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Article
Publication date: 16 December 2021

Ting Zheng, Marco Ardolino, Andrea Bacchetti and Marco Perona

This paper has two objectives: first, to investigate the state-of-the-art of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) adoption in Italian manufacturing firms and, second, to understand variations in…

3163

Abstract

Purpose

This paper has two objectives: first, to investigate the state-of-the-art of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) adoption in Italian manufacturing firms and, second, to understand variations in technologies implemented and business functions involved, benefits perceived, and obstacles encountered in I4.0 implementation over a three-year period.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach adopted in this research is descriptive, nesting longitudinal features. The paper presents a descriptive survey of 102 Italian manufacturing companies. The authors also evaluated non-response biases. The longitudinal approach was achieved by comparing the responses of the 40 sub-samples in common with a second similar survey launched three years prior, which aimed to identify patterns of evolution in the adoption of the I4.0 paradigm.

Findings

Survey findings demonstrate that Italian manufacturing companies still have limited awareness of I4.0 technologies, and the adoption of I4.0 technologies differs per technology. Company size and information system coverage level are the two factors that impact the company's technology adoption level. The comparative study shows that knowledge and adoption increase in a three-year interval with an unbalanced involvement of business functions regarding the I4.0 transformation. Indeed, companies are still seeking I4.0 solutions to reduce costs and lead times primarily, and the benefits perceived by companies are shown to be related to the number of I4.0 technologies in use. Finally, when companies put the I4.0 technologies into practice, competence is constantly considered the most significant barrier.

Research limitations/implications

This paper aims at conducting a thorough investigation into the development of I4.0 adoption in manufacturing companies. The main limitation of this study concerns the limited number of subjects involved in the longitudinal study (40) and the focus on a limited geographical area (Italy). In addition, more I4.0 technologies could also be incorporated into the survey protocol to gain further insight into I4.0 development.

Originality/value

The authors provide one of the first attempts to assess the variations of I4.0 implementation concerning technology adoption, business function involvement, and the alteration of benefits and obstacles. Several studies presented in the literature highlight the lack of longitudinal studies investigating the development of the I4.0 paradigm in a specific manufacturing context: this paper is the attempt at filling this gap.

Details

Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-5771

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Article
Publication date: 18 December 2019

Ting Zheng, Marco Ardolino, Andrea Bacchetti, Marco Perona and Massimo Zanardini

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how much the Italian manufacturing companies are ready to be concretely involved in the so-called “Industry 4.0” (I4.0) journey. In…

1941

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how much the Italian manufacturing companies are ready to be concretely involved in the so-called “Industry 4.0” (I4.0) journey. In particular, this paper focuses on analyzing the knowledge and adoption levels of specific I4.0 enabling technologies, also considering how organizations are involved and which are the main benefits and obstacles.

Design/methodology/approach

A descriptive survey has been carried out on a total of 103 respondents related to manufacturing companies of different sizes. Data collected were analyzed in order to answer five specific research questions.

Findings

The findings from the survey demonstrate that Italian manufacturing companies are in different positions in their journey toward the I4.0 paradigm, mainly depending on their size and informatization level. Furthermore, not all the business functions are adequately involved in this transformation and their awareness about this new paradigm seems quite low because of the absence of specific managerial roles to guide this revolution. Finally, there are strong differences concerning both benefits and obstacles related to the adoption of I4.0 paradigm, depending on the technology adoption level.

Research limitations/implications

Future research should focus on developing case studies about pilot I4.0 practitioners in order to understand the root cause of successful cases. Both managerial and practical references should be developed, helping Italian manufacturing enterprises to consolidate and strengthen their position in global competitive market. Finally, it would be interesting to carry out the same study in other countries in order to make comparisons and suitable benchmark analyses.

Originality/value

Despite scholars have debated about the adoption of technologies and the benefits related to the I4.0 paradigm, to the best of authors’ knowledge, only a few empirical surveys have been carried out until now on the adoption level of I4.0 principles in the manufacturing sector of a specific country.

Details

Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, vol. 31 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-038X

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Article
Publication date: 1 March 1993

Ting Zheng and Joyce L. Huang

Reports on the implementation and early stage use of OCLCworkstations at the Library and Learning Resource Centre at theUniversity of Wisconsin. Details many of the difficulties…

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Abstract

Reports on the implementation and early stage use of OCLC workstations at the Library and Learning Resource Centre at the University of Wisconsin. Details many of the difficulties of setting up the system. Outlines some local innovations introduced to facilitate use. Considers the advantages of the network and its costs.

