bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Determinants of profitability in Chinese companies
Authors: Alarussi Ali Saleh , Gao Xiaoyu 
Published: December 2021

Purpose This study is conducted to determine the factors that affect profitability in Chinese listed companies (by using financial ratios). Four independent variables liquidity, intangible assets, working capital and company leverage were empirically tested for their relationships with profitability besides two control variables which are firm size and company efficiency.Design/methodology/approach This study used secondary data extracted manually from the annual reports of non-financial Chinese listed companies on the Shanghai stock exchange (http://www.szse.cn/); the data set covers 100 companies during the period of 2017–2019, and a random selection method was used in order to achieve credibility and fairness as much as possible.Findings The findings show firm size, working capital and intangible assets have positive and significant relationships with profitability [return on assets (ROA) and earnings per share (EPS)]. Positive working capital is important to lower the cost of capital and improve companies' profitability. Intangible assets are also an essential source to improve profitability due to their low costs. In addition, the findings display a negative and strong relationship between liquidity and profitability, meaning that companies suffer low profit due to inefficient use of liquid items. Interestingly, leverage, which is measured by debt ratio and leverage ratio, shows mixed results; debt ratio shows a positive and strong association with ROA but not with EPS; while leverage ratio displays a strong but negative association with ROA but not with EPS. These results confirm the inverted U-shape relationship between leverage and profitability, which depends on the balance between benefit and cost of debt.Social implications Profitability is also important for employees and society where business organization provides sustainability and stability for both of them. Employees can then significantly contribute to achieve higher firm's profitability by efficiently using firm's resources.Originality/value This study differs than previous studies in number of aspects: First, this study focuses on financial ratios to explain profitability in Chinese companies. This study provides empirical results about the factors connected to profitability and help stakeholders to make their right decisions. Second, it examines the impact of four independent factors and two control variables that some of them are new in Chinese context such as intangible assets. Third previous studies focus on financial industry such as banks; however, this study focuses on non-financial industry.
Impact of knowledge sharing on employees' service quality: the moderating role of artificial intelligence
Authors: Nguyen Tuyet-Mai , Malik Ashish 
Published: December 2021

PurposeA growing number of international travellers have influenced how hotels manage their customer satisfaction reviews and ratings. This study examines the influence of knowledge sharing on employee service quality and customer satisfaction in the hotel industry. Another purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating effect of artificial intelligence (AI) system quality on the relationship between knowledge sharing on employee service quality and customer satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachThe research design was developed using the positivism approach and quantitative method. Data were collected via a self-administered survey from Vietnamese hotels that used AI systems in employees' work tasks. Three hundred and fifty pairs of questionnaires for frontline employees and customers were collected and used for the data analysis. Structural equation modelling was accessed to examine the framework model.FindingsThis research shows that the increase of knowledge sharing behaviours significantly influenced customer perceptions of employees' service quality. Furthermore, employee service quality positively affected customer satisfaction. An indirect impact of knowledge sharing on customer satisfaction via employee service quality was found. AI system quality moderated the effect of knowledge sharing on employee service quality whereby the higher the AI system quality, the stronger the impact of knowledge sharing on employee service quality. Therefore, a moderated mediation of employee service quality was found in examining the relationship between knowledge sharing and customer satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsThis study's findings direct hotel knowledge management and marketing strategies to attract international customers. The study provides hotel managers with directions to increase customer satisfaction to create a competitive advantage in international marketing strategies.Originality/valueThis study's distinctive contribution lies in examining the phenomenon of employee service quality at the intersection of knowledge sharing and customer satisfaction and the use of AI systems from an emerging market context. Furthermore, the moderation role of AI quality has rarely been explored.
How international marketers make decisions: exploring approaches to learning and using heuristics
Authors: Guercini Simone , Freeman Susan Maria 
Published: December 2021

