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The purpose of this paper is to examine the (in)congruence of leaders’ and followers’ cognitive characteristics (i.e. pessimism), followers’ identification with a leader and job satisfaction.

Data from 291 working professionals are analyzed, following a series of hierarchical linear modeling and mediated polynomial regression analyses.

Polynomial regression analysis results indicate that alignment (congruence) between leaders’ pessimism and followers’ pessimism, when both are at high levels, is related to low levels of job satisfaction. Further, leader–follower congruence at lower levels of pessimism leads to high levels of job satisfaction through the mediator of followers’ perceived identification with a leader.

By identifying (in)congruence of leader–follower pessimism as a key antecedent, and taking an explanatory mechanism of identification with a leader into account, the authors contribute to disentangling the conceptual paths that underlie the mode by which implicit leadership theory might explain instances of individual job satisfaction.

The present study investigates whether individuals having a fixed digital mindset (comprises fundamental beliefs about technological ability and organizational resources as work becomes more digitalized) experience greater helplessness working in virtual teamwork environments. The authors examine how perceived internal human resource management (HRM) alignment moderates the positive relationship expected between individuals' fixed digital mindset and feelings of helplessness. Together, the paper aims to contribute to a greater understanding of the personal and contextual factors that influence an individual's experience of helplessness in virtual team settings.

The authors test the hypotheses using time-lagged survey data collected from 153 information technology (IT) engineers working in virtual teams in Europe.

The authors find that individuals with higher levels of fixed digital mindset experience greater helplessness in virtual teamwork environments than individuals with lower levels. Furthermore, the authors find that having higher-fixed beliefs about organizational resources is positively related to helplessness when individuals perceive that the broader HRM system is misaligned with the virtual teamwork environment.

The data were obtained from IT engineers in Europe, which is potentially limiting the generalizability of the authors' findings to other work contexts and cultures.

The authors' study helps leaders in virtual teamwork environments to better understand and manage the personal and contextual factors that could affect individuals' well-being and effective functioning in such settings.

The authors' research contributes to the scant literature investigating the personal characteristics important in virtual teamwork environments and the contextual factors important for aligning virtual teamwork designs with the organizational system. The authors extend this research by looking at personal and contextual factors together in a single model.

The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between perceived empowerment practices and Chinese service employee service effort and turnover intention, also to examine the mediating role of employee job attitudes in this relationship.

To test hypotheses about the relationships above, survey data were collected by a self‐administered questionnaire from frontline service workers at six four‐ and five‐star hotels in the Macau Special Administrative Region of China. The final sample of 290 participants rated empowerment practices in their workplace, as well as their job attitudes, service effort and turnover intention. Perceived empowerment practices were measured using items from Hayes' employee employment questionnaire. Employee job attitudes were measured using job satisfaction and organizational commitment scales based on Harrison et al. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the hypotheses.

Statistically significant results were obtained for a full mediating effect of job attitudes on the relationship between empowerment practices and turnover intention. However, the relationship between empowerment and Chinese employee service effort was insignificant.

This study is cross‐sectional and so a longitudinal examination of the variables could be revealing. In addition, other moderating and/or mediating factors could exist such as demographic characteristics of service employees. Finally, most of the conceptual underpinnings for this study come from research carried out in Western countries and more work should be done within Chinese organisations and more qualitative research would be appropriate for theory‐building research.

Managers in service industries in China should carefully monitor employee job attitudes towards the empowerment practices. Owing to cultural differences on the high vs low power distance dimension in particular, managers from the West should not overlook how much empowerment is accepted among Chinese service employees.

Contributing to attitude engagement theory, job attitudes consisting of job satisfaction and organizational commitment explain the success of empowerment implementation in Chinese service organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and individual in-role and extra-role work performance and the potential moderating role of individual goal orientations.

Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted based on data from 655 certified accountants. Leaders' empowering behavior was measured using Ahearne et al.'s scale. Mastery and performance goal orientations were measured using items from VandeWalle. In-role work performance was measured via a ten-item scale developed and used by Kuvaas and Dysvik. Organizational citizenship behavior was measured using items validated by Van Dyne and LePine.

Too little empowerment might have a negative or limited impact – or none at all – on individual in-role and extra-role work performance. In addition, individual mastery orientation positively moderates these curvilinear relationships.

Empowering leadership-employee performance relationships are not necessarily linear. The present study provides an alternative explanation to the somewhat inconsistent findings in the current literature.

Due to the curvilinear nature of empowering leadership, leaders should not just casually adopt this leadership style but ensure that they implement it at high levels with clear clarification of the goals and work roles.

Even though empowering leadership is important to individual performance, scant research has explored whether and when empowering leadership could be detrimental. This study provides an additional view to empowerment research by examining the potential curvilinear influence of empowering leadership.

This study aims to identify library service dimensions at the Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), Thailand, examine the effect of perceived quality on overall satisfaction and determine the library service's improvement priorities.

The modified service quality (SERVQUAL) questionnaire was administered to SUT faculty and students. The perceived quality of service attributes was determined by comparing the perception of the actual service received with the expectation. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was utilized to classify the service dimensions, and proportional odds ordinal logistic regression was employed to examine the impact of perceived quality on overall satisfaction. The improvement priorities were determined using the importance–performance analysis (IPA).

EFA suggested four service dimensions of the SUT library services: collection and access, organizational service, service delivery by staff and library as a place. The perceived quality of all dimensions positively affected overall satisfaction. However, the “library as a place” had a nonsignificant effect on faculty satisfaction, while the “collection and access” had a nonsignificant effect on student satisfaction.

In the context of library services, few studies have examined the effect of perceived quality on satisfaction and investigated improvement priorities using IPA. This study addresses these research gaps and provides deeper insights into the faculty and student perspectives on the university library services.

Blockchain is a disruptive technology that has matured to deliver robust, global, IT systems, yet adoption lags predictions. The authors explore barriers to adoption in the context of a global challenge with multiple stakeholders: integration of carbon markets. Going beyond the dominant economic-rationalistic paradigm of information system (IS) innovation adoption, the authors reduce pro-innovation bias and broaden inter-organizational scope by using technological frames theory to capture the cognitive framing of the challenges perceived within the world’s largest carbon emitter: China.

Semi-structured interviews with 15 key experts representing three communities in China’s carbon markets: IT experts in carbon markets; carbon market experts with conceptual knowledge of blockchain and carbon market experts with practical blockchain experience.

Perceived technical challenges were found to be the least significant in explaining adoption. Significant challenges in five areas: social, political legal and policy (PLP), data, organizational and managerial (OM) and economic, with PLP and OM given most weight. Mapping to frames developed to encompass these challenges: nature of technology, strategic use of technology and technology readiness resolved frame incongruence that, in the case explored, did not lead to rejection of blockchain, but a decision to defer investment, increase the scope of analysis and delay the adoption decision.

Increases scope and resolution of IS adoption research. Technological frames theory moves from predominant economic-rational models to a social cognitive perspective. Broadens understanding of blockchain adoption in a context combining the world’s most carbon emissions with ownership of most blockchain patents, detailing socio-technical challenges and delivering practical guidance for policymakers and practitioners.

The on-chip high-throughput mixing process is one of the main challenges in the preparation process in clinical diagnostics. Because of high laminar flow in micro-channel, the fluid should be disturbed by external force. This paper aims to study pulsed AC electrothermal flow and the multiphysic interaction between the fluid behavior, external electric field, temperature field and convection-diffusion field to generate perturbation effect inside the channel.

A set of numerical simulations were carried out by multiphysic interactions between the fluid behavior, external electric field, temperature field and convection-diffusion field to generate the pulsed AC electrothermal flow inside the channel. Behavior of electrode–electrolyte system is discussed using the electrical lumped circuit model.