Details

OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives, vol. 9 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1065-075X

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Book part
Publication date: 15 July 1991

WEIMING LI

Abstract

Details

Advances in Librarianship
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-12024-615-1

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Article
Publication date: 23 November 2012

Chihli Hung, Chih‐Fong Tsai, Shin‐Yuan Hung and Chang‐Jiang Ku

A grid information retrieval model has benefits for sharing resources and processing mass information, but cannot handle conceptual heterogeneity without integration of semantic…

707

Abstract

Purpose

A grid information retrieval model has benefits for sharing resources and processing mass information, but cannot handle conceptual heterogeneity without integration of semantic information. The purpose of this research is to propose a concept‐based retrieval mechanism to catch the user's query intentions in a grid environment. This research re‐ranks documents over distributed data sources and evaluates performance based on the user judgment and processing time.

Design/methodology/approach

This research uses the ontology lookup service to build the concept set in the ontology and captures the user's query intentions as a means of query expansion for searching. The Globus toolkit is used to implement the grid service. The modification of the collection retrieval inference (CORI) algorithm is used for re‐ranking documents over distributed data sources.

Findings

The experiments demonstrate that this proposed approach successfully describes the user's query intentions evaluated by user judgment. For processing time, building a grid information retrieval model is a suitable strategy for the ontology‐based retrieval model.

Originality/value

Most current semantic grid models focus on construction of the semantic grid, and do not consider re‐ranking search results from distributed data sources. The significance of evaluation from the user's viewpoint is also ignored. This research proposes a method that captures the user's query intentions and re‐ranks documents in a grid based on the CORI algorithm. This proposed ontology‐based retrieval mechanism calculates the global relevance score of all documents in a grid and displays those documents with higher relevance to users.

Details

Online Information Review, vol. 36 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1468-4527

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Article
Publication date: 21 June 2019

Maslina Ahmad, Raja Nur Syazwani Raja Kamaruzaman, Hamdino Hamdan and Hairul Azlan Annuar

In 2011, the Malaysian cabinet approved the policy that all board of directors of companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia should consist of 30 per cent women in decision-making…

898

Abstract

Purpose

In 2011, the Malaysian cabinet approved the policy that all board of directors of companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia should consist of 30 per cent women in decision-making positions by the year 2016. The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between the presence of women on the board and firms’ performance following the introduction of the diversity policy.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis uses the information of the top 200 Malaysian public listed companies for the financial year 2011–2013. The multiple regression analysis is used to estimate the relationship between the firm performance (return on assets (ROA)) as the dependent variable and the independent variables.

Findings

The results show that during the period under study, the proportion of women directors on board is negatively correlated with ROA. This indicates that the firm performance may not be dependent on the number of women directors on board. However, the results of the study also show that the academic backgrounds of the women board members add some value toward generating better firm performance.

Research limitations/implications

A small sample size of only the top 200 public listed companies was utilised. Consequently the outcome may not be generalisable to smaller public companies or private firms. Another limitation is regarding the sample period. Taking only one year before and one year after the policy’s approval may be too short of the period under study and may be too early to study the impact of the policy. Future studies could sample a longer period.

Practical implications

The findings encourage public listed companies to appoint women with the necessary qualities as members of the board and not to simply increase the number of women on boards.

Originality/value

There is a lack of work on studying women’s effectiveness on board in developing countries, whereby previous work and literature review were predominantly based upon the experience of Western economies. This study, thus, contributes to the rising literature on women board member representation based on the firm performance of the top 200 listed companies in Malaysia.

Details

Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences, vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2054-6238

Keywords

Available. Open Access. Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 April 2017

Peiyan Wu, Xiaofang Yao and Shakeel Muhammad

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the female participation in top management team (TMT) and the growth performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs…

5680

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the female participation in top management team (TMT) and the growth performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Chinese economic environment.

Design/methodology/approach

Adopting resource dependence theory, this paper tests the hypotheses using panel data from 469 Chinese-listed SMEs during the period of 2011 to 2013.

Findings

The results show that female participation in TMT significantly promotes the growth performance of SMEs, and there is significantly inverted U-shaped relationship between these two variables.

Originality/value

This paper finds that education level weakens the inverted U-shaped relationship between the female’s participation in TMT and the growth performance of SMEs.

