Chiao‐Chen Chang, Chia‐Yen Lin, Yu‐Chin Chen and Yang‐Chieh Chin
The purpose of this paper is to examine and predict users' information‐seeking intention regarding academic digital library services, using the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine and predict users' information‐seeking intention regarding academic digital library services, using the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB).
Design/methodology/approach
Data are collected from 224 Taiwanese undergraduate and graduate students to assess the influence of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on the intention to seek information in an academic digital library. The results of structural equation model‐fitting analyses show that the TPB is better than the TRA in predicting the information‐seeking intention in an academic digital library.
Findings
Specially, the empirical results indicated that perceived behavioral control is a better predictor of behavioral intention than is attitude or subjective norm.
Research limitations/implications
This paper assessed self‐reported information‐seeking intention as part of the survey and, as a result, could have introduced inaccuracies.
Practical implications
The findings of the paper will help academic digital libraries to address the key factor which influences users' intention to seek information and to intensify their performance to meet user needs.
Originality/value
Although the nature of the user experience in the digital environment appears to be quite different from the experience of looking through archival boxes or folders, research on the use of academic digital library services is scarce – particularly regarding user intention in the process of seeking information. The TRA and TPB are novel and usable in explaining the intention of online users to seek information, and these findings may be generally applicable to academic digital libraries and users.
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Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan and Arkady Gevorkyan
Derivatives market has been epitomized with gross evil in the wake of the global economic crisis that ensued in 2008. This study argues for more extensive understanding of the…
Abstract
Derivatives market has been epitomized with gross evil in the wake of the global economic crisis that ensued in 2008. This study argues for more extensive understanding of the phenomena as dynamics previously viewed unrelated now exhibit correlation. As empirical reference, this research relies on recent trends in the commodity futures contracts with analytical relation to the currency exchange rate and by extension the financial and real sectors. With varying intensity often speculative sporadic trading in crude oil, coffee, wheat, rice, sugar, and gold benchmark futures may inflict detrimental effects on the global development efforts. The issue is most acute in the emerging markets facing inflation fears, speculative movements of foreign currency-denominated funds, and underlying domestic currency value. This dynamic reasserts the concept of fundamental uncertainty allowing us to connect the typical risk-return stand with a dialectical unity of the financial, real sector, and social costs. Ultimately, issues raised in this study relate to the problems of social stability and sustained economic development in the postcrisis environment given high frequency and volatility of capital flows. As such, this chapter contributes to the literature that bridges financial empirical analysis with modern socially responsible economic development.
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Yu-Chin Huang, Li-Hsin Chen, Cih-Wei Lu and Jui-Lin Shen
Previous empirical studies have not documented the link between vegetarians’ dietary constraints and travel intentions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to utilise a…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous empirical studies have not documented the link between vegetarians’ dietary constraints and travel intentions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to utilise a mixed-methods approach to examine the interrelationships of this group’s travel motivations, travel constraints, constraint negotiations and behavioural intentions, with special reference to how dietary constraints deter its members from travelling, and its extent.
Design/methodology/approach
An online questionnaire was administered to outbound Taiwanese vegetarian travellers (n=418), and this was followed by in-depth, semi-structured interviews (n=9) to complement the quantitative data.
Findings
The results indicated that vegetarians’ dietary constraints significantly deterred them from travelling in certain circumstances: notably, in the company of non-vegetarians. Nevertheless, it was found that some vegetarians efficiently negotiated their constraints and persisted in travelling, in some cases, by compromising their dietary preferences.
Practical implications
Travel agents and planners should explore more strategies to meet the needs of vegetarian travellers to increase this group’s travel satisfaction.
Originality/value
This study established the first theoretical model explaining the relationships among vegetarians’ travel motivations, dietary constraints, constraint negotiations and travel intentions.
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Pei-Ju Wu and Yu-Chin Tai
In the reduction of food waste and the provision of food to the hungry, food banks play critical roles. However, as they are generally run by charitable organisations that are…
Abstract
Purpose
In the reduction of food waste and the provision of food to the hungry, food banks play critical roles. However, as they are generally run by charitable organisations that are chronically short of human and other resources, their inbound logistics efforts commonly experience difficulties in two key areas: 1) how to organise stocks of donated food, and 2) how to assess the donated items quality and fitness for purpose. To address both these problems, the authors aimed to develop a novel artificial intelligence (AI)-based approach to food quality and warehousing management in food banks.
Design/methodology/approach
For diagnosing the quality of donated food items, the authors designed a convolutional neural network (CNN); and to ascertain how best to arrange such items within food banks' available space, reinforcement learning was used.
Findings
Testing of the proposed innovative CNN demonstrated its ability to provide consistent, accurate assessments of the quality of five species of donated fruit. The reinforcement-learning approach, as well as being capable of devising effective storage schemes for donated food, required fewer computational resources that some other approaches that have been proposed.
Research limitations/implications
Viewed through the lens of expectation-confirmation theory, which the authors found useful as a framework for research of this kind, the proposed AI-based inbound-logistics techniques exceeded normal expectations and achieved positive disconfirmation.
Practical implications
As well as enabling machines to learn how inbound logistics are handed by human operators, this pioneering study showed that such machines could achieve excellent performance: i.e., that the consistency provided by AI operations could in future dramatically enhance such logistics' quality, in the specific case of food banks.
