The Influences of Live Streaming Affordance in Cross-Border E-Commerce Platforms

Despite the promise of cross-border e-commerce, attracting consumers is still a worldwide challenge. Many cross-border e-commerce platforms have responded to the challenges by embracing innovative tools like live streaming. However, there has been limited understandings of the unique nature of live streaming and its empirical influence. Taking an affordance view of live streaming, this study defines affordance of live streaming as the capacities provided by live streaming and examines how affordance of live streaming affect consumer behavior in the cross-border e-commerce context based on information transparency perspective. Results show that although live streaming does not directly affect consumers’ cross-border purchase intention, it can increase consumers’ purchase intention through increasing perceived information transparency. In addition, affordance of live streaming can further moderate the relationship between different types of information transparency and consumers’ cross-border purchase intention. The findings provide a much-needed contribution to academia and business.

The Influences of Live Streaming Affordance in Cross-border E-commerce Platform

Despite the promise of cross-border e-commerce, attracting consumers is still a worldwide challenge. Many cross-border e-commerce platforms have responded to the challenges by embracing innovative tools like live streaming. However, there has been limited understandings of the unique nature of live streaming and its empirical influence. Taking an affordance view of live streaming, this study defines affordance of live streaming as the capacities provided by live streaming and examines how affordance of live streaming affect consumer behavior in the cross-border e-commerce context based on information transparency perspective. Results show that although live streaming does not directly affect consumers’ cross-border purchase intention, it can increase consumers’ purchase intention through increasing perceived information transparency. In addition, affordance of live streaming can further moderate the relationship between different types of information transparency and consumers’ cross-border purchase intention. The findings provide a much-needed contribution to academia and business.

Smartphones and Learning: An Extension of M-Learning or a Distinct Area of Inquiry

The smartphone has become an integral part of the education landscape. While there has been significant smartphone research in education under the guise of m-learning, the unique role of the device suggests that m-learning may not be an appropriate characterization. The purpose of this paper is to review the use of m-learning as a primary descriptor for smartphone- and learning-related research. In support of this goal, the paper reviews the definitions associated with m-learning, smartphones, and related technologies from the perspective of educational research. In addition, a review of author keywords of research on smartphones in education is used to provide context to the classification of the research. Finally, three theoretically guided smartphone programs are presented as evidence of the unique nature of smartphone and learning research. This review concludes with recommendations for the characterization of future research.

Let's Think Together! Assessing Shared Mental Models, Performance, and Trust in Human-Agent Teams

An emerging research agenda in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work focuses on human-agent teaming and AI agent's roles and effects in modern teamwork. In particular, one understudied key question centers around the construct of team cognition within human-agent teams. This study explores the unique nature of team dynamics in human-agent teams compared to human-human teams and the impact of team composition on perceived team cognition, team performance, and trust. In doing so, a mixed-method approach, including three team composition conditions (all human, human-human-agent, human-agent-agent), completed the team simulation NeoCITIES and completed shared mental model, trust, and perception measures. Results found that human-agent teams are similar to human-only teams in the iterative development of team cognition and the importance of communication to accelerating its development; however, human-agent teams are different in that action-related communication and explicitly shared goals are beneficial to developing team cognition. Additionally, human-agent teams trusted agent teammates less when working with only agents and no other humans, perceived less team cognition with agent teammates than human ones, and had significantly inconsistent levels of team mental model similarity when compared to human-only teams. This study contributes to Computer-Supported Cooperative Work in three significant ways: 1) advancing the existing research on human-agent teaming by shedding light on the relationship between humans and agents operating in collaborative environments, 2) characterizing team cognition development in human-agent teams; and 3) advancing real-world design recommendations that promote human-centered teaming agents and better integrate the two.

Excavations at the Iron Age Village Site of Fibobe II, Central Zambia

The period from c. AD 900 to AD 1300 in southern Africa is characterized by transitions from small-scale Iron Age mixed economy communities to the beginnings of more intensive food production and eventually the emergence of complex polities. In Zambia, this coincides with the appearance of larger and more permanent agro-pastoralist villages that began participating in Indian Ocean trade networks. Unlike other parts of southern Africa where stone architecture became common, the predominance of wattle-and-daub type construction methods across Zambia have often impeded preservation of Iron Age activity areas. It has therefore been difficult to reconstruct how economic and land-use changes between the Early and Later Iron Ages impacted family and community relationships reflected in intra-site and intra-household spatial organization. Fibobe II, in the Mulungushi River Basin of Central Zambia, is a rare example of an Early-to-Mid Iron Age village site where these spatial patterns may be discernable due to preservation of activity spaces and vitrified remains of wattle-and-daub structures. This paper reports on new investigations following original testing of the site in 1979, confirming preservation of an Iron Age hut with distinct patterning of features, artifacts, and charcoal. These results reaffirm the unique nature of Fibobe II and indicate the potential for programs of household archaeology aimed at studying this important and understudied period in Zambian prehistory.

