Online advertisers use multiple channels to reach consumers on the Internet. However, little is known on the interplay between online advertising channels. To fill this gap, this study provides a comprehensive overview of interaction effects in online advertising for individual consumers, including not only site visits, but also exposures that do not directly lead to a click. Based on a large cookie-based individual-level data set the authors analyze interaction effects within and between channel groups on purchase behavior. By classifying online marketing channels along the dimensions of initiation locus and previous brand awareness, they find significant interactions between contacts within and across channel types. While clicks following contacts in customer-initiated channels that require brand awareness overall have a negative effect on purchase propensity, previous clicks in firm-initiated channels positively interact with clicks in customer-initiated channels. The results can help managers to coordinate marketing strategies, optimize campaigns, and develop individualized marketing and targeting approaches.

In the past, particular advertisements have offended people for being controversial products or executions, and, globally, religion plays a significant role in influencing attitudes toward controversial advertising. In light of advertising controversy and the impact of social values on government regulations, this study explores how religion (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism/Taoism, Hinduism, and non-believers) influences consumers’ perceptions of government regulations on controversial advertising. Controversial advertising is defined as “advertising that, by the type of product or execution, can elicit reactions of embarrassment, distaste, disgust, offence, or outrage from a segment of the population when presented” (Waller, 2006, p. 7). Typical controversial products include gender/sex related products, addictive products, social/political groups and health and care products (Fam, Waller, & Erdogan, 2004). Controversial executions usually refer to antisocial behaviour, indecency, fear, racism, and sexuality (Wilson & West, 1981). Several examples in recent decades show that marketing communications which involve controversial products or executions can cause a large-scale boycott of a brand. Studies have found that religion becomes a crucial indicator in influencing consumers’ perceptions of marketing activities and shopping behaviours (Al-Hyari et al., 2012). When the advertised content violates the religious beliefs of the audiences, brand damage can follow. While controversial advertising offends consumers, its insufficient regulation hurts too (Christy, 2006); thus leading to calls for more attention from government regulatory bodies (Boddewyn, 1991). According to previous studies, “many general spiritual principles and actual rituals in religion are related to ethical positions” (p. 533). Consumers’ religious beliefs could affect how they expect regulatory bodies to behave as social agents (Cornwell et al., 2005). Therefore, this study extends the literature by examining how consumers affiliated with different religions evaluate the current government regulation of the advertising of controversial products and executions, and whether they perceive that the regulations have effectively restricted the advertising offense based on their religious beliefs. Based on research data collected from 1,402 university students in 11 countries from across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia (namely, (Canada, Italy, Australia, Germany, England, China, India, Turkey, Mexico, Korea, and Malaysia), the findings confirm the existing literature that different religions are identified as having different levels of tolerance toward the advertising of controversial goods and executions (Fam, Waller, & Erdogan, 2004; Morphitou & Gibbs, 2000). Also, the restrictions required by some religious groups are inadequately addressed by regulatory bodies. See Tables 1 and 2. Islamic followers are more easily offended by controversial advertising. At the same time, they perceive relatively weak government regulations on controversial advertising. This is particularly true for the advertising of addictive products, personal themes, and risky/avoidable executions. Although in some Muslim countries (e.g., Malaysia) where numerous government regulations are already instituted to protect the Islamic values and their cultural identity (Waller & Fam, 2000), the force of the regulations is still perceived as weak, thus demanding more restrictions. Buddhists/Taoists and non-believers who are moderately offended by the controversial advertisements, more frequently indicate that the government restrictions on advertising are stronger than those indicated by Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. Perceptions of Buddhists are likely influenced by their philosophical teachings, which includes teachings of “Wisdom (right view, right intention), Ethical conduct (right speech, right action, right livelihood), and Concentration (right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration)” (“Buddhism,” 2013). Although Non-believers do not officially commit to a religion, the 73.37% of non-believers in this study reside in China and South Korea, both societies that practice Confucian cultures (Gao & Kim, 2009). Confucianism is concerned with “morality, propriety, modesty, social harmony and human relationships” (Ching, 1997; Wilhelm, 1931 in Gao & Kim, 2009). As such, Buddhists/Taoists and non-believers perceive that the regulations strongly protect their cultural values and the harmony of the society from inappropriate commercials, but are less restrictive of freedom of choice, free speech and marketers’ creativity. Hindus are found to be less offended by the advertisements of the majority of controversial product and execution groups; at the same time they believe that the advertisements are less regulated compared to other religions. However, their negative attitudes toward the advertising of addictive products call for special attention of marketers and regulatory bodies. Compared to the other four religious groups, Hindus indicate that the regulations are weakly planned in restricting the advertising of addictive products and the advertising offense still occurs. This finding confirms Hindus’ desire to prohibit such advertising in media in order to protect health and well-being of their young population (Shastri, 2012) and control overall crime in the Hindu society (Schneider, 2013). Christians perceive the regulatory restrictiveness as being significantly lower than Buddhists/Taoists and non-believers, but not different from Muslims and Hindus. Christians indicate an overall lower extent of offensiveness on all eight groups of products and executions than the other four religions, and they also report the regulations to be acceptable. These findings validate Morphitou and Gibbs’s (2008) argument that Christians have more tolerance toward self-interest and acceptance of the diversity in marketing communications. Christians’ opinions on the restrictive effects of the regulations on hindering free speech, freedom of choice, and creativity of marketing communications are salient. This finding would remind the regulatory bodies to be cautious about not being overly restrictive in Christian-dominated countries when planning regulations. The study findings have practical value for advertisers and policy makers. The advertising practitioners need to be aware of elements in their advertising that conflict with consumers’ religious beliefs, especially when operating in international markets, and prevent advertising offense. Direct marketing strategy is strongly recommended when promoting controversial products in a highly sensitive mass media environment, especially for marketing in pluralistic societies which have multiple religions. Advertisers need to exercise special caution when promoting gender/sex-related products and social/political groups in Muslim-dominated markets (Michell & Al-Mossawi, 1999; Fam, Waller, & Erdogan, 2004; De Run et al., 2010). Advertising of those two product groups to non-believers who conform to the ethical codes of Confucianism can also be offensive (Gao & Kim, 2009). Marketers should be aware that the advertising of alcohol and cigarettes is highly offensive to Hindus and Muslims. Their promotion in mass media may evoke negative responses. Additionally, using controversial executions in advertising should be avoided, especially when targeting Muslims and Confucian consumers. These findings may also help advertising regulation planners (self-regulating advertising bodies and policy makers) to gain understanding about how different religions view the current regulations of controversial advertising. When targeting Buddhists/Taoists and non-believers, advertising regulators should consider keeping the current level of restrictions of controversial advertising. We recommend similar approach when targeting Hindus except for imposing more regulations in relation to advertising of addictive products. In Islamic societies, more restrictions or more awareness of what are the current restrictions may be necessary, in order to comply with Muslims’ sensitivities, while an easing of the restrictions on the advertising in Christian-dominated markets would be desired.

