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Digitally driven virtual streamers are increasingly utilized in live-streaming commerce, possessing distinct advantages compared to human streamers. However, the applicable scenarios of virtual streamers are still unclear. Focusing on product attribute variances, this paper compares the livestreaming effects of virtual and human streamers to clarify the applicable scenarios for each and assist companies in strategically choosing suitable streamers.

We conducted four experiments utilizing both images and video as stimulus materials, and each experiment employed different products. To test the proposed model, a total of 1,068 valid participants were recruited, encompassing a diverse group of individuals, including undergraduates and employed workers.

The results indicate no significant difference between virtual and human streamers in increasing consumers’ purchase intention for utilitarian products. In contrast, human streamers are more effective in enhancing consumer purchase intention for hedonic products, with a mediating role of mental imagery quality. Consumers’ implicit personality variances also influence their willingness to accept virtual streamers.

This paper is the first to compare the effects of virtual and human streamers in promoting different products to enhance our comprehension of virtual streamers. Given the potential risks associated with human streamers, a comprehensive understanding of the role of virtual streamers is imperative for brands when deploying live-streaming commerce activities.

Drawing on the literature of chief technology officer (CTO) and trusting relationship theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of trusting relationship of CTO‐chief executive officer (CEO) on the CTO's participation in technology strategy, based on empirical study of Chinese high‐tech firms, in order to maximize CTO's strategic decision‐making role. Taking into account the weight of power in Chinese culture, this study takes CTO's power distribution as moderator, to study whether it strengthens the impact of trusting relationship of CTO‐CEO on CTO's participation in technology strategy.

CTOs of high‐tech firms from Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shenzhen, Zhejiang and Beijing are taken as samples. A questionnaire survey is conducted by using random sampling method.

The results show that trusting relationships of CTO‐CEO has a significant positive impact on CTO's participation in technology strategy. The two dimensions of trusting relationships of CTO‐CEO, cognitive trust and emotional trust also have a significant positive impact on CTO's participation in technology strategy and each dimension of CTO's power distribution has a significant moderating effect on partial paths.

The results are analyzed from both the data level and theoretical level. Conclusions on the management inspiration of CEO and CTO in high‐tech firms are drawn.

Although the metaverse has gained popularity in recent days, research on metaverse tourism in urban destinations is still lacking. Drawing on existing cases in Chinese urban destinations, this paper aims to provide valuable insights into the development of metaverse tourism in China and provides managerial implications for future urbanmetaverse tourismplayers.

Literature from Chinese and international sources was reviewed to highlight the current status of metaverse tourism in the context of Chinese urban tourism. This paper also draws on information provided by online materials, especially the official websites of tour organizers and news media.

This paper outlines important aspects of metaverse in Chinese urban tourism. First, cities are the hotbeds of metaverse development, and the metaverse has become a new way to attract urban tourists and a significant element in various exhibitions. Second, the combination of metaverse with China’s extensive and profound traditional culture has made urban tourism full of vitality. Third, China’s game companies are progressively empowering the metaverse tourism industry.

This paper contributes to the existing knowledge on metaverse tourism based on the Chinese urban tourism context. Furthermore, it highlights the state of the metaverse in Chinese urban tourism during and after the pandemic situation. Lastly, it provides thoughtful implications for tourism players and future tourism development.

This study explores the effects of different types of technology lock-in on enterprise innovation performance. On this basis, the authors aim to provide technological innovation suggestions for the long-term development of Chinese enterprises.

A total of 211 high-tech enterprises in China were taken as the research sample. Data were collected through questionnaire surveys and secondhand data. Linear and nonlinear regression models were used to test the hypotheses.

Different types of technology lock-in had different effects on enterprise innovation performance. Initiative lock-in and passive lock-in showed an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation performance. Economies of scale were positively correlated with innovation performance, while self-lock-in was negatively correlated with it.

This research can help enterprises reconceptualize technology lock-in. It can also help enterprises in different stages of development carry out targeted technological innovation and management strategies.

This research enriches our understanding of technology lock-in. By breaking with previous conceptualizations of a simple linear relationship between technology lock-in and innovation performance, this study proposes and confirms different technology lock-in has different relationships with enterprise innovation performance. This study is important for enterprises to reassess their technology lock-in state and carry out targeted technological innovation strategies. This research enriches the theory of path dependence and its combination with other theories. And this study also reveals the current research on technology lock-in is insufficient.

This study explored the influence of Dervin’s sensemaking methodology (SMM).

Citation context analysis was used to identify the most influential SMM concepts in 948 articles citing 34 SMM-related studies by Dervin that were published between 1983 and 2017. Moreover, the bibliometric method and content analysis were incorporated to examine the disciplines and research topics influenced by the SMM-related studies and the role of cited content in SMM-related studies.

The influence of SMM is concentrated in information behavior research in the field of library and information science (LIS). The 1992 book chapter From the mind’s eye of the user was most frequently cited, followed by the first SMM study from 1983; 14 of the 18 content categories were relevant to SMM. “Sensemaking,” at the core of SMM, was the most influential cited concept, primarily cited from the 1983 SMM-related study. Although the SMM was developed as a research method, it has not been primarily applied to design research methods in other studies.

