Modeling the unethical intention of software piracy: a qualitative integration of network externalities and information cascades

Information cascades and network externalities have been increasingly influential in explaining the many market outcomes of information technology (IT), but their application to ethical issues of IT has been limited. This study proposes a conceptual model of unethical intention of software piracy by integrating information cascades and network externalities in terms of a theoretical perspective from the literature of economics. In the conceptual model, unethical intention of software piracy is proposed to be influenced by the network benefits of using pirated software, while the network benefits are proposed to be affected by the overall adopter base of pirated software directly and indirectly through the availability of pirated complementary software. Accordingly, whereas the perception of others’ piracy is proposed to be influenced by the overall adopter base of pirated software, the unethical intention of software piracy is proposed to be influenced indirectly by the perception of others’ piracy through the perceived signal that piracy seems a good idea. Finally, this study also provides the conclusion and limitation.     

Value-creating functions,satisfaction and loyalty in business markets: a categorical variable approach using a robust methodology under structural equation modeling

This paper studies the effect of the value-creating functions on satisfaction and loyalty in business markets. The conceptual framework that depicts a direct effect of the manufacturer’s value-creating functions on the distributor’s satisfaction and loyalty also considers the existence of quadratic effects between satisfaction and loyalty. We used polychoric correlations (Br J Math Stat Psychol 48:339–358, 1995), together with a robust methodological approach, to analyze categorical variables under structural equation modeling (SEM) in EQS. The empirical results are based on a sample of 181 manufacturing companies located in Spain. By using the aforementioned efficient analytical procedure, the results provide strong empirical support that value creation, understood from a functionalist perspective, is an antecedent of satisfaction and loyalty in business-to-business contexts. Distributor satisfaction is significantly affected by the benefit, volume, and safeguard functions, and the indirect value-creating functions performed by the manufacturer. Distributor loyalty is directly influenced by the indirect value-creating functions, but there is no confirmation that the benefit, volume, and safeguard functions do so. Finally, distributor satisfaction does not exert any significant quadratic effect on distributor loyalty but it has a direct linear effect on that variable.     

Customer satisfaction of bicycle sharing: studying perceived service quality with SEM model

ABSTRACT

Bicycle sharing is an emerging business in many cities worldwide and has attracted a large number of users, due to its convenience, environmental friendliness, low cost, and flexibility for short-distance travels. This study evaluates main factors affecting the perceived service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty of bicycle sharing customers. We design measurement variables, conduct a satisfactory survey on customers using OFO bicycle sharing service in Ningbo, China, develop a Service-Satisfaction-Loyalty model using structure equation modeling (SEM), and conduct statistical analysis. The perceived service quality was simplified to three dimensions including: perceived service quality of platform, perceived quality of bicycle entity, and perceived quality of value. The results show that SEM model can account for commonly unobserved variables within satisfaction and loyalty of bicycle-sharing. Perceived services quality of bicycle entity and platform are found to affect customer satisfaction significantly, while perceived quality of value is not a significant factor. This study confirms that satisfaction decisively leads to loyalty of bicycle sharing.     

A graduates ’ satisfaction index for the evaluation of the university overall quality

In the higher educational setting, students provide a relevant contribution to the quality of educational services. In such a context, the measurement of the perceived quality and related satisfaction for the university experience are of primary interest to evaluate the efficiency and efficacy of the learning processes. In this contribution, we aim at assessing the overall quality of the graduates’ university experience in terms of internal and external efficacy by applying the ECSI (European Customer Satisfaction Index) methodology, based on structural equation models and primarily developed in the context of customer satisfaction. For this aim, we propose a modified ECSI model tailored for the higher educational setting, explicitly taking into account the differences among groups of degree program. The study is carried out on data collected by the AlmaLaurea surveys at the University of Florence (Italy) in the period 2014–2017 and concerns a sample of more than 2,000 graduates. We find out eight latent variables that contribute to define the overall quality of university experience. These variables are differently affected by the type of degree program, with the highest levels of external efficacy observed for degree programs belonging to the educational, health, and engineering groups. It also turns out that interventions on the internal efficacy (i.e., quality of hardware and quality of humanware) have a direct positive effect on the university (i.e., loyalty) and an indirect positive effect on the society (i.e., external efficacy).     

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.     