To stay ahead in today’s competitive landscape service firms must continually innovate their offerings and processes (Thakur and Hale 2013). Spurred by this focus on innovation, there has been a tremendous growth in service firms over the past decade. Service innovation has been recognized as the engine of renewal and reason for the growth of the services sector. Although the concept service innovation is gaining increased attention, the question of what a service innovation really is remains unanswered. Traditionally, research on service innovation has separated radical and incremental innovations (see e.g. Gallouj and Weinstein, 1997), and product and process innovations (Vaux Halliday and Trott, 2010). This suggests that there are different conceptualizations that can be used to categorize service innovation. The basis of this research is a literature review. This systematic literature review is based on 879 empirical and conceptual articles used in order to identify conceptualizations of categories of service innovation. In total, 43 categories of service innovation were identified. These conceptualizations were analyzed to show what the benefits and drawbacks are with the different categories. We identify five unique conceptualizations of categories that emphasize different traits of service innovation (1) degree of change in the offering, (2) type of change in the content of the offering, (3) degree of newness in the offering, (4) type of change in the organization and (5) alternative means to an innovative offering. Our review of categories of service innovation provides evidence that the research field is diverse and moving in a number of alternative directions The results indicate that most conceptualizations of service innovation are in-ward focus and views innovations as something that is (only) new to the firm. In addition, the view that service innovations must have an effect is neglected, both in terms of effect on customer behavior and financial performance. Furthermore, this review shows that a service innovation can be anything from an improvement of a single service characteristic to the introduction of an offering that is new to the world. By showing the plethora of conceptualizations of service innovation it is possible to create a common platform to discuss and develop service innovations beneficial for the firm.

