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This study analyzes the evolution of topics related to COVID-19 on Chinese social media platforms with the aim of identifying changes in netizens' concerns during the different stages of the pandemic.

In total, 793,947 posts were collected from Zhihu, a Chinese Question and Answer website, and Dingxiangyuan, a Chinese online healthcare community, from 31 December, 2019, to 4 August, 2021. Topics were extracted during the prodromal and outbreak stages, and in the abatement–resurgence cycle.

Netizens' concerns varied in different stages. During the prodromal and outbreak stages, netizens showed greater concern about COVID-19 news, the impact of COVID-19 and the prevention and control of COVID-19. During the first round of the abatement and resurgence stage, netizens remained concerned about COVID-19 news and the prevention and control of the pandemic, however, less attention was paid to the impact of COVID-19. During later stages, popularity grew in topics concerning the impact of COVID-19, while netizens engaged more in discussions about international events and the raising of spirits to fight the global pandemic.

This study contributes to the practice by providing a way for the government and policy makers to retrospect the pandemic and thereby make a good preparation to take proper measures to communicate with citizens and address their demands in similar situations in the future.

This study contributes to the literature by applying an adapted version of Fink's (1986) crisis life cycle to create a five-stage evolution model to understand the repeated resurgence of COVID-19 in Mainland China.

The study aims to develop a comprehensive theoretical model to understand the relationship between feedback and individual creativity in a social learning context. To achieve the goal, the study unravels the mechanism underlying the relationship between evaluative feedback and creativity development and examines the interaction effects between informative feedback and evaluative feedback.

The study draws on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework to develop the research model. A laboratory experiment with a self-designed social learning platform was conducted to test the model. A total of 125 subjects participate in the experiment.

The empirical findings reveal that evaluative feedback affects creativity via intrinsic motivation and perceived feedback accuracy and informative feedback moderates the effects of negative feedback on intrinsic motivation and perceived feedback accuracy.

Organizations should be conscious of the role feedback plays in individual creativity development when building a social learning platform. Specifically, organizations can guide learners to provide favorable online feedback as well as train learners to cope with feedback effectively in creative tasks.

The study integrates feedback and creativity literature to propose three important mediators and examines the roles of the mediators in the process of creativity development in a social learning context, extending current understanding on the direct relationship between feedback and creativity. The study also complements the existing feedback literature by investigating the interactions between different types of peer feedback in the model of creativity development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of perceived informational value and perceived relational value on feedback-seeking intention in online communities of inquiry (OCoIs). To develop an integrated theoretical framework, the antecedents of perceived informational value and perceived relational value are also investigated.

This study builds on the relational communication theory (RCT) and the social psychology perspective to develop an integrated research model regarding feedback-seeking. Hypotheses were empirically tested using data collected from 262 subjects who are members of OCoIs.

The results indicate that feedback-seeking intention is positively affected by perceived informational and relational value of feedback-seeking. Furthermore, perceived informational value partially mediates the effects of feedback-seeking self-efficacy and learning goal orientation on feedback-seeking intention; perceived relational value partially mediates the effects of social influence and social risk on feedback-seeking intention.

The results suggest that practitioners can promote feedback-seeking by enhancing learners’ informational and relational dependencies on OCoIs. To achieve effective online learning, practitioners should consider learners’ characteristics to provide personalized learning interventions.

This study advances RCT and the social psychology perspective to develop an integrated model for understanding feedback-seeking. The empirical results complement information-related explanations of feedback-seeking by finding that a relationship-related explanation is more important for promoting feedback-seeking in OCoIs. The proposed model also indicates that tolerance for ambiguity serves as a moderator in the relationship between perceived informational value and its antecedents.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate masculinity in Chinese social media marketing for global luxury fashion brands through two studies.

