How does a backrest work?

After discussing the distribution of forces in the stable upright posture and illustrating the importance of the lumbar lordosis for minimising muscular effort in this position, the loadings on the spine and muscles of the back are outlined during upright sitting. It is shown that the backrest locates the lumbar spine so that the CG of the superincumbent body parts can be positioned above the vertebrae, permitting the gravity load to be transmitted to the seat without the counteracting torques which muscles would have to provide if this position was not adopted. The forces arising from other sitting positions are then discussed, and some conclusions drawn for seat design.     

How does presence influence purchase intention in online shopping markets? An explanation based on self-determination theory

Presence has been regarded as an essential component for understanding individuals’ behaviour in online environments. Drawing upon self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines the impact of presence in online shopping markets. The conceptual model is examined with data collected from TaoBao. The findings indicate that telepresence is positively associated with consumers’ autonomy and stickiness, while social presence is positively associated with consumers’ relatedness and stickiness. Furthermore, stickiness mediates both the relationship between autonomy and purchase intention, and the relationship between relatedness and purchase intention. Having introduced a new perspective of SDT, this study explains how presence significantly influences consumers’ psychological need satisfaction, attitude and behaviour, and confirms the critical role of presence in online shopping markets.     

Does sampling influence customers in online retailing of digital music?

Online retailers have taken recourse to many smart marketing strategies to sell digital music. This paper investigates the strategic decisions of online vendors for offering different mechanisms such as sampling and online reviews of digital music to increase their online sales. In this research we seek answers to the following research questions (1) should online retailers offer sampling for experience goods such as music CDs; (2) under what circumstances is offering sampling more important than offering reviews. Our empirical study shows that online markets behave as communication markets, and consumers learn about product quality information both passively (by reading online reviews) and actively but subjectively (by listening to music sampling). Using data from , we empirically show that sampling is a strong product quality signal that reduces product uncertainty and attracts interested shoppers. Products with the sampling option enjoy a higher conversion rate (which leads to better sales) than those without it. Second, the impact of online reviews on conversion rate is lower for experience goods with a sampling option than those without. Third, when the uncertainty of the online reviews is higher, sampling plays a more important role because it mitigates the uncertainty introduced by online reviews. We believe this paper makes an important contribution by comparing and studying the interactions between two commonly adopted online marketing strategies (i.e., sampling versus online reviews) and provides important insights on which strategy is beneficial for vendors in the context of online selling of digital music.     

What does computer support for cooperative work mean? a structurational analysis of computer supported cooperative work

Technical developments in electronic communication and computing coupled with new understanding of relationships between computers and work processes has given impetus to a significant amount of research in the area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Much of this work, however, lacks strong theoretical foundations, and there is no clear definition of CSCW, the major research questions of the field, or appropriate strategies for research. In this paper we suggest Giddens' theory of structuration as a conceptual foundation for CSCW research and propose a formal definition for CSCW. We conclude by discussing seven implications of the framework for future research into: (a) platform software features, (b) research methods, (c) systems development approaches, (d) features of CSCW development methodologies, (e) interactions between CSCW use processes and organizational structures, (f) interactions between work processes and CSCW applications, and (g) larger social change due to adoption of CSCW applications.     

How does a box work? A study in the qualitative dynamics of solid objects

This paper is an in-depth study of qualitative physical reasoning about one particular scenario: using a box to carry a collection of objects from one place to another. Specifically we consider the plan, plan1 “Load objects uCargo into box oBox one by one; carry oBox from location l1 to location l2”. We present qualitative constraints on the shape, starting position, and material properties of uCargo and oBox and on the characteristics of the motion that suffice to make it virtually certain that plan1 can be successfully executed. We develop a theory, consisting mostly of first-order statements together with two default rules, that supports an inference of the form “If conditions XYZ hold, and the agent attempts to carry out plan1 then presumably he will succeed”. Our theory is elaboration tolerant in the sense that carrying out the analogous inference for carrying objects in boxes with lids, in boxes with small holes, or on trays can reuse much of the same knowledge. The theory integrates reasoning about continuous time, Euclidean space, commonsense dynamics of solid objects, and semantics of partially specified plans.     

Interplay between technology and meaning: How music majors reacted?

The diffusion of digital technologies enables companies to propose new business, products and services. The business environment is characterized by increasing levels of competition, and customers can choose a growing number of solutions. In this scenario, companies seek new dimension of innovation: the meaning. A vigorous debate has taken place among scholars on the strategies that companies may use to react to external innovations. Until now, the phenomenon has been analysed grounded in the technology‐push literature. The goal of this study is to understand whether these strategies are still valuable even if innovators leverage not only on the technology but also on a hedonic dimension proposing an innovation of meaning. Through a multiple case‐study analysis, based on both primary and secondary sources, we investigate whether the case companies from the music industry also used the strategies described in the literature to cope with technological innovations that leverage both on technology and meaning.     

How does information congruence influence diagnosis performance?

