Maintaining a committed online customer: A study across search-experience-credence products

The goal of relationship marketing is to build and maintain a committed, loyal relationship between a customer and an organization. Although studies have discussed the types of relational bonds that enhance customer loyalty, empirical research that focuses on the application of relational bonds in a virtual environment is relatively sparse. In response, this study investigates the effects of various relational bonds on customer commitment across search-experience-credence goods/services on Internet. The results suggest that financial, social, and structural bonds have positive impacts on customer commitment. In addition, financial bonds are more successful in strengthening customer commitment for search goods/services than for experience or credence goods/services. Structural bonds are more important for credence and experience goods/services than for search goods, and social bonds are almost equally important for all three types of goods/service.     

Tourists' Perception of Authenticity in Indigenous Souvenirs in Taiwan

This study contributes to a body of knowledge concerning tourists' perception of authenticity for indigenous souvenirs in Taiwan. Researchers evaluated, designed, and produced souvenir cups chosen to represent Taiwan's indigenous Paiwan culture. Markers, designs, and materials were researched and selected in order to examine tourists' perceptions of authenticity. Tourists were asked to evaluate the cups and to explain their perceived authenticity and willingness to purchase. The findings suggest that tourists perceive modern design combined with indigenous markers to be more authentic than traditional design. The apparent traditionalism of aboriginal souvenirs does not determine the degree of authenticity. Tourists' perception is specifically grounded in the visuality of the souvenir and their willingness to purchase is also associated with authenticity in design.     

How to Influence the Brand Attitude of the Audience by Micro-Films

Internet media is widely spread and able to instantly share messages. This feature accelerates the prevalence of using micro-film as a compelling tool for branding. Based on the storytelling theory of emotional responses, sympathy and empathy, and the persuasion theory of elaboration likelihood model, this study develops hypotheses to test the relationship between the storytelling power embedded in micro-films on brand attitude and the moderating effect of cognitive involvement on the overall effect. The data collected from YouTube users in Taiwan has confirmed the positive relationship between sympathy and empathy on brand attitude, and the moderating effect of cognitive involvement. Implications are discussed.     

An ODE approach for the expected discounted penalty at ruin in a jump-diffusion model

Under the assumption that the asset value follows a phase-type jump-diffusion, we show that the expected discounted penalty satisfies an ODE and obtain a general form for the expected discounted penalty. In particular, if only downward jumps are allowed, we get an explicit formula in terms of the penalty function and jump distribution. On the other hand, if the downward jump distribution is a mixture of exponential distributions (and upward jumps are determined by a general Lévy measure), we obtain closed-form solutions for the expected discounted penalty. As an application, we work out an example in Leland’s structural model with jumps. For earlier and related results, see Gerber and Landry [Insur. Math. Econ. 22:263–276, 1998], Hilberink and Rogers [Finance Stoch. 6:237–263, 2002], Asmussen et al. [Stoch. Proc. Appl. 109:79–111, 2004], and Kyprianou and Surya [Finance Stoch. 11:131–152, 2007].      

The assessment of agritourism policy based on SEA combination with HIA

The decline in agricultural and other forms of rural employment in many countries has created a need for a diversified range of rural businesses. In most cases, agritourism has become an important element of the diverse activities in rural areas of Taiwan. However, there are a number of significant impacts from tourism activities that can be influenced by agritourism policy.Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a procedural tool to assess policies and can aid the development of more sustainable policy formulation. However, SEA aims to assess environmental impacts; the health issues are often overlooked. Hence, a Delphi-Indicator approach to SEA is proposed here to integrate Health Impact Assessment (HIA). This new approach is based on the impact indicator system, and then the Delphi method is employed to collect experts’ opinions. After the evaluation system was established, the current agritourism policy and another alternative policy are assessed to examine this new method.Finally, various types of impacts from current agritourism policy in Taiwan are identified, and the significant impacts are as follows: resources usage (water, electricity, petroleum), pollution generation (waste, noise), and other landscape problems (mudflows and landslide, harmony of the rural landscape). In addition, several benefits are found from the alternative policy (agro-ecotourism) such as the amount of pesticides used per unit area, and environmental quality of local community since agro-ecotourism development is based on organic agriculture and combination with ecotourism to provide acceptable recreation opportunity without destroying natural rural environment. In summary, the impacts are less significant from agro-ecotourism than those from current agritourism policy, and these positive changes are not only in the environmental sector, but also within the economic, social, and health issues.     

