Structuring technological information for technology roadmapping: data mining approach

Most research on technology roadmapping has focused on its practical applications and the development of methods to enhance its operational process. Thus, despite a demand for well-supported, systematic information, little attention has been paid to how/which information can be utilised in technology roadmapping. Therefore, this paper aims at proposing a methodology to structure technological information in order to facilitate the process. To this end, eight methods are suggested to provide useful information for technology roadmapping: summary, information extraction, clustering, mapping, navigation, linking, indicators and comparison. This research identifies the characteristics of significant data that can potentially be used in roadmapping, and presents an approach to extracting important information from such raw data through various data mining techniques including text mining, multi-dimensional scaling and K-means clustering. In addition, this paper explains how this approach can be applied in each step of roadmapping. The proposed approach is applied to develop a roadmap of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to illustrate the process practically.     

Strategic visualisation tools for managing technological information

In an information economy, the effective management of a massive amount of technological information is inevitable when attempting to facilitate the decision-making process. It is an important part of selecting R&D projects and allocating budgets to promising technology development. Information visualisation is thus regarded as a critical tool in technological information management because it can provide decisive implications that the intelligence of humans cannot produce. This paper proposes six graphical forms, including a technology tree, a technology map, a technology network, a technology matrix, a technology curve, and a technology dictionary, presenting the generic form and concept of each method. Moreover, the principles and applications of such visualisation tools are suggested in order to enhance their use in practical circumstances. A case study of TFT-LCD (thin film transistor-liquid crystal display) technology will help to explain how to apply visualisation tools to strategic technology management.     

Developing the Causal Model of Online Store Success

This article introduces an Online Store Success Model (OSM) that reflects the characteristics of information systems, marketing, and e-commerce, and then empirically test the model. The OSM has five dimensions: system quality, information quality, service quality, trust, and customer loyalty. The model posits the causal relationships between the dimensions. In order to empirically test the model, a research model is developed and empirically analyzed by structural equation modeling using data from 244 customers on 69 online store websites. The results show that system quality significantly influences service quality and trust; information quality significantly influences service quality and customer loyalty; service quality also significantly influences trust and customer loyalty; and trust has a significant influence on customer loyalty.     

Unsolicited Versus Solicited: Credit Ratings and Bond Yields

This paper is the first attempt to analyze Standard & Poor’s unsolicited and solicited ratings by using bond-yield data in Japan. Our findings show that there are differences in firm characteristics between firms seeking solicited ratings and those that receive unsolicited ratings. Firms with solicited ratings have less information asymmetry and are more likely to be owned by foreign investors, generate more revenue from exports, be cross-listed in the US, and have higher firm quality. But, firms with unsolicited ratings pay higher costs for debt, and their bond prices react more strongly to credit-rating changes. Yield spreads for new bonds with unsolicited ratings are higher than those with solicited ratings, because unsolicited ratings have higher information asymmetry, and investors therefore demand higher yields. We find that bond-price reactions to the announcements of unsolicited rating downgrades (upgrades) are negative (positive) and significant, while bond prices do not react significantly to solicited rating downgrades or upgrades.     

Assessing the Efficiency of Risk Mitigation Strategies in Supply Chains

Mitigating supply chain risk is a critical component of a company's overall risk management strategy. Drawing upon Contingency Theory, we posit that the appropriateness and effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies are contingent on the internal and external environments and that there is no one‐size‐fits‐all strategy. While literature on risk management has proposed a variety of tools and techniques for effectively evaluating and managing supply chain risks, comprehensive assessment of the efficiencies of alternative risk mitigation strategies has not been addressed in the literature. Such an assessment will help managers select the appropriate mitigation strategy for a given decision‐making environment. To this end, this study is first of its kind in evaluating and proposing efficient supply chain risk mitigation strategies in the presence of a variety of risk categories, risk sources, and supply chain configurations. We combine an empirically grounded simulation methodology with data envelopment analysis and nonparametric statistical methods to analyze and rank alternative mitigation strategies. We find that the more efficient strategies focus on flexibility rather than on redundancy for supply chain failures. Our research presents several interesting and useful managerial insights for deciding what strategies are most capable of mitigating risks in a variety of contexts.     

