A Study of Online Auction Sellers’ Intention to Switch Platform: The Case of Yahoo!Kimo Versus Ruten_eBay*

The study of consumers’ switching from one service provider to another has a long tradition in economics, information systems, and marketing. The emergence of electronic commerce presents new challenges in understanding consumers’ switching intentions in the context of e‐commerce in general and online auctions in particular. With the abundance of literature on online auctions, there is a surprising lack of research on auction sellers’ intentions to switch from one online auction platform to another. Using the competition between Yahoo!Kimo and Ruten_eBay, two leading auction platforms in Taiwan, as the backdrop, we developed a research model and collected empirical data based on this real case to study what factors influence auction sellers to switch to a competing service provider. We find that the higher the procedural switching costs, financial switching costs, relational switching costs, site design quality, or interaction quality, the lower the intention of an auction seller to switch to a competing auction service provider. A higher perceived transaction fee, however, leads to a higher switching intention.     

Community Differences in the Association Between Parenting Practices and Child Conduct Problems

Various hypotheses were identified regarding the manner in which community context might influence the association between two dimensions of parenting—control and corporal punishment—on child conduct problems. The authors used hierarchical linear modeling with a sample of 841 African American families to test these hypotheses. Consistent with the evaporation hypothesis, the results indicated that the deterrent effect of caretaker control on conduct problems becomes smaller as deviant behavior becomes more widespread within a community. The findings for corporal punishment supported the normative parenting argument. Although there was a positive relationship between caretaker corporal punishment and child conduct problems in communities where physical discipline was rare, there was no association between the two variables in communities where physical discipline was widely prevalent. These results suggest that a particular parenting strategy may be more effective in some neighborhood environments than others. The theoretical implications of this view are discussed.     

Supply chain management in the US and Taiwan: An empirical study

This study uses an empirical survey of middle-line managers in the US and Taiwan to study the association of supply chain management components and organizational performance. Through structural equation modeling, critical components of supply chain management are found to have considerable effects on organizational performance. The findings of the study are summarized as follows:

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Supply chain competencies have positive effects on organizational performance in both the US and Taiwan. Supply chain competencies are developed around quality and service, operations and distribution, and design effectiveness. The goal of supply chain competencies is to satisfy customer requirements.     

Introducing strategic quality management

This paper introduces strategic total quality management (STQM) as an extension of total quality management (TQM). STQM is defined as a quality management philosophy that views quality from the overall performance of a firm. It defines quality as being driven by customer and environmental needs and looks to identify critical factors that will determine the survivability and competitiveness of a firm in the near future. A contrast between total quality assurance, total quality management and strategic total quality management is presented using ten principles of quality. The dimensions of STQM are also identified and defined and STQM transformation frameworks are presented to show the process of implementing STQM. The strategic cycle presented here is linked to the popular PDCA or Deming cycle. Furthermore, top management strategies and reasoning for this new focus and strategic targets are identified, grouped and discussed.     

A Comparative Analysis of Quality Practice in Manufacturing Firms in the U.S. and Taiwan*

The aim of this paper is to determine if there is a causal relationship between multivariate constructs for quality (i.e., customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and employee service quality) and organizational performance. The presence of such relationships, as well as the identification of key indicators within each quality construct for different types of firms, are explored in this empirical study on the perceptions of middle managers in Taiwan and the United States. The study found a significant causal relationship between the quality constructs and organizational performance. These relationships are different, however, for the four types of firms based on age and size. Also, within the same firm types, there are differences among countries. For example, for older firms, Taiwanese managers tend to perceive customer satisfaction as the most important quality construct in improving organizational performance, while U.S. managers tend to perceive employee satisfaction as the most important. For younger firms, U.S. managers perceive customer satisfaction as influencing organizational performance, while Taiwanese managers perceive both customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction as doing so. A further breakdown of the quality constructs identified the key indicators within each construct that separates “better performers'’from “lesser performers'’in both countries for the four types of firms. These indicators are dissimilar, thus suggesting that focus on quality constructs may lead to improvements in organizational performance by focusing on different indicators in different environments. These results have implications for the adoption and implementation of quality practices in different countries.