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The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of three sources of social representation (i.e. direct experience of an event, the media and social interaction) on tourists’ formation of event image; to examine the effect of event image, satisfaction and city image on tourists’ revisit intentions to the host city; and to explore the mediating role of city image.,This study used the 28th Qingdao International Beer Festival (QIBF) as the case for verifying the relationships in the proposed model. The survey was conducted in Qingdao and 366 valid observations were collected. Structural equation modeling was used to validate the research model.,Event image is found to be significantly and positively influenced by direct experience of an event and social interaction. City image and satisfaction are important predictors of revisit intention. The meaning of event image is transferred to city image. City image plays a pivotal role in mediating the effect of event image and satisfaction on revisit intention to the host city.,This study surveyed Chinese tourists attending QIBF in Qingdao and consequently the outcomes may lack generalizability. This research did not survey foreign tourists. Thus, the differences of attitudes and behaviors between Chinese and foreign tourists are not compared.,The outcomes provide insights into how a city manager can organize an event to enhance tourists’ intentions to revisit the city.,This study represents one of the few studies that use both social representation theory and the theory of brand image transfer in examining the influence of external social contexts on tourists’ formation of event image and investigates how the unique meaning of event activities is transferred to city image. In addition, the mediating role of city image is fully explored in this research.,本研究的目的包括（1）探究社会表征的三个来源（事件的直接体验, 媒体影响, 社会互动）对游客事件形象评价的影响；（2）验证事件形象、满意度、城市形象对游客重访举办地意愿的影响；（3）检验城市形象的中介作用。,本研究以第28届青岛国际啤酒节为案例研究对象, 来验证模型中的变量关系。调研在青岛进行, 共收集有效问卷366份。通过结构方程模型来验证研究假设。,事件形象评价受到直接体验和社会互动的显著积极影响。城市形象和满意度是游客重访意愿重要的影响因素, 事件形象的内涵转移到城市形象。城市形象在事件形象和满意度对重访意愿的影响作用中起到重要的中介作用。,本研究对参加青岛国际啤酒节的中国游客进行调研, 结果可能缺少普适性。本研究没有调研外国游客, 缺少中外游客的态度和行为差异的对比。,研究结论对于城市管理者如何更好的组织事件活动以提升游客重访城市的意愿提供了新的思路。,本研究将社会表征理论和品牌形象理论应用到事件营销当中, 解释了游客事件形象评价的形成过程中外部社会情境的影响, 以及事件活动的独特内涵向城市形象转移的过程。同时, 本研究验证了城市形象在事件形象和满意度对重访意愿的影响作用中的中介作用。,事件形象, 城市形象, 满意度, 重访意愿, 社会表征理论,研究论文,(1) explorar el impacto de tres fuentes de representacion social (experiencia directa de eventos, influencia de los medios, interaccion social) en la evaluacion de la imagen del evento de los turistas; (2) Verificar el impacto de la imagen del evento, la satisfaccion y la imagen de la ciudad en la voluntad de los turistas para volver a visitar el lugar; (3) verificar el papel mediador de la imagen de la ciudad.,Este estudio toma el 28° Festival Internacional de Cerveza de Qingdao como un objeto de estudio de caso para verificar la relacion de las variables en el modelo. La encuesta se realizo en Qingdao y se recolecto un total de 366 cuestionarios validos. El modelo de ecuacion estructural se utiliza para verificar la hipotesis de investigacion.,El estudio muestra que la experiencia directa de los eventos y la interaccion social tienen un impacto positivo y significativo en la evaluacion de la imagen del evento. La imagen de la ciudad y la satisfaccion son factores importantes que influyen en la voluntad de los turistas a volver a visitar. Los resultados de la investigacion muestran que la imagen de la ciudad desempena un importante papel de mediacion en el efecto de la imagen del evento y la satisfaccion en la voluntad de volver a visitar.,este estudio encuesto a los turistas que participaron en el Festival Internacional de Cerveza de Qingdao, y los resultados pueden carecer de generalidad. Este estudio no investigo a los turistas extranjeros, solo a los turistas chinos, por eso carecio de una comparacion de las diferencias en actitudes y comportamientos entre los turistas chinos y extranjeros.,las conclusiones de la investigacion proporcionan nuevas ideas sobre como los administradores de la ciudad pueden organizar mejor las actividades del evento para aumentar la voluntad de los turistas a visitar la ciudad nuevamente.,este estudio aplica la teoria de la representacion social y la teoria de la imagen de marca al marketing de eventos, explicando el impacto de los contextos sociales externos en la formacion de la evaluacion de imagenes de eventos turisticos y el proceso de transferir la connotacion unica de las actividades de eventos a la imagen urbana. Al mismo tiempo, este estudio demuestra que el papel mediador de la imagen de la ciudad tiene un impacto de la imagen del evento y la satisfaccion en la voluntad de volver a visitar.

