Modeling Educational Quality and Student Loyalty: A Quantitative Approach Based on the Theory of Information Cascades

Customer loyalty is widely accepted as a critical factor in the long-term success of a service organization. This study develops a model of information cascades-based student loyalty (ICSL) by embedding information cascades in the context of educational services with insight from more traditional educational research. In the ICSL model, student loyalty is influenced directly by the perceived quality of teaching services (QTS), the perceived signal of retention (PSR), and the perceived quality of administrative services (QAS), while also being influenced indirectly by QTS, QAS, and perceived others’ retention via the mediation of PSR. This study tests the ICSL model using the structural equation modeling approach, implementing empirical data from a survey done on a large private university in Taiwan. The test results reveal that PSR is significantly influenced by QTS, QAS, and perceived others’ retention. Accordingly, the influence of QAS on student loyalty is insignificant, while the influences of QTS and PSR on student loyalty are conversely significant. Finally, implications are also discussed.     

A qualitative integration of self-determination theory and expectation-confirmation theory using physical education as an example

This study proposes a conceptual model based on both self-determination theory (SDT) and expectation-confirmation theory (ECT) using physical education as an example. It is important to try integrating SDT and ECT together given that satisfaction is a common core in both theories. In the proposed model, need support confirmation is influenced by support expectation and perceived support, while need satisfaction is influenced by support expectation and need support confirmation. Accordingly, being influenced by need satisfaction, self-determined motivation has a positive influence on students’ participation intention in optional PE courses. Finally, the discussion and limitation about the proposed model are also provided.     

Adoption of cleaner technology for climate proactivity: a technology–firm–stakeholder framework

The adoption of cleaner technology (CT) has the potential to play an important role in tackling the impacts of business on climate change on business. It is therefore important to understand the factors motivating the adoption of CT in business. Using a technology–firm–stakeholder framework, this study proposes a perception‐based model for the adoption of CT for climate proactivity that is tested against data collected from 106 firms in India. Six factors are tested using a logistic regression and five are found to be significant in distinguishing adopter firms from non‐adopter firms. The results suggest that the perception‐based model using a technology–firm–stakeholder framework is a useful approach for examining factors affecting the adoption decision. While techno‐economic benefits are perceived to be higher by adopter firms than by non‐adopter firms, other benefits are not perceived differently by either adopter or non‐adopter firms. In addition, adopter firms perceive lower financial costs and higher technical capability than non‐adopter firms do. Also, adopter firms perceive higher regulatory pressure but lower stakeholder pressure than non‐adopter firms do. Implications of the findings and future research areas are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

A comparative study of college students’ ethical perception concerning internet piracy

As the rapid development in information technology (IT), and as the ease of disseminating IT between internet users throughout the world, internet piracy is a global issue that everyone has to be concerned about as it has a significant impact on the economy. In the global IT industry, Taiwan and China play important roles in the manufacturing supply chain. Unfortunately, both Taiwan and China also have significant effect on the IT piracy. Both of them share a similar culture and speak almost same language but different living style and social values. Since many studies reported that digital piracy (i.e. illegal downloading of music) was highly prevalent among college students (Lysonski and Durvasula, J Consumer Mark 25(3):167–178, 2008), understanding the college students’ ethical decision process is one of important issues in internet piracy context. The purpose of this study was to examine whether there is a difference in the perception of moral intensity as well as the ethical decision process for the business students between Taiwan and China. Respondents were asked to the dimensionality of the moral intensity and decision making process construct in three ethical scenarios regarding to internet piracy. The research results find that students in Taiwan possess higher level of moral intensity than students in China. Except for moral recognition, there are significant differences on the perception of moral decision process between two countries.     

Modeling IT product recall intention based on the theory of reasoned action and information asymmetry: a qualitative aspect

This study proposes an ethical model of IT product recall intention based on the theory of reasoned action considering information asymmetry. This study is one of the first to consider information asymmetry in the formation of IT ethical intention. In the proposed model, nine propositions are provided for understanding the formation of the ethical intention of IT providers. More specifically, IT product recall intention is negatively influenced by information hiding and opportunism practicing, while opportunism practicing is positively influenced by information hiding. Furthermore, both information hiding and opportunism practicing are positively influenced by information asymmetry and negatively influenced by ethical attitude and subjective ethical norm. Last, the implications and limitations are provided.     