Every company is buzzing “innovation” these days, while continuously developing and launching new products. However, empirical research points to high failure rates of innovations, indicating that most new products fail as they are rejected by consumers due to their resistance to innovation. Using a scenario-based experiment, we show that innovation resistance evolves from individual’s inclination to resist changes (cognitive resistance) and status quo satisfaction (situational resistance), inhibiting new product adoption. While consumers high on cognitive or situational resistance were shown to exhibit negative effects, that were similar in their magnitude, consumers high on both dimensions show the strongest predisposition to resist innovations. Thus, these consumers represent the most crucial segment when it comes to new product launches.

Prior research has investigated the consumer effects of cash and card payments in service settings, but the growing trend of innovative payment with a mobile device hasn’t been considered in the literature so fare. This article represents one of the first studies that considers the adoption of mobile as a new payment method and investigate how the ‘checkout’ phase affect the shoppers’ overall price image of retail stores (OSPI). Results from our studies show that the ‘checkout’ phase is the ‘moment of truth’ for shoppers judging OSPI. We investigate the effects of cash, card, and mobile payments and show that the less transparent a payment method, the lower OSPI judgments of shoppers. In particular, favorable comparisons of basket prices to shoppers’ mental budgets trigger lower store price perceptions. Subsequently, these results have major implications for retailers aiming to lower their OSPI in customers’ minds.

The emergence of peer to peer systems such as online auction websites is a major element in e-commerce yet relatively little is known about what influences its adoption and use in different parts of the world. Using an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), user attitudes and behaviors from three national environmental contexts, Korea, Germany and New Zealand, are examined and compared to determine the factors influencing the adoption and usage of this system. The key questions this paper addresses are: Are there national differences affecting the ability for the TAM to predict OAWS acceptance, and if so, in what way? And are differences observed between heavy and light user motivations and perceptions of the medium and how these differ across national environments? Answers to these questions will increase the understanding for future marketers and developers of peer-to-peer systems. An extended TAM model was developed from which a number of hypothesized relationships are posited. We use the Davis, Bagozzi and Warshaw (1989) core TAM model extended by our arguing for two key influencing factors on a user’s attitude to using a new technology, perceived risk and computer affinity. We contend the drivers of perceived risk are: perceived enjoyment, trust in intermediary, perceived reputation system effectiveness, and positive past experience. Additionally we address the limited understanding in the literature of the national environment effects on technology acceptance. National cultural effects such as uncertainty avoidance and individualism, along with technological heritage and country innovativeness may need to be understood to determine potential differences in consumer activity and the robustness of the theoretical model. We also considered usage behavior to be important. Research for example, identifies heavy users as influencers on other potential adopters; thus important targets for developers and marketers of new technologies. Results suggest that although the core TAM is somewhat robust for the three nations along with the extended model for the respondents from South Korea, there are some key differences in the extended model between New Zealand and Germany. Specifically the relationships: Positive Past Experience and Perceived Risk are not supported in NZ or Germany, and “computer affinity” and “attitude to using” unsupported in Germany. We similarly found differences in the attitudes of light and heavy users between the samples, especially the Korean sample with the others. Our findings highlight that national environmental variations, especially between the “eastern” and “western” samples are important, which could be attributed to both uncertainty avoidance and individualism. Key conclusions and recommendations will be given.