This paper proposes three evaluation models for evaluating the value of strategic waiting of real estate development project. In Model 1, the ratio of land cost to total real estate sales in period...

Self-service kiosks have become increasingly visible at airports. To date, however, research has not fully investigated air travelers’ perceptions of fast air travel services and the factor...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of functional value and symbolic value between positive moods and word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals in the context of Taiwan’s banking industry. In addition, this study investigates the moderating effect of relational benefits on the relationship between perceived value and WOM. Design/methodology/approach The research model was tested using data collected from customers (n=362) of the top 10 domestic banks in Taiwan. Structure equation modeling was employed to test and validate the conceptual model. Findings Positive moods are found to be an important predictor of functional value, symbolic value and WOM in this banking service study. Four types of relational benefits are identified including social, special treatment, confidence and face. Note that two distinct segments of bank customers are identified in terms of relational benefits: those who appreciate face benefits (n1=169), and those who appreciate general relational benefits (n2=193). The findings reveal the existence of partial mediation between a banking customer’s mood and WOM through functional value and symbolic value in the overall sample (n=362). However, it was found that functional value partially mediates the influence of positive moods on WOM among respondents in the “general relational benefits” segment only. That is, relational benefits are found to moderate the relationship between functional value and WOM. Originality/value This study expands the existing body of knowledge on customers’ perceptions of value by differentiating types of value perceptions.

‘Friends’ circles’ on WeChat have helped make eWOM more easily accessible and influential than ever. Drawing from the social identity theory, literature on consumer engagement and eWOM, thi...

Purpose The online shopping platform serves as an intermediary between online stores and individual online shoppers. The purposes of this study are to examine the influence of anxious attachment and relational embeddedness on trust and to investigate the impact of trust and co-production on performance in the context of online seller-shopping platform relationships. Design/methodology/approach The research is an empirical research using data collected from 308 senior marketing managers of online stores selling products/services in two largest online shopping platforms. Structure equation modeling was employed to verify and validate the research model. Findings The outcomes confirm that online sellers’ anxious attachment plays a key role and is negatively associated with their trust in the online shopping platform. Relational embeddedness positively affects trust of online sellers in the online shopping platform. The effect of trust on co-production and the influence of co-production on performance are statistically significant. However, trust does not appear to positively influence performance. Research limitations/implications This study surveyed targeted online sellers in Taiwan and the research outcomes may not be generalized to other countries. Practical implications The research results provide insights for the online shopping platform in understanding online sellers’ attachment anxiety and developing relational bonds with them to generate a favorable partnership. Originality/value This study represents one of the few that empirically examines the role of anxious attachment in online business-to-business partnerships and the findings provide useful information for the online shopping platform to improve customers’ trust and participation.

This article proposes a novel valuation model, growth and value hybrid model, to estimate the stock price. This proposed model combines the essence of the asset-based approach, the income-based app...

WeChat is now deeply ingrained into the daily life of Chinese people. The objectives of this study are to examine the impact of service quality (interaction quality, environment quality, and outcome quality) on WeChat users' satisfaction and to assess the influence of their satisfaction and stickiness on usage intentions. Structural equation modelling was employed to analyze the data which were randomly collected from the four first-tier cities in China. The number of valid observations were 310. The main findings show that environment quality and outcome quality are two important predictors of satisfaction. Users' satisfaction has a positive effect on their stickiness to WeChat and usage intentions. Stickiness is found to positively influence users' intentions for using WeChat services. However, the impact of interaction quality on satisfaction is surprisingly not significant. The mediating role of stickiness between satisfaction and usage intentions is confirmed. The outcomes provide insights into how WeChat can improve its service quality which in turn will enhance users' satisfaction, their willingness to stick to WeChat, and their continuous usage intentions. Outcome quality is the dominant driver of WeChat users' satisfaction.Environment quality is found to have a mild effect on users' satisfaction.The impact of interaction quality on satisfaction is not significant.Satisfaction has a significant, positive effect on usage intentions.Stickiness mediates the relationship between satisfaction and usage intentions.

This research investigates the influence of core self-evaluations (CSE), stickiness, positive emotion and trust on smartphone users’ intentions to download free social media apps. An online questionnaire was used to collect data, and 477 valid questionnaires were collected. The outcomes show that CSE and the smartphone users’ stickiness significantly influence their positive emotion. Comparing with CSE, stickiness plays a key role in affecting users’ emotion. Smartphone users’ emotions are found to positively influence their trust, which in turn positively influences their intentions to download free social media apps. The findings provide insights into how an app developer can improve users’ emotions and their associated behaviours.