This study explored the interdisciplinary influence of Dervin’s SMM from several aspects and demonstrated the complex information dynamics between SMM-related works and citing articles.

With emerging markets representing great growth opportunities and serving as indispensable components in the global supply chain, it is unclear how well modern supply chain management theories developed in advanced markets apply to emerging markets. This study integrates the institution-based view with supply chain management literature to examine how integration capabilities can be leveraged to achieve supply chain agility in emerging markets and how the efficacy of integration capabilities is shaped by internal and external institutional contexts.

This study examines how firms in emerging markets can leverage their platform integration and knowledge integration capabilities with channel distributors to improve the supply chain agility and how such relationships are shaped by both the internal (proxy by ownership structure) and external (proxy by regional openness) institutional contexts in which firms operate. Survey and archival data collected from 207 firms operating in China, one of the largest emerging markets, were used to test the proposed research model.

The results reveal that platform integration and knowledge integration are two driving forces for supply chain agility in the emerging markets. Moreover, the results indicate that state-owned firms are able to achieve higher supply chain agility from their investments in knowledge integration with channel distributors than non-state-owned firms. While firms in regions with a high level of openness enjoy higher supply chain agility from knowledge integration, firms in regions with a low level of openness can catch up by investing in platform integration with their channel distributors.

The authors extend the extant study on supply chain integration (SCI) research to examine how operational and strategic integration with channel distributors can help the focal firm achieve supply chain agility in emerging markets. The study results also enrich the existing studies in emerging markets by revealing the importance of the institutional context in which firms operate on B2B channel management.

Sharing accommodation has lowered the threshold for digital entrepreneurship in the accommodation industry, prompting entrepreneurs to join this industry. However, digital micro-entrepreneurs have been ignored by previous studies. To bridge the gap, this study aims to explore the impact of reputational asset (host popularity) and host’s human capital (entrepreneurial entry speed and managerial seniority) on host expansion grounded on the resource-based theory.

This study obtained crawler data by python from Airbnb.com, locking the time range to the past five years from 2013 to 2018 in Beijing of China. This study finally has 348 hosts’ balanced panel data to estimate the ordinary least squares regression model with fixed-year effect.

Results demonstrate that host popularity has a significant positive effect on host expansion. Furthermore, entrepreneurial entry speed strengthens the positive effect of host popularity on host expansion, whereas managerial seniority weakens the positive effect. The three-way interaction analysis reveals that the positive impact of host popularity on host expansion is strongest when managerial seniority is smaller and entrepreneurial entry speed is faster.

The research has important implications to how the platforms interfere with the implementation of host expansion strategy and adds valuable insights to understand the transformation process of host expansion from nonprofessional to professional.

The research has expanded the literature related to the micro-entrepreneurship of the sharing economy and verified the application of resource-based theory under sharing economy.

This study aims to investigate the tourism stakeholders' opinions about developing smart tourism (ST) in the West Bank, Palestine. This research fulfils intriguing gaps in the literature on stakeholders' perceptions and views on developing ST in the West Bank, Palestine.

The research study employed a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews with nineteen respondents. All data collected were in April and May 2022.

The findings show that the understanding of ST-related stakeholders in the West Bank is mainly linked to information communication and technology, digitalisation, and online use of technology within the tourism industry. Moreover, the results show the high potential of developing the ST industry in the West Bank. However, this study revealed that challenges could affect the West Bank's development at different levels, such as managerial, technological, awareness, public sector restrictions, infrastructural, financial and political challenges.

This research has some shortcomings. The first restriction of this study was the political restrictions and the checkpoints, which limited the reach of some of the participants who reside in Jerusalem or other cities outside of the West Bank, which delayed the time of the interviews or converted it to be done through a digital platform. Secondly, the sample of this study was small in tourism stakeholders in the West Bank.

To the author's knowledge, this paper is the first on ST from the stakeholders' perspectives. Therefore, this study has set the first step in closing the existing gap in the literature.

This study aims to report the development and experimental evaluation of two kinds of PANI@semiconductor based photocathodic anti-corrosion coating, for application on stainless steel substrates.

PANI was in situ chemical polymerized on TiO₂ and BiVO₄ particles, and FT-IR and SEM/EDS were used to understand the characteristics and elemental distribution of the composite particles. Composite coatings, which consisted of epoxy, PANI@TiO₂ or PANI@BiVO₄ and graphene, were prepared on the 304L stainless steel. Photoelectrochemical response measurement, electrochemical tests and immersion tests were used to assess the anti-corrosion performance of the prepared coatings in 45°C 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution. And the corrosion protection mechanism was further explained by combining with surface observation.

The photoelectrochemical response tests revealed the good photocathodic effect of the coatings, and the reversible oxidation-reduction properties of PANI (pseudocapacitive effect) leading to the repeated usage of the coatings. Consequently, the anti-corrosion mechanism of the composite coating is attributed to the physical barrier effect of the coating, the anodic protection effect of PANI and the photocathodic and energy store effect.

These kind coatings could prevent corrosion from day to night for stainless steel, which has great engineering application prospects on stainless steel corrosion protection.