The role of usability on stimulating SME’s on line buying intention: an experiment based on a ficticius web site design

The focus of the present paper was to identify the key role of usability in SME’s Website design. A conceptual model has been proposed to show how buying intention antecedents are reinforced in highly usable contexts. The model is founded on the relationships between usability, perceived risk, pleasure attitudes and buying intention. To test our model an “ideal” fictitious Website was designed by two graphic designers for a non existent small clothing company directed at the segment of middle class consumers. Manipulating the usability of this Website, another week navigable Website was created to apply our model in a different context. This experiment prepared based on the results previously obtained through a qualitative study developed through seven focus groups. Results show that Internet user develops positive attitudes when navigating through simple, fast and orderly (usable) SME’s Websites. This leads to greater buying intentions. Also, as perceived risk decreases the Internet user’s buying intention increases significantly.     

Adoption of information systems innovations by individuals: A study of processes involving contextual,adopter, and influencer actions

The extensive literature on the adoption of information systems (IS) or information technology (IT) innovations by individuals has primarily used a variance approach, focusing on individual, organizational, and technological factors that influence the level of adoption. Probably due to this focus on factors affecting adoption, little is known about the processes by which individuals adopt IS/IT innovations. Considering IS/IT adoption as an emergent process involving actions by the potential adopter, actions by individuals who might influence the adopter, and actions within the adopter’s context, we examined the ways in which these actions interacted with each other over time. We conducted optimal matching and cluster analyses using data from 27 interviews about the adoption of 30 IS/IT innovations.The emergent taxonomy includes three distinct processes by which individuals adopt innovations: Conscious Quest, Requisite Compliance, and Asserted Trial. The Conscious Quest process, which results in “full adoption,” seems to be driven by the adopter, with no social influence and no mandate. In contrast, in Requisite Compliance and Asserted Trial processes, both of which resulted in “partial adoption,” the adopter encounters considerable pressure, either from a contextual mandate (Requisite Compliance) or from influencers (Asserted Trial). Implications for research and practice are examined.     

University training for entrepreneurial competencies: Its impact on intention of venture creation

This study tests the effect of entrepreneurship education programmes on the entrepreneurial competencies and intention of university students in order to confirm (or disconfirm) conventional wisdom that entrepreneurial education increases the intention to start a business. We address the following research question: Do entrepreneurship education programmes raise the entrepreneurial competencies and intention of students? We used a pretest-post-test quasi-experimental design. Data were collected from 864 university students of Castilla & León (Spain), from 863 students (403 taking the programme and 460 in a control group). The results showed that students in the ‘programme’ group increased their competencies and intention towards self-employment, whereas students in the control group did not. The findings contribute to the theories of planned behaviour and to the literature of entrepreneurship education itself, by revealing the effect of specific benefits for the students derived from the entrepreneurship ‘programme’.     

Why internet service provider and content provider do not collaborate via monitoring of digital piracy

Internet service providers (ISPs) and content providers (CPs) have a symbiosis relationship in the Internet business ecosystem. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of and the conditions for their revenue sharing by means of on-line content piracy monitoring. CPs can benefit from the efforts of ISPs to monitor illegal content consumers, and can have the incentives to collaborate with ISPs. We suggest that if the quality degradation of a pirated content is low as in real world, there may not be a successful collaboration because CPs have little incentives to share their revenues with ISPs. We also investigated the impacts of ISP's piracy monitoring cost level, the value of contents, and CP's access fee per traffic on the possibility of their collaboration.     