PurposeThe paper addresses the following research question: how do decision-makers use heuristics in their international business (IB) environment? Whereas, the literature has focused on entrepreneurial companies, here contrasting approaches to learning and using heuristics in international marketing (IM) decisions are examined and discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe paper aims to address a gap in the study of micro-foundations of internationalization, exploiting research from other disciplinary fields. It combines a multidisciplinary literature review and longitudinal case studies to illustrate different approaches in learning and using heuristics by international marketers.FindingsInternational marketers can adopt “closed” heuristics that are consolidated and consistently followed, or “open” heuristics, which are constantly being adapted and learned. Established multinationals learn heuristics in international marketing decision-making, following both “closed” and “open” models.Originality/valueThis paper offers an original contribution by presenting different approaches not yet examined in the literature, focusing on how international marketers make decisions through learning and using heuristic rules. The focus is on established exporters, in contrast to the literature that has largely paid attention to the effectiveness of heuristics in new entrepreneurial firms.
Fundamental elements of university-industry interaction from a grounded theory approach
Authors: Bürger Rafaela , Fiates Gabriela Gonçalves Silveira 
Published: December 2021

PurposeThis work aims to analyze the university–industry interaction in innovation ecosystems. The problem under study addresses how agents can operate in university–industry interactions to enhance the connections, specifically in the aspect of operational mechanisms of an innovation ecosystem.Design/methodology/approachThe study is qualitative, applied through grounded theory approach, cross-sectional and multiple sources of evidence – semi-structured interviews were conducted. An explanatory conceptual model was subsequently compared with the literature and validated with specialists.FindingsThe results showed that the university–industry interaction is influenced by several factors, such as networking, legal support, facilitating agents, management practices. Despite this, some other factors were identified for the improvement of U–I relationships, such as: strengthening of triple helix, greater legal certainty and encouragement of open innovation.Research limitations/implicationsThe small sample size and the heterogeneity among the universities interviewed did not allow full saturation to occur. In spite of that, a significant level of saturation with respect to the challenges and barriers was observed.Practical implicationsThis work has a direct dialogue with researchers, managers and actors involved in university–industry interaction with regard to increasing the capacity for creation and dissemination of knowledge among organizations, educational institutions, government and companies.Originality/valueBy adopting a grounded theory approach, a detailed research agenda addresses research needs in two main areas: activities that precede the interaction between universities and companies, and the organization and management of the consequences of collaborative relationships.
Exploring decision-making biases among Iranian entrepreneurs: some novel insights
Authors: Nouri Pouria 
Published: December 2021

Purpose
Decision-making biases play decisive roles not only in entrepreneurs’ decisions but also in the fate of entrepreneurial businesses. While the extant literature in this regard is relatively rich, it has predominantly focused on certain biases like overconfidence and overoptimism at the expense of other possibly influential biases, which could influence entrepreneurial decisions. Thus, to address this serious research gap, this paper aims to explore four of the less-researched biases of escalation of commitment, the illusion of control, confirmation and the belief in the law of small numbers in entrepreneurial decisions.

Design/methodology/approach
By taking a qualitative approach, the data for this study were collected through face-to-face interviews with 19 Iranian habitual (experienced) entrepreneurs running small businesses and analyzed by a qualitative thematic analysis.

Findings
According to the results, the environmental uncertainty, the reluctance to lose face and the experiences of previous failures contributed to the escalation of commitment, while disregard for external factors beyond one’s control caused the illusion of control, factors like prior successful businesses in the same sector, looking for resorts to manage uncertainty, along with the decision to exploit opportunities resulted in the confirmation bias, while the expenses of conducting sweeping pilot tests in the market and the reluctance to reveal a business secret to the competitors were the main contributors of the belief in the law of small numbers.

Originality/value
This study is a pioneer in scrutinizing four less-researched but important biases in entrepreneurs and, thus extending the line of research in this regard.
The impact of customer knowledge on the organizational performance: a system dynamics approach
Authors: Bidgoli Seyed Danial , Owlia Mohammad Saleh , Isaai Mohammad Taghi 
Published: December 2021

