS could provide an accurate and reliable forecast of the tender price index in the medium term (i.e. over a three-year period). This chapter provides evidence of the advantages of applying nonlinear modelling techniques (such as the ANFIS) to tender price index forecasting. Although the proposed ANFIS model is applied to the tender price index in this study, it can also be applied to a wider range of problems in the field of construction engineering and management.

This paper aims to decode how service descriptions contribute to consumer satisfaction in the peer-to-peer service context and how consumer clout interferes with such influence. Based on the expectation–confirmation theory, the authors hypothesise that lowered expectations induced by modest service descriptions strengthen the performance-satisfaction link. In addition, the authors posit that consumer clout influences the moderation effect of service descriptions.

The paper is an empirical study using data of Airbnb, a representative peer-to-peer service platform. The data includes all listings in San Francisco, where Airbnb is headquartered. A total of 5,567 listing descriptions with 241,791 review comments were analysed after removing non-English texts. The host descriptions and guest reviews are analysed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count and Google Cloud. The Tobit and ordered logistic models were used for hypothesis testing.

Guests are more likely to give higher ratings when they feel positive about the accommodation services. Such effect is stronger for lower guest expectations induced by modest host descriptions, as lower expectations are more likely to generate positive surprise disconfirmation. The previous relationship is moderated by guest clout, as guests high in clout pay less attention to host descriptions and are less likely to be surprised.

The paper investigates the joint influence of service descriptions and consumer reviews on peer-to-peer service satisfaction. The paper conducted entity-level sentiment analysis to examine opinions expressed towards specific types of entities. The paper also explored how consumer clout moderates the relationship, a boundary condition that previous studies have not explored.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the business-government nexus in Hong Kong as a special case, thereby contributing to a comparative examination of various significant variables affecting the study of political and economic developments in East Asia.

The paper considers the privileged position afforded to the major business groups in Hong Kong’s political system as part of the pro-Beijing United Front. It adopts a historical perspective, relying on existing literature including media reports. As the author is both an academic and a long-term pro-democracy activist, his actual experiences and extensive interviews with various important participants in Hong Kong’s business and political communities offer valuable perspectives.

In the past, the business-government nexus was perceived to be a positive factor that contributed to the territory’s economic growth. In the past decade or so, though, increasing dissatisfaction with the Hong Kong government’s performance and the widening gap between the rich and the poor have led to the emergence of a legitimacy deficit on the part of the government, resulting in rising demands for democracy which have not been met. Divisions on these issues within the local business community have posed a severe challenge to the continuation of the business-government nexus.

The author’s actual experiences and his interviews with other participants in Hong Kong’s politics provide observations of significant value. The Occupy Central campaign, which took off in the territory in 2014, demands serious consideration in terms of its political development and a key element for consideration is the response of the business-government nexus to it.

In view of the significant changes in the capital structure of China’s real estate industry and enterprises in recent years, this chapter employs financial indicators and the linear regression function to analyze the relationship between corporate debt ratio and the performance of 111 A-share listed real estate enterprises in China. This study finds that the corporate debt ratio of China’s real estate enterprises in the past decade has a significant negative impact on enterprises’ performance. The study also finds that among China’s real estate companies, the corporate debt ratio has a more significant negative impact on the performance of non-state-owned enterprises than state-owned enterprises. In addition, a high debt ratio has a more significant negative impact on return on equity (ROE) than on return on assets (ROA). However, when Tobin’s Q serves as a proxy for firm performance, the negative impact of the corporate debt ratio becomes insignificant in the presence of the firm size factor. The research results of this chapter can provide some reference for subsequent policy-making and investment decisions in the Chinese real estate market.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of texture on hydrodynamic lubrication performance of slide surface from the perspective of skewness and kurtosis.

Hydrodynamic lubrication theoretical model of textured surface was established based on two-dimensional Reynolds equation, and finite difference algorithm was used as the numerical approach in the paper. Skewness and kurtosis of surface were obtained by discrete calculation.