An examination of strategic supply management benefits and performance implications

There has been a growing body of literature documenting the impact of strategic supply management on firm performance. Yet, despite of its importance, there has been little research on how this impact is achieved from a social network perspective and on the link between strategic supply management and customer responsiveness. This study develops and empirically tests a conceptual model employing two increasingly important constructs that reflect intermediate benefits of having a strategic supply management function: relational embeddedness and network scanning. We then explore the relationships between those intermediate benefits and customer responsiveness using structural equation modeling from a sample of 204 US manufacturing firms. The research findings indicate that organizations engaging in strategic supply management are able to directly achieve greater levels of customer responsiveness by scanning their supply base network, and indirectly by having socially embedded relationship ties with those suppliers.     

Influence of institutional environment on entrepreneurial intention: a comparative study of two countries university students

Institutional environment influences the perceptions of desirability and feasibility, society’s social and cultural environment, such as beliefs, values and attitudes, conditions behaviour and decisions made by individuals. This research evaluates the influence of institutional environment on entrepreneurial intention using a comparative analysis of different attitudes among university students in two countries: Portugal and Spain. In particular, this study aims to examine the perceptions of desirability, feasibility and intention toward the creation of one’s own business and how that variables influence the entrepreneurial intention as compared these two different institutional contexts. Results revealed difference among attitudes toward entrepreneurship in both countries. With respect to the perception of feasibility, the majority of students in Extremadura (Spain) consider that it is easier to create a business in nowadays than it was several decades ago. However, from the students of Beira Interior (Portugal) consider that it is more difficult. Furthermore, in Extremadura, the entrepreneurial intention is higher than in Beira Interior.     

Under-connected and over-connected networks: the role of externalities in strategic network formation

Since the seminal contribution of Jackson and Wolinsky (J Econ Theory 71(1):44–74, 1996) it has been widely acknowledged that the formation of social networks exhibits a general conflict between individual strategic behavior and collective outcome. What has not been studied systematically are the sources of inefficiency. We approach this omission by analyzing the role of positive and negative externalities of link formation. This yields general results that relate situations of positive externalities with stable networks that cannot be “too dense” in a well-defined sense, while situations with negative externalities tend to induce “too dense” networks. Those results are neither restricted to specific assumptions on the agents’ preferences (e.g. homogeneity), nor to a specific notion of stability or efficiency.     

The effectiveness of entrepreneurial firm’s knowledge acquisition from a business incubator

This cross-cultural research project, involving the United States and Finland, explored how the entrepreneurial firm’s acquisition of business processes’ knowledge from interaction with incubator management positively impacts on new product development, increased technical competence, enhanced reputation and lower costs of sales to customers. In a sample of 52 firms, the study’s methodology depended on single response, self-reported data. The findings suggest that the sole knowledge benefits gained by the firm, from the incubator relationship, is a perception of enhanced reputation. Also, incubator managers should focus more on assisting new technology based firms with growing the venture in the marketplace. Funding for this project was provided by The National Science Foundation, and The National Technology Agency of Finland.     

Innovation attributes and pedagogical quality: a concretization of joint theories on course management systems acceptance

The utilization of information and communication technologies in support of teaching and learning is still on its way to expand its potentials in higher education. Facing different venues of course delivery, computer-mediated communication technologies seem to be the most efficient and cost-effective. Since the mid-1990s, course management systems (CMSs) have gradually evolved, and taken an irreplaceable important role in higher education. From the perspectives of pedagogical impact and instructional resource consumption, Morgan (2003) considered that CMSs form the academic system equivalent of enterprise resource planning systems. Based on an extensive review on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) at the outset, this study bridges the TAM and IDT, and proposes a conceptual model of the acceptance of CMSs to acknowledge antecedents (i.e., innovation attributes, self-efficacy (SE), pedagogical quality (PQ) and perceived evaluation of function (EF)). Theoretically, the perceived innovation attributes of CMSs impact users’ perceived usefulness (PU) and actual use (AU). The antecedents, such as SE, PQ, and EFs, are also anticipated to have impacts on the AU and use of perception. PU is influenced by perceived ease of use (PEOU), while behavioral intention (BI) is concurrently influenced by PEOU and PU. Moreover, AU is influenced by BI. Finally, discussion and suggestions for future research of the proposed model are also provided.     

