Assessing customer passion,commitment, and word-of-mouth intentions in digital assistant usage: The moderating role of technology anxiety

Consumers develop a passion for the use of innovations, which is a critical determinant of their success. Research has largely examined drivers of initial acceptance of digital assistants (DAs) and has yet to fully understand the factors driving or deterring consumers’ passion towards DAs and the behavioural outcomes. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response framework, this study examines a unique set of factors (usefulness, ease of use, privacy concern, and localisation) that act as stimuli to drive an organismic state of passion for DAs, and how this produces behavioural responses of word-of-mouth (WOM) intention and commitment to DA use. The study also examines how technology anxiety moderates passion’s impact on WOM intentions and commitment. The findings show that usefulness, ease of use, privacy concern, and localisation are significant explanatory variables of consumers’ passion towards DAs. Furthermore, passion towards DAs results in WOM intentions and commitment to its use. The findings further show that passion’s effect on DAs in explaining WOM intentions and commitment is weakened by technology anxiety. Lastly, passion is the mediating mechanism through which usefulness, ease of use, privacy concern, and localisation impact WOM intentions and commitment. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are highlighted.     

Career mentoring in context: A multilevel study on differentiated career mentoring and career mentoring climate

This study explores how supervisor career mentoring contributes to contemporary organizational career development, which strives to foster employees' promotability while strengthening their intention to stay. Specifically, we focus on the implications of career mentoring in team contexts. Applying a multilevel framework, we distinguish between individual‐level differentiated mentoring (i.e., an employee's mentoring perceptions as compared to those of other team members) and group‐level career mentoring climate (i.e., the average perception across all group members). In a workplace setting, we collected data from vocational job starters (N ranged from 230 to 290) and their company supervisors (N ranged from 56 to 68). We find that career mentoring climate positively relates to promotability, more so than differentiated career mentoring. Both career mentoring climate and differentiated career mentoring are positively related to the intention to stay. At the individual level, this relationship is mediated by job satisfaction. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of differentiated and group‐level mentoring.     

组织场域视角下水利水电工程BIM技术扩散的影响因素 ——基于TOE框架的分析

在梳理国内外BIM采纳与扩散相关研究的基础上，从新制度主义理论出发，提出了水利水电工程组织场域并分析了其特征；进而运用技术-组织-环境(TOE)框架和匹配理论，分别讨论了水利水电工程组织场域BIM扩散的主要影响因素，形成一个整体的理论分析框架。分析表明，水利水电工程组织场域BIM扩散的影响因素主要包括:相对优势、兼容性和复杂性等技术因素，组织沟通、资源就绪度和高层领导支持等组织因素，以及制度环境、市场环境等环境因素。     

New development: Fiscal reform in South Korea: looking back and moving forward

ABSTRACT

At first glance, it seems that South Korea’s three fiscal systems (mid-term expenditure framework, top-down budgeting, and performance management) function well. However, each fiscal system operates separately and they are inefficient because they follow past practices. This article explains what the problems are and how to overcome them.     

Corporate social responsibility in emerging economies: Investigating firm behavior in the Indian context

Scholars have questioned the appropriateness of using a western‐centric framework to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) in emerging economies. This study assesses the appropriateness of using such a framework in one emerging economy—India. More specifically, the drivers of CSR and their impact on firm‐level CSR activity in the Indian context are investigated and compared with those in developed economies. Content analysis of 369 CSR policy statements of publicly traded Indian firms revealed the factors that drive CSR activities of Indian firms are similar to those found in developed economies. However, the ways firms respond to the drivers of CSR are surprisingly different in the Indian context, and these differences can be traced to attributes of the Indian socio‐cultural context. Implications and recommendations for future research conducted in India, and in other emerging economies, are offered.     

Terminator or accelerator? Lessons from the peer-to-peer accommodation hosts in China in responses to COVID-19

This study investigates how peer-to-peer accommodation (P2PA) hosts in China have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. A multi-case study approach was adopted to depict the decision-making logic of three different types of hosts—speculators, diplomats, and entrepreneurs—based on an awareness-motivation-capability (AMC) framework under COVID-19. The findings highlight the role of owner motivation (profit/sharing/entrepreneurial-driven) and capabilities, such as having a unique value proposition and linkages with other hospitality experience, under COVID-19. Meanwhile, the platform collaboration capability failed to support survival during the pandemic. Moreover, the current study indicated that, after the COVID-19, entrepreneurs will continue to innovate, diplomats’ operations will remain unchanged and speculators will quit hosting. Hence, COVID-19 is an accelerator of P2P industry that reserving the hosts who embrace the original features of the P2PA sector, e.g. sharing and a focus on the experience, and eliminating the hosts who have diluted the uniqueness of the sector.     

An agile marketing capability maturity framework

This work proposes a four-stage maturity framework for the development of an agile marketing capability (AMC) in the context of MICE tourism. Through an inductive study based on 16 semi-structured interviews with CEOs and managers, we provide a snapshot of organizations at varying levels of maturity in the management and development of AMC based on the degree of “sophistication” undertaken in approximately four dimensions (customer-oriented responsiveness, high flexibility, human collaboration, quick and continuous improvement). Recommendations to further enrich the debate toward this novel line of inquiry are presented. This study also has important implications for managers, offering a useful tool to assess and improve their marketing efforts to develop AMC and achieve greater abilities to adapt to dynamic and fast-changing environments.     

What cloud interoperability connotates for EU policy making: Recurrence of old problems or new ones looming on the horizon?

One of the key factors for a thriving cloud computing market is the ‘interoperability’ between the relevant hardware and software that govern the cloud services. While a complete interoperability means different cloud users being able to exchange the management tools, server images and other software, this is infrequently realised because users are locked into (proprietary) cloud ecosystems. This (problem of vendor lock-in) is potentially accompanied with another problem revolving around the content delivery networks being integrated with the distinct clouds along with possible harms to media pluralism as well as interoperability. In view of these concerns, this study focuses on competition law, standardisation and regulatory policies, and elaborates on to what extent cloud interoperability needs to be secured under EU legal fora. Overall, it is found that vendor lock-in might be attended by ‘coupling’ and complex ‘layering’ strategies, whereas efficiency and/or security based justifications would arise as the counter-balancing reasons. Based on the findings, the study concludes that while focusing on the vertical (i.e., vendor lock-in) concerns, a comprehensive viewpoint needs to be upheld, allowing efficiencies (i.e., proprietary enhancements) based on the architectural design and innovations, obviating narrowly-fashioned (i.e., foreclosure-based) interventions such as in Microsoft case. It is also underlined that cloud interoperability has a content dimension that would require a broader perspective, extending to horizontal concerns and requirements within the context of EU policy making strategies.     

The use–make framework and the derivation of functional forms in production theory

The use–make framework is employed to explain functional forms in production theory, including Cobb–Douglas and Leontief. Productivity and efficiency are interrelated by augmenting the framework with a linear program that determines the frontier output.