第三方物流企业客户忠诚的驱动因素及其作用机理研究

第三方物流作为新兴的物流管理模式,成为理论界和实践界广泛关注的问题之一。但服务意识缺位、缺乏完善的服务指标、信息化服务能力薄弱等因素导致第三方物流企业客户忠诚度较低,极大地阻碍了第三方物流企业发展。在分析第三方物流企业发展现状和特征基础上,提出驱动第三方物流企业客户忠诚主要因素:客户感知价值、客户满意、转换成本和相关环境因素,运用层次分析法测度这些因素对第三方物流企业客户忠诚的作用机理。最后,通过案例验证其可行性和有效性。     

Propensity to firm creation: empirical research using structural equations

The identification of the entrepreneurs’ characteristics and the knowledge of the entrepreneurial profile of university students have been assuming a growing importance in the development of educational programs directed towards the entrepreneurship and start-up processes. This study aims to identify the factors that most contribute for the intention to start up a business. The research also tries to identify the profile of a potential entrepreneur student concerning several characteristics: personal attributes, family, demographic variables and motivations. Research findings include the idea that entrepreneurship education is the most relevant factor in what concerns the propensity to business creation. On the other side, personal characteristics have an important role in shaping motivation to start-up a business and perceived hurdles have a negative impact in the intention to start-up. The results may be relevant when developing an adequate educational program directed to the entrepreneurship education and start-up processes.     

Problems of Incentives for Employees in the Quality Management of the Service Sector

The paper presented below concentrate on worker’s motivation problems in quality management of the services sector. The problem with motivation is particularly important in management of services. In our publication, we analyze motivation system in McDonald’s restaurants form quality of services point of view.     

Underpricing and IPO ownership retention

An agency-theory model of IPO management retention is presented and empirically explored. The model is based upon the differences between the investment public’s and underwriters’ fears of the consequences of management entrenchment and other agency problems. The model suggests that IPO underpricing should be a curvilinear hump-shaped function of retention. A large-sample empirical exploration verifies the curvilinear relation.     

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.     

Contingent payments in selection contests

The early literature on research contests stressed the advantages of a fixed prize in inspiring R&D effort. More recently the focus has moved towards endogenizing the rewards to research activity in these tournament settings, since this can induce extra effort or enhance the surplus of the buyer. We focus on a research contest as a means of selecting a partner for an R&D enterprise, in an informational setting in which the established providers of R&D services know more about each others’ relative capabilities than does the buyer/sponsor. An alternative use of our model is in choosing between prospective patentees where the Patent Trading Office has less information on the patents than the competitors. This asymmetry creates a source of inefficiency if a rank order contest is used as a selection device; we show how the contest can be modified to improve selection efficiency, while maintaining its simplicity (as only ordinal information is required). The modification that we suggest involves endogenizing the prizes that are awarded contingent upon whether a contestant wins or loses the contest. Furthermore, the payment system and the selection mechanism are detail-free. This paper is part of the project “The Knowledge-Based Society” sponsored by the Research Council of Norway (project 172603/V10).     

An investigation of managerial interventions in employee disputes

Seventy four university managers described up to six recent conflicts and reported on their intervention strategies. Findings show that managers use a range of strategies, including overlooking, as interventions for employees’ disputes, instead of favoring the use of any particular one. Choices of intervention strategies were influenced by the type of issue being disputed, the seriousness of the dispute, and managers’ self-efficacy with mediation. Specifically, managers most frequently used mediation to resolve task-related disputes, and tended to use a variety of different strategies to intervene in personality conflicts. When managers perceived conflicts to be highly serious, they most frequently used mediation, followed by arbitration, offering incentives, and lastly, overlooking. Managers with a high degree of mediation self-efficacy more frequently mediated employees’ disputes, whereas managers with a low degree of mediation self-efficacy more frequently overlooked employees’ disputes. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Measuring opinion distributions

In this study it will be argued that the perceived distribution of opinions among others is important for opinion research. Three different ways of measuring the perception of opinion distributions in survey research are compared: (a) by means of a questionwhat most people think about an issue, (b) by means of a questionhow many people are perceived to agree with an issue-statement, (c) by means of ‘line-production-boxes’, a special version ofmagnitude estimation. The results indicate that ‘line-production-boxes’ can improve data quality, but have also some drawbacks which will have to be dealt with. ‘Line-production-boxes’ give a wealth of information about individual differences in the forms of perceived opinion distributions. Although the normal distribution is used often, many other distribution forms are also used. The method of ‘line-production-boxes’ is compared with the method of estimating percentage points. Although high correlations suggest a good concurrent validity, some systematic differences do exist. New research directions are suggested.     

The concept study of Servqual method’s gap

The methodology of conduct, presented in this publication, allows conducting the study of clients’ satisfaction of services in a complex manner and at the same time, it allows getting to know all problems appearing in the process of their provision. Gap no 5 expresses a general client’s perception of services and allow defining his satisfaction. Gap 4 allows defining in what range the organization provides clients with false and distorted information in its promotion and advertising materials, which in consequence influence on their satisfaction. The result from gap no 4 can be used when planning promotion campaign. Gap no 2 and 3 allow defining if the organization is realizing the planned strategy of quality. It allows defining which employees provide services of a low quality and then by means of the application the appropriate motivation tools it allow to cut it out. Finally, gap no 1 which allow defining problems connected with marketing communication. It allows finding client’s needs which organization does not know and which should be included in its strategy.     