Pricing efficiency of the S&P 500 index market: Evidence from the Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts

Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts (SPDRs) are exchange traded securities representing a portfolio of S&P 500 stocks. They allow investors to track the spot portfolio and better engage in index arbitrage. We tested the impact of the introduction of SPDRs on the efficiency of the S&P 500 index market. Ex‐post pricing efficiency and ex‐ante arbitrage profit between SPDRs and futures were also examined. We found an improved efficiency in the S&P 500 index market after the start of SPDRs trading. Specifically, the frequency and length of lower boundary violations have declined since SPDRs began trading. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that SPDRs facilitate short arbitrage by simplifying the process of shorting the cash index against futures. Tests of pricing efficiency comparing SPDRs and futures suggested that index arbitrage using SPDRs as a substitute for program trading in general results in losses. Although short arbitrages earn a small profit on average, gains are statistically insignificant. A trade‐by‐trade investigation showed that prices are instantaneously corrected after the presence of mispricing signals, introducing substantial risk in arbitraging. Evidence in general supported pricing efficiency between SPDRs and the S&P 500 index futures—both ex‐post and ex‐ante. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:877–900, 2002     

Characteristics of fuzzy synthetic decision methods for measuring student achievement

Traditional method of student achievement evaluation only use arithmetic mean and convert them to rankings, but this does not provide further explanatory information to proceed with more reasonable evaluations, decisions, and interpretations for the learning achievements of students, and provide a fair and appropriate consideration of the evaluation results. Therefore, this study attempts to introduce four types of fuzzy synthetic decision methods in actual scores for evaluating and ranking student’s academic achievement. Using the synthetic decision method of fuzzy theory, the four types of composite operations are used in conjunction with the membership function, and finally fuzzy means are used to express the diverse evaluation results of students. This study uses junior high school first year students in central Taiwan as research subjects, selecting the actual mid-term exam results of the gifted class and general class as research data. The fuzzy synthetic decision method is applied through four types of composite operations, proposing a ranking system that is more diverse and precise than the traditional average method. Finally, this study proposes the characteristics of the four types of fuzzy composite operations, considering the most suitable composite operations for classes with different characteristics. Results of this study can be used as a reference for educators in the field and future researchers. The contribution of this study is to provide the fuzzy grade calculation methods that are suited to students with different characteristics, in order to achieve diverse and precise ranking evaluations.     

Epidemic forecasting with a new fuzzy regression equation

The traditional fuzzy regression model involves two solving processes. First, the extension principle is used to derive the membership function of extrapolated values, and then, attempts are made to include every collected value with a membership degree of at least h in the fuzzy regression interval. However, the membership function of extrapolated values is sometimes highly complex, and it is difficult to determine the h value, i.e., the degree of fit between the input values and the extrapolative fuzzy output values, when the information obtained from the collected data is insufficient. To solve this problem, we proposed a simplified fuzzy regression equation based on Carlsson and Fullér’s possibilistic mean and variance method and used it for modeling the constraints and objective function of a fuzzy regression model without determining the membership function of extrapolative values and the value of h. Finally, we demonstrated the application of our model in forecasting pneumonia mortality. Thus, we verified the effectiveness of the proposed model and confirmed the potential benefits of our approach, in which the forecasting error is very small.     

Personalized mobile advertising: Its key attributes,trends, and social impact

Advertising media are a means of communication that creates different marketing and communication results among consumers. Over the years, newspaper, magazine, TV, and radio have provided a one-way media where information is broadcast and communicated. Due to the widespread application of the Internet, advertising has entered into an interactive communications mode. In the advent of 3G broadband mobile communication systems and smartphone devices, consumers' preferences can be pre-identified and advertising messages can therefore be delivered to consumers in a multimedia format at the right time and at the right place with the right message. In light of this new advertisement possibility, designing personalized mobile advertising to meet consumers' needs becomes an important issue. This research uses the fuzzy Delphi method to identify the key personalized attributes in a personalized mobile advertising message for different products. Results of the study identify six important design attributes for personalized advertisements: price, preference, promotion, interest, brand, and type of mobile device. As personalized mobile advertising becomes more integrated in people's daily activities, its pros and cons and social impact are also discussed. The research result can serve as a guideline for the key parties in mobile marketing industry to facilitate the development of the industry and ensure that advertising resources are properly used.     

LABOUR MARKET ACTIVITY OF FOREIGN SPOUSES IN TAIWAN: EMPLOYMENT STATUS AND CHOICE OF EMPLOYMENT SECTOR

The present study examines the employment status and choice of employment sector of female foreign spouses from Southeast Asia and Mainland China in Taiwan. The conceptual framework is based on the family labour supply model, human and social capital theory, and immigrant assimilation theory. Our findings indicate that in regard to employment status, family background variables, including the presence of small children and husbands' characteristics, play a more significant role in determining the employment probability for these foreign spouses than do human capital variables. In particular, for spouses from Southeast Asia, each additional child is correlated with a decrease in working probability of 11.3%, whereas college education has an insignificant effect on their employment probability. Employment assimilation for these marriage immigrants may be confirmed by the finding that the employment probability of foreign spouses rises rapidly with the number of years that have elapsed since migration. As for the choice of employment sector, a strong linkage between the employment sector of the foreign spouses and their husbands' employment sector is found in this study.