Huosong Xia, Ping Wang, Tian Wan, Zuopeng Justin Zhang, Juan Weng and Sajjad M. Jasimuddin
The paper focuses on the variables that help analyze peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms. It explores the characteristic factors of identifying problematic platforms, and designs…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper focuses on the variables that help analyze peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms. It explores the characteristic factors of identifying problematic platforms, and designs a P2P platform risk early warning model.
Design/methodology/approach
With the help of web crawler software, this paper crawls the information of 1427 P2P platforms from the two largest third-party lending information platforms (i.e. P2Peye and WDZJ) in China. SPSS 22.0 was mainly used for basic descriptive statistical analysis, reliability and validity analysis, and regression analysis of the data. MPLUS 7.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models analysis.
Findings
Based on the multi-dimensional information, this paper performs text mining to develop an investor sentiment index. This study shows that the characteristics of the platform (i.e. basic features, capital security, operations management, and social network) have a significant impact on identifying problematic platforms.
Research limitations/implications
There are some limitations to this research. In the process of model construction, some external factors may be ignored, such as government policies. Future research will need to consider the impact of policy and other factors more comprehensively on P2P lending platform risk identification.
Practical implications
This study proposes an effective method for investors and regulators to identify the risk factors of P2P lending platforms. The research findings provide valuable insights for promoting government participation in platform management as well as a healthy development of the P2P lending industry.
Originality/value
The paper addresses the factors that influence platform risks to help analyze P2P lending platforms. Prior research has not explored how to identify problematic P2P lending platforms in-depth and is limited by only focusing on either soft information or hard information. It identifies the characteristic factors of identifying problematic platforms and designs a P2P platform risk early warning model.
Details
Keywords
Dai Wen Yue, Gao Yi Ping, Zang Li, Yang Dong, Tian Wan Lu and Zhang Tai Bao
Details a new type of screwing mechanical hand which has been developed. There are three distinguishing features on the structures and functions of the mechanical hand: it can…
Abstract
Details a new type of screwing mechanical hand which has been developed. There are three distinguishing features on the structures and functions of the mechanical hand: it can perform both screwing and unscrewing automatically; it has no special driver for its finger grasp and release but adopts some specific mechanisms and structures for this process; and the preset screwing torque is used to control the release of the fingers. Describes the main parts and operating process of the hand; the structure and movements of the wrist and hand; and the principle behind the grasp and release mechanism.
Details
Keywords
Samshul-Amry Abdul-Latif and Asmat-Nizam Abdul-Talib
This case study can be used for courses under marketing management, international marketing or public relations.
Abstract
Subject area
This case study can be used for courses under marketing management, international marketing or public relations.
Study level/applicability
This case study may be suitable for courses which discuss decision-making and/or executive actions and execution, at both undergraduate and graduate levels. It could also be used in graduate classes as some open-ended questions are also included to illicit critical thoughts and fresh ideas.
Case overview
Companies can be boycotted for many reasons; for example, a company may be associated with or engage in egregious acts which trigger a consumer boycott. However, it is unusual for racial and political elements to form the basis of a consumer boycott. This paper describes how a current leader in the packaged bread market, Gardenia Bakeries Sdn Bhd (GBKL), responded to one such online campaign. This case study highlights the importance of effective communications and marketing strategies for responding to sensitive issues involving racism and politics.
Expected learning outcomes
Students are introduced to the concept of consumer boycotts and how this may affect a business. Students are exposed to the development of appropriate public relation strategies and explore creative methods to combat bad publicity and/or a smear campaign. Students can learn to appreciate the sensitivity of allegations of racism in a multi-ethnic country and understand how multi-ethnic consumers respond to these types of issues. Students are exposed to the effects of political and socio-demographic influences on purchase behavior in a particular market or country. Students may explore the effects of consumer activism on a company's brand image.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
Details
Keywords
Futao Zhao and Hao Liu
The purpose of this paper is to detect predefined service attributes and their sentiments from online restaurant reviews, and then to measure the effects of customer sentiments…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to detect predefined service attributes and their sentiments from online restaurant reviews, and then to measure the effects of customer sentiments toward service attributes on customer satisfaction (CS) and revisit intention (RVI) simultaneously.
