Search results

With the increasing complexity of public–private partnership (PPP) projects, the amount of data generated during the construction process is massive. This paper aims to develop a new information management method to cope with the risk problems involved in dealing with such data, based on domain ontologies of the construction industry, to help manage PPP risks, share and reuse risk knowledge.

Risk knowledge concepts are acquired and summarized through PPP failure cases and an extensive literature review to establish a domain framework for risk knowledge using ontology technology to help manage PPP risks.

The results indicate that the risk ontology is capable of capturing key concepts and relationships involved in managing PPP risks and can be used to facilitate knowledge reuse and storage beneficial to risk management.

The classes in the risk knowledge ontology model constructed in this research do not yet cover all the information in PPP project risks and need to be further extended. Moreover, only the framework and basic methods needed are developed, while the construction of a working ontology model and the relationship between implicit and explicit knowledge is a complicated process that requires repeated modifications and evaluations before it can be implemented.

The ontology provides a basis for turning PPP risk information into risk knowledge to allow the effective sharing and communication of project risks between different project stakeholders. It can also have the potential to help reduce the dependence on subjectivity by mining, using and storing tacit knowledge in the risk management process.

The apparent suitability of the nine classes of PPP risk knowledge (project model, risk type, risk occurrence stage, risk source, risk consequence, risk likelihood, risk carrier, risk management measures and risk case) is identified, and the proposed construction method and steps for a complete domain ontology for PPP risk management are unique. A combination of criteria- and task-based evaluations is also developed for assessing the PPP risk ontology for the first time.

The purpose of the study is to propose a normative approach for market segmentation, profile and monitoring using computing and information technology to analyze User-Generated Content (UGC).

The specific steps include performing a structural analysis of the UGC and extracting the base variables and values from it, generating a consumer characteristics matrix for segmenting process, and finally describing the segments' preferences, regional and dynamic characteristics. The authors verify the feasibility of the method with publicly available data. The external validity of the method is also tested through questionnaires and product regional sales data.

The authors apply the proposed methodology to analyze 53,526 UGCs in the New Energy Vehicle (NEV) market and classify consumers into four segments: Brand-Value Suitors (32%), Rational Consumers (21%), High-Quality Fanciers (26%) and Utility-driven Consumers (21%). The authors describe four segments' preferences, dynamic changes over the past six years and regional characteristics among China's top five sales cities. Then, the authors verify the external validity of the methodology through a questionnaire survey and actual NEV sales in China.

The proposed method enables companies to utilize computing and information technology to understand the market structure and grasp the dynamic trends of market segments, which assists them in developing R&D and marketing plans.

This study contributes to the research on UGC-based universal market segmentation methods. In addition, the proposed UGC structural analysis algorithm implements a more fine-grained data analysis.

Employees play an essential role in interactive innovation activities in Open Innovation Communities (OICs). Nevertheless, the factors influencing employees' innovation behavior in OICs have not been studied in depth. This study selects personality traits and social network characteristics to explain why and how these two factors affect employees' innovation behavior in OICs.

Three regression models were constructed to test the relationship between personality traits, social network characteristics, and interactive innovation behaviors. The authors examined how employees' personality traits (Big Five personality traits) influence employees' innovative behavior (initiating and supporting innovation) directly in OICs and explored whether social network characteristics (social group) mediate the relationship between employees' personality traits and employees' innovation behavior.

Using empirical data on 162 employees from Salesforce's IdeaExchange, the authors found that extraversion and openness to experience have significant positive effects on employees' interactive innovation behaviors, while conscientiousness has a significant negative effect on employees' interactive innovation behaviors in OICs. Furthermore, the mediation effect test results indicated that social network characteristics have a mediating effect on the relationship between extraversion and innovative behavior, and between openness and innovative behavior.

This study analyzes how personality traits influence innovation behavior in an open innovation environment, thus enriching research related to the factors influencing interactive innovation behavior. Meanwhile, the study integrates personality, social network, and innovative behavior research streams and clearly explains the relationship between the three variables. The research findings assist firms in selecting suitable employees to participate in interactive innovation behaviors in OICs.

In China, external supervision on construction safety mainly comes from the government and supervision engineers (SEs). However, the construction safety supervisory mechanism (CSSM) contains some dilemmas affecting the improvement of safety performance, such as the declining impact of SEs, the increasing rent-seeking behaviors of contractor and excessive government interference. This study aims to depict and analyze the CSSM in China from an evolutionary game view. The objectives are to understand the supervision strategy and evolutionary behaviors of different stakeholders, propose suggestions for improving safety performance and help the key safety supervision stakeholders, especially the government, formulate a suitable safety supervision strategy.

