Humphry Hung

Formation and Survival of New Ventures A Path from Interpersonal to Interorganizational Networks

This article proposes a staged model of how relevant interpersonal and interorganizational networks can affect the formation and survival of new entrepreneurial ventures. Focusing on two critical points in new entrepreneurial venture formation, the article posits that the formation process requires not only the supply of appropriate resources, but also specific patterns of resource exchanges between the entrepreneur, the potential new venture and their respective networks. The model advances the existing literature on new entrepreneurial venture formation by highlighting the importance of maintaining appropriate patterns of resource exchanges between the entrepreneur’s new venture and the relevant networks in which the venture embeds.

A Model of Guanxi Development: Flexibility, Commitment and Capital Exchange

Abstract The importance of business relationships is deeply rooted in Chinese society, characterised by Confucian codes of repeated favour-exchanges. Our study aims to explore how a quality business relationship is to be developed and maintained in a Chinese context and to explain the concept of expressive and instrumental ties of a guanxi model incorporating relationship-specific variables (face, favour-exchange and flexibility) and the quality of business relationship (cooperation, continuity and commitment) in the framework of capital exchange. Managerial implications in the form of the face mechanism and Yin-Yang perspective are discussed.

The Effectiveness of Short Message Service for Communication With Concerns of Privacy Protection and Conflict Avoidance

Why would people use Short Message Service (SMS) to say something they would not say in person? There is a trend that SMS is becoming more and more popular because it facilitates more extended modes of communications. Using technology acceptance model, we hypothesize the attitude of SMS would be influenced by its perceived effectiveness for communications, perceived ease of use, and subjective norm. Besides the special aspects of communications, conflict avoidance and privacy protection will enforce the impact of perceived effectiveness of SMS for communication. We investigated 953 SMS users and the results support most of our hypotheses. Furthermore, our analyses also show there are differences between females and males on the influence mechanism behind their attitude towards SMS.

Corporate Directors and Entrepreneurial Innovation

This paper presents the findings of a study of the association between corporate governance and entrepreneurial innovation in a major Asian metropolitan city. We identified three primary attributes of entrepreneurial innovation: preference for risk–taking, acceptance of changes, and development of new initiatives. While we intended to establish the relationship between corporate governance and entrepreneurial innovation, our research yielded mixed results. CEO/Chairman duality was found to be positively related to preference for risk–taking and development of new initiatives of firms, but not to the acceptance of changes in firms. Results also showed that whether directors were executive or non–executive had no significant impact on the level of entrepreneurial innovation of their firms. However, share–ownership of directors was found to be related to risk–taking preference, but not to acceptance of changes and development of new initiatives of firms.

Continued Usage of E-Learning Communication Tools: A Study from the Learners' Perspective in Hong Kong

In line with the mainstream research on e-learning, we propose a model of the continued usage of e-learning communication tools by learners. We observe in particular that there are two less studied but potentially very important factors, learning self-efficacy and compatibility of values and beliefs with learning tools, which may contribute significantly to the continued usage of e-learning communication tools. We carried out a study of 682 e-learners and the results support our propositions.

Organisational Perception of Customer Satisfaction: Theories and Evidence

Do managers in service organisations believe that the struggle matters more than the triumph? This paper proposes a model of organisational perception of customer satisfaction which posits that, given a lack of first-hand information on customer responses, organisations tend to adopt a process-based approach of evaluating the level of satisfaction of their customers. This evaluation process depends not on the assessment of actual outcomes such as sales revenue and customer complaints, but instead on the organisational efforts involved in satisfying the needs of customers. The propositions are tested by surveying 150 e-banking service providers and the data supports the hypotheses.

Sending mobile messages to different social ties in modern urban life: How do anxiety and time-shortage matter?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of mobile messaging for the purposes of information sharing and social networking based on the types of social ties involved. The authors identify two psychological traits in the model: perceived time shortages (TSs) and anxiety trait. These traits can influence individuals’ mobile-messaging usage by facilitating users’ connections to different social ties in modern urban life. Design/methodology/approach – The authors distributed questionnaires at random on the streets of certain densely populated areas in Hong Kong to young urbanites, who are the dominant users of technological social media. The authors collected 492 valid responses, which the authors analysed via multivariate regression analysis. Findings – Mobile messages are more effectively used to share information within strongly tied groups rather than weakly tied groups. However, there is little difference between weakly and strongly connected groups in terms of the perceive...

Ethical reciprocity in digitalized transactions: An empirical study of pre- and post-contractual behavior

Are unethical e-service providers more tolerant of disloyal users? Only a few studies have been done on the attitude of the e-service providers who behave unethically. This research intends to fill this gap in current literature. We identify two different perspectives, behavior consistency and ethical reciprocity, in explaining the attitude of e-service providers towards their users who have breached the service contracts. We further investigate such attitude in respect of the perceived mutual commitment between these providers and their users. We test our propositions by a survey on financial e-service providers and our findings support the perspective of ethical reciprocity.

Ubiquitous Commerce for Creating the Personalized Marketplace: Concepts for Next Generation Adoption

Ubiquitous commerce (u-commerce) creates a dynamic convergence of the physical and digital, producing Web-based wireless and next-generation technologies in ways that generate new levels of convenience and value for buyers and sellers. Ubiquitous Commerce for Creating the Personalized Marketplace: Concepts for Next Generation Adoption provides a compendium of definitions and explanations of concepts and processes within u-commerce, as well as research targets, objectives, techniques, and methodologies. This Premier Reference Source contains a collection of chapters authored by leading international experts, offering an in-depth description of key terms and concepts related to different areas, issues, and trends in u-commerce and technologies in modern organizations worldwide.