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This research aims to empirically investigate the impacts of product and international diversification strategies on firm-level inventory performance.

This study empirically examines the associations between product and international diversification strategies and inventory performance based on a sample of 64,124 observations across 7,367 US publicly traded firms between 1989 and 2019 from the COMPUSTAT Segment, Fundamental Annual and Fundamental Quarterly data files. We employ both linear and nonlinear regression models to perform our empirical analysis.

This research provides strong evidence that there exists a U-shaped relationship between unrelated product diversification and inventory level and a partially inverted U-shaped relationship between international diversification and inventory level. We also find a positive impact of related product diversification on inventory level, but there is no significant curvilinear relationship between related product diversification and inventory level.

Our research findings offer important insights into top management’s strategic planning for diversification strategies and operations manager’s inventory control policies to achieve the strategic fit between corporate diversification and inventory management.

Product and international diversification strategies not only play an essential role in the firm’s competitive advantage, but also have a significant influence on operations manager’s inventory decision. This research is among the first to systematically investigate how top management’s related product, unrelated product and international diversification strategies may have complex nonlinear impacts on inventory performance.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a screw axis identification (SAI) method based on the product of exponentials (POE) model, which is concerned with calibrating a serial robot with m joints equipped with a stereo‐camera vision system.

Different from conventional approaches, like the circle point analysis (CPA) or the system theoretic method which must collect a great deal of data, the identification of the joint parameters for the proposed method only needs to measure m+1 times for n (n≥3) target points mounted on the manipulator end‐effector.

In this approach, the joint parameter, called a screw or twist, together with the actual value of joint angle can be obtained by linearly solving a closed‐form expression. Further, this method avoids calibrating the hand‐eye relationship and the exterior parameter of the robot.

Finally, the stability and accuracy of the SAI method are evaluated by simulation experiments, and it is also verified well in practical experiments.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the means for enhancing the image and business legitimacy of a socially discredited industry – pawnbroking in pre-1949 China – are explored. Previous studies suggest companies operating within such industries cannot solely rely on hard marketing strategies “to maximize sales and profits as they do with soaps and shoes” (Davidson, 2003, p. 7). Instead, they must find soft strategies for improving company and industry image and legitimacy.

This research relies on qualitative analysis of historical data and documents.

Soft strategies deployed by Chinese pawnbrokers – such as interpretations, moral value advocacies and institutionalized arrangements – contributed substantially to improving pawnbroking’s image and business legitimacy.

Interconnections among ethical values, image, business legitimacy and select marketing strategies are clarified. The efficacy of historically analyzing previously implemented business strategies and their embedding contexts is discussed.

Strategies Chinese pawnbrokers used to mitigate their previously negative image and boost their business legitimacy suggest strategies current socially disapproved companies can use to improve their image and business legitimacy.

A historical analysis of pre-1949 Chinese pawnbroking can suggest soft marketing strategies for overcoming consumers’ negative company and industry impressions.

This study examines how informal business networks achieve marketing goals in socially uncertain contexts. Drawing from multiple historical sources, Shangbangs, a type of business network that thrived in pre-1949 China, are analyzed.

The Critical Historical Research Method (CHRM) undergirds a study of Shangbangs’ historicity (i.e. their socio-historically embedded multiplicity, including organizational forms, activities and connotations.

As informal regional, professional, project-based, special-product-based or mixed marketing networks, Shangbangs relied on “flexible specialization” and coupled multiple business needs to market goods and services, business organizations, specific social values and, when necessary, to debrand business rivals.

This analysis extends theories about marketing networks by probing their subtypes, diverse marketing activities, multipronged channels and relationship building with social entities (including underground societies, business associations and guilds) in response to pre-1949 China’s market uncertainties. Substantiating an alternative approach to “flexible specialization” and marketing innovations within the pre-1949 Chinese economy shows how a parallel theoretical framework can complement western-based marketing theories.

