Search results

This study aims to investigate a unique approach to learning languages through self-directed online learning. Specifically, it explores the self-management abilities and skills learners need while learning a language outside traditional classroom settings when using mobile-assisted learning technology.

A mixed-methods approach was used in this study, including an online survey of 84 people and 10 semi-structured interviews.

Findings reveal the significant role of specific and well-defined learning goals in enhancing learners’ performance. These goals can be either self-initiated by the learners themselves or defined by the technological features of the learning platform. However, the presence of distractions in learners’ daily lives presents challenges to effective time management, affecting learners both physically and psychologically. A key aspect of self-directed language learning lies in the learners’ ability to seek out relevant human and material resources beyond the confines of a single mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) tool. The authenticity of these resources is crucial in ensuring meaningful and effective learning experiences.

Understanding how learners navigate and discover valuable resources is a central focus of this study. This research offers valuable insights into the field of self-directed language learning, revealing the pivotal role of self-management skills with mobile-assisted learning technology. The findings contribute to the broader field of language education and offer practical implications for educators and developers seeking to optimize self-directed language learning experiences through innovative and technologically driven approaches.

MALL is often ideal for individualized informal learning, but the existing literature focuses heavily on formal learning situations, underestimating the importance of MALL practices in various informal settings. Most research reports on MALL-based self-directed learning primarily sample traditional English-learning university students. Therefore, there is a need for research on how nontraditional older adult learners self-direct their language learning with mobile technology outside the classroom.

Livestreaming, as a relatively new online marketing model, has generated numerous business opportunities for e-commerce and social commerce. The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what degree livestreaming content impacts online users' cognitive and emotional reactions and whether their cognitive and emotional responses affect their purchase intention.

Through the lens of regulatory focus theory (RFT) and stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) theory, the authors empirically examine the influencing mechanisms of livestreaming on online consumers' purchase intentions. Structural equation models are used to analyze the relationships in the proposed research model.

The results of this study show that information-task fit positively affects consumers' perceived usefulness of livestreaming. Both visual effects and sociability positively affect consumers' perceived value and social presence. Furthermore, perceived usefulness and perceived joy positively affect consumers' purchase intentions in a livestreaming environment. This study’s results also demonstrate that the regulatory focus of consumers has a moderating effect on the influence of their perceived joy on shopping intentions.

This study contributes to the relevant literature by simultaneously examining the role of e-commerce platform characteristics and online consumer psychology in influencing behavioral intention. With a better understanding of their role, platform operators and sellers can refine their livestreaming marketing tools and strategies. Highlighting the interplays among external stimuli, user reactions and user motivational styles, this study contributes to mobile e-commerce literature and the broader literature on digital marketing and human–computer interaction.

This study aims to examine the factors influencing hotel employee satisfaction and explores the different sentiments expressed in these factors in online reviews by hotel type (premium versus economy) and employment status (current versus former).

A total of 78,535 online reviews by employees of 29 hotel companies for the period of 2011-2019 were scraped from Indeed.com. Structural topic modeling (STM) and sentiment analysis were used to extract topics influencing employee satisfaction and examine differences in sentiments in each topic.

Results showed that employees of premium hotels expressed more positive sentiments in their reviews than employees of economy hotels. The STM results demonstrated that 20 topics influenced employee satisfaction, the top three of which were workplace bullying and dirty work (18.01%), organizational support (16.29%) and career advancement (8.88%). The results indicated that the sentiments in each topic differed by employment status and hotel type.

Rather than relying on survey data to explore employee satisfaction, hotel industry practitioners can analyze employees’ online reviews to design action plans.

This study is one of only a few to use online reviews from an employment search engine to explore hotel employee satisfaction. This study found that workplace bullying and dirty work heavily influenced employee satisfaction. Moreover, analysis of the comments from previous employees identified antecedents of employees’ actual turnover behavior but not their turnover intention.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relations between the directors' and officers' (D&O) insurance and digital transformation of Chinese-listed companies to provide insights into triggers of digital transformation from the perspective of D&Os' incentive plan.

Based on a panel dataset of 2,590 listed manufacturing companies in China from 2017 to 2020, and using a textual analysis of annual reports, this paper empirically examines the impact of D&O insurance on digital transformation. The authors investigate the mechanism through a mediating model and apply a series of robustness tests including firm fixed effect model, propensity score matching and changing key measures.

The research shows that the digital transformation has been negatively influenced by D&O insurance. The long coverage duration of D&O insurance significantly lowers the level of digital transformation. The moral hazard problem caused by D&O insurance has hampered digital transformation through reducing explorative innovation, while there has been no significant change in innovation quantity. Under the coverage of D&O insurance, firms with worse internal governance and state-owned firms are more reluctant to invest in risky transformation than their counterparts.

