Visual complexity of eco-labels and product evaluations in online setting: Is simple always better?

Noticeable and comprehensible eco-labels are needed to promote sustainable products. So far, researchers have mostly studied consumers' evaluations of eco-labels, without analyzing eco-label's visual complexity. Through two experimental studies this paper proposes that consumers' evaluations of sustainable products increase when zoom-in feature provided in online stores, and they are labelled through eco-labels that have high design and low feature complexity due to increased perceptual fluency. The findings demonstrate that while design complexity increases consumer product evaluations due to increased perceptual fluency, feature complexity increases - instead of decreases – consumers' evaluations due to conceptual – and not perceptual – fluency. Consequently, it is advised to design and adapt eco-labels easy-to-understand, visually eye-catching and highly visible (i.e., in large size) to enhance ease of processing and increase product evaluations.     

中国对RCEP国家的直接投资与出口技术复杂度

RCEP的签订为中国对外开放带来新契机。双循环新发展格局背景下,如何调整中国对RCEP国家的贸易和投资策略成为值得研究的议题。使用2004—2018年中国对RCEP国家的直接投资和出口数据,构建出口技术复杂度指标,实证分析直接投资和出口技术复杂度的关系。结果发现:中国对RCEP国家的直接投资能够提升中国对东道国的出口产品技术水平,当东道国为中低收入国家时,这一作用更为显著。基于此,中国应优化对RCEP国家直接投资的布局和结构,完善中资企业海外投资和经营规制,扩大与RCEP国家在新基建领域的合作,实现对外直接投资与出口高质量发展。     

Linking transformational leadership and employee creativity in the hospitality industry: The influences of creative role identity,creative self-efficacy,and job complexity

Integrating transformational leadership, creativity and social cognitive theories, we explore the relationships among transformational leadership, creative role identity, creative self-efficacy, job complexity and creativity. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with bootstrapping estimation was conducted using data from 395 supervisor–employee dyads from international tourist hotels in Taiwan. The results show that supervisors' transformational leadership positively influenced employee creative self-efficacy and creativity. Moreover, creative role identity was found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative self-efficacy, while both creative role identity and creative self-efficacy were found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Specifically, job complexity was found to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative role identity, the relationship between employee creative role identity and creative self-efficacy, and the relationship between employee creative self-efficacy and creativity. We discuss the implications of these results for research and practice in hospitality context.     

The Complementary Relationship Between Institutional and Complexity Economics: The Example of Deep Mechanismic Explanations

Analyzing economic systems from an evolutionary-institutional or a complexity perspective are two complementary approaches to economic inquiry. I discuss three arguments in favor of this hypothesis: (i) eminent institutional economists have examined the economy as what today could be considered a complex system; (ii) complexity economists lack meta-theoretical foundations which could be provided by institutionalist theory; and (iii) institutional economists could benefit from using methods of complexity economics. In this context, I argue that scholars considering the economy to be complex should seek to explain it by discovering social mechanisms instead of focusing on prediction. In order to distinguish between alternative explanations, scholars should refer to the deepness of an explanation, rather than to Occam’s razor.     

游戏化教学法在高职程序设计课程中的应用探索

为了更好地指引高职计算机专业学生进行计算机课程的学习,利用游戏化教学法,构建了高职院校计算机专业程序设计课程教学的学习模型。通过实践教学,发现该教学方法具有提高学生认知性、学习效果、学习成绩等教学效果。     

Managing Risks in Complex Projects

Dealing effectively with risks in complex projects is difficult and requires management interventions that go beyond simple analytical approaches. This is one finding of a major field study into risk management practices and business processes of 35 major product developments in 17 high‐technology companies. Almost one‐half of the contingencies that occur are not being detected before they impact project performance. Yet, the risk‐impact model presented in this article shows that risk does not affect all projects equally but depends on the effectiveness of collective managerial actions dealing with specific contingencies. The results of this study discuss why some organizations are more successful in detecting risks early in the project life cycle, and in decoupling risk factors from work processes before they impact project performance. The field data suggest that effective project risk management involves an intricately linked set of variables, related to work process, organizational environment, and people. Some of the best success scenarios point to the critical importance of recognizing and dealing with risks early in their development. This requires broad involvement and collaboration across all segments of the project team and its environment, and sophisticated methods for assessing feasibilities and usability early and frequently during the project life cycle. Specific managerial actions, organizational conditions, and work processes are suggested for fostering a project environment most conducive to effective cross‐functional communication and collaboration among all stakeholders, a condition important to early risk detection and effective risk management in complex project situations.     