Despite the rapid growth and potential for technology-based services from a technology and productivity perspective, the biggest challenges that managers often face are gaining customer acceptance and increasing usage of these new innovative services. In the B2C field, studies of self‐service technology show that the perceived risk is an important factor influencing the usage of service technology. Whereas research has explored different risk types that emerge in consumer settings such as functional and psychological risk, research on risk perception in B2B setting still lacks a detailed examination of the different facets risk can take on in technology-based service adoption. Some studies indicate that there might be different views and perceptions of the risk involved in technology-based services between customers and providers. Our study addresses this gap and aims to develop a holistic understanding of the types of risk customers perceive when using a technology-based service. We investigate what types of risk are emergent in technology-based service encounters and whether customers and providers perceive these risks differently. We conducted 49 qualitative interviews with providers and customers in two industries in four countries. Our study emphasizes the importance of functional and financial risks as expected in a B2B context, but also sheds light on the fact that business customers have personal and psychological fears that hinder them from using technology-based services. Most importantly, we show that gaps in the perception and evaluation of risk exist between customers and providers: customers doubt the functionality of technology-based services; they emphasize privacy risk as a main hindrance and worry about their own role in a service, whereas only few providers are aware of the customers’ fears.

In this paper, we study the effectiveness of social labeling as a technique to promote pro-environmental behaviors in children, and examine more specifically the potential moderating effect of children’s age. We run an experiment on a sample of 115 3rd to 6th grade children and show that 1/ children exposed to a social labeling actually declare more pro-environmental behaviors and that 2/ children at an intermediate age (between 9 years and a half and 11 years and a half) are the most responsive to the technique, underlying an inverted-U relationship between social labeling effectiveness and children's age. These results contribute to a better theoretical understanding of social labeling mechanisms and suggest implications for public policy makers.

This study investigates the role of knowledge sharing in the development of relationship capabilities, focusing on the interaction between exporting organizations and their foreign partners. Knowledge sharing can be defined as the activities of how to assist communities of people work together, facilitating the exchange of their knowledge, enhancing organizational learning capacity, and increasing their ability to attain individual and organizational goals. Knowledge sharing facilitates the development of innovative ideas, creates new business opportunities through the learning process of knowledge workers, and increases the ability of employees to achieve individual and organizational objectives. The exchange of information and knowledge is crucially important in an export marketing context, as a result of the increasing complexity and volatility of the international business environment and the information asymmetry between exporters and their foreign distributors. Knowledge sharing between the two parties enables exporters to gain a better understanding of local market conditions and develop appropriate products that fit the needs and preferences of end-user customers. In an effort to fill an important gap in the export marketing literature, the present study develops and empirically tests a conceptual model of the organizational factors that stimulate the adoption of an export knowledge sharing behavior, the relationship between export knowledge sharing behavior and export relationship capabilities, and the resulting positive outcomes for exporting organizations. The study develops seven research hypotheses, which are then tested using data collected from a sample of Greek direct exporters by means of an online survey. The key informant in this study is the head of exporting activities (hereafter referred to as export executive). The study employs available guidelines in the literature regarding the collection of high quality data from key informants, questionnaire design, and measure development and validation. The data analysis procedure involves the assessment of the psychometric properties of the measurement scales and the estimation of a structural equation model. Study findings provide support for all seven research hypotheses. More specifically, results indicate that the prevalence of an organizational culture that supports knowledge sharing is an important factor that enhances the adoption of export knowledge sharing behavior by export executives. Similarly, export executives’ attitudes towards knowledge sharing have a positive effect on their knowledge sharing behavior. Organizational culture and export knowledge sharing behavior have a positive influence on an exporting organization’s relationship capabilities. In turn, export relationship capabilities have a significant positive effect on export product advantage and export market performance. Finally, a strong positive relationship is evident between export product advantage and export market performance.

Vertical alliances for collaborative new product development in interfirm relationship have been an ongoing theme of strategy and marketing research to cope with fast changing environments, and to continuously innovate in the marketplace. However, no study has yet examind both direct and indirect effects of vertical alliances on new product performance under high technology turbulence. As alliance partners seek to enhance their collaboration and performance, the relational nature of business relationships and structural network positions can influence firm innovativeness and subsequent new product performance. Using survey data of 146 firms collected in Turkey, this study shows that while firms form stronger cooperation under conditions of high technology turbulence, the impact on firm innovativeness and new product performance is contingent upon network positions and information exchange. The findings indicate that indirect effects of vertical alliance portfolio and information exchange enhance new product performance through firm innovativeness. Vertical relationship structures facilitate firm innovativeness with enhanced exploration but may not have a positive direct effect on new product performance. Furthermore, the effect of information exchange on new product performance is contingent upon information exchange which enhances firm innovativeness.

