The new wave of AI-powered luxury brands online shopping experience: The role of digital multisensory cues and customers’ engagement

Academic literature retains a dearth of empirical evidence of the cutting-edge aspect of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital assistance and digital multisensory cues, despite the prospect of these factors on real-life customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the significant pathway and effects of AI-powered digital assistance toward customers’ luxury brand online shopping experience. Drawing on S–O-R (Stimulus, organism, and response) and TRAM (Technology Readiness and Acceptance Model) paradigm, a multi-method research design was deployed to investigate constructs. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were utilized to explore customers' online behavior under the luxury brands and information technology aspect. Secondly, survey data were collected and analyzed by using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The PLS-based analysis of quantitative data confirmed the exploratory insights of qualitative findings, establishing the connections of AI-powered digital assistance, customer engagement, and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Research findings also suggest that customer engagement plays a mediation role in the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Besides, digital multisensory cues moderate the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customer engagement. Further, fsQCA complements the findings of PLS-SEM that reveal the significant combination of factors that lead to the perceptions of customers' luxury brand online shopping experience.     

Toward a new business model of retail industry: The role of brand experience and brand authenticity

While the customer-to-manufacturer (C2M) business model has received increasing attention as a new business model for e-commerce and retail industry, little is still known about it and the effect of its approach. This study aims to understand how brand-related stimuli in C2M environments affect customer responses as the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The outcomes reveal that the Sensory, affective, and intellectual aspects of brand experience positively influence brand authenticity. Brand authenticity has a positive effect on behavioral intention, such as reuse intention and word-of-mouth. Additionally, this research finds that social presence moderates the association between the sensory aspect of brand experience. Thus, this study can suggest a C2M business model as a means of sustainable operation of the retail industry to both researchers and practitioners in relation to the retail industry.     

Inequality and entrepreneurial thresholds

We explore the relationship between inequality and entrepreneurial activity. Drawing on cross-sectional data from a largescale survey of the economic conditions of individuals across India, we develop a number of dimensions of inequality to explore empirically how inequality interacts with entrepreneurship, operationalized as self-employment or as employing other people. We find compelling evidence that there are thresholds to becoming self-employed, and even more so to assembling the combinations of resources and personal attributes required to become an employer. Greater inequality leaves more people unable to make the transition to self-employment, leaving casual laboring as the occupation of necessity. At the same time, inequality increases the number of employers in a society, by concentrating resources - particularly land and finance - enough for significant numbers of people to be able to cross this higher threshold. Lastly, greater differentiation into social or religious groups curtails the ability to cross either entrepreneurial threshold, presumably by limiting the extent and benefits of social networks of value for entrepreneurship.     

Demystifying residents' walking behaviors: Active transport in South East Queensland,Australia

This study investigates the correlates of a resident's walking behaviors and aims to shed light on mechanisms through which walking may be encouraged. The results of this investigation paint a complex and nuanced picture of the residents’ walking behaviors in South East Queensland, Australia. The results suggest that sociodemographic characteristics separately may contribute greatly to whether or not one engages in walking behaviors. Further, cumulatively these differences might be greater for some groups of residents compared to others. One of the most prominent findings of the study is that the purpose, the characteristics of the origin, and the characteristics of the destination of a trip tended to be similar in the heterogeneity they exhibit over the distribution of time spent walking. For example, pick something up, undertake work, or engage in personal business, move to or from a workplace, shop, or social place are activities that tend to be associated with walking as a main mode of transport and a higher number of walking episodes. However, these trips tended to be short.     

Environmental Policy,Sustainable Development,Governance Mechanisms and Environmental Performance

We investigate the effects of environmental policy (Climate Change Act – CCA), sustainable development frameworks (Global Reporting Initiative – GRI; UN Global Compact – UNGC) and corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on environmental performance (carbon reduction initiatives – CRIs; actual carbon performance – GHG emissions) of UK listed firms. We use the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to analyse data consisting of 2245 UK firm‐year observations over the 2002–2014 period. First, we find that the CCA has a positive effect on CRIs, and this effect is stronger in better‐governed firms. Second, we find that the GRI‐based framework is positively associated with CRIs. Third, we find that firms with poor CG structures have lower actual carbon performance compared with their better‐governed counterparts. Overall, our evidence suggests that firms can symbolically conform to environmental policy (CCA) and sustainable development frameworks (GRI, UNGC) by engaging in CRIs without necessarily improving actual environmental performance (GHG emissions) substantively. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Does job passion enhance job embeddedness? A moderated mediation model of work engagement and abusive supervision

Academic and industrial attention has been paid to the job embeddedness as an important predictor of employee actual turnover. Studies have examined the influence of job embeddedness as an antecedent, mediator, and moderator. However, there have been few investigations of antecedents of job embeddedness from the perspective of employee characteristics. Therefore, the current study bridged this research gap and investigated the associations among job passion, work engagement, abusive supervision, and job embeddedness. Data from 278 full-time hotel employees indicated that harmonious passion was not associated with job embeddedness. Moreover, obsessive passion shared a positive relationship with job embeddedness. Both harmonious and obsessive passion had an indirect effect on job embeddedness through work engagement. Abusive supervision moderated only the indirect effect of obsessive passion on job embeddedness via work engagement. A new model is proposed based on our findings to explain factors that contribute to job embeddedness.     