Innovativeness and involvement as determinants of website loyalty: II. Determinants of consumer loyalty in B2C e-commerce

This paper is the second of the series of studies entitled “Innovativeness and Involvement as Determinants of Website Loyalty”, which was designed to test Foxall's [(1995). Cognitive styles of consumer initiators. Technovation 15(5), 269–288] style/involvement model in the context of Internet buyer behaviours. In this paper, a consumer Website loyalty model was proposed to describe how consumer transfer their existing brand loyalty in the traditional retail market to the same brand's Website in the B2C e-commerce market and how their perceived risk at the brand's Website mediates this loyalty transformation. Data were collected via an email invitation and Web-based questionnaire. One thousand and fourty four Taiwan Internet buyers randomly selected from the database of a well-known brand's Website have completed the survey. The multiple regression technique indicated the robustness of this loyalty transformation model (adjusted R²=0.50). Findings further indicated the impact that consumers’ cognitive style/involvement have on their loyalty transformation model. After segmenting consumers via their DSI and PDI scores, the distinct loyalty transformation models are revealed: the adjusted R² of more-involved innovators’ loyalty transformation model was the highest (0.60), followed by more involved adaptors’ model (0.45), less involved innovators’ model (0.45), and finally, less involved adaptors’ model (0.42). Discussions of how consumers’ cognitive style and involvement level interact with each other and impact on the predictors of the Website loyalty are discussed. Proposals are made of how Website managers can use this knowledge to build marketing strategies.     

Applying fuzzy quality function deployment (QFD) to identify solutions of service delivery system for port of Kaohsiung

The main purpose of this paper is to apply fuzzy quality function deployment (QFD) model to identify solutions of service delivery system (SDS) for port of Kaohsiung from the viewpoints of customers. At first, to facilitate the main issue of the QFD problem, however, the ‘what’ question of customer needs and ‘how’ problem of the services have to be made, which are two major components and be emphasized on the house of quality (HOQ) matrices. In conjunction with fuzzy sets theory, hence, the systematic procedures using fuzzy QFD were proposed in this paper. Subsequently, a case study for port of Kaohsiung demonstrated the systematic appraisal process for identifying solutions of SDS. The results of empirical study show that (1) 10 key factors are deemed as to have priority to improve the quality of SDS for Kaohsiung port; and (2) eight feasible solutions for improving service quality performance are identified. Moreover, it is suggested that port Authority of Kaohsiung should listen attentively the voice of customers and emphasize on exploiting these customer requirements effectively. And then develop the ‘how’ issues of profiles of solutions, which should continuously strengthen the perspectives of customer, internal business process, and learning and growth, respectively.     

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.     

Customer Environmental Values and Their Contribution to Loyalty in Industrial Markets

Concern over the effect of industries on the natural environment is growing on a multitude of levels. This study examines the effects of how perceptions of (a) environmental values, (b) green image and (c) perceived value of industrial customers influence their loyalty towards suppliers in existing relationships, and how the length of B2B relationships may moderate these linkages. A conceptual framework is developed and data are collected from a global sample (N =121) of B2B customers. We find that both green image and perceived value have a direct positive link with customer loyalty and that environmental values are positively linked to the green image of the supplier. Moreover, the effect of green image on loyalty is mediated by perceived value, with environmental values only indirectly linked with perceived value of the supplier. As the length of relationship increases, on one hand the positive relationship between green image and customer loyalty is strengthened, while on the other the positive relationship between environmental value and green image is weakened. Regardless of how environmentally aware the customer is, green image is a strong predictor of both perceived value and loyalty. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The Reliability of Family Background Effects on Status Attainment: Multiple Informant Models

This article sets out to investigate to what extent conventional retrospective measurement of family background leads to biases in the effects of family background in status attainment research. Multiple informant models show that the effect of father’s educational attainment on respondent’s educational attainment is 41% greater than conventional research suggests, and that the effect of father’s occupational status on respondent’s educational attainment becomes zero. The direct effect of respondent’s educational attainment on respondent’s occupational status is 21% greater after the unreliability in the respondent’s answers has been taken into account. We conclude that measurement error seriously biases conclusions about the status attainment process in the Netherlands.     

Employee development and voluntary turnover: testing the employability paradox

The employability paradox is a concern among employers. It states that development activities enhancing employees' employability also increase the risk for employee turnover. This study examined this paradox and probed the relationship between six development activities and voluntary turnover mediated by perceived employability. We tested both a turnover‐stimulating path via perceived external employability (i.e. perceived job alternatives with other employers) and a retention path via perceived internal employability (i.e. perceived job alternatives with the current employer) by using two‐wave longitudinal data from 588 employees. The results put the turnover risk into perspective: only upward job transition positively influenced turnover via perceived external employability. Also, the retention path via perceived internal employability was not supported: several development activities were positively related with perceived internal employability, but perceived internal employability did not influence turnover. We did, however, find a direct retention effect of skill utilisation. Overall, the results downplay the employability paradox.