Yen-Chun Jim Wu

Review of trends from mobile learning studies: A meta-analysis

Two previous literature review-based studies have provided important insights into mobile learning, but the issue still needs to be examined from other directions such as the distribution of research purposes. This study takes a meta-analysis approach to systematically reviewing the literature, thus providing a more comprehensive analysis and synthesis of 164 studies from 2003 to 2010. Major findings include that most studies of mobile learning focus on effectiveness, followed by mobile learning system design, and surveys and experiments were used as the primary research methods. Also, mobile phones and PDAs are currently the most widely used devices for mobile learning but these may be displaced by emerging technologies. In addition, the most highly-cited articles are found to focus on mobile learning system design, followed by system effectiveness. These findings may provide insights for researchers and educators into research trends in mobile learning.

Lean manufacturing: a perspective of lean suppliers

The main thrust of this paper empirically examines the connection between lean production and various aspects of the logistics system. This paper performs a comparison analysis to find whether significant performance/practice differences exist between lean suppliers and non‐lean suppliers. The research findings indicate that, even given the same organizational constraints and resources, lean suppliers gain significant competitive advantages over non‐lean suppliers in production systems, distribution systems, information communications, containerization, transportation systems, customer‐supplier relationships, and on‐time staging/delivery performance.

Intellectual capital and knowledge productivity: the Taiwan biotech industry

Purpose – This purpose of this paper is to examine and test the effects of human capital, organization capital, and social capital on knowledge productivity and the interactive effects between intellectual capital and knowledge productivity.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts questionnaires to conduct a case investigation of the Taiwan biotechnology industry (TBI) and Taiwanese pharmaceutical manufacturers.Findings – All dimensions of intellectual capital positively and significantly influence knowledge productivity. The study proves there are interactive effects between the components of intellectual capital and knowledge productivity.Originality/value – The paper presents a synthesis of two different literature streams – intellectual capital and knowledge productivity – in order to understand their linkage. This paper is the first to conduct a large‐sample survey to examine the relationship between intellectual capital and knowledge productivity.

The effects of organizational factors on green new product success

Purpose – This study seeks to identify the factors influencing the performance of green new product development. Additionally, an examination of the relationship between green performance and financial performance is carried out.Design/methodology/approach – The study employed survey instrument data collected from 181 companies in hi‐tech industries including electrical, electronics, and information industries of Taiwan. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple regressions were used for hypothesis testing.Findings – Corporate environmental commitment, environmental benchmarking, R&D strength, and cross‐functional integration significantly positively influenced financial performance. Additionally, green product innovation performance has a positive effect on financial performance.Research limitations/implications – A longitudinal research design is necessary to validate these claims of causality. Furthermore, since respondents provided data on both the independent and dependent variables, there is the poss...

Reverse logistics in the publishing industry: China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Purpose – This paper compares the characteristics of reverse logistics in the publishing industry among China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.Design/methodology/approach – A multiple‐case approach in combination with EIQ (entry of order, items, and quantity) analysis is selected to allow analytical generalization of the findings.Findings – The research findings show that the reverse logistics of Chinese publications is still in early stage and is not mature enough to be interconnected in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The reverse logistics cost in these areas is unlikely to be significantly reduced in the near future.Practical implications – Instead of making effort to process returned goods, logistics firms or publishers may consider discarding the returned goods directly. The loss on material cost is far less than the manpower spent on processing. Also, publishers can sort returned goods in off‐peak season to save cost on reverse logistics.Originality/value – This research provides the first empirical study by ap...

Assessing the greenness effort for European firms: A resource efficiency perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to explore whether a linkage between environmental effects and financial performance exists; and second, to investigate whether firms displaying more environmental effort show a more significantly positive relationship between environmental performance and financial performance than those displaying less green effort.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts correlation analysis of a sample comprising of 51 European companies from 14 industries across 15 countries to investigate the possible relationship between firm environmental performance (including three measures: sustainable value, sustainable value margin, and return to cost ratio) and financial performance.Findings – The paper does not find a positive relationship between firm environmental performance and financial performance. Both the Pearson correlations and Spearmans rho are statistically insignificant for both the full sample and the carbon‐intensive sectors. When the lag effect on...