This first comprehensive analysis of Shangbangs, an innovative historical Chinese marketing network outside the conventional market-corporate dichotomy, can inform theory building for marketing strategy-making and management conditioned by social contexts.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have shown great potential in addressing the current contradiction between underinvestment and sustainable development of urban regeneration in China, as well as in further facilitating the transformation and upgrading of China's urban development. In this regard, this study aims to investigate critical success factors (CSFs) and explore the relationships among these factors, and serve as a reference to provide recommendations and strategies for the successful implementation and sustainable development of urban regeneration REITs.

In this study, an integrated total interpretive structural modeling–matriced impact croises multiplication applique (TISM–MICMAC) approach using the TISM technique and MICMAC analysis is then implemented to explore the relationships among CSFs, demonstrate the hierarchical structure and classify these factors into clusters based on calculated driving powers and dependence.

This study has determined a final list of 11 CSFs through literature review and expert survey. The TISM model demonstrates a six-level hierarchical structure encompassing the influence transmission paths of CSFs, in which the most significant factors and links are established, while the MICMAC analysis further classifies CSFs into four clusters as a complement for the findings of the TISM technique.

This study offers practical implications for governments, individual and institutional investors, REITs and property managers, and other stakeholders concluded in urban regeneration REITs. The final list of determined CSFs can serve as the decision points for management and control of the implementation processes, while the findings of the TISM–MICMAC approach can be a significant reference to provide strategies for optimization and enhancement of urban regeneration REITs.

This study is a novel attempt to use both the TISM technique and MICMAC analysis to investigate CSFs for the implementation of urban regeneration REITs, and to address the theoretical and methodological research gaps in the existing literature.

Proper performance assessment of residential building renovation is crucial to sustainable urban development. However, a comprehensive review of the literature in this research domain is lacking. This study aims to uncover the study trend, research hotspots, prominent contributors, research gaps and directions in this field.

With a hybrid review approach adopted, relevant literature was examined in three stages. In Stage 1, literature retrieved from Scopus was screened for their relevance to the study topic. In Stage 2, bibliographic data of the shortlisted literature underwent scientometric analyses by the VOSviewer software. Finally, an in-depth qualitative review was made on the key literature.

The research hotspots in performance assessment of residential building renovation were found: energy efficiency, sustainability, thermal comfort and life cycle assessment. After the qualitative review, the following research gaps and future directions were unveiled: (1) assessments of retrofits incorporating renewable energy and energy storage systems; (2) evaluation of policy options and financial incentives to overcome financial constraints; (3) establishment of reliable embodied energy and carbon datasets; (4) indoor environment assessment concerning requirements of COVID-19 prevention and involvement of water quality, acoustic insulation and daylighting indicators; and (5) holistic decision-making model concerning residents' intentions and safety, health, well-being and social indicators.

Pioneered in providing the first comprehensive picture of the assessment studies on residential building renovations, this study contributes to offering directions for future studies and insights conducive to making rational decisions for residential building renovations.

This study aims to develop a database of existing academic information in house purchase decision (HPD) using systematic literature review (SLR), to facilitate worldwide advancement of research under HPD domain.

This research examined papers from two reputable databases – Scopus and Google Scholar – from 1992 to 2022 using a scoping review technique (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005) and a theme analysis method. Out of 374, 181 articles fit the inclusion parameters and were evaluated using the theme analysis approach.

Data from 181 articles was evaluated thematically to create a thematic map of HPD research. Five main themes and their sub-themes were identified: consumer behaviour, housing attributes, factors influencing purchasing decisions, investment analysis and demographics, which proved essential in understanding HPD and customer preferences for house purchase.

Data from 181 articles were evaluated thematically to create a thematic map of HPD research. This SLR intends to provide useful new insights on consumer concerns about home purchases in the rapidly developing residential real estate market and the issues that marketers, housing sector stakeholders, real estate industry and existing and future researchers should prioritize.

This research is unique such that it is the only 30-year-long SLR on the subject matter of HPD. This paper makes a significant contribution to residential real estate domain signifying the present state of research in HPD.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive bibliometric study of housing prices according to the articles collected by the Web of Science (WOS).