Highly efficient temperature gradients are generated by applying pulsed electric potential over the electrodes; as a result, efficient secondary flows form inside the channel. The proposed method increases the interfacial contact area between the fluids and enhances the molecular diffusion transport phenomena. Maximum temperature rise of 4.1 K is observed in the gap between the electrodes for 0.08 S/m fluid medium, where the electric field is much stronger than elsewhere. Velocity field and concentration analysis reveal high performance perturbation effects for the mixing process. The periodic stretching and folding effects increase the interfacial contact area between the fluids by using pulsed AC electrothermal flow. Based on the results, 83 per cent mixing efficiency is achieved for 0.08 S/m fluid medium with a microchannel length of 400 µm. Both the mixing efficiency and generated temperature rise increase by increasing the fluid ionic strength.

The ability to generate low temperature rise is very important for AC electrothermally driven fluidic chips such as immunoassay chips. In the present research, a novel actuation mechanism has been proposed to generate AC electrothermal manipulation mechanism and enhance the mixing efficiency by using pulsed AC electrothermal flow.

Digital microfluidic devices have been demonstrated to have great potential for a wide range of applications. These devices need expensive photolithography process and clean room facilities, while printed circuit board (PCB) technology provides high configurability and at low cost. This study aims to investigate the mechanism of electrowetting-on-a-dielectric (EWOD) on PCB by solving the multiphysics interaction between fluid droplet and electric field. The performance of system will be improved by inducing an efficient electric field inside the droplet.

To induce an electric field inside the droplet on a PCB and change the initial contact angle, the mechanism of EWOD is studied based on energy minimization method and a set of simulations are carried out by considering multiphysics interaction between the fluid droplet and external electric field. The performance of EWOD on a PCB system is investigated using different electrode structures.

Surface tension plays an efficient role in smaller sizes and can be used to move and control a fluid droplet on a surface by changing the interfacial surface tension. EWOD on a PCB system is studied. and it revealed that any change in electric field affects the droplet contact angle and as a result droplet deformation and movement. The electrode pattern is an important parameter which could change the electric potential distribution inside the droplet. Array of electrodes with square, zigzag interdigitated and crescent shapes are studied to enhance the EWOD force on a PCB substrate. Based on the results, the radial shape of the crescent electrodes keeps almost the same actuated contact line, applies uniform force on the droplet periphery and prevents the droplet from large deformation. A droplet velocity of 0.6 mm/s is achieved by exciting the crescent electrodes at 315 V. Furthermore, the behavior of system is characterized for process parameters such as actuation voltage, dielectric constant of insulator layer, fluidic material properties and the resultant velocity and contact angle. The study of contact angle distribution and droplet motion revealed that it is helpful to generate EWOD mechanism on a PCB which does not need more complicated fabrication processes.

The ability to handle and manipulate the droplets is very important for chemistry on-chip analysis such as immunoassay chips. Furthermore, a PCB-based electrowetting-on-dielectric device is of high interest because it does not need cleanroom facilities and avoids additional high-cost fabrication processes. In the present research, the EWOD mechanism is studied on a PCB by using different electrode patterns.

Mobile instant messaging (IM) has been increasingly adopted by hotels to communicate with customers. This study aims to explore communication between hotels and customers and identifies the factors that affect hotel customers’ intention to use mobile IM to communicate with hotels.

A two-stage exploratory sequential mixed-method design, which combines semi-structured interview and policy-capturing method was applied.

The findings indicate that customers are more likely to use mobile IM to communicate with hotels for non-urgent matters; before and after a stay; and if customers are accustomed to using mobile IM for work and non-work purposes in daily life.

This study goes beyond traditional theories to capturing communication-related factors that affect customers’ IM use in a hotel context.

The findings indicate why hotel managers should avoid relying on IM as the dominant communication channel.

This is among one of the first studies that explore customers’ communication needs and communication media choice in hotels.