Based on a textual analysis of annual reports, this paper empirically tests the influential mechanism of D&O insurance coverage on digital transformation. The authors provide insights into non-tech triggers of digital transformation and uncover how incentive plans influences D&Os' behaviors. This paper provides a new angle to the debate on governance-strengthening and governance-weakening role of D&O insurance.

Considers the effects on the mass media of China’s transition to a more open economy and the strategies which advertisers might use to overcome the problems it presents. Describes the media available (including the unofficial “black route”, the official but restricted private sector “white route”, and the state “red route”) and lists the challenges which advertisers face in using them. Suggests some strategies and practices which can help to overcome them and some hypotheses on future media use. Calls for further research in this area.

Little is known about when younger employees’ intergenerational knowledge transfer (IGKT) – behaviors of acquiring knowledge from older employees – improves their innovative work behaviors (IWB), especially in hospitals. Taking into consideration the moderating roles of individual absorptive capacity (AC) and organization size, this study aims to develop a theoretical model to account for the associations of both online and offline IGKT with younger employees’ IWB.

The model was tested with a survey of 202 Chinese younger doctors (40 years old and below). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data.

The results showed that both online IGKT and offline IGKT have significant positive relationships with younger doctors’ IWB. Individual AC can strengthen the relationship between offline IGKT and IWB, and organization size can weaken the relationship. However, both individual AC and organization size do not significantly moderate the relationship between online IGKT and IWB.

The findings extend the understanding and application of individual-level knowledge-based view and media synchronicity theory by exploring the relationship of knowledge acquisition from older doctors through both online and offline communication channels with younger doctors’ IWB.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the interactive effect of timing and framing of hotel’s upselling message on consumer attitudes toward the message. The mediating role of reactance between the timing of upselling message and consumer attitudes is also explored.

A 2 (timing: immediately after the booking vs one week prior to arrival) by 2 (framing: concrete vs abstract) experimental design was used. A total of 250 Chinese consumers were recruited and were randomly exposed to a hotel online upselling scenario. The consumer attitudes and reactance were measured.

When the framing of upselling message involves specific room attributes, consumers show more favorable attitudes when receiving the promotion one week prior to arrival (vs immediately after the booking). However, when the framing of upselling message involves price, consumer attitudes do not differ across the time of receiving the promotion. Reactance mediates the effect of message timing on consumer attitudes when the message framing involves specific room attributes.

This research suggests that hotel managers should offer concrete message framing that includes specific room attributes at the time proximal to consumers’ arrival to increase acceptance of online room upselling. In addition, it is important for hotel managers to take consumers’ reactance into consideration when developing an online upselling strategy.

Research on online hotel room upselling is scant. This study adds to the upselling literature by examining the joint influence of timing and framing of upselling promotions on consumer attitudes toward such messages. Furthermore, this study extends our understanding of the role of reactance in the online upselling process.

Economic conditions such as convexity, homogeneity, homotheticity, and monotonicity are all important assumptions or consequences of assumptions of economic functionals to be estimated. Recent research has seen a renewed interest in imposing constraints in nonparametric regression. We survey the available methods in the literature, discuss the challenges that present themselves when empirically implementing these methods, and extend an existing method to handle general nonlinear constraints. A heuristic discussion on the empirical implementation for methods that use sequential quadratic programming is provided for the reader, and simulated and empirical evidence on the distinction between constrained and unconstrained nonparametric regression surfaces is covered.

Blockchain technology (BCT) is one of the latest disruptive innovations, brought along with-it immense scope of diverse applications contributing towards sustainable development (SD). The consistent increase in the publications reveal that the application of BCT for SD has become popular among researchers and practitioners in past few years, in turn, urged for a systematic literature review (SLR) to get an insight into the research journey travelled so far and setting directions for future research in this area. Therefore, this study aims to identify, map and synthesize the available literature on application of BCT for SD.

The automatic and manual search resulted into 1,277 studies from Scopus and Web of Science database. Further applying inclusion and exclusion criterion resulted in bringing out total of 157 studies, which were termed as primary studies. Based on the results of descriptive analysis, conducted through Bibliometric and VOSviewer software, the characteristics of BCT and its key capabilities, contributing towards shaping the recent SD literature, were critically examined. Identified research themes for clustering primary studies were aligned with United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (UNSDG). A mind-map was also prepared on the basis of thematic classification of primary studies.

The research themes “business practice and economic sustainability”, “agriculture and food security” and “business practice and environment sustainability” were found to be the focal points of scholarly attention. Synthesis and analysis of primary studies resulted into classification of research gaps under four categories – theoretical foundation, methodological limitation, research themes and technology implementation challenges. The study was concluded by sensitizing and sanitizing the concrete research questions for future research.

The research findings shall be a roadmap for research scholars, academicians and practitioners to comprehend the present state of knowledge in the domain of “BCT application for SD” and decide upon adopting the future course of action to attain the UNSDGs by the year 2030.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first attempt in its own sense to analyse and synthesize the available literature on “attaining SD through BCT” using SLR approach.