Diagnosis performance is critical for the safety of high-consequence industrial systems. It depends highly on the information provided, perceived, interpreted and integrated by operators. This article examines the influence of information congruence (congruent information vs. conflicting information vs. missing information) and its interaction with time pressure (high vs. low) on diagnosis performance on a simulated platform. The experimental results reveal that the participants confronted with conflicting information spent significantly more time generating correct hypotheses and rated the results with lower probability values than when confronted with the other two levels of information congruence and were more prone to arrive at a wrong diagnosis result than when they were provided with congruent information. This finding stresses the importance of the proper processing of non-congruent information in safety-critical systems. Time pressure significantly influenced display switching frequency and completion time. This result indicates the decisive role of time pressure.

Practitioner Summary: This article examines the influence of information congruence and its interaction with time pressure on human diagnosis performance on a simulated platform. For complex systems in the process control industry, the results stress the importance of the proper processing of non-congruent information in safety-critical systems.     

How does wall slippage affect hydrodynamic dispersion?

How hydrodynamic dispersion is affected by wall slip remains to be fully understood. An attempt is made in this article looking into this issue for dispersion in some elementary pressure-driven flows. Both the long-time Taylor–Aris dispersion and the early-phase convection-dominated dispersion are investigated, analytically and numerically, respectively. The mean and the variance of the residence time distribution are also examined. In the basic case where the walls of a parallel-plate channel have equal slip lengths, the slip is in general to reduce the spread of a solute cloud in a finite channel by either increasing the convection speed or decreasing the dispersivity. However, the decreasing effect of slip on dispersion can be diminished or even reversed by unequal slip lengths and/or phase exchange with the wall. The convection-dominated regime is investigated, following a recently proposed transport-based method, to determine how the mean residence time and variance of elution profiles may change with axial positions depending on the slip.     

Is social capital effective for online learning?

The popularity of online social networking has heightened academic interest in social capital. However, few studies have investigated the role of social capital in online learning. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of data from online MIS classes, we find that online learning facilitates social capital formation mostly in terms of the dimensions of community, trust, collective action and cooperation, communication, and sociability and inclusion, depending on the media-based human interaction forms of online learning employed. Structural equation modeling confirms a causal effect of social capital on student satisfaction. Social capital is also found to positively affect learning outcomes as measured by students’ group project scores but not class scores. The study's contribution to the literature and practice are discussed.     

How does personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology promote knowledge workers’ innovative work behavior?

Drawing on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and innovation diffusion theory (IDT), this study aims to reveal the mechanism of how personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology (PIIT) affects innovative work behavior through analyzing the mediating role of usage intention toward the online learning system and the moderating role of alignment with organizational values (AOVs). Our findings from a survey of 418 knowledge workers demonstrate that the effects of PIIT on innovative work behavior are stronger with higher AOV. Furthermore, we found that by impacting usage intention, the interaction of PIIT and AOV indirectly affects innovative work behavior.     

How does service price influence patients’ decisions? An examination of the free-market pricing mechanism in online health communities

Electronic Markets - In online health communities (OHCs) in China, physicians can provide online diagnostic services and use the free-market pricing mechanism to price their service so as to...     

How does business-IT alignment influence supply chain resilience?

Due to the highly uncertain nature of the business environment, firms have been increasingly improving their supply chain resilience, especially in the context of supply chain disruptions. In this study, we examine supply chain resilience from the perspective of business-IT alignment, and further explore the moderating role of market orientation. Based on data collected from 177 firms in China, we test our model by using polynomial regression analysis and response surface methodology. Results show that a positive relationship between business-IT alignment and supply chain resilience exists, and a such relationship is further strengthened by market orientation. Our study is one of the first attempts to explore the effect of business-IT alignment on supply chain resilience. The theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the current study are also discussed.     

How do we fit underground coal mining work boots?

Abstract

Acceptable footwear fit, particularly width, is subjective and vaguely quantified. Proper shoe fit is important because it affects both comfort and the potential to prevent injury. Although mismatches between the feet of underground coal miners and their internal boot dimensions are known, no research has been undertaken to determine the impact of these mismatches on worker perceptions of fit, comfort and pain. This study aimed to quantitatively assess mining work boot fit relative to underground coal miners’ subjectively rated work boot fit and comfort, reported foot problems, lower limb pain and lower back pain in order to develop evidence-based work boot fit recommendations. Traditional footwear fitting methods based predominantly on foot length are insufficient for underground coal mining-specific footwear. Instead, fit at the heel, instep and forefoot must be considered when fitting underground coal mining work boots, in conjunction with the traditional length measurement.Practitioner summary: Underground coal miners report their work boots fit but are uncomfortable. This study assessed actual fit relative to perceived fit, comfort, foot problems, lower limb pain and lower back pain of 197 miners. Fit at the heel, instep and forefoot must be considered when fitting mining work boots.     

How does business analytics contribute to business value?