Falling through the Cracks: Deaf New Americans and Their Unsupported Educational Needs

Members of the Deaf New American community reported they arrived in the United States with no formal education, unable to read or write in their native language, and had zero fluency in English. Efforts to educate them have floundered, and the study aims to find out why and how to fix the problem. Interviews of eight Deaf New Americans yielded rich data that demonstrates how education policy in the form of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and other laws fail to address their needs, because these laws do not include them in their coverage. The study’s main findings are the deleterious effect of the home country’s failure to educate their Deaf citizens, America’s failure to provide accessible and effective instruction, and the combined effect of these institutional failures on the ability of Deaf New Americans to master English and find gainful employment. This article is an argument for a change in education policy that recognizes the unique nature of this community and provides for a role of Deaf educators in teaching Deaf New Americans.

Are Family Businesses a Good Environment for Project Management?

Relationships between project management, operations management, and organizational strategy are well-known, as well as organizational influences on project. Family businesses work on projects, but their unique nature makes family firms a challenging context for Project Management. This chapter aims to present and discuss the specific dynamics of family business that can impact project management practices. By definition, a project is a complex system, consisting of a set of dozens of interrelated sub-processes. As is known, the percentage of projects that satisfy both technical requirements, budget compliance and which meet the deadlines, is extremely low. This fact forces the researchers to equip themselves with more sophisticated tools to face the complexity of a project, in order to increase its chances of success.

Implementing the E-Family Expert Model through a Legal Framework for Online Dispute Resolution

With the protracted Covid-19 pandemic ravaging the whole world with emergence of new virulent variants, there has been a massive backlash on the family institutions, particularly Muslim families across the world. Some of the effects of the protracted pandemic include domestic violence, increase in the rate of divorce and death of spouses which have triggered some unique nature of family disputes. With the restrictions in movement and physical distancing measures in place, one would wonder whether there could be an alternative means to resolve such budding family-related disputes. To address this issue, this paper examines the potential of the E-family Expert Model earlier designed by the authors in addressing such family-related disputes under the legal framework for online dispute resolution (ODR). The study adopts an analytical approach through qualitative research method to discuss the relevant issues with a view to finding a lasting solution to the dearth of avenues for family dispute resolution. One of the major findings of the study relates to the relevance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in implementing the E-Family Expert model where the usual boundaries between the physical, digital and biological aspects of life are strategically blurred with the implementation of a family ODR platform. The study concludes that the E-family expert model could help in a great deal in addressing multitude of family-related disputes through an ODR platform while complying with the national legislative framework. This could be a veritable tool for the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in addressing the increasing number of family disputes through a more formalized framework for adoption by its member states.

Role of bone morphogenetic proteins in periodontal tissue engineering: Relatively unexplored horizon

Tissue engineering aims to reconstruct the natural target tissue by a combination of three key elements stem/progenitor cells (that will create the new tissue), signaling molecules (that instruct the cells to form the desired tissue) scaffold/extracellular matrix (to hold the cells). Regeneration of the periodontal tissues following destructive episodes of various forms of periodontitis is a formidable challenge to periodontologists. Bone morphogenic proteins have been considered as the most potent growth factors that can promote the bone regeneration. This review will emphasize on the unique nature of the tissue engineered bone morphogenic proteins molecules regarding their structure, classification, signaling mechanism, etc. which will further help in understanding their role and potential advances necessary to facilitate the process of regeneration in the field of periodontics.

Changing the business narrative: a guide to successful experience offerings

Purpose In this article, we aim to increase understanding of the unique nature of experiences in comparison to services and explain how narrative change can enable organizations to fully participate in the experience economy. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon relevant experience design and experience economy literatures the paper outlines key differences between experiences and services. The narrative change process is then employed to provide managers specific guidelines for strategically reframing their value production paradigm to become more experience-centric. Findings rticulating key elements of an organization’s narrative such as characters and intended outcomes allows an organization to more intentionally change their narrative to align with the experience economy. Practical/implications The essential outcome of an experience is that participants do something for themselves ? for example, learn a new skill. Participation is integral to every experience transaction. Originality/value Although Pine, Gilmore, and others have detailed the differences between experiences and services, definitional disagreements and oversimplifications of these concepts still exist. This paper further differentiates these economic offerings. Additionally, this paper is the first to integrate the narrative change process into a discussion about experience strategy.