The role of executives in hostile takeover attempts

This paper proposes a two-stage game theoretic model where the discretionary power of executives acts as an implicit defense against hostile takeovers. Following managerial enterprise models, this paper analyzes the effects of discretionary power of target’s executives over R&D and advertising expenditures in defeating hostile takeover attempts. It is shown that in vertically differentiated industries, in equilibrium, target’s executives keep low level of R&D and advertising expenditures to make their firm an unattractive target for hostile takeovers. The model reveals that executives are influenced by their self-interest of monetary and non-monetary benefits and this self-interest makes the industry more differentiated.     

Comparing the main effects and moderating effects of education among three models in IT service: a quantitative approach

This study examines the formation of relationship quality and loyalty for an ISP (Internet service provider). Three conceptual models are tested for comparison. In the models, relational selling behavior, network quality, and service recovery indirectly influence loyalty with an ISP through the mediation of relationship quality. That is, in model 1, relationship quality is examined as a single construct, rather than the second-order construct comprising satisfaction and trust in model 2. In model 3, satisfaction and trust are examined as two different constructs. Customer education moderates several paths of the three models. The moderating effects are simultaneously examined using data from customers of a Taiwan’s leading ISP. The test results indicate that the influence of satisfaction on loyalty and that of network quality on satisfaction are stronger for low education customers than high education customers, while the influence of trust on loyalty and that of network quality on trust are stronger for high education customers than low education customers. Furthermore, the influences of relational selling behavior and service recovery on satisfaction and trust are similar for both high education customers and low education customers. Implications of the empirical findings are also discussed.     

基于局部网络效应的创新扩散分析

在考虑局部网络效应的基础上,采用微观扩散模型仿真分析创新扩散。研究表明,局部网络效应使得创新潜在采纳个体决策相互影响,从而导致这种采纳者之间微观交互模式所呈现的宏观社会网络结构影响创新扩散的速度和程度。即使某些创新收益非常高,也有可能因为创新潜在采纳个体之间交互模式的影响而导致其扩散最终失败。同时早期创新采纳个体一般具有社会联系比较广泛,自身采纳阈值较高,自身局部网络效应强度较小,更关注创新内在价值等创新特征。     

Integrated environmental assessment of the location selection with fuzzy analytical network process

Owing to the complexity of a construction project, the fuzzy ANP is helpful to deal with interdependent relationships within a multi-criteria decision-making model. This paper uses the Porter’s diamond model that influences how competitive advantages, which is a matrix providing a conceptual model for the main framework, as a construct for selecting the location of a regional hospital in Taiwan to determine its effectiveness. The applicability of our proposed fuzzy ANP model is demonstrated with a case study that summarizes an intervention in which the model’s framework and basic concepts were applied.     

The impact of desirability and feasibility on entrepreneurial intentions: A structural equation model

There is general agreement that attitudes towards entrepreneurship are determinant factors to decide to be an entrepreneur. In this context, this research is focused on analyzing the relationship between desirability and feasibility on university student’s intentions to create a new firm in Catalonia. A structural equation model supported by Krueger & Brazeal’s Model was tested with different groups of students. The main results reveal most of university students consider desirable to create a new firm, although the perception of feasibility is not positive. Also, there is a statistical significant and positively relationship between credibility and the intention to create a new firm.

Optimal allocation mechanisms with single-dimensional private information

We study revenue-maximizing allocation mechanisms for multiple heterogeneous objects when buyers care about the entire allocation, and not just about the ones they obtain. Buyers’ payoff depends on their cost parameter and, possibly, on their competitors’ costs. Costs are independently distributed across buyers, and both the buyers and the seller are risk-neutral. The formulation allows for complements, substitutes and externalities. We identify a number of novel characteristics of revenue-maximizing mechanisms: First, we find that revenue-maximizing reserve prices depend on the bids of other buyers. Second, we find that when non-participation payoffs are type-dependent, revenue-maximizing auctions may sell too often, or they may even be ex-post efficient.