Numerical analysis results show that the influence law of texture types on skewness, kurtosis and hydrodynamic lubrication was the more negative skewness and higher kurtosis, the better hydrodynamic lubrication performance when texture cross section contour and geometric parameters were the same. Similarly, the same influence law of skewness, kurtosis and hydrodynamic lubrication performance by texture cross-section contour was observed. However, it was unable to evaluate the effect of texture angle on hydrodynamic lubrication performance of textured surface from the perspective of skewness and kurtosis.

This paper confirms the feasibility of evaluating influence of texture types and texture cross-section contour on hydrodynamic lubrication performance from the perspective of skewness and kurtosis and provides a way to optimize texture type and texture cross section.

Mobile devices, through their capacity to enable anytime-anywhere learning as well as capture, annotate and share multimedia, offer entirely new ways for students to learn. This chapter provides review of mobile learning with a particular focus on learning design. First various definitions and characteristics of mobile learning are examined in order to establish a common understanding of its boundaries and meaning. Example uses of mobile learning in schools and higher education are described as a way to provide a more concrete understanding of design possibilities. Benefits of mobile learning are unpacked, as distilled from the literature, including the ability to provide flexible, accessible, authentic, personalized, ubiquitous and seamless learning. Mobile learning issues are also examined, including technical problems, cognitive load issues, distraction, equity and safety. A primary school science and a university pre-service teacher education vignette are described so as to offer a more in-depth illustration of what mobile learning can look like and achieve in practice. Finally, mobile learning research findings and observations are synthesized into recommendations, to inform and guide evidence-based mobile learning design practices. Opportunities for future research and investigation are also discussed.

This paper aims to reconcile conflicting findings about the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in counteracting the negative impacts of brands’ ethical transgressions by testing the moderating role of self-brand connection (SBC).

Drawing on motivated reasoning theory, this paper posits that high- and low-SBC consumers’ information processing and moral judgment are driven by distinct goals: to reach desired versus accurate conclusions, respectively. Five experiments were conducted to test whether CSR efforts can mitigate the impact of blatant ethical transgressions.

CSR allows high-SBC consumers to evaluate brand transgressions more favorably, as CSR serves as counterfactual evidence that reinforces their beliefs in the brand’s morality. In contrast, low-SBC consumers view CSR as hypocritical, leading to more negative responses. Increased perceptions of brand morality (hypocrisy) mediate CSR’s buffering (backfiring) effects among high- (low-) SBC consumers.

This paper does not control for the effect of the time gap between CSR and ethical transgressions even if buffering effects of CSR could be faded out as memories recede.

Brand transgressions may be inevitable events, but firms or managers can alleviate the negative impact of transgressions by engaging in CSR activities. In doing so, they need to make clear to whom they will appeal using CSR information considering its backfiring effects among low-SBC consumers.

Few studies have examined when and how CSR attenuates or exacerbates the negativity of brand transgressions with a strong theoretical framework. This paper, grounded in motivated reasoning theory, explains how the same CSR initiative can yield opposing outcomes based on the consumer’s self-brand connection. Rather than solely exploring how strong consumer-brand relationships buffer brand transgressions, this research shows how high-SBC consumers biasedly seize CSR information to justify brand transgressions, even when they are blatant.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex relationships between common bond attachment, common identity attachment, self-esteem and virtual community citizenship behavior (VCCB). This study identifies two broad categories of VCCB: citizenship behaviors directed toward benefitting other individuals (VCCBI) and citizenship behaviors directed toward benefitting the virtual community (VCCBC).

The authors apply partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses, using a sample of 388 valid responses.

The results indicate that common bond attachment and common identity attachment have a significant effect on self-esteem, which, in turn, has a significant effect on VCCBI and VCCBC. The results also indicate that common bond attachment has a significant effect on VCCBI, and that common identity attachment has a significant effect on VCCBC.

This study contributes to a better understanding of VCCBs through common identity and common-bond theory, social identity theory and the stimulus-organism-response framework.