Leisure travelers increasingly prefer to book hotel online when considering the convenience and cost/time saving. This research examines the direct and mediating effects of brand image, perceived price, trust, perceived value on consumers' booking intentions and compares the gender differences in online hotel booking. The outcomes confirm most of the direct and indirect path effects and are consistent with findings from previous studies. Consumers in Taiwan tend to believe the hotel price is affordable, the hotel brand is attractive, the hotel is trustworthy, the hotel will offer good value for the price and the likelihood of their booking intentions is high. Brand image, perceived price, and perceived value are the three critical determinants directly influencing purchase intentions. However, the impact of trust on purchase intentions is not significant. The differences between males and females on purchase intentions are not significant as well. Managerial implications of these results are discussed.

Entertainment, sociality, and information positively influence users' attitudes.Trust has a positive effect on WeChat users' attitudes.Increasing users' trust will increase their willingness in making positive WOM.Improving users' attitudes will enhance their willingness in making positive WOM. WeChat is a mobile instant text and voice messaging communication service and has become an important social media platform in China. The objectives of this article are to examine the effects of psychological motivations (entertainment, sociality, and information) and trust on WeChat users' attitudes and to assess the influence of users' attitudes and their trust on positive word-of-mouth. This study represents one of the few that empirically investigates WeChat users' motives, attitudes, trust, and their associated behavior. The research model was tested using data randomly collected from the database of Sojump. The numbers of valid observations were 264. Structure equation modeling was employed to verify and validate the research model. The outcomes confirm the path effects showing that entertainment, sociality, information, and trust positively influence WeChat users' attitudes and users' trust and their attitudes significantly affect positive WOM. The research results provide insight into how WeChat can motivate users and build their trust to improve their attitudes which in turn will increase WeChat users' willingness in making positive comments on products and services.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of service quality (interaction, physical environment, and outcome quality) on trust, to investigate the trust transfer in the healthcare industry, to explore the moderating effects of image congruence and switching costs on the trust transfer, and to assess the effect of trust on patients’ willingness of recommendation. Design/methodology/approach – The research model was tested using data collected from 483 inpatients in 15 medium-to-large hospitals in Taiwan. Structure equation modeling with the latent interaction effect was employed to verify and validate the research model. Findings – The outcomes show that interaction quality and outcome quality positively influence patients’ trust in the original hospital. But the effect of environment quality on trust is not significant. Patients’ trust in the original hospital positively affects their trust in its allied hospitals. Furthermore, image congruence positively moderates the trust transfer. However, switching costs do not appear to moderate the trust transfer. The results also confirm that trust in the original hospital and its allied hospitals positively affect patients’ willingness to recommend allied hospitals. Research limitations/implications – Due to the chosen research approach, the 15 hospitals cannot represent all hospitals in Taiwan and the research outcomes may lack generalizability. Practical implications – The research results provide insight into how a hospital can improve and manage patients’ trust and the trust transfer. Originality/value – This study represents one of the few that empirically investigates trust and trust transfer in the healthcare industry and examines the moderating effects of image congruence and switching costs on the trust transfer.

Objectives: Our objective was to estimate the incidence of recent burnout in a large sample of Taiwanese physicians and analyze associations with job related satisfaction and medical malpractice experience. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional survey. Physicians were asked to fill out a questionnaire that included demographic information, practice characteristics, burnout, medical malpractice experience, job satisfaction, and medical error experience. There are about 2% of total physicians. Physicians who were members of the Taiwan Society of Emergency Medicine, Taiwan Surgical Association, Taiwan Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Taiwan Pediatric Association, and Taiwan Stroke Association, and physicians of two medical centers, three metropolitan hospitals, and two local community hospitals were recruited. Results: There is high incidence of burnout among Taiwan physicians. In our research, Visiting staff (VS) and residents were more likely to have higher level of burnout of the emotional exhaustion (EE) and depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA). There was no difference in burnout types in gender. Married had higher-level burnout in EE. Physicians who were 20~30 years old had higher burnout levels in EE, those 31~40 years old had higher burnout levels in DP, and PA. Physicians who worked in medical centers had a higher rate in EE, DP, and who worked in metropolitan had higher burnout in PA. With specialty-in-training, physicians had higher-level burnout in EE and DP, but lower burnout in PA. Physicians who worked 13-17hr continuously had higher-level burnout in EE. Those with ≥41 times/week of being on call had higher-level burnout in EE and DP. Physicians who had medical malpractice experience had higher-level burnout in EE, DP, and PA. Physicians who were not satisfied with physician-patient relationships had higher-level burnout than those who were satisfied. Conclusion: Physicians in Taiwan face both burnout and a high risk in medical malpractice. There is high incidence of burnout among Taiwan physicians. This can cause shortages in medical care human resources and affect patient safety. We believe that high burnout in physicians was due to long working hours and several other factors, like mental depression, the evaluation assessment system, hospital culture, patient-physician relationships, and the environment. This is a very important issue on public health that Taiwanese authorities need to deal with.