Motivated by an illustrative case study which assesses the strength of the New Zealand wine brand, we develop a framework that provides a contemporary perspective on Country of Origin (COO) branding. The New Zealand wine industry’s COO branding was initially built around the country image of “green” production with the logo “riches of a clean green land”. This has been superseded by a branding strategy that focuses on developing the collective meaning of the COO brand with the logo “pure discovery”. A collective approach to branding involves broader considerations, where the brand is used to facilitate processes that co-create experience and meaning that reflects collective interest. This entails the alignment of a complex set of industry relationships where value is co-created within a network of stakeholders that contribute to the heritage of New Zealand Wine and its quality positioning as the country-of-origin. Our contribution comes from a wider conceptual understanding of COO to show that “COO matters” when a shared identity and image are integrated to form a collective meaning which co-creates value to fulfil the expectations of a brand’s promises of innovation, authenticity and quality.

In this experiment, a highly porous scaffold of biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) was prepared using the spongereplica method. The BCP scaffold was coated with 58S bioactive glass (BG) and sintered for a second time. The resulting scaffold was coated with gelatin (Gel) and cross-linked with [3-(3-dimethyl aminopropyl) carbodiimide] and N-Hydroxysuccinamide (EDC-NHS). The initial average pore size of the scaffold ranged from 300 to 700μm, with more than 85 % porosity. The coating of BG and Gel had a significant effect on the scaffold-pore size, decreasing scaffold porosity while increasing mechanical strength. The material and surface properties were evaluated by means of several experiments involving scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Cytotoxicity was evaluated using MTT assay and confocal imaging of MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblast cells cultured in vitro. Three types of scaffold (BCP, BCP-BG and BCP-BG-Gel) were implanted in a rat skull for in vivo evaluation. After 8 weeks of implantation, bone regeneration occurred in all three types of sample. Interestingly, regeneration was found to be greater (geometrically and physiologically) for neat BCP scaffolds than for two other kinds of composite scaffolds. However, the other two types of scaffolds were still better than the control (i.e., defect without treatment).

Stroke is the most basic element in modern Chinese character structure unit, normalization and standardization of stroke cannot only be essential to literacy teaching, and writing, retrieval and computer processing of Chinese characters, but can further improve normalization and standardization levels of Chinese characters. However, there are lots of disputes about many issues of stroke in academia, and contents about stroke in modern Chinese teaching materials in colleges and universities are inconsistent. Ten representative teaching materials of Modern Chinese are selected in this article to take strokes in these teaching materials as study object for comparison and analysis of classification, names and sequence of strokes, so as to give suggestion to normalization and standardization of strokes. The teaching materials involved in this article include: Modern Chinese (the 4th revised edition) written by Huang Borong and Liao Xudong in 2007, referred to as “Huang and Liao‟s Version”; Modern Chinese written by Hu Yushu in 1992, referred to as “Hu‟s Version”; New Modern Chinese written by Zhang Bin in 2002, referred to as “Zhang‟s Version 1”; Modern Chinese written by Zhang Zhigong in 1982, referred to as “Zhang‟s Version 2”; Introduction to Modern Chinese written by Shao Jingmin in 2001, referred to as “Shao‟s Version”; Modern Chinese written by modern Chinese teaching and research office of Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Peking University in 2000, referred to as “Bei‟s Version”; Modern Chinese Character Outline written by Su Peicheng in 2001, referred to as “Su‟s Version”; Modern Chinese Tutorial written by Xing Fuyi① in 1986, referred to as “Xing's Version"; Modern Chinese written by Zhou Yimin in 2006, referred to as “Zhou's Version”; Modern Chinese written by Ma Guorong in 1990, referred to as “Ma's Version”.