Details

Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, vol. 11 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2071-1395

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Article
Publication date: 2 February 2024

Renming Liu, Abu Bakar Abdul Hamid and Noor Inayah Ya'akub

Cross-border e-commerce live streaming morphs into an epidemic shopping scenario, yet there is a paucity of research on impulse purchasing in this context. The purpose of this…

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Abstract

Purpose

Cross-border e-commerce live streaming morphs into an epidemic shopping scenario, yet there is a paucity of research on impulse purchasing in this context. The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the adoption motivation of cross-border e-commerce live streaming and its influence mechanism on intrinsic response and purchase impulse and to highlight the mediating role of browsing behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the use and gratification lens, a new conceptualization model is established to captivate the theoretical relationships between perceived stimuli, individual attitudes, browsing behavior and impulsive purchases. A questionnaire survey was used to collect cross-sectional data from 427 Malaysian consumers and the estimated framework was validated through AMOS-structural equation modeling technique.

Findings

The findings confirm that perceived interactivity, perceived information usefulness and perceived enjoyment significantly influenced positive attitudes toward live-streaming, which in turn induced impulsive purchases; however, perceived affective gratification did not stimulate positive attitudes. Consumers’ utilitarian browsing had a stronger effect on impulse purchases than hedonic browsing and utilitarian browsing behavior mediated the relationship between positive attitudes and impulse buying; however, hedonic browsing had neither a direct nor a mediating effect on impulsive purchases.

Practical implications

This research enhances the literature on the impact of cross-border e-commerce live streaming, an emerging technology, on consumer behavior and offers managerial implications for e-commerce practitioners to gain insights into consumer impulse purchasing behavior.

Originality/value

The findings revamp conventional knowledge and provide new angles for understanding the formation mechanisms of impulse purchases, motivations for virtual media use and browsing behavior mediating effects in the context of live streaming.

Details

Journal of Systems and Information Technology, vol. 26 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1328-7265

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Article
Publication date: 20 December 2021

Chunyang Wang, Xinghua Zheng, Ting Zhang, Haisheng Chen and Moghtada Mobedi

The purpose of this study is to investigate the applicability of volume average which is extensively used for analyzing the heat and fluid flow (both for single-phase and…

133

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the applicability of volume average which is extensively used for analyzing the heat and fluid flow (both for single-phase and solid/liquid-phase change) in a closed cell porous medium numerically.

Design/methodology/approach

Heat conduction equations for the solid frame and fluid (or phase change material) are solved for pore scale and volume average approaches. The study mainly focuses on the effect of porosity and the number of porous media unit cell on the agreement between the results of the pore scale and volume average approaches.

Findings

It is observed for the lowest porosity values such as 0.3 and the number of porous media unit cell as 4 in heat transfer direction, the results between two approaches may be questionable for the single-phase fluid. By increasing the number of porous media unit cell in heat transfer direction, the agreement between two approaches becomes better. In general, for high porosity values (such as 0.9) the agreement between the results of two approaches is in the acceptable range both for single-phase and solid/liquid-phase change. Two charts on the applicability of volume average method for single-phase and solid/liquid-phase change are presented.

Originality/value

The authors’ literature survey shows that it is the first time the applicability of volume average which is extensively used for analyzing the heat and fluid flow in a closed cell porous medium is investigated numerically.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 32 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

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Article
Publication date: 26 November 2024

Ting He and Kenneth Zheng

This study investigates whether financial analysts process information efficiently when they make cash flow forecasts.

13

Abstract

Purpose

This study investigates whether financial analysts process information efficiently when they make cash flow forecasts.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a sample of 3,967 observations spanning 2004–2016, we perform empirical analyses by regressing actual cash flows on previous cash flow forecasts for the current period and a vector of information variables known to the analysts at the time of the forecasts.

Findings

We find that analysts do not incorporate past stock returns or past cash flow information efficiently when they generate cash flow forecasts. We also find weak evidence that analysts do not incorporate past consensus cash flow forecasts or past accruals information when they generate cash flow forecasts.

Practical implications

Our findings contribute to the analyst forecast efficiency literature and highlight the difference between analyst cash flow forecast efficiency and earnings forecast efficiency.

Originality/value

While extant research on whether analysts use publicly available information efficiently when generating earnings forecasts documents mixed findings (e.g. DeBondt and Thaler, 1990; Abarbanell and Bernard, 1992; Basu and Markov, 2004; Evans et al., 2017), our results regarding analysts’ cash flow forecast efficiency are unambiguous.

Details

International Journal of Managerial Finance, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1743-9132

Keywords

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