基于计算实验的工程承发包模式选择机理分析

工程承发包模式是工程建设管理的重要组织方式，工程能否进行有效的目标控制及组织协调主要取决于承发包模式的选择。论文运用Multi-Agent方法建立了承发包模式选择的计算实验模型，通过具体数值算例分别分析了工程复杂度、业主能力及承包商水平对工程承发包模式选择路径的影响。研究结果表明：在工程复杂度越高、业主能力越弱情景下，业主选择DB模式的偏好就越大；提升承包商水平和培育有序的DB建设市场环境是提高业主选择DB模式偏好的重要途径。研究结论为业主的承发包模式选择、行业政策制订提供了参考依据。     

An analysis of information overload with implications for survey design research

Abstract

A laboratory‐type experiment was conducted to examine potential information overload causes and solutions. It was found that both information quantity and information complexity are potential causes of information overload. The experiment results also suggested that information overload problems may be reduced through carefully designed information display patterns. When designing survey questionnaires, attention must be given to potential causes of information overload. Methods of presenting information that ameliorate information overload must also be considered. As demonstrated in this study, survey designs can be tested in controlled, laboratory‐type experiments. The results of these experiments can then be used to improve the design of field survey questionnaires.     

Systems science serves enterprise integration: a tutorial

Enterprise integration is a major global challenge of these times. It is now possible for a new generation of practitioners to engage this challenge selectively by applying a recently articulated version of systems science (WSS). This tutorial paper argues that a half-century of disarray of the systems field can be seen as ending; and that the distillation of WSS to support a wide variety of application areas (in this instance, enterprise integration) can occupy practitioners as they harness the work program of complexity (WPOC) selectively. Carrying out the WPOC yields predictable portfolio components, consisting of a well-defined mix of tangible and intangible products. The three causes of poor intellectual productivity identified by Kenneth Boulding are nullified when appropriate role matching is achieved between WSS and enterprise integration.     

A supportive architecture for CFD-based design optimisation

Multi-disciplinary design optimisation (MDO) is one of critical methodologies to the implementation of enterprise systems (ES). MDO requiring the analysis of fluid dynamics raises a special challenge due to its extremely intensive computation. The rapid development of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) technique has caused a rise of its applications in various fields. Especially for the exterior designs of vehicles, CFD has become one of the three main design tools comparable to analytical approaches and wind tunnel experiments. CFD-based design optimisation is an effective way to achieve the desired performance under the given constraints. However, due to the complexity of CFD, integrating with CFD analysis in an intelligent optimisation algorithm is not straightforward. It is a challenge to solve a CFD-based design problem, which is usually with high dimensions, and multiple objectives and constraints. It is desirable to have an integrated architecture for CFD-based design optimisation. However, our review on existing works has found that very few researchers have studied on the assistive tools to facilitate CFD-based design optimisation. In the paper, a multi-layer architecture and a general procedure are proposed to integrate different CFD toolsets with intelligent optimisation algorithms, parallel computing technique and other techniques for efficient computation. In the proposed architecture, the integration is performed either at the code level or data level to fully utilise the capabilities of different assistive tools. Two intelligent algorithms are developed and embedded with parallel computing. These algorithms, together with the supportive architecture, lay a solid foundation for various applications of CFD-based design optimisation. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed architecture and algorithms, the case studies on aerodynamic shape design of a hypersonic cruising vehicle are provided, and the result has shown that the proposed architecture and developed algorithms have performed successfully and efficiently in dealing with the design optimisation with over 200 design variables.