Chia-Liang Hung

The Relationship between Team Communication, Structure, and Academic R&D Performance: Empirical Evidence of the National Telecommunication Program in Taiwan

This research evaluates the frontier National Telecommunication Program (NTP) in Taiwan using the data envelopment analysis approach and analyzes the influence of team communication and structure on R&D performance by establishing a structural equation modeling relationship. The results show that team communication is highly correlated with R&D performance. The high‐scored projects have internal communication patterns with a higher meeting frequency but shorter dialogue duration, a uniform distribution of regular meetings, a scheme for the lower hierarchy to meet with the project leader, a well‐managed channel to access accumulative expertise, and an open forum for communication. They also have external communication patterns with a gatekeeper bridging inward and outward information, a lower frequency of time‐consuming external sourcing, and a higher frequency of external cooperation, referencing, learning, and benchmarking. Though team structure has no significant influence on R&D performance, the high‐scored research group focused more on the structural dimensions of research strategy, laboratory management, and motivation incentives. This research will provide effective principles of project management to team leaders and industrial policy guidelines to program sponsors.

The Diffusion Of I-Mode Overseas: A Perspective Of Institutional Differences

The Japanese telecom giant DoCoMo launched promoted its proprietary i-mode mobile services in 1999 and overseas in 2002. Diffusion overseas was much slower than expected, however. This paper investigates the diffusion of Japanese i-mode mobile internet in Europe from an institutional perspective, focusing on five earlier i-mode overseas operators located in Taiwan, The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and France. We found four strategic institutional levers that stimulated i-mode domestic diffusion but failed to appear in overseas areas: operator leadership, subscriber scale, mobile penetration rate, and the ability of the firm to coordinate capability among complements. We propose strategies to internationalize a new standard by co-branding with local vendors and by using penetration pricing as an incentive for switching. Additionally, we recommend an industrial policy that drives cannibalization to facilitate mobile migration to a more advanced standard.

Evaluating a national science and technology program using the human capital and relational asset perspectives

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the performance of the National Science and Technology Program (NSTP) by targeting the Taiwan National Telecommunication Program (NTP) initiated in 1998. The Taiwan telecommunications industry has prospered, currently occupying key positions in global markets even though NTP seldom contributes positively to patent citation performance. Hence, the authors of this study investigate the qualitative perspective of intellectual capital rather than quantitative technological indices. The current study focuses on both human capital and relational assets through surveys of 53 principal investigators of NTP projects and 63 industrial R&D managers of telecommunications corporations in the Taiwan market. Results show that NSTP member quality and the flow of employment are good indicators of human capital and that both perform better than the middle value in the case of Taiwan NTP. In addition, we find that industrial participants are more likely to share R&D resources than other academic researchers with higher intention of co-publishing, co-funding, and sharing equipment and facilities. The industrial NTP participants also have higher expectations regarding achieving advanced technology breakthroughs in contrast to non-NTP industrial interviewees. Moreover, industrial participants with greater industry-university cooperation intensity indeed obtain a particular advantage, that is, greater knowledge acquisition from other fields related to the effect of knowledge spillovers through the particular NSTP linkage. Accordingly, from the perspectives of human capital and relational assets, the authors conclude by articulating the importance of absorptive capacity resulting from good human capital and knowledge spillover contributed by relational assets within governmental technology policy and NSTP programming.

A cross-cultural study on the mobile commerce acceptance model

This study identifies the cultural influences to the adoption of mobile commerce from the cases of Taiwan and Malaysia. Using Hofstedes five cultural dimensions as modulators on the TAM, this study finds that uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and long-term orientation of two countries have significant influences on the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use to the adoption intention of mobile commerce. Contrarily, power distance and masculinity have different effects between Taiwan and Malaysia. Therefore, the results not only supplement to TAM but also give strategic implications to mobile operators for global expansion.

