There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Data Mining - Concepts and Techniques.

Much has been written about theory and practice in the law, and the tension between practitioners and theorists. Judges do not cite theoretical articles often; they rarely "apply" theories to particular cases. These arguments are not revisited. Instead the Essay explores the working and interaction of theory and practice, practitioners and theorists. The Essay starts with a story about solving a legal issue using our intellectual tools - theory, practice, and their progenies: experience and "gut." Next the Essay elaborates on the nature of theory, practice, experience and "gut." The third part of the Essay discusses theories that are helpful to practitioners and those that are less helpful. The Essay concludes that practitioners theorize, and theorists practice. They use these intellectual tools differently because the goals and orientations of theorists and practitioners, and the constraints under which they act, differ. Theory, practice, experience and "gut" help us think, remember, decide and create. They complement each other like the two sides of the same coin: distinct but inseparable.

Of Theory and Practice

체험마케팅(Experiential Marketing)의 오해와 진실

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

Service innovation is one means of gaining an advantage in a highly competitive environment. In addition, service delivery has played a key role in interactions with customers in recent years. Yet, research on the link between innovation and service delivery is scant. This article theoretically and empirically examines innovation in service delivery and its antecedents and consequences. The authors identify innovation orientation, external partner collaboration, and information technology capability as the antecedents of service delivery innovation and analyze the impact of service delivery innovation on firm performance. Respondents were managers in the marketing and information technology departments of financial firms in Taiwan. Overall, 298 responses were received (including 123 paired responses from both department managers). Findings indicated that service delivery innovation contributes to firm performance. These results support the crucial influences of innovation orientation and information techn...

Service Delivery Innovation Antecedents and Impact on Firm Performance

“Going green” has become an important environmental issue in contemporary business practice worldwide. This study examined the influence of a number of factors on green innovation and the consequences in terms of performance. The stakeholder theory was adopted to observe the effects of each stakeholder on the green innovation practices of companies and to determine how green innovation practices influence environmental and business performance. A research model with eight hypotheses was proposed to determine the associations between the variables of interest. An empirical survey was conducted of 202 Taiwanese service and manufacturing companies. The survey found that pressure from competitors and the government, along with employee conduct, all had significant and positive effects on green innovation practices. Additionally, a moderating effect of innovation orientation existed only in the relationship between green product innovation practices and employee conduct. This study not only provides a systematic way to analyze the effects of green innovation practices but also suggests the best means for companies to adopt green innovation practices.

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Effects of Green Innovation on Environmental and Corporate Performance: A Stakeholder Perspective

Co-production and its effects on service innovation

Few academic studies have investigated how information technology (IT) capability and service process innovation can create performance gains for firms through customer service. We propose that customer service is a significant mediator through which IT capability and service process innovation influence the performance of a firm, and that IT capability is also a critical factor that facilitates service process innovation. Empirical support for our argument was derived from data collected from 174 firms in the Taiwan IT industry. The results suggest that managerial initiatives should be directed at developing IT capability and service process innovation and leveraging them to facilitate customer service to attain superior firm performance. Furthermore, greater IT capability would lead to a higher degree of service process innovation.

Performance effects of IT capability, service process innovation, and the mediating role of customer service

This study compares two user acceptance theories: the motivational model (MM), and the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory. While MM arises from the field of information systems and the U&G theory was developed in the field of communication, both are focused on explaining user acceptance of information technologies using intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. We discuss the theoretical roots of the two theories, and use partial least squares (PLS) analysis to test each in an empirical setting. A comprehensive comparison of the results is also presented, including a discussion about the relative strengths and weaknesses of each model under both theoretical/research and practical contexts.

Ja-Shen Chen

Papers

Service Delivery Innovation Antecedents and Impact on Firm Performance

Effects of Green Innovation on Environmental and Corporate Performance: A Stakeholder Perspective

Co-production and its effects on service innovation

Performance effects of IT capability, service process innovation, and the mediating role of customer service

Web-based information service adoption: A comparison of the motivational model and the uses and gratifications theory