Dianwen Wang, Yupeng Mou, Zhihua Ding and Xuehui Jiang
Crowdsourcing refers to a new business model in which enterprises or individuals publish tasks or problems, attracting freelancers or contributors to participate in solving tasks…
Abstract
Purpose
Crowdsourcing refers to a new business model in which enterprises or individuals publish tasks or problems, attracting freelancers or contributors to participate in solving tasks, submitting bids and allowing task seekers to choose the final solution. How to attract more quantity and quality of contributors to submit their solutions through a crowdsourcing platform has become a vital question.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors use web crawling to obtain 43,265 effective tasks in EPWK website (www.epwk.com) to probe how to elevate the quantity and quality of contributors via task reward design. This study uses the hierarchical linear model to probe the research questions.
Findings
Results show that, with the increase of task reward, the quantity of contributors goes up first and then goes down (inverted U shape), whereas the quality of contributors goes down first and then goes up (U sharp). Moreover, the authors investigate the moderating effects of another task design attribute, task duration. This study finds that task duration weakens the effect of task reward on the quantity of contributors while strengthening the effects of task reward on the quality of contributors.
Originality/value
First, this study theoretically probes two key aspects of task performance, namely, the quantity and quality of contributors, which expand the scope of task performance evaluation. Second, this study reconciles previous concern about the relationship of task reward and performance, which is different from previous studies that have paid more attention to the single perspective of their relationship. Finally, the authors investigate the moderating effects of task duration, which further uncover the mechanism behind task reward and performance, that is, the quantity and quality of task contributors.
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Shoufu Xu, Xuehui He and Longbing Xu
The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of equity market valuation and government intervention on the research and development (R&D) investments of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of equity market valuation and government intervention on the research and development (R&D) investments of listed companies in China and their relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a manually collected R&D database in the period 2007–2015, this paper constructs a sample of 6,595 firm–year observations and applies the methods of pooled OLS regressions to examine the effects of market valuation and government intervention on corporate R&D expenditures.
Findings
This paper finds that market valuation enhances corporate R&D investments, but there is no evidence that government intervention may significantly affect the R&D investments. Government intervention also decreases the sensitivity of corporate R&D investment to stock price, which implies that government intervention weakens the promotion of market mechanism to corporate R&D investment. Furthermore, these effects are stronger in the non-state-owned firms and the non-regulated industries.
Practical implications
This study suggests that the functional borders of markets and government should be reasonably defined and markets play a decisive role in resource allocation to improve corporate innovation and national innovation.
Originality/value
This paper provides a micro view of the relationship between market and government at the stage of transitional economy in China as well as directions for further research on the relationship between stock prices and corporate investments.
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Lily (Xuehui) Gao, Iguácel Melero-Polo, Miguel Á. Ruz-Mendoza and Andreea Trifu
The purpose of this study is to examine how and to what extent customer-provider service touchpoints impact business customer perceptions and outcomes in the context of long-term…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how and to what extent customer-provider service touchpoints impact business customer perceptions and outcomes in the context of long-term business-to-business (B2B) service relationships. To this end, the authors will assess the chain of effect path for different service touchpoints between business customers and service providers – and the long-term impact both on customer perceptions and financial, behavioral and relational outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Enabled by a five-year panel data set, seemingly unrelated regression model methodology is applied to test the proposed conceptual framework. Data are obtained for a sample of 2,175 B2B insurance service companies between 2013 and 2017.
Findings
Study results shed light on the significance of the sales force in B2B settings, as one of several key service touchpoints – together with firm expertise, service reliability and excellence – driving robust relationships, profitability and cross-buying. Firm-initiated contacts and tangible touchpoints are proven to be ineffective – even damaging in some instances – in terms of driving business customer perceptions.
Originality/value
The paper delivers empirical evidence providing insight on how service touchpoints and business customer perceptions have a long-term impact on customer outcomes. This has yet to be addressed in B2B service settings – despite being of vital interest to marketers, as the longitudinal approach of the research aids service firms in gaining a better understanding of company-customer touchpoints and the extent to which different factors have a decisive, lasting impact on B2B customer outcomes.
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The study of the history of Chinese science has attracted further attention over the past 50 years, with an increasing number of scholars, influenced by Joseph Needham and his…
Abstract
The study of the history of Chinese science has attracted further attention over the past 50 years, with an increasing number of scholars, influenced by Joseph Needham and his project “Science and Civilization in China”, developing ideas in this field. There are a range of Web sites which have been produced and are available to the scholar of the history of Chinese science, and some of these are collected together and evaluated in this article.
Management is a “hot field” in China, yet little has been written in English about the history of management in China. Contrary to contemporary management literature, the paper…
Abstract
Purpose
Management is a “hot field” in China, yet little has been written in English about the history of management in China. Contrary to contemporary management literature, the paper aims to show that Chinese entrepreneurs and managers were exposed to modern management ideas from the early twentieth century. The paper is an initial exploration of the transfer of managerial knowledge to China, especially Scientific Management, during the interwar period.
Design/methodology/approach
Draws on Chinese journal articles and books from 1910‐1930s, supplemented with archive materials and secondary sources in Chinese and English.
Findings
Chinese industrialists, officials and academics were attracted to Taylor's ideas of scientific management during the 1920s and 1930s, which were experimented with on a wider scale than is commonly realized. The interest in “new” management extended beyond industrialists and industry officials to reportage in the popular press.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should consider first how new ideas about management and organization were implemented on the shopfloor in individual Chinese enterprises, and second examine the role of social networks constituted by native place, industry ties and professional association membership in the diffusion of managerial ideas among the Chinese business elite of the period.