PurposeThe purpose of this research was to model the impact of customer knowledge on the performance of organization with a focus on information technology industry. Furthermore, it is intended to analyze the effect of customer knowledge investment on the performance measures, by reviewing investment policies.Design/methodology/approachThe relationship between customer knowledge and performance measures was specified using literature review and grounded theory method. The system dynamics approach was then applied to analyze the impact of the customer knowledge on the performance measures.FindingsThis study provided a dynamic model on the causal relationship between customer knowledge and organizational performance. The results showed that measures such as product development, financial performance, idea generation, technical knowledge and knowledge maturity were affected by the customer knowledge while the relationship with customer loyalty and the number of customers was not proven. Besides, it was found that to increase the impact of customer knowledge on organizational performance, knowledge maturity was essential, and investing on customer knowledge without investing on knowledge maturity would reduce the organizational performance. The results also showed that more knowledge investment would not necessarily increase financial strength of the organization.Practical implicationsResults of this study could be useful for strategy formulation and deployment especially for IT-based companies showing the importance of investment on customer knowledge on the one hand and the knowledge maturity in the organization on the other hand.Originality/valueIn this research, the impact of customer knowledge on both financial and nonfinancial performance measures was studied showing new findings on the dynamism of their relationships.
Joint pricing and ordering decisions for a loss-averse retailer with quantity-oriented reference point effect and demand uncertainty: a distribution-free approach
Authors: Yu Yue , Qiu Ruozhen , Sun Minghe 
Published: December 2021

PurposeThis work examines the joint pricing and ordering (JPO) decisions for a loss-averse retailer with quantity-oriented reference point (RP) effect under demand uncertainty.Design/methodology/approachThe demand is assumed to be uncertain with the mean and variance as the only known information. The prospect theory is used to model the retailer's expected utility. An expected utility maximization model in the distribution-free approach (DFA) is then developed. Using duality theory, the expected utility under the worst-case distribution is transformed into tractable piece-wise functions. To examine the effectiveness of the DFA in coping with the demand uncertainty, a stochastic programming model is developed and its solutions are used as benchmarks.FindingsThe proposed model and solution approach can effectively hedge against the demand uncertainty. The JPO decisions are significantly influenced by the LA coefficient and the reference level. The LA has a stronger influence than the reference level does on the expected utility. An excessive LA is detrimental while an appropriate reference level is beneficial to the retailer.Practical implicationsThe results of this work are applicable to loss-averse retailers with the quantity-oriented RP when making JPO decisions with difficulty in predicting the demands.Originality/valueThe demand is assumed to be uncertain in this work, but a certain demand distribution is usually assumed in the existing literature. The DFA is used to study JPO decisions for the loss-averse retailer with quantity-oriented RP effect under the uncertain demand.
A multi-criterion group decision-making method based on regret theory under 2-tuple linguistic environment
Authors: Jia Xiang , Wang Yingming 
Published: December 2021

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-criterion group decision-making (MCGDM) method by combining the regret theory and the Choquet integral under 2-tuple linguistic environment and apply the proposed method to deal with the supplier selection problem.Design/methodology/approachWhen making a decision, the decision-maker is more willing to choose the alternative(s) which is preferred by the experts so as to avoid the regret. At the same time, the correlative relationships among the criterion set can be sufficiently described by the fuzzy measures, later the evaluations of a group of criteria can be aggregated by means of the Choquet integral. Hence, the authors cope with the MCGDM problems by combining the regret theory and the Choquet integral, where the fuzzy measures of criteria are partly known or completely unknown and the evaluations are expressed by 2-tuples. The vertical and the horizontal regret-rejoice functions are defined at first. Then, a model aiming to determine the missing fuzzy measures is constructed. Based on which, an MCGDM method is proposed. The proposed method is applied to tackle a practical decision-making problem to verify its feasibility and the effectiveness.FindingsThe vertical and the horizontal regret-rejoice functions are defined. The relationships of the fuzzy measures are expressed by the sets. A model is built for determining the fuzzy measures. Based on which, an MCGDM method is proposed. The results show that the proposed method can solve the MCGDM problems within the context of 2-tuple, where the decision-maker avoids the regret and the criteria are correlative.Originality/valueThe paper proposes an MCGDM method by combining the regret theory and the Choquet integral, which is suitable for dealing with a variety of decision-making problems.
Product recommendation using online reviews with emotional preferences
Authors: Hu Limei , Tan Chunqia , Deng Hepu 
Published: December 2021