Study 1 compares physical characteristics of males in visually oriented US (Instagram) and Chinese (Weibo) social media posts promoting global luxury fashion magazine brands (e.g. Vogue, Cosmopolitan, GQ and Esquire). Study 2 examines the prevalence of and Chinese consumers’ responses (reposts, comments and likes) to different masculinities depicted in luxury fashion brand-sponsored Weibo posts.

Male portrayals for Chinese audiences feature more characteristics associated with emerging East Asian hybrid masculinities – “Little Fresh Meat” (LFM) and “Old Grilled Meat” (OGM) – than associated with global or regional hegemonic masculinity (i.e. the scholarly Wén and action-oriented Wu). Wén remains common in social media posts for luxury fashion goods, but LFM and OGM engender more consumer responses.

Chinese luxury fashion marketing depicts masculinity more similarly to other East Asian marketing than to Western marketing. Some luxury fashion brands are struggling for acceptance among Chinese youth. Luxury fashion marketers should incorporate hybrid rather than hegemonic masculinities to prompt more favorable responses among Chinese consumers, especially younger female target markets.

Growing female occupational and consumer power and shifting male employment from blue-collar to white-collar jobs have influenced media portrayals of masculinity. Social media marketing for luxury fashion brands demonstrates the prevalence and appeal of hybrid masculinities in China.

The paper's aim is to make the a priori gender scripts visible in order to discuss their role in decision‐making processes in business contexts.

In order to get access to hidden and unconscious gender scripts, an innovative qualitative method, called mind‐scripting, was applied. Mind‐scripting is a discursive method based on “memory work” and allows for analyzing and deconstructing implicit assumptions in social interactions.

The selected results show on the one side that people are steadily using their hidden assumptions and scripts to make sense out of specific social situations. On the other side it could be shown that the application of sex‐based stereotypes does not depend on the sex of the person alone, but depends strongly on the gendered construction of the interaction. In the case of bargaining it could be shown that bargaining is (still) a rather masculine construction with respect to manly connoted scripts and schemata.

The paper gives a substantial incentive to change the perspective of bargaining research related to gender issues: instead of simply searching for sex differences or for sex‐based stereotypes it is necessary to have a closer look at the gendered constructions of the according social interactions.

The method of mind‐scripting is used to analyze gender scripts in a bargaining context. Furthermore, the paper is the first which deals with a combination of gendered scripts and schemata and sex‐related stereotypes in this way.

The past 40 years of reform and opening up have seen the role of core competence receive unprecedented attention because of the impact of the new normal economy as well as the pressure of transformation and upgrading. Few Chinese enterprises have effectively constructed core competence, and there is also a lack of strategic perspective and contextual embedding of its construction process in theory. This study aims to analyse the unique contextual characteristics of China in the transitional period and the impact on the core competence construction of Chinese enterprises and proposes its construction mechanism for Chinese enterprises.

Through theoretical deduction and speculation, this paper analyses the process of concept formation, clarifies the concept, analyses its connotations and structure and emphasises its relativity. Based on a review of the theoretical research on the core competence construction process and an analysis of dual contextual impact, this paper puts forward a mechanism for core competence construction.

The results reveal that four specific characteristics of entrepreneurs in balancing and coping with the dual nature of external context constitute the key driving force for a Chinese enterprises’ core competence construction; under the influence of this driving force, the core competence construction mechanism includes process mode, knowledge source, management mode and key success factors.

Approaching it from a Chinese context, this study deepens the concept of core competence; enriches and develops the research related to the core strategic research proposition of its construction; and provides positive significance for Chinese enterprises to effectively build, develop and strengthen core competence and enhance their international competitiveness.