This paper presents a model, synthesized from the literature, of factors that explain how business analytics contributes to business value. It also reports results from a preliminary assessment of that model. The model consists of two parts: a process and a variance model. The process model depicts the analyze‐insight‐decision‐action process through which use of an organization's business analytic capabilities is intended to create business value. The variance model proposes that the five factors in Davenport et al.'s DELTA model of business analytics success factors, six from Watson & Wixom and three from Seddon et al.'s model of organizational benefits from enterprise systems, assist a firm to gain business value from business analytics. A preliminary assessment of the model was conducted using data from 100 customer success stories from vendors such as IBM, SAP and Teradata. Our conclusion is that the business analytics success model is likely to be a useful basis for future research.     

How does interactivity in videos affect task performance?

Computer-based video environments allow for the implementation of features such as stop, browsing, table of contents, and index that enable the recipients to engage in activities comparable to activities that were shown to be associated with superior performance with text-based learning materials. Whereas the availability of features such as stop and browsing has frequently been shown to result in superior learning outcomes with videos and animations, no benefits of a table of contents and an index in videos were observed to date. However, the tasks used in these rare studies could be considered too complex and did not allow for explicit semantic mapping between the wording of the task and the items included in the interactive features. In the current laboratory study with 81 university students, we addressed both of these points. It was observed that the availability of a table of contents and an index resulted in superior performance in a search task. However, in a more comprehensive essay task that allowed for semantic mapping between the task and the video’s index, the availability of interactivity only had positive effects on the frequency of naming the signaled information. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Evolving the online customer experience … is there a role for online customer support?

This paper advances our theoretical understanding with regard to the online customer experience in a utilitarian context. The aim of this research is to understand if there is a need for online customer support during search for information and services on business support websites. In contrast to previous studies highlighting time distortion as part of the optimal customer experience, the findings of this research illustrate that customers are time conscious during a utilitarian search with the perceived length of time spent on the website influencing the customer experience. Additionally, the perceived length of time spent on the website influences the need to seek online customer support. The outcomes of customers requiring online customer support in relation to the customer experience have been established. The findings provide key managerial implications for economic development agencies and online business support providers on the requirement of online customer support and insight into the time conscious nature of customers in relation to the online customer experience.     

How does e-mail use affect perceived control of time?

It is well established in the psychology literature that personality predicts performance to some degree. However, personality neither solely nor directly predicts outcomes. Rather, performance and outcomes unfold through context-specific mediating constructs. This study identified two constructs that mediate the relationship between proactivity and perceived control of time in e-mail use and tested the model with data from 251 knowledge workers. The results show that proactivity predicts the perceived control of time in e-mail use through both e-mail-specific time management behavior and e-mail self-efficacy. Further, greater e-mail self-efficacy leads to improved e-mail-specific time management behavior.     

How accurate does a force field need to be?

A “generalized atom” force field designed to produce quick approximate results for molecular modelling applications is presented. The main assumptions are: (i) angle terms depend only on the nature of the central atom, and (ii) torsion terms depend only on the conjugation about the central bond. These assumptions lead to an easily parameterized force field which can be applied to a wide range of novel structures, and is incorporated in the Chem-X molecular modelling software.To assess its accuracy, molecular modelling parameters calculated using this force field were compared with those obtained by other recognized methods. Central nervous system drugs were selected for study due to their well-characterized structure-activity relationships. In particular the molecular volume, surface area and aromatic-ring-to-nitrogen distances calculated from Chem-X minimized structures are compared with those obtained from MM2P and X-ray studies.     

How does customer self-construal moderate CRM value creation chain?

Most of the existing literature on CRM value chain creation has focused on the effect of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty on customer profitability. In contrast, little has been studied about the CRM value creation chain at individual customer level and the role of self-construal (i.e., independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal) in such a chain. This research aims to construct the chain from customer value to organization value (i.e., customer satisfaction → customer loyalty → patronage behavior) and investigate the moderating effect of self-construal. To test the hypotheses suggested by our conceptual framework, we collected 846 data points from China in the context of mobile data services. The results show that customer’s self-construal can moderate the relationship chain from customer satisfaction to customer loyalty to relationship maintenance and development. This implies firms should tailor their customer strategies based on different self-construal features.     

Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work?

Social Media have been gaining in popularity worldwide over the last years at an increasingly growing rate. The introduction of social media in companies enables a new method of communication among colleagues and with customers. Although social media are in the top of the agenda for many companies to date, there seems to be very limited understanding of the usage of social media for work purposes. In this study, we investigate whether employees make use of social media for work purposes, what values increase this usage, and if that usage is related with their performance. Responses from 1799 employees in the insurance industry were used to examine the impact of social media on work. Results confirmed that in the case of social media for work, employees make extended use of them no matter their age. We found also that both utilitarian and hedonic values influence employees to use more social media for their work, at least in the insurance sector. Last but not least, this study confirms that there is an important relation between the use of social media and the work performance.