Searching the Fit Pattern between Cultural Dimensions and Consumption Values of Mobile Commerce in Taiwan

The purpose of this study is to examine the influences of cultural dimension on the adoption and perceived consumption value of mobile commerce from a perspective not associated with technological factors. This study applies a consumption value model as the basic framework, which includes the functional value, the social value, the emotional value, the epistemic value and the conditional value. We also include cultural dimensions as influencers, such as power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation. The combination of these two theories results in an original method to discover whether the consumption value of innovative mobile commerce is influenced by cultural factors. After surveying young mobile users and implementing a canonical analysis, we find two types of correlation between cultural influencers and mobile consumption values. One type is defined as the achievement-facilitated relationship, which means that the mobile users are associated with high levels of power distance, individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation in terms of positive correlation to more mobile demands of higher functional, epistemic, and conditional values. The second type is referred to as the relationship-maintained relationship, which means that mobile users who are more averse to uncertainty also highly demand social and emotional mobile applications. The research results offer insights to mobile operators and mobile equipment vendors in terms of the culture-fitted mobile strategy related to designing content and interface, so as to properly guide the mobile momentum.

Team communications and academic R&D performance: A case of National Telecommunication Program of Taiwan

This research evaluates Taiwan National Telecommunication Program using the DEA approach and analyzes impacts of team communications on R&D performance by establishing a SEM relationship. The results show that team communications are highly correlated with the R&D performance. For the high-scored projects, they have the internal communication patters with a higher frequency of meeting but a shorter time-consumption dialogue, a uniform distribution of regular meeting, a lower hierarchy to meet with the project leader, a well-managed channel to access accumulative expertise, and an open forum for communication. They also have the external communication patterns with a gatekeeper bridging information inward and outward, a lower frequency of time-consumption external sourcing, and a higher frequency of external cooperation, referencing, learning, and benchmarking. The research will contribute guidelines for effective project management to team leaders and program sponsors.

Searching for lead users in the context of web 2.0

The objective of this paper is to search for lead users and to evaluate the efficacy of the toolkits used for innovation facilitators in the Web 2.0 context. After interviews and surveys conducted at a popular Taiwan-based community Website, we found that individuals with large numbers of hits have a higher likelihood of being lead users because they are highly active users of the Websitepsilas newly released functions, and thus obtain more expected benefits than others. In addition, they are more likely to use add-on Web toolkits, such as the trial-and-error learning tools, the module libraries, and the solutions space, to customize their personal uses, to response problems posted by others, and to share what they invent on their own. Therefore, they garner appreciation from others and obtain higher ranks in the top 100 hit parade in return. This research offers insights useful to Web service providers who seek to efficiently target lead users and construct a user generated-innovation environment using effective Web toolkits.

Enhancing knowledge sharing intention through the satisfactory context of continual service of knowledge management systems

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show how continual enhancement of knowledge management systems (KMSs) enhances knowledge sharing intention. Design/methodology/approach This study integrates information system (IS) success with social cognitive theory (SCT) to explain knowledge sharing intention. Based on a survey of 276 KMS users in Taiwan’s information technology industry, the structural equation model has been applied to examine the influence process from a user satisfactory context to personal cognitive beliefs, and thus knowledge sharing intention. Findings The results indicate that the user satisfactory context stimulated by continual KMS enhancement increases knowledge sharing intention through the mediation of personal cognition of self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. Practical implications The results have empirical implications for learning how to motivate developers’ patience and passion for follow-up improvements to meet user expectations empathically, which has been emphasized for service provision. Originality/value The originality of this research is its explanation of system adoption behavior, which combines the core of IS success with SCT, links user satisfaction to intention to use, and concerns behavior within a specific context.

Applying Modular Operators in Platform Development: Case of NTT DoCoMo i-Mode

Modular operators can be regarded as maneuvers of platform development. In the context where system interfaces can be standardized and system components can be developed and marketed by a group of technologically and commercially interdependent firms, direct and indirect network effects are crucial to a platforms success. In this article, we synthesize theories of modularity and network economics to provide a theoretical framework of platform development. The framework shows the applicability of modular operators in developing a platform, and helps the platform provider leverage the force of network effects by platform strategy-making.

Bibliometric Analysis of Emerging Trends in High Frequency Trading Research

This study reviews and demonstrates the diverse issues and findings in the research field of high frequency trading. This diversity may root from the emerging nature of computing technology and its wide appeal as well as unique researcher and practitioner viewpoints. The authors propose Bibliometric Analysis might be used to identify some fruitful research opportunities.