This research uses tripartite dynamic evolutionary game theory to study the CSSM in China and solve the stable equilibrium solution using system dynamics.

This study has revealed the game relationship of construction safety supervision mechanisms in China and solved the stable equilibrium solution. The results prove that a supervision engineer (SE) plays a crucial role in the CSSM, and “supervision engineer useless” is an unreasonable assertion. For government supervision agency (GSA), excessive inspection and free-market regulation are neither wise strategies. GSA can reduce the inspection frequency when general contractors (GCs) input high safety investments and SEs implement responsible supervision. But keeping proper government supervision to avoid GC's unlawful behaviors and SE's rent-seeking is indispensable. In addition, excessive governmental supervision will weaken SE's role, so the government should transfer some supervision powers to SE.

This study focuses on the dynamic evolution process between GSA, GC and SE. This method is different from most research that neglected the dynamic characteristic of system and game solution stability. The research methods not only contribute to construction safety supervision policy-making in China but also help to improve supervision efficiency in other countries and other fields.

The ageing of rural Chinese populations is challenging health and social policy, driving growth in rural nursing homes. Living environment plays a role in enhancing elderly quality of life (QoL), however, the impact of the built environment and care services are under-studied. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the built environment and care services on the QoL of elderly people within rural nursing homes in China.

A total of 242 residents of nursing home were surveyed, of which 76 percent were male and 24 percent were female. In total, 25.6 percent were aged between 60 and 69, 40.1 percent between 70 and 79, 31 percent between 80 and 89, and 3.3 percent were 90 or above. Quantitative data were analyzed through factor analysis, reliability test and multiple regression modeling.

The authors identified six built environment factors (room distance, space, barrier-free design, indoor environment, fire safety, and support facilities) and three services factors (i.e. daily care services, cleaning services, and healthcare services). QoL was measured over four dimensions: QoL, physical health, psychological health, and social relationships. Elderly QoL could be accurately predicted from room distance, space, barrier-free design, indoor environment, daily care services, and cleaning services.

Interventions in design of the built environment and the provision of care services are proposed, including dimensions of living space, heating, and provisions for qualified care providers.

This paper provides a clear picture about elderly special requirements on their built environment and healthcare services, helping architects, engineers and facilities managers understand elderly needs and improve built environment during design and operation stages.

The aim of this paper is to solve the problem of lack of real context in JFL (Japanese as Foreign Language) classroom with video corpus-based teaching. It also offers reference for the development of video corpus.

The authors designed an intelligent Japanese online video corpus, namely the JV Finder, which is a corpus of Japanese films and TV series. The authors applied the JV Finder to JFL teaching to solve the problem of lack of real context and designed several teaching experiments to validate its benefits.

The results of teaching experiments show that the video corpus-based teaching significantly improves the learning effect. The JV Finder can help students memorize vocabularies and understand the meaning of new vocabularies in a better way.

There are still some differences in language context between real life and films, which cannot fully reflect the state of native speaker in real life. Meanwhile, the number of students participating in this experiment is relatively small, so the universality of the result need further study.

This study combined linguistics with software engineering to solve the problem of lack of real context. Video corpus-based teaching not only can be used in Japanese teaching field but also provide value for other foreign language teaching.

The JV Finder has obtained Chinese national patent license (patent no. 20131118). The video corpus (the JV Finder) has a far-reaching impact on JFL teaching.

This paper provides an intelligent Japanese online video corpus. It is applied to JFL teaching to solve the problem of lack of real context. The findings show that the video corpus can significantly improve the effectiveness of Japanese learning.

This paper aims to determine the most practically applicable color-difference formula for yarn-dyed fabrics woven from warp and weft yarns in different color depths and to establish color-difference tolerance for perceptibility by evaluating yarn-dyed fabrics visually and instrumentally.

A total of 108 sample pairs were evaluated by a panel of 13 observers with perceptibility method under three typical light sources (A, D65 and cool white fluorescent). The data sets were statistically analyzed by the homogeneity of variance test (F-test), analysis of variance, standardized residual sum of squares and performance factor/3.

Light sources had a slight influence on the visual assessments of yarn-dyed fabrics. Among the eight color-difference formulae for measurements of yarn-dyed fabrics, CIEDE2000(2:1:1) outperformed all other tested formulae, and the color tolerance for the perceptibility of CIEDE2000(2:1:1) was 0.62. When the homochromy index (K) of warp and weft yarns of yarn-dyed fabric was lower than 1.25, the color difference based on ΔE*00(2:1:1) between the two samples was acceptable in terms of the color tolerance for perceptibility (i.e. 0.62).

