Factors affecting product quality and reliability: A comparison of developed and developing countries

Increasing global competition has led to the need for organisations to continually improve their quality performance. In particular, developing countries such as China are focused on catching up with more developed countries. This study examines the relationships between improvement in three factors (health and safety conditions, worker motivation and satisfaction, work/life balance policies) in increase in product quality and reliability in developed countries. Based on a questionnaire, the study shows that improvement in health and safety conditions have a significant direct impact on increase in product quality and reliability while improvement in work/life balance do not have the same effect

Understanding Trust Transference Among Social Nerwork Friends In Social Commerce

This study aims to examine the trust transference among social network friends in social commerce through a randomized experimental design. A total of 558 respondents participated in the experimental study. The findings of this study suggest that trust propagates from one to another in a transitive network path structure (i.e. between a direct-friend relationship, to one of friend-of-friend, friend-of-friend-of-friend or virtual friend relationship) in the social commerce context. Trust is also positively transfers between strong-tie friends when it is examined in the context of message framing with positive and negative attributes

Getting Older Ones’ Feet Wet: Older Adults’ Adoption Intention of Gerontechnology of Mobile Bathtubs

Global aging has led to increasing concern for the health and well-being of older adults. Family members generally care for older adults’ needs, yet current trends suggest more independent lifestyles for older adults. Therefore, a better understanding of older adults’ adoption intention of new gerontechnology is needed. This study adopts a two-stage approach (focus group discussions and survey research) to examine the factors of older adults’ adoption intention of gerontechnology namely, mobile bathtubs. The findings show that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, along with specific design features of mobile bathtub were determinants of adoption intention among older adults

Consistency of online consumers' perceptions of posted comments: An analysis of TripAdvisor reviews

Ratings and comments play a dominant role in online reviews. The question, thus, arises as to whether or not there is any consistency in consumer perception of the reviews, and how future choices might be influenced. We analysed 2000 comments of 20 different hotels posted on TripAdvisor to determine if the comments posted by previous guests of a hotel influence the decisions of potential guests. Two hundred human raters were asked to consider 20 reviews and to rate a hotel based on the reviews. The Cohen Kappa coefficient was used to evaluate the degree of agreement on the hotel quality as determined by the human raters and the star rating given by the original reviewer. The results showed a high consistency between the human raters’ evaluation and the reviewers’ star rating. This research reveals the importance of website feedback such as TripAdvisor in influencing consumer choice

Employment Seeking Under Consideration of Social Capital on Social Network Sites

This paper presents a model to measure the social capital of individuals seeking employment. The paper will explain the dimensions, which are used to measure social capital and gives an overview about the influence of social capital for the employment search process. Further define the paper the population for the research and will explain the hypotheses to evaluate the existence of social capital on social network sites. The interest for the scientific community is the existence of social capital in social networking sites and to explain, along the social capital theory the behavior of people on social network sites if possible. This paper describes the construct for measuring social capital with relation to the employment search process. Furthermore the paper describes the channels through which to identify available employment opportunities and explain the changes of social capital under the consideration of social network sites and social media. The paper is the theoretical basis to test the functionality of social capital in social networking sites

Revisiting quality management and performance

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between quality management practices as well as their impact on organisational performance in the ASEAN regional context. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 115 data collected from automotive parts/components manufacturing companies in five ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) was used to test the proposed research hypotheses. A two-step modelling approach was employed to model the data by using structural equation modelling (SEM). Findings – Leadership of the organisations tend to focus on their external (customers and suppliers) rather than internal (employees) partners. The result of this study also suggests that tier 1 suppliers of the automotive industry in ASEAN considered quality information and supplier relationship instead of people management, as the drivers of process management. Research limitations/implications – The study was limited to a single industry. The study did not consider some aspects culture in its investigation. Practical implications – The results of this study clarify differences in how quality is managed in an emerging region when compared to previous studies in developed countries. Originality/value – This study is the first attempt to explore quality management implementation in a specific sector in the ASEAN region

Understanding the Interaction between Older Adults and Soft Service Robots: Insights from Robotics and the Technology Acceptance Model

As the world’s population increasingly ages, we need technological solutions such as robotics technology to assist older adults in their daily tasks. In this regard, we examine soft service robots’ potential to help care for the elderly. To do so, we developed and tested the degree to which they would accept a soft service robot that catered to their functional needs in the home environment. We used embodied artificial to develop an in-house teleoperated human-sized soft service robot that performed object-retrieval tasks with a soft gripper. Using an extended technology acceptance model as a theoretical lens, we conducted a study with 79 older adults to examine the degree to which they would accept a soft service robot in the home environment. We found perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and subjective norms as significant predictors that positively influenced older adults’ intention to adopt and use soft service robots. However, we also found that perceived anxiety and perceived likability did not significantly predict older adults’ intention to adopt and use soft service robots. We discuss the implications, limitations, and future research directions that arise from these findings

Competitive priorities, employee management and development and sustainable manufacturing performance in Asian organizations

This study investigates the relationships between three dimensions of competitive priorities (customer focus, product innovation and delivery) and how Asian manufacturers manage and develop their employees and the consequent effect on sustainable manufacturing performance. Three dimensions of manufacturing performance are considered in this study—quality performance, production flexibility and operations cost. This study uses 259 datasets collected from manufacturers in four Asian countries. Structural equation modeling and mediation analysis are performed to test the relationships. Results show that there is a significant positive and mediating relationship between the competitive priority of product innovation, employee management and development, quality performance, production flexibility and operation cost. However, such significant relationships do not exist with competitive priorities of customer focus and delivery. Organizations are constantly faced with the problem of determining which competitive priorities to focus on. However, different competitive priorities have different effects on how the employees are managed and developed, and ultimately, on organizational performance and competitiveness. There is a need to focus on innovation-led strategies that relate to sustainable outcomes. This is one of the first studies in Asia to understand the multilateral relationships between different competitive priorities and different performance dimensions when employee management and development intermediate

The impact of supply chain relationships and integration on innovative capabilities and manufacturing performance: the perspective of rapidly developing countries

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationships between supply chain relationships/integration, innovative capabilities and manufacturing performance. The study adopts Institutional Theory and Resource-Based View Theory to assess relationships in 171 organisations drawn from three rapidly developing countries – Brazil, India and China. Data were collected using the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS VI) and analysed using structural equation modelling. The study found that supply chain relationships and integration relate positively to both product and process innovative capabilities. The study also found that both product and process innovative capabilities relate positively to manufacturing performance. Furthermore, there was a positive relationship between product innovative capabilities and process innovative capabilities. The findings provide new insights into manufacturers in the three countries and show that the relationships they build with their customers have encouraged them to develop new innovative capabilities. These new capabilities, in turn, have enabled them to reap benefits of improved manufacturing performance

Viewing Airbnb from Twitter: factors associated with users’ utilization.

Airbnb is a peer-to-peer accommodation website in the sharing economy. Past studies have examined the factors associated with Airbnb utilization from various platforms, but not exclusively from Twitter. A total of 21,097 tweets was collected in a period of two months, and the tweets were qualitatively analyzed with the help of text analysis tools to verify the discourse of discussion. Literature was reviewed for common factors attracting clients to an Airbnb accommodation. Factors were then qualitatively analyzed and compiled using Wmatrix, and the themes that emerged were: Price and status, social interaction and communication, location, reputation, amenities and a pet-friendly environment. This result provides a deeper insight to Airbnb hosts to strategize and add value to their current market situations