市域(郊)铁路车辆选型方案探讨

随着城镇化进程的加快和城市经济辐射能力的增强,以特大城市中心城为核心的都市圈逐渐形成,都市圈内的经济联系更加紧密,都市圈核心区与外围的出行需求迅速增长,市域(郊)铁路的概念被引进,选择符合市域(郊)铁路特点的车辆类型是设计的重点。     

Cross-national differences in stakeholder management: Applying institutional theory and comparative capitalism framework

Drawing upon the research in institutional theory and comparative capitalism, the present study investigates how cross-national differences in the political, business, and economic institutional contexts of the United States, Italy, and Japan are associated with the ways in which companies in each of these countries prioritize and engage in their stakeholder engagement activities (SEAs). Using Porter and Kramer's framework, which classifies corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities as falling into four categories (good citizenship, mitigating harm from value chain, transforming value chain activities, and strategic philanthropy), we investigate how companies in the United States, Japan, and Italy prioritize and engage in these four SEAs. An analysis of data collected from 340 companies across these countries reveals that while companies in each of these three countries undertake the four types of SEAs, the prioritization and prevalence of the four types of SEAs vary from one country to the other, in ways that align with the prevailing institutional contexts of each country. The results contribute to a more nuanced understanding of why and how companies' approaches to CSR differ across countries. From a practitioner's perspective, the findings highlight the cultural specificity of CSR, implying that despite the global nature of CSR, the implementation of CSR needs to be tailored to a country's context.     

A truly global crisis? Evidence from contagion dependence across international REIT markets

This study examines the global nature of the recent crisis under bivariate Markov-switching models for pre- and post-crisis periods using the breakpoint of August 9, 2007. It quantifies international synchronization of boom-bust regime switches to investigate contagion-type dynamic comovements of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Global REIT markets display persistent bust regimes from September 2008 to May 2009, whereas the regime-switching patterns are not significant in the pre-crisis period. The results provide new evidence for global REIT contagion phenomena and suggest greater difficulties in diversifying risks across global REIT markets during the post-crisis period.     

A cost-effectiveness analysis of revaccination and catch-up strategies with the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV23) in older adults in Japan

Objective: In Japan, the National Immunization Program (NIP) includes PPV23 as the primary vaccination for adults and catch-up cohorts. The Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases recommends revaccination for older adults who received primary vaccination ≥5 years earlier. The cost-effectiveness of adding revaccination and/or continuing catch-up vaccination in the NIP was evaluated from the public payer perspective in Japan.

Methods: The Markov model included five health states: no pneumococcal disease, invasive pneumococcal diseases (IPD), non-bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia (NBPP), post-meningitis sequelae, and death. Cohorts of adults aged 65–95 were followed until age 100 or death: 2014 cohort (aged 65–95, vaccinated: 2014); 2019 cohort (aged 65: 2019); and 2019 catch-up cohort (aged 70–100: 2019, unvaccinated: 2014). Strategies included: (1) vaccinate 2014 and 2019 cohorts; (2) vaccinate 2014 and 2019 cohorts and revaccinate both; (3) strategy 1 and vaccinate 2019 catch-up cohort; (4) strategy 2 and vaccinate 2019 catch-up cohort; and (5) strategy 4 and revaccinate 2019 catch-up cohort. Parameters were retrieved from global and Japanese sources, costs and QALYs discounted at 2%, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) estimated.

Results: Strategy 1 had the highest number of IPD and NBPP cases, and strategy 5 the lowest. Strategies 3–5 dominated strategy 1 and strategy 2 was cost-effective compared to strategy 1 (ICER: ¥1,622,153 per QALY gained). At a willingness-to-pay threshold of ¥5 million per QALY gained, strategy 2 was cost-effective and strategies 3–5 were cost-saving compared to strategy 1.

Conclusions: Strategies including revaccination, catch-up, or both were cost-effective or cost-saving in comparison to no revaccination and no catch-up. Results can inform future vaccine policies and programs in Japan.