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a novel recommendation method using online reviews with emotional preferences for facilitating online purchase decisions. This leads to better use of information-rich online reviews for providing users with personalized recommendations.Design/methodology/approachA novel method is developed for producing personalized recommendations in online purchase decision-making. Such a method fuses the belief structure and the Shapley function together to effectively deal with the emotional preferences in online reviews and adequately tackle the interaction existent between product criteria with the use of a modified combination rule for making better online recommendations for making online purchase decisions.FindingsAn example is presented for demonstrating the applicability of the method for facilitating online purchase. The results show that the recommendation using the proposed method can effectively improve customer satisfaction with better purchase decisions.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed method can better utilize online reviews for satisfying personalized needs of consumers. The use of such a method can optimize interface design, refine customer needs, reduce recommendation errors and provide personalized recommendations.Originality/valueThe proposed method adequately considers the characteristics of online reviews and the personalized needs of customers for providing customers with appropriate recommendations. It can help businesses better manage online reviews for improving customer satisfaction and create greater value for both businesses and customers.
Factors contributory to fire occurrences in two populated areas in the American southwest
Authors: Tong Susanna T.Y. , Wan Shitian , Gao Yuhe 
Published: December 2021

PurposeThis study aims to further understand the factors contributory to fire occurrences in two semi-arid regions in the American Southwest, Clark County in Nevada and Maricopa and Pinal Counties in Arizona.Design/methodology/approachStatistical and geographic information system analyses were employed to examine the spatial and temporal relationships of various natural and human-caused factors with fire incidences.FindingsAngström fire danger index, average amount of rainfall one month prior, extent of forests and grasslands, and proximities to secondary roads and population centers have significant relationships with fire events.Research limitations/implicationsThe importance of the factors contributory to fire occurrence is site-specific even in areas with similar climatic regimes and varies among different geographic regions; as such, researchers will need to conduct specific investigation of each study area.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study can be instrumental in facilitating fire managers to derive more informed strategies in fire prevention and management.Originality/valueWhile there are many studies on fire, most of them are conducted in wet regions with a lot of vegetative cover; not much work is done on arid areas. This paper considered and compared the spatial and temporal relationships of a wide range of natural and human-caused factors with fire events in two semi-arid areas. The intent was to assess the relative importance of these factors in areas even with similar climatic regimes. As our world is facing unprecedented changes in terms of climate and population growth, it is paramount to have an enhanced understanding of the impacts of these changes on fire regimes. The study areas are hot and dry, and they are located in the wildland–urban interfaces with rapid population growth and urbanization; as such, the research findings may contribute to existing literature.
A perspective on value co-creation processes in eSports service ecosystems
Authors: Kunz Reinhard E. , Roth Alexander , Santomier James P. 
Published: December 2021

PurposeElectronic Sports (eSports) is an emerging sector of the sports and entertainment industry experiencing an accelerated increase in consumer and sponsor demand. This paper aims to study selected cases of eSports service ecosystems, to identify similarities and differences and to understand the different roles, relationships and multiple interactions of actors involved in value co-creation processes.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical paper follows the service-dominant logic to highlight value creation. Based on the sport value framework, an organizing logic for the actors in sports-related ecosystems to exchange service and co-create value, the authors apply the conceptualization of an eSports service ecosystem framework in which actors create value through their interactions. A case study approach was applied to qualitatively describe two cases of value co-creation by multiple actors during three eSports events. Case study 1a is the 2019 League of Legends World Championship Finals in Paris. Case study 1b is the 2020 League of Legends World Championship Finals in Shanghai. Case study 2 is the BLAST Premier Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Global Final 2020, which was entirely virtual.FindingsThe outcome is an empirically investigated conceptual framework of multiple actors co-creating value within a service ecosystem in eSports. The insights of the cases explain how actors interact with each other and co-create value during events in eSports ecosystems. The cases illustrate interactions in the context of eSports where the actors are connected within ecosystems. This enables further development of a value co-creation concept and a better understanding of value co-creation in eSports.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research by explicating a theoretically grounded framework for eSports service ecosystems based on empirical evidence. This research extends the scope of value co-creation beyond the firm–customer dyad to a service ecosystem in eSports, demonstrating the dynamic interactions of multiple actors.