The chapter examines whether the lowering of dividend taxes as part of the US Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA) resulted in an increase in dividend payouts at the expense of research and development (R&D) spending. Using 1,206 US firm-years data, we find that R&D investments responded negatively to higher levels of dividend payout in the post-JGTRRA of 2003 tax regime compared with the pre-regime. We also find that R&D intensity and financial constraint moderate this negative relation. That is, this relation only holds for firms in low R&D-intensity industries and firms facing high levels of financial constraint. From a tax policy perspective, even though the tax cut on dividend receipts has the benefit of lowering the cost of equity capital, the benefit appears to have come at the expense of R&D investment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of behavioural intention and use behaviour towards social networking apps. Exogenous latent constructs, namely, performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence are the key antecedents proposed based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology to predict the usage intention and behaviour of social networking apps (i.e. endogenous latent constructs). Experience as a moderator is the extended construct to explain social networking apps user’s behavioural intention.

To target young generation (Millennial), a cross-sectional data collection approach was conducted to collect data from the social networking apps users (i.e. Facebook, WhatsApp, WeChat, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and others) whereby a total of 384 valid questionnaires were obtained from six universities in Malaysia. Statistical analysis using partial least squares path modelling approach and a variance-based structural equation modelling (VB-SEM) techniques is performed to analyse the measurement and structural relationship.

The findings indicate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence determine behavioural intention, and behavioural intention impacts social networking apps use behaviour. Moreover, the moderation analysis reveals that the relationship between effort expectancy and behavioural intention is moderated by experience, whereas the relationship between social influence and behavioural intention is not moderated by experience.

While the surge of social networking apps has gained tremendous popularity among Millennial as an attractive market segment, previous studies mainly have focussed on intention and behaviour of online users in general. Despite apps and related technologies which have opened a new era of effective communications in marketing, social networking apps usage intention and behaviour focussing on Millennial is not well understood in the current literature. This study contributes and sheds lights on the current issue of social networking apps usage intention and behaviour and looks into a key rising market segment, the Millennial users.

This paper aims to address how national culture moderates the relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction.

The authors examine the most recent data collected from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in 2015 from a group of 33 countries. Hofstede's cultural model is used to represent and measure national culture.

One of the most significant findings from the authors’ two-level regression analysis is that having an interesting job contributes more to job satisfaction in individualistic countries than in collectivist countries. The authors also find that the newly introduced cultural dimension indulgence vs restraint has some significant moderating effect on the relationship between job security, salary, the perceived interest of a job and job satisfaction. Job security also seems to contribute less to job satisfaction in societies that are long-term oriented.

This study provides further support for a more careful, nuanced examination of job motivation theories. Multinational companies should understand the needs of their employees and diversify their compensation packages accordingly. More attention should be paid to job design in individualistic or indulgent-oriented countries to create a satisfying job experience.

The authors examine the most recent data from ISSP and extend the literature by incorporating two additional cultural dimensions from Hofstede's model as moderators.

Although a considerable bulk of literature has focused on the relationship between the implementation of quality assurance certification and the corporate performance of companies, still few are the works devoted to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to provide additional evidence for the impact of implementing quality assurance and control certificates on the performance of French SMEs.

With a view to determining the effect of certification on the performance of 1,164 French SMEs, the study used the matching method as developed by D.B. Rubin (1974). The data mobilized is the fruit of matching the results of the IOC survey (the Organizational Change and Informatization) conducted in 2006 with data pertaining to the performance of companies as derived from DIANE files (Disk for Economic Analysis).

The empirical contribution of this study indicates the need of SMEs for implementing quality certificates to improve their turnover, increase their added value, increase their labor productivity and boost the productivity of financial capital.

The paper has three main limitations. The first has to do with the choice of performance indicators. The paper is manly limited to the economic side of corporate performance. The second limitation is related to the origin of the data that covers only the year 2006. The study suffers from the time interval limit in which the relation between the implementation of the organizational innovations and the performance is tested. The third limitation concerns the generalization of results. The study was conducted on French SMEs, which limits the generalization of the results obtained.

Research findings have many implications on researchers and SME executives. For this latter, quality assurance system is perceived as a tool to maintain a competitive edge over competitors.

The paper aims to assess the impact of implementing quality certificates on the performance of French SMEs. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study examining the relationship between the implementation of a quality assurance certificate and the performance of a large sample of 1,164 French SMEs.