This paper studies 4,125 research papers on housing prices in the core collection database of WOS. Using VOSviewer, this paper makes a bibliometric and visual analysis of the housing prices research from 1960 to 2020 and probes into the housing prices research from five aspects: time, international cooperation, institutions author cooperation and research focuses.

Keywords such as influencing factors of housing prices, analysis of supply and demand, policy and housing prices and regional cities appear frequently, which indicates the main direction of housing price research literature. Recent common keywords include regression analysis and house price forecast. Countries, like the USA started early in the study of housing prices, and the means and methods in the field of housing price research are mature, leading the forefront of housing price research. Compared with the USA and other Western developed countries, the housing price research in developing countries needs to use innovative research methods and put more effort on sustainability. Research shows that housing price is closely related to economy, and keyword cluster analysis shows that gross domestic product, interest rate, currency and other keywords related to economy are of high-frequency.

This paper only uses articles from one database (WOS), which does not represent all research papers published worldwide. Some studies have been published for a long time, and the reference value to the research focuses and future research might be limited. There are many kinds of journals included in the study with different publishing frequencies, time ranges and numbers of papers. These may have some influence on the research results.

The main theoretical contribution of this paper is to supplement the current academic research on housing prices. This paper reveals the key points of housing prices research and possible research problems that need attention. We can know from the future research direction and practice which can offer insights for future innovative direction.

This paper aims to examine optimal decisions for information security investments for a firm in a fuzzy environment. Under both sequential and simultaneous attack scenarios, optimal investment of firm, optimal efforts of attackers and their economic utilities are determined.

Throughout the analysis, a single firm and two attackers for a “firm as a leader” in a sequential game setting and “firm versus attackers” in a simultaneous game setting are considered. While the firm makes investments to secure its information assets, the attackers spend their efforts to launch breaches.

It is observed that the firm needs to invest more when it announces its security investment decisions ahead of attacks. In contrast, the firm can invest relatively less when all agents are unaware of each other’s choices in advance. Further, the study reveals that attackers need to exert higher effort when no agent enjoys the privilege of being a leader.

In a novel approach, inherent system vulnerability of the firm, financial benefit of attackers from the breach and monetary loss suffered by the firm are considered, as fuzzy variables in the well-recognized Gordon – Loeb breach function, with the help of fuzzy expectation operator.

This study reports that the optimal breach effort exerted by each attacker is proportional to its obtained economic benefit for both sequential and simultaneous attack scenarios. A set of numerical experiments and sensitivity analyzes complement the analytical modeling.

In a novel approach, inherent system vulnerability of the firm, financial benefit of attackers from the breach and monetary loss suffered by the firm are considered, as fuzzy variables in the well-recognized Gordon – Loeb breach function, with the help of fuzzy expectation operator.

As self-service technologies (SSTs) become more prevalent, service providers are actively encouraging customers’ involvement with these technologies, sometimes even forcing their customers to use SSTs. This paper aims to examine the influence of the SST-only (vs full-service) mode on customers’ negative attitude toward SST providers through the mediating mechanism of powerlessness and explores how SST familiarity and SST anthropomorphism moderate the impacts of the SST-only mode on powerlessness.

Three experiments were performed, study 1 tested the main and mediating effect and studies 2 and 3 verified the moderating effects.

The results suggest that customer perceived powerlessness mediates the relationship between SST-only (vs full-service) mode and negative attitude toward SST providers. When the levels of SST familiarity and SST anthropomorphism are high, the impacts of SST-only on powerlessness are attenuated. Alternative mediating mechanism of powerlessness is examined and ruled out.

Future research should investigate other moderators that may reduce the impacts of SST on customer powerlessness. These moderators could be service-operating procedures, SST interface design, types of service situations and customer characteristics. In addition, other consequences of powerlessness, other than the negative attitude toward SST providers and intention to switch investigated here, should be investigated as well.

This research provides guidelines helping service providers to improve their customers’ SST usage experience by showing both SST familiarity and SST anthropomorphism may alleviate the negative effects of SST-only mode on customer perceived powerlessness more effectively.

This research examines the role of customers’ psychological reactions toward the SST-only mode, particularly from the perspective of power and control.