Contemporary logistics education: an international perspective

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to provide readers with an overall picture of contemporary logistics curricula from an international perspective.Design/methodology/approach – Comparative analyses of logistics education are performed among Europe, North America, and Asia, between developing nations and developed nations, and between continental nations and island nations.Findings – The findings of the study are of value in identifying additional educational needs of logistics professionals as well as in hiring new professionals.Originality/value – Little research has been done to understand contemporary logistics education in a comprehensive way. This paper is the first empirical study to use data available on the web sites of academic logistics programs to provide descriptive analyses of logistics courses offered at universities around the world.

National port competitiveness: implications for India

– The purpose of this study is to perform an international comparison of logistics/port operations with a main focus on India., – Using data from the transportation and freight service industry during 2000‐2005, this study first conducts revealed comparative advantage (RCA) analysis to investigate Indias logistics competitiveness and then uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to analyze the efficiency of Indias container port operations., – The studys findings suggest that in terms of Indias logistics competitiveness, its freight industry is relatively competitive while its transportation industry is not. Overall, while the study indicates that Indias largest container port (Jawaharlal Nehru) is not very efficient; the RCA analysis shows that India still has a relative comparative advantage over its industrialized counterparts except for Japan and France in the transportation service industry. Interestingly, the DEA results also indicate that the efficiency value of the container port in India is second only to the US port of Los Angeles among the ports examined in industrialized countries., – RCA indicators are only able to examine past and present industry conditions based on export results, and do not provide a detailed explanation of the reasons for changes in levels of competitiveness. As for DEA analysis, this study focused only on land and equipment as input variables primarily because of a lack of data on worker efficiency. It is suggested that there is an urgent need for an overhaul of port equipment if India wants to accommodate the growing volume of imports and exports in the future., – This paper provides a first step toward gaining insights into Indias current logistics/port competitiveness position in comparison with other emerging markets and advanced economies. This paper also contributes to providing a better understanding of the competitiveness of emerging economies (BRICs & Next 11), which are viewed as rising stars and have not yet been fully investigated in the existing literature. Several recommendations are also provided.

ResearchGate: An effective altmetric indicator for active researchers?

Abstract As research performance becomes increasingly important for academic institutions in competition for rankings, student recruitment, and funding, many performance indicators have been developed to measure various aspects of research performance. ResearchGate combines bibliometrics and altmetrics to create a more comprehensive performance measure for researchers and institutions. The ResearchGate score, the flagship indicator calculated by an undisclosed algorithm, is a metric that measure scientific reputation. In this research, ResearchGate metrics are firstly compared with those that Research Excellence Framework (REF) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings to assess the quality of UK universities and global universities respectively. This study then utilizes correlation analysis to examine whether ResearchGate metrics demonstrate effectiveness on the researcher level in comparison with SciVal metrics. For this research, 300 ResearchGate members from the supply chain management field were selected. The results provide empirical evidence that demonstrate that the ResearchGate score can be an effective indicator for measuring individual researcher performance.

A new look at logistics business performance : intellectual capital perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to empirically explore the causal relationships between human capital, structure capital, and customer capital (CC) with intellectual capital (IC) in the logistics industry.Design/methodology/approach – Factor analysis and path analysis were conducted on 27 major third‐party logistics providers in Europe and America.Findings – The findings of the study show that human capital, structure capital, and CC have a positive association with IC performance. Also, IC performance does not differ between regions.Originality/value – This paper takes a novel approach to look at the “intangible” logistics performance from the IC perspective by proposing a preliminary research model based on existing literature and empirical data.