This study applied regression analysis to evaluate the impact of hourly average congestion calculated by bumper model in the congested area of each passage of each port on the peak time congestion, to suggest the model formula that can predict the peak time congestion. This study conducted regression analysis of hourly average congestion and peak time congestion based on the AIS survey study of 20 ports in Korea. As a result of analysis, it was found that the hourly average congestion has a significant impact on the peak time congestion and the prediction model formula was derived. This formula(Cp = 4.457Ca + 29.202) can be used to calculate the peak time congestion based on the predicted hourly average congestion.

Leaching of MOCVD dust in the LED industry is an essential stage for hydro-metallurgical recovery of pure Ga and In. To recover Ga and In, the leaching behavior of MOCVD scrap of an LED, which contains significant amounts of Ga, In, Al and Fe in various phases, has been investigated. The leaching process must be performed effectively to maximize recovery of Ga and In metals using the most efficient lixiviant. Crystalline structure and metallic composition of the raw MOCVD dust were analyzed prior to digestion. Subsequently, various mineral acids were tested to comprehensively study and optimize the leaching parameters such as acidity, pulp density, temperature and time. The most effective leaching of Ga and In was observed for a boiling 4 M HCl solution vigorously stirred at 400 rpm. Phase transformation of GaN into gallium oxide by heat treatment also improved the leaching efficiency of Ga. Subsequently high purity Ga and In can be recovered by series of hydro processes.

The New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST) is a 1-meter vacuum solar telescope that aims to observe the ne structures of active regions on the Sun. The main tasks of the NVST are high resolution imaging and spectral observations, including the measurements of the solar magnetic eld. The NVST has been collecting more than 20 million FITS les since it began routine observations in 2012 and produces a maximum observational records of 120 thousand les in a day. Given the large amount of les, the effective archiving and retrieval of les becomes a critical and urgent problem. In this study, we implement a new data archiving system for the NVST based on the Fastbit Not Only Structured Query Language (NoSQL) database. Comparing to the relational database (i.e., MySQL; My Structured Query Language), the Fastbit database manifests distinctive advantages on indexing and querying performance. In a large scale database of 40 million records, the multi-eld combined query response time of Fastbit database is about 15 times faster and fully meets the requirements of the NVST. Our study brings a new idea for massive astronomical data archiving and would contribute to the design of data management systems for other astronomical telescopes.

Selection based on phenotype in the traditional manner does not help in tracking the selected gene. Molecular genetics has revolutionized the old established breeding techniques. A new epoch of molecular markers has been acquainted for genetic improvement of livestock. This study is engaged on the neoteric molecular markers used in various fields of livestock. DNA markers are more encouraging in selecting genomes that have recombination events close to the target gene. Molecular markers rely on DNA assay and are better than the morphological and biochemical markers. In this study DNA-based molecular markers developed during the past decagons for animal genome analysis are reviewed. Mapping of molecular markers provide a framework, required for its subsequent use in the selection procedure. Molecular techniques help in the utilization of genetic variability in breeding population. At the same time livestock genomes play important role in human genomics and their role for understanding human genomics cannot be overlooked. Recently, in the epigenetic and transcriptomic studies, RNA sequencing as a part of next generation sequencing has revolutionized the approach and ongoing trends of analysis. Keeping in mind the goals, these molecular techniques can be implemented successfully by following well defined, crisp and integrated strategy.

Brucellosis is a notorious zoonotic disease with global implications. Efforts to control the spread of the disease have been restricted to the agricultural livestock. Increasing incidences of accidental human infection have motivated researches to start working on alternative vaccines. At present, live attenuated vaccines are the only accepted type of vaccines used in developed countries for the prevention of brucellosis. Although serodiagnosis is occasionally unreliable, some countries have already claimed to have eradicated the disease, based on this testing. Live attenuated vaccines are not suitable for use in pregnant and immune-depressed animals. Moreover, these vaccines are not tolerated in humans. Therefore, many researches have been striving to discover alternative methods of vaccination. Most research has focused on the generation of subcellular, subunit, and DNA vaccines that are as efficient as the live attenuated vaccines. At present, none of the available vaccines has been able to replace the live attenuated vaccines. Therefore, additional research is necessary in order to discover a new brucellosis vaccine that is suitable for human use.