Design/methodology/approach
This study proposed a supervised framework to model CS and RVI simultaneously from restaurant reviews. Specifically, the authors detected the predefined service dimensions from online reviews based on random forest. Then, the sentiment polarities of the reviews toward each predefined dimension were identified using light-gradient boosting machine (LightGBM). Finally, the effects of attribute-specific sentiments on CS and RVI were evaluated by a bagged neural network-based model. The proposed framework was evaluated by 305,000 restaurant comments collected from DianPing.com, a Yelp-like website in China.
Findings
The authors obtained a hierarchal importance order of the investigated service themes (i.e. location, service, environment, price and food). The authors found that food played the most important role in affecting both CS and RVI. The most salient attribute with respect to each service theme was also identified.
Originality/value
Unlike prior work relying on the data collected from surveys, this study is among the first to model the relationship among service attributes, CS and RVI simultaneously from real-world data. The authors established a hierarchal structure of eighteen attributes within five service themes and estimated their effects on both CS and RVI, which will broaden our understanding of customer perception and behavioral intention during service consumption.
Details
Keywords
This chapter investigates the behavior of Reddit’s news subreddit users and the relationship between their sentiment on exchange rates. Using graphical models and natural language…
Abstract
This chapter investigates the behavior of Reddit’s news subreddit users and the relationship between their sentiment on exchange rates. Using graphical models and natural language processing, hidden online communities among Reddit users are discovered. The data set used in this project is a mixture of text and categorical data from Reddit’s news subreddit. These data include the titles of the news pages, as well as a few user characteristics, in addition to users’ comments. This data set is an excellent resource to study user reaction to news since their comments are directly linked to the webpage contents. The model considered in this chapter is a hierarchical mixture model which is a generative model that detects overlapping networks using the sentiment from the user generated content. The advantage of this model is that the communities (or groups) are assumed to follow a Chinese restaurant process, and therefore it can automatically detect and cluster the communities. The hidden variables and the hyperparameters for this model are obtained using Gibbs sampling.
Details
Keywords
Using bibliometric techniques, the author analyzes a dataset of 276 articles on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBMAs) published in 13 management and international business…
Abstract
Using bibliometric techniques, the author analyzes a dataset of 276 articles on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBMAs) published in 13 management and international business journals. The author assesses the scientific impact and visualizes the intellectual landscape of research on CBMAs by analyzing publication and citation data and interconnections between publications. First, the author assesses annual publication trends and identifies highly cited articles and productive journals in the dataset that have significantly contributed to our understanding of CBMAs. Second, the author identifies main themes in recent research on CBMAs by focusing on frequently used keywords in publications. Third, the author identifies clusters of related research and explores their interrelationships to outline emerging trends, new perspectives, and directions for future research on CBMAs. Overall, this chapter contributes to the understanding of CBMAs by documenting the progress made to date and providing important insights for future research.
Details
Keywords
Although the Daodejing is a text that is more than 2,400 years old, its concepts regarding leadership nevertheless fit well into current discussions on sustainability and…
Abstract
Purpose
Although the Daodejing is a text that is more than 2,400 years old, its concepts regarding leadership nevertheless fit well into current discussions on sustainability and responsibility. This paper aims to explore these concepts.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper focuses on the strategic aspects that can be found in the Daodejing's approach to leadership.
Findings
The Daodejing offers interesting perspectives on the relationship between personal development and sustainability. Because of their topicality these concepts are moreover particularly interesting within the context of corporate culture and glocalization for multinational companies operating in China.
Originality/value
The paper explores aspects of the philosophy of the Daodejing that often get neglected, but which offer interesting perspectives on current issues in management.
Details
Keywords
Wen‐Ge Fu, Sizhong Sun and Zhang‐Yue Zhou
The purpose of this paper is to examine the technical efficiency of wheat and paddy rice processing in China. Understanding the level of technical efficiency of food processing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the technical efficiency of wheat and paddy rice processing in China. Understanding the level of technical efficiency of food processing helps to decide whether efforts are warranted to improve this efficiency. Studies on China's technical efficiency of flour and rice processing are scarce. This paper fills this gap.
