Kevin Kuan-Shun Chiu

Customer relationship management and innovation capability: an empirical study

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of various dimensions of customer relationship management (CRM) on innovation capabilities. Five dimensions of CRM (information sharing, customer involvement, long‐term partnership, joint problem‐solving, and technology‐based CRM) and five aspects of innovation capability (product, process, administrative, marketing, and service innovations) are identified. The one‐to‐one associations between the two constructs are developed and verified., – Data from 107 Taiwanese computer manufacturers are collected. Multiple regression analysis is employed to examine the effects of CRM on innovation capabilities., – The following results are offered: computer manufacturers in Taiwan perform various levels of CRM and, consequently, display different levels of effects on each of the five innovation capabilities. Generally, firms are able to increase their innovation capability by ad hoc CRM; the relationship between customer involvement and process innovation; customer involvement and administrative innovation; and long‐term partnership and marketing innovation are not significant; and technology‐based CRM has positive effects on all five types of innovation., – The findings suggest that not all CRM activities contribute to innovation programs, which clearly indicates the need for applying other mechanisms, such as supplier integration, to form a complete innovation program. Managers should align the development of their supplier management and CRM practices with the desired innovation capability., – The one‐to‐one relationships between CRM practices and innovation capabilities have not been properly examined. The findings suggest the need for more research in this area, and the statistical results provide managers with useful guidelines for implementing appropriate CRM practices to develop specific innovation capabilities to respond to enhanced competitiveness.

Multi-attribute approach to sustainable supply chain management under uncertainty

– The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and provide a comprehensive and quantitative method to assess performance. , – The study applied interval-valued triangular fuzzy numbers associated with grey relational analysis to improve the insufficient information and overcome the incomplete system under uncertainty. , – The findings support the argument that the triple bottom line is insufficient to cover the entire concept of SSCM; in particular, the aspects of operations, stakeholders and resilience have not been addressed in previous studies. , – The results reveal that the triple bottom line concept is insufficient to illustrate the principles of SSCM and to provide an extensive basis for theory development. The aspects and criteria considered in the study only relate to the studied company and may need to be reviewed when applied to other industries. , – The methodology and findings of the study demonstrate the core applications of criteria ranking and identify priority areas that utilize less investment but that may maintain the studied company’s current performance. Suggestions for the prioritization of criteria to enhance SSCM performance are provided. , – The present study provides three valuable contributions. First, it adopts collaboration theory to furnish a theoretical foundation for SSCM. Second, the proposed hybrid method is able to overcome uncertainty and subsequently evaluate SSCM while utilizing incomplete and imprecise information. Third, the evaluation provides significant results for consideration in decision making by the studied company.

Power of Branding on Internet Service Providers

Evidence shows that the internet has become a more powerful medium than the traditional mass media with the potential of developing even further. Interestingly, research regarding the management of brand power by internet service providers (ISP) is scarce at best. In order to fill this gap, this study investigates the relationships among brand image, brand awareness, brand trust, brand preference, and customer perceived value among the main ISPs in northern Taiwan. Findings reveal that the essence of branding (i.e., brand awareness and brand trust) is the forerunner of brand choice for ISP services. Moreover, the relative impact of brand awareness and brand trust on brand preference is also identified. Further, customer perceived value of internet service with respect to different brands varies considerably. Managerial implications and suggestions for future research are discussed in this paper.

Applying the Fuzzy Parameters to the Sequential Sampling Plan by Attributes

Abstract Acceptance sampling is one of the major fields in statistical quality control. The most important tool of acceptance sampling is the probability theory, the reason is that more samples’ information was generated from process quality control; in some situations, it is treated as infinite. The definition of acceptance sampling refers that the specific sampling plans are applied on a designated lot or the sequence lots. In this study, the rectifying inspection for sequential-sampling plan possesses higher reliability and economic values in various fields. Under some circumstances, however, it may not be possible to define the acceptance sampling parameters as the crisp values. For solving the problem of uncertainty, this paper employs the membership functions to express relative variable in the fuzzy sense. Meanwhile, the triangular fuzzy number-one of the most popular membership function is used to represent the parameters of sampling inspection. By using the fuzzy parameters to deal with the parameters of binomial distributions, the acceptance probability functions are derived. Both the methods of signed distance and centroid are applied for defuzzification, then these estimates under different defuzzification methods are obtained and can be compared. After comparison, the better defuzzification method can be found.

The Role of a Psychographic Approach in Segmenting Electorates' Voting Behavior and Party Identification

Generally speaking, demographics explain two-thirds of everything. This study demonstrated how personal values may be associated with demographic characteristics to create a better market segmentation tool for investigating differences and similarities in both party identification and voting behavior. It supplied confirmation of the interrelationships among demographic characteristics, party identification, and voting behavior, as well as theoretical concept and empirical evidence of personal values in marketing research. Results indicated that personal values are far more likely than demographic characteristics to predict party identification and voting behavior.

Reliability sequential sampling test based on exponential lifetime distributions under fuzzy environment

In the areas of reliability analysis, the applications of life testing play a great important role. Under the deterministic circumstances, production reliability acceptance test (PRAT) for reliability sequential-sampling test (RSST) possesses high reliability and economic values in various fields. However, the past literatures showed that some of these uncertainties during the sampling inspection originate from trend, season, cyclic, or random variations; others come from improper operations. Hence, under these factors effect, the RSST may generate a vague value. In order to deal with uncertainty happened; this paper applies the triangular fuzzy number (TFN) are used to express the fuzzy phenomenon of the reliability sampling inspections parameters. Also, both the centroid and the signed distance approaches are used for defuzzification. To compare these estimates of the reliability sequential-sampling plan in the fuzzy sense, the better defuzzification method is generated.

Feasibility Study of AlN/Al 2 O 3 Coating on Aluminum Alloy Using Microarc Oxidation Method

This paper attempts to utilize microarc oxidation (MAO) to fabricate the aluminum nitride/aluminum oxide composite ceramic coating on aluminum alloy surface. The effects of MAO voltages, different nitrogen sources, concentration on the surface morphology, and nitrogen content of the coatings are investigated. The results show that the highest nitrogen content (21.22 at%) is obtained on the surface of the coating by the energy dispersive spectrometer analysis under the condition of MAO voltage of 575 V, urea 22.50 g/L, and ammonium hydroxide 20 mL/L condition.