The past researches emphasize merely the avoidance of over-learning at the system level and ignore the problem of over-learning at the model level, which lead to the poor performance of the evolutionary computation based stock trading decision-making system. This study presents a new evaluation approach to focus on evaluating the generalization capability at the model level. An empirical study was provided and the results reveal four important findings. First, the decision-making system generated at the model design stage outperforms the system generated at the model validation stage, which shows over-learning at the model level. Secondly, for the decision-making system generated either at the model design stage or at the model validation stage, the investment performance in the training period is much better than that in the testing period, exhibiting over-learning at the system level. Third, employing moving timeframe approach is unable to improve the investment performance at the model validation stage. Fourth, reducing the evolution generation and input variables are unable to avoid the over-learning at the model level. The major contribution of this study is to clarify the issue of over-learning at the model and the system level. For future research, this study developed a more reliable evaluation approach in examining the generalization capability of evolutionary computation based decision-making system.

The research objective is to propose a novel association analysis approach using association reasoning neural networks (ARNN) to discover the association rules from cosmetics purchasing. ARNN is modified from multi-layered perceptron and back-propagation algorithm. The number of association rules is controlled by the rule threshold and the number of hidden units. To explore the possibility of producing useful and meaningful association rules using ARNN, our study uses the practical cosmetics transaction data. The results show (1) the predicted output values of ARNN are close to their desired confidence values, (2) reducing the number of hidden units of ARNN can inhibit the generation of association rules with low support, and (3) ARNN has the ability of discovering the cohesion and expansion commodities and this information could be used to make pricing strategy. Therefore, ARNN could be a promising alternative approach for association analysis.

The purpose of this study is to identify potential customers of online bookstores through web content mining without customers' transaction records and demographic information. Our study first creates a list of scholars whose research field is in information technology and categories of IT expertise. We then use a search engine to count the numbers of web pages related to scholars and expertise. These data are pre-processed with three key steps before being used: filtering abnormal data, normalizing data, and generating binary data. Association analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis are employed to generate the clusters of scholars and the clusters of expertise. In order to test the accuracy of using web mining to predict clients' interested booklists, our study evaluates the accuracy of prediction through survey. The results show that the accuracy rate of the recommended booklists targeted on potential customers (scholars) is statistically significant.

This research aimed at the case of customers' default payments in Taiwan and compares the predictive accuracy of probability of default among six data mining methods. From the perspective of risk management, the result of predictive accuracy of the estimated probability of default will be more valuable than the binary result of classification - credible or not credible clients. Because the real probability of default is unknown, this study presented the novel ''Sorting Smoothing Method'' to estimate the real probability of default. With the real probability of default as the response variable (Y), and the predictive probability of default as the independent variable (X), the simple linear regression result (Y=A+BX) shows that the forecasting model produced by artificial neural network has the highest coefficient of determination; its regression intercept (A) is close to zero, and regression coefficient (B) to one. Therefore, among the six data mining techniques, artificial neural network is the only one that can accurately estimate the real probability of default.

Our study investigates the generalization capability of fuzzy rule-based trading systems and conducted an empirical study on Taiwan's stock market during 1991/1/1–2010/12/31. The empirical conclusions are as follows (1) The investment performance in the training period is much better than that in the testing period, which exhibits over-learning. (2) The symmetry rules approach demonstrates that the pure price trend trading system is better than the pure volume trend trading system and hybrid price-volume trend trading system. The pure volume trend trading system is the poorest system. (3) The asymmetry rules approach demonstrates that the trading system optimized in one period may be performed poorer in another period. The pure price trend buy-rule combined with the pure volume trend sell-rule has good performance in 1991–2000 but acts poorly in 2001–2010.

This study proposed to employ Cross-Validation (CV) to evaluate reliability of the strength models generated by nonlinear regression analysis (NLRA), artificial neural network (ANN), and genetic operation tree (GOT), to make more sound comparisons between them. It was found that (1) the ANN was the most accurate modeling tool for the Low, Medium, and High water-binder ratio (w/b) data sets; (2) using t-statistic, under 1% of level of significance, GOT was more accurate than NLRA for the Low and the Medium w/b data sets. (3) GOT can generate creative formulas consisting with domain knowledge.

This study seeks to understand consumers’ attitudes and preferences regarding locally produced beef in British Columbia in Canada. The investigation aims to assess whether developing a new perspective on beef consumption has the potential to provide new opportunities for the beef industry in BC, Canada. Three main research questions have been identified. A qualitative research approach has been adopted. The findings are presented with an analysis of the results. The managerial implications and the limitations of the studies as well as the direction for future studies are discussed.