Originality/value
This paper’s AI-based inbound-logistics approach differs considerably from others, and was found able to effectively manage both food-quality assessments and food-storage decisions more rapidly than its counterparts.
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Yun-Shan Cheng, Ping-Yu Hsu and Yu-Chin Liu
To retain consumer attention and increase purchasing rates, many e-commerce vendors have adopted content-based recommender systems. However, apart from text-based documents, there…
Abstract
Purpose
To retain consumer attention and increase purchasing rates, many e-commerce vendors have adopted content-based recommender systems. However, apart from text-based documents, there is little theoretical background guiding element selection, resulting in a limited content analysis problem. Another inherent problem is overspecialization. The purpose of this paper is to establish a value-based recommendation methodology for identifying favorable attributes, benefits, and values on the basis of means-end chain theory. The identified elements and the relationships between them were utilized to construct a recommender system without incurring either problem.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted soft laddering and content analysis to collect popular elements. The relationships between the elements were established by using a hard laddering online questionnaire. The elements and the relationships were utilized to build a hierarchical value map (HVM). A mathematical model was then devised on the basis of the HVM to predict user preferences of attributes.
Findings
The results of a performance comparison showed that the proposed method outperformed the content-based attribute recommendation method and a hybrid method by 39 and 68 percent, respectively.
Originality/value
Although hybrid methods have been proposed to resolve the problem of overspecialization in content-based recommender systems, such methods have incurred “cold start” and “sparsity” problems. The proposed method can provide recommendations without causing these problems while outperforming the content-based and hybrid approaches.
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Yu-Chin Jerrie Hsieh, Zui Chih Lee and Ping Yin
The purpose of this study is to delineate the role of wine at hotels from the customer’s perspective by analyzing New York City hotel reviews posted on TripAdvisor.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to delineate the role of wine at hotels from the customer’s perspective by analyzing New York City hotel reviews posted on TripAdvisor.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used content analysis to study 26,831 wine-relevant reviews that had been posted on TripAdvisor’s New York City hotels by April 12, 2018. Two trained coders quantified and tallied the presence of themes based on the pre-established coding scheme.
Findings
Wine was mentioned in the online reviews in expressing positive, negative or neutral hotel experiences. Of the 877,616 New York City hotel reviews, about 3 per cent contained the keyword “wine.” The three most frequently mentioned wine-related positive experiences were free happy hours, a surprise bottle of complimentary wine and the fun of pairing food and wine. The top three wine-related negative experiences were pricey/expensive/overpriced wine, poor wine list and poor quality of wine. The study found that hotel guests liked wine and that it had become a significant aspect of their lodging experience.
Originality/value
This study adds value to the literature of hotel wines by divulging hotel customers’ wine-related experiences through their online comments and by providing a snapshot of hotel guests’ wine-drinking behavior. The findings can provide an insight for hotels to further the use of wine as a means to enhance guest experience and to generate additional revenue.
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Joseph Chwo‐ming Yu, Chin‐Hua Yi, Yu‐Ching Chiao and Yu‐Chen Wei
An investigation into the factors affecting the adaptation of spouses of Taiwan expatriates allowed for their modes of adaptation to be classified into ‘adjustment’, ‘reaction’…
Abstract
An investigation into the factors affecting the adaptation of spouses of Taiwan expatriates allowed for their modes of adaptation to be classified into ‘adjustment’, ‘reaction’ and ‘withdrawal’. Albeit a sample of 15 spouses were interviewed using a semi‐structured questionnaire, the research findings indicate that if an expatriate’s spouse is characterized as having high cultural flexibility, high social orientation, a high degree of willingness to communicate, a high conflict resolution orientation, low ethnocentricity and a high orientation towards knowledge, the overseas adaptation tends to be of the ‘adjustment’ mode. Research propositions based on case findings and relevant literature are derived here for future more in‐depth study.
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Joseph H. Haslag and Yu-Chin Hsu
In this chapter, we examine the relationship between the cyclical components of output, the price level and the inflation rate. During the post-war period, there is a negative…
Abstract
In this chapter, we examine the relationship between the cyclical components of output, the price level and the inflation rate. During the post-war period, there is a negative correlation between output and the price level and a positive correlation between output and the inflation rate. A phase shift in the cyclical component between output and the price level can account for these two facts. The phase shift is consistent with movements in the price level Granger causes movements in output. In addition, we consider time-varying correlations between the two pairs of series. Spectral analysis suggest the price and output have different wavelengths, but the difference is not statistically significant.
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Dek Terrell and Daniel Millimet
The collection of chapters in this 30th volume of Advances in Econometrics provides a well-deserved tribute to Thomas B. Fomby and R. Carter Hill, who have served as editors of…
Abstract
The collection of chapters in this 30th volume of Advances in Econometrics provides a well-deserved tribute to Thomas B. Fomby and R. Carter Hill, who have served as editors of the Advances in Econometrics series for 25 and 21 years, respectively. Volume 30 contains a more varied collection of chapters than previous volumes, in essence mirroring the wide variety of econometric topics covered by the series over 30 years. Volume 30 starts with a chapter discussing the history of this series over the last 30 years. The next five chapters can be broadly categorized as focusing on model specification and testing. Following this section are three contributions that examine instrumental variables models in quite different settings. The next four chapters focus on applied macroeconomics topics. The final chapter offers a practical guide to conducting Monte Carlo simulations.