Design/methodology/approach
With a unique set of firm‐level survey data collected by China's State Statistical Bureau, this study adopts a stochastic frontier model to investigate the technical efficiency of flour and rice processing.
Findings
The technical efficiency for both flour and rice processing is low in China, being only about 50 per cent. On average, rice processing firms have slightly higher technical efficiency than flour processing firms. It is also found that a significant proportion of firms experienced negative growth of technical efficiency during the time period of investigation.
Originality/value
Each year, some 300 million tonnes of wheat and paddy rice are processed in China. Any small improvement in technical efficiency is translated into huge economic gains. Further, a tiny improvement in flour or rice output rate is equivalent to an enormous increase in food supply, contributing to China's food security. The paper confirms the need and potential to raise technical efficiency in China for wheat and paddy rice processing.
Details
Keywords
Jianjun Yang, Lei Gu, Kangxin Liu and Cheng Deng
Implementing green innovation is crucial for firms to build or sustain competitive advantages within the context of the sustainable development goals. Academic research has…
Abstract
Purpose
Implementing green innovation is crucial for firms to build or sustain competitive advantages within the context of the sustainable development goals. Academic research has broadly explored how firms can induce green innovation behavior (GIB), examining external factors, but few studies in the current literature have deeply investigated unabsorbed slack as an internal antecedent of GIB. Drawing upon the behavioral theory of the firm and integrating it with dynamic capabilities theory, this study aims to address this deficiency by investigating the impact of unabsorbed slack on GIB and the mediating roles of two dimensions of capability reconfiguration: capability evolution and capability substitution in the relationship between unabsorbed slack and GIB. Furthermore, this study also discusses the moderating effects of consumer green pressure on the relationship between unabsorbed slack and capability evolution/substitution.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 286 Chinese technology-intensive manufacturing firms to empirically test the relationships among the variables.
Findings
The results reveal that unabsorbed slack has a positive influence on GIB. Furthermore, capability evolution and substitution both play mediating roles in the relationship between unabsorbed slack and GIB. Comparative analysis showed that the mediating effect of capability substitution is stronger than that of capability evolution. Moreover, consumer green pressure strengthens the positive relationship between unabsorbed slack and capability evolution/substitution.
Originality/value
This study enriches the research on the driving forces of GIB and contributes to providing managerial implications for firms to launch green innovation activities.
Details
Keywords
Kuncheng Zhang, Shi-Zheng Tian, Yong Wu, Jiale Wu, Na Liu and Donghai Wang
This research establishes an evaluation index system and calculation method for the China's maritime power construction index (CMPCI). It has conducted practical tests on the…
Abstract
Purpose
This research establishes an evaluation index system and calculation method for the China's maritime power construction index (CMPCI). It has conducted practical tests on the progress of China's maritime power construction since the 12th–13th Five-Year Plans. This paper conducts a phased study on the construction of China's maritime power based on the CMPCI evaluation results; it expands the relevant achievements in the research field of quantitative research in China's maritime power construction. The verification results are consistent with the actual situation.
Design/methodology/approach
Fully reflect the guiding role of national marine policies in the new development stage, guide the transformation of China's marine management model. The CMPCI is a quantitative evaluation of the overall development level of China's maritime power construction over a certain period of time. The CMPCI in this article aims to comprehensively reflect the changes in the construction of China's maritime power, strives to cover various fields it encompasses. This study focuses on objective statistical data analysis, supplemented by multisource data, to objectively and fairly measure the level of CMPCI.
Findings
Originality/value
It fully reflects the highlights of marine science and technology, social democracy and strategic emerging industries. This research dynamically quantifies the trajectory of China's maritime power construction, synthetic reflecting the country's macroeconomic policy guiding function. Guiding the transformation of the marine resources utilization, marine economy development, marine scientific research and marine rights and interests maintenance and effectively serving the decision-making needs of the government.