The warp and weft yarns in different color depths could be woven in fabric with a relatively uniform color appearance.

This study could contribute to cost savings by reusing disqualified dyed yarns during the weaving manufacturing process.

Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory and the motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) framework, this study examines how salespersons' self-monitoring and psychological capital influence sales performance.

This study uses survey data from 293 salespersons employed in China and their archival sales performance to test the hypotheses posited.

The results show that both salespersons' self-monitoring and psychological capital enhance sales performance via adaptive selling. However, these elements are primarily substitutes in influencing adaptive selling. In addition, by dividing social capital into two types (i.e. family-based social capital and customer-based social capital), the results reveal that salespersons' self-monitoring enhances family-based social capital, but not customer-based social capital. Finally, customer-based social capital, but not family-based capital, improves sales performance.

This paper extends the literature on sales force management, which examines various psychological traits and their influences on sales performance. While self-monitoring and psychological capital have been investigated separately, this research simultaneously examines these two factors by drawing on resource conservation theory. Furthermore, it explores how these psychological traits impact salespersons' ability development (i.e. adaptive selling) and capital accumulation (i.e., family-based social capital and customer-based social capital), which, in turn, affect sales performance.

The results offer managerial insights into sales force selection and management. In particular, managers should encourage salespersons to obtain greater customer-based social capital, which is more valuable than family-based social capital in boosting sales performance.

The present research is also beneficial for employee psychological health management, as it seeks to illuminate the role of psychological traits, ability development and capital accumulation. It offers insights into sociological research on social capital by categorizing it into family-based and customer-based capital.

This paper extends the literature on salespersons' psychological traits, selling abilities and social capital by examining the impacts of self-monitoring and psychological capital on adaptive selling and social capital. Specifically, this study examines the interplay between self-monitoring and psychological capital from the perspective of resources conservation theory.

The purpose of this paper is to unveil how family involvement in management teams of private Chinese companies affects professional managers’ psychological ownership and sense of “us”, in the hopes of understanding why their devotion cannot coexist with the higher level of commitment of family managers.

This paper includes two main studies. The first uses regression to analyze survey data provided by 165 professional managers working in Chinese private companies. The second is a scenario experiment in which 106 MBA candidates participate.

The study finds that there is a negative relationship between family management involvement and professional managers’ perceived relationship closeness to owners and psychological ownership of firms. It also finds that relationship closeness fully mediates the negative influence of family management involvement on managers’ psychological ownership.

This paper contributes to both the theoretical literature and management practice. From a theoretical perspective, it connects studies in indigenous sociological psychology with new literature on psychological ownership. The paper finds that personal relationships nurture the shared psychological ownership of managers by generating a sense of “us”, providing a new theoretical explanation for its formation process. Furthermore, this study offers an explanation for the negative signal effect of family involvement in management. From a practical perspective, this study finds that family involvement in management acts as a critical boundary condition for using personal relationships to stimulate professional managers.

This paper aims to explore the evolution mechanism of resources in a standard alliance that are matched with resources required at different standardization stages from the viewpoint of dynamic matching. How core enterprises in an alliance allocate resources, select member enterprises and maintain the normal operation of an alliance, according to the resource evolution of a standard alliance, is an important issue when dealing with the implementation of technology standardization.

The authors have chosen the Intelligent Grouping and Resource Sharing (IGRS) standard alliance of computer companies in China as the object of this study. The authors have built indices to identify core enterprises in the alliance from the viewpoint of network organization. The authors also collected data from authoritative news websites concerning patents and cooperative projects undertaken by 216 enterprises in the IGRS alliance during the period from 2002 to 2016, and they have computed and analyzed these data by using UCINET 6.0 software and social network analysis methodology to identify core enterprises at different standardization stages, thus revealing the evolution mechanism for resources in the standard alliance.

Technology standardization is divided into R&D, industrialization and marketization stages, and the standard alliance requires different resources to satisfy what is required at each of those different standardization stages. While technology standardization is a process during which technology systems standards are continuously being perfected and the standard product market is continuously expanding, the development of technology standardization affects the evolutionary processes of the core enterprises and affects the selection of member enterprises in the standard alliance.

The results obtained will assist the standard alliance to select proper member enterprises and dynamically match the alliance’s resources with the resources required at different standardization stages to speed up the implementation of independent standardization in China.

This study demonstrates the evolution mechanism of resources in technology standard alliances at different standardization stages by using quantitative analysis methodology, and it enriches the research on which elements are influential for technology standardization’s development in the context of China’s social, economic and cultural characteristics.