Originality/value
The paper shows that the transfer to China of modern management as an ideas system was not a recent phenomenon, but part of a century‐long process of transfer and adaptation of western management theory and practice.
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This study aims to examine the problems encountered during the establishment of the Central Police Academy (CPA) under the Nationalist regime from 1936 to 1949. While the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the problems encountered during the establishment of the Central Police Academy (CPA) under the Nationalist regime from 1936 to 1949. While the authoritarian party-state unified the police academies by forceful means, this catalyzed the cleavage between the schools of police studies and resulted in power struggles over police education, intellectual thought, collectivity and even the national reform of police administration. More than narrating the progress of power consolidation, this study attempts to identify the problems underlying the factional strife and to reveal the interwoven pattern of these power struggles, exploring the confusion regarding what the police is, a question that troubled Chinese policemen from the mainland to Taiwan.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper explains the emergence of the factional strife from the beginning of the preliminary growth of the Police Academies in Nanking and Chekiang. It widely makes use of the official archives from Japan Center for Asian Historical Records and Historica Academia to show the dynamic situation in police education and administration. Rather, the official publications of the Police Academies and their affiliated associations reveal the hidden political agenda behind a unified framework as the party-state claimed. Moreover, official gazettes, memorials and newspapers are also used to strengthen the core argument of this study.
Findings
This paper examines the impact of the factional strife between the police leaders Dai Li and Li Shizhen on the CPA from 1936 to 1949. It illustrates that the establishment of the CPA ostensibly unified the nationwide police force but triggered power struggles over the control of the police administration. More importantly, it also shows how the factions strove for larger shares of power under the supreme doctrines that Chiang Kai-shek and the party-state imposed.
Originality/value
The failure of police education to become powerful was a special case among other more typical institutions. The governors coercively merged the police academies and created robust conditions for growth under the shelter of state authority. The police force did not follow the same path of national monopoly as what recent studies found but drifted apart with its vested interests and incompatible beliefs. Hence, the greater the demand for centralized control by the state, the greater the tension of the factional strife.
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Hai-xi Jiang and Nan-ping Jiang
A more accurate comprehension of data elements and the exploration of new laws governing contemporary data in both theoretical and practical domains…
Abstract
Purpose
A more accurate comprehension of data elements and the exploration of new laws governing contemporary data in both theoretical and practical domains constitute a significant research topic.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the perspective of evolutionary economics, this paper re-examines economic history and existing literature to study the following: changes in the “connotation of production factors” in economics caused by the evolution of production factors; the economic paradoxes formed by data in the context of social production processes and business models, which traditional theoretical frameworks fail to solve; the disruptive innovation of classical theory of value by multiple theories of value determination and the conflicts between the data market monopoly as well as the resulting distribution of value and the real economic society. The research indicates that contemporary advancements in data have catalyzed transformative innovation within the field of economics.
Findings
The research indicates that contemporary advancements in data have catalyzed disruptive innovation in the field of economics.
Originality/value
This paper, grounded in academic research, identifies four novel issues arising from contemporary data that cannot be adequately addressed within the confines of the classical economic theoretical framework.
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Thamaraiselvan Natarajan and Deepak Ramanan V
Building on Stimulus Organism Response theory, the current study examines the influence of Integrated store service quality (ISSQ) on the omnichannel customer experience…
Abstract
Purpose
Building on Stimulus Organism Response theory, the current study examines the influence of Integrated store service quality (ISSQ) on the omnichannel customer experience dimensions (Cognitive, Affective and Relational), subsequently leading to their psychological ownership of the store, which eventually explains their Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing behaviors. The moderating role of omnichannel shopper perceived relationship investment in a few proposed relationships was tested.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is a descriptive, quantitative and cross-sectional investigation. A purposive sampling technique was used. It was conducted using data collected from 554 Indian omnichannel shoppers using a validated self-administered questionnaire. The proposed conceptual model was tested using PLS-SEM.
Findings
The results indicate that ISSQ positively impacts all three dimensions of omnichannel customer experience (cognitive, affective and relational). All three dimensions directly affect psychological ownership, eventually impacting their (Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing) engagement behaviors. The moderating effect of the omnichannel shopper, perceived relationship investment, revealed that it had a significant positive impact on the relationship between dimensions of omnichannel customer experience and psychological ownership of shoppers towards the store, which eventually fosters the customer–retailer value co-creation like engagement behaviors.
Research limitations/implications
The study is conducted in the Indian population, where omnichannel retailing is still nascent.
Originality/value
This study addresses the need to investigate other dimensions (apart from cognitive and affective) of the omnichannel customer experience that might eventually influence various service firms' customer engagement behaviors. This study is the first to show that integrated store service quality might stimulate (Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing) engagement behaviors through customer experience dimensions and the customer's sense of belongingness to the store. The moderating role of omnichannel shoppers' perceived relationship investment in a few proposed relationships was tested.
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The cities, for the most part, appeared up until the middle of the 1990s to be islands within the larger Chinese political economy in which job-secure workers could be certain…
Abstract
The cities, for the most part, appeared up until the middle of the 1990s to be islands within the larger Chinese political economy in which job-secure workers could be certain that their livelihood, health, education, and living abodes would evermore undergird their and their children's sustenance. At least until the late 1980s, urbanites who stuck with the state sector even considered good treatment on the job a kind of birthright, an entitlement that was sure to be enforced. In the cities, true, there had always been the disadvantaged after 1949 – those without offspring or spouses, the disabled, and people unable to support themselves. But this relatively tiny batch of individuals generally survived in the shadows and out of sight, subsisting – but just barely – as members of the “three withouts” on a mere pittance, in the form of meager “social relief” disbursed by civil affairs departments.8