Human Resource Management Practices and Trust in Public Organizations

Abstract

Trust has been acknowledged as a valuable managerial resource within organizations. Working as a lubricant of organizational functioning, trust reduces opportunistic behaviours while it increases voluntary compliance to organizational norms and rules as well as enhancing individual and organizational performance. Considering the importance of trust, it is worthwhile to explore what factors may help build trust within organizations. This research investigates whether perceptions of several human resource management (HRM) practices are associated with trust in government organizations. According to social exchange theory, HRM practices signal management's commitment to employees which in turn leads to greater trust in the organization. Using data from an employee survey conducted for the Georgia Department of Transportation in 2007, this research tests how employee perceptions of HRM practices are related to trust in three distinct levels of management in a large department of state government: trust in department leadership, trust in one's leadership team, and trust in one's supervisor. Binary logit analyses suggest that perceptions of HRM practices focusing on autonomy, compensation, communication, performance appraisal, and career development are associated with trust in public organizations. According to the result, those practices present variation in their leverage on trust in leadership at different levels.     

The Post‐Mao economic reform in China: A Korean view

Abstract

Previous studies that were concerned with the impact of depreciation of the ringgit on the Malaysian trade balance employed data either between Malaysia and rest of the world or between Malaysia and each of her major trading partners. Specifically, the bilateral trade balance between Malaysia and the US is shown to be insensitive to the real bilateral ringgit–dollar rate. In this article we wonder if disaggregating trade flows between Malaysia and the US by commodity could help us to discover any significant effects that the real exchange rate could have. We consider 101 industries that export from US to Malaysia and 17 industries that import from Malaysia. While majority of the industries showed short-run sensitivity to the real bilateral exchange rate, short-run effects lasted into the long run almost in half of the industries in both group.     

Ethical Commitment,Financial Performance,and Valuation: An Empirical Investigation of Korean Companies

A variety of stakeholders including investors, corporate managers, customers, suppliers, employees, researchers, and government policy makers have long been interested in the relationship between the financial performance of a corporation and its commitment to business ethics. As a subject of research, the relations between business ethics and corporate valuation has yet to be thoroughly quantified and investigated. This article is an effort to amend this inadequacy by demonstrating a statistically significant association between ethical commitment and corporate valuation measures. Consistent with anecdotal evidence, we have found a significant association between the ethical commitment of Korean companies and their valuation on the Korean stock market. However, the result reveals that the association between ethical commitment and financial performance is not significantly supported. Tae Hee Choi received Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, Ohio, USA. Presently working as Assistant Professor in accounting at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. Research interests are business ethics, capital market, financial accounting, managerial accounting, and valuation. Jinchul Jung received Ph.D. from Kent State University, Ohio, USA. Presently working as Assistant Professor of Business Administration Department in the College of Business at Chosun University. Research interests are business ethics, family-supportive program, and organizational commitment.     

Sketching: Friend or Foe to the Novice Designer?

Previous research by one of the authors showed that novice designers do not use sketching as a way to generate, develop and communicate design proposals, but move immediately to three-dimensional modelling. Neither do they generate multiple solutions.     

Identifying changes and trends in Hong Kong outbound tourism

Despite the numerous research endeavors aimed at investigating tourists’ preferences and motivations, it remains very difficult for practitioners to utilize the results of traditional association rule mining methods in tourism management. This research presents a new approach that extends the capability of the association rules technique to contrast targeted association rules with the aim of capturing the changes and trends in outbound tourism. Using datasets collected from five large-scale domestic tourism surveys of Hong Kong residents on outbound pleasure travel, both positive and negative contrasts are identified, thus enabling practitioners and policymakers to make appropriate decisions and develop more appropriate tourism products.