Getting the best solution from a supplier – A social capital perspective

Which are the vital factors of mobile personal health records applications that promote continued usage? A perspective on technology fit and social capital

Introduction

With the widespread use of mobile devices and the rapid development of mobile networks, connecting mobile personal health record (mPHR) apps to wearable devices to collect personal health data for analysis and community activities has become a trend for health promotion. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the vital factors that impact the sustained usage of mPHR apps.

Objective

In this study, we identified social lock-in as a major research gap in the current era of social media and the Internet. Therefore, to explore the effects of mPHR apps on continued app usage intention, we combined technology fit (individual-technology, synchronicity-technology, and task-technology fit) and social capital (structural, relational, and cognitive capital) to develop a novel study model.

Methods

The purpose of this research is to investigate the willingness to participate in the mPHR apps. It collected 565 valid users' responses through the online questionnaire with a structural equation modeling approach.

Results

That technology and social lock-in significantly affected the willingness of users to continue using mPHR apps (β  =  0.38, P < 0.001) and that the effects of social lock-in (β  =  0.38, P < 0.001) were more pronounced than those of technology lock-in (β  =  0.22, P < 0.001).

Conclusions

The technology and social lock-in generated by technology fit and social capital had positive effects on continued app usage and the effects of both types of lock-in on continued app usage varied among different participant groups.

Panarchy-based transformative supply chain resilience: the role of supply chain capital

Purpose

This paper aims to explain the role of supply chain capital (SCC) in developing transformative supply chain resilience (SCRes) to cope with environmental dynamism. Through a panarchy theory lens, this paper holistically examines how supply chains and their resilience are impacted by the multilevel structure in which they are embedded.

Design/methodology/approach

Contextualised explanation-building case studies are used to examine the transformative SCRes of 10 companies. Data were collected via interviews, documents, archival records and observations.

Findings

Studying transformative SCRes leads to generating insights into the application of SCC for managing environmental dynamisms at the organisational and supply chain levels. Furthermore, the linkages between different levels of the panarchy and their impact on the change in SCC to cope with the dynamisms are identified and explained.

Research limitations/implications

This paper contributes to the new and timely paradigm of transformative SCRes by studying this phenomenon in a holistic manner (rather than a traditional reductionistic view). Through a panarchy lens, the need to examine and analyse different hierarchy levels simultaneously to interpret SCRes responses to environmental dynamism is highlighted.

Practical implications

Valuable insights are provided to practitioners in developing an understanding of structural and relational SCC and their management in the development of transformative SCRes.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the first empirical studies using a multilevel social-ecological-based panarchy framework in the supply chain management context. Applying this novel approach is highly relevant and reveals several new research opportunities.

Trust, Identity, and Public-Sphere Pro-environmental Behavior in China: An Extended Attitude-Behavior-Context Theory

Changing human behavior is critical to mitigating the increasingly severe environmental harm. Although numerous studies focus on private-sphere or generalized pro-environmental behavior (PEB), relatively little research examines explicitly public-sphere PEB from a collective action perspective. This study incorporates trust and identity into the Attitude-Behavior-Context (ABC) theory to investigate Chinese residents' participation in public-sphere PEB. Primary data collected from 648 residents in China tested the model empirically. The results indicate that social trust, environmentalist self-identity, and politicized identity positively predict public-sphere PEB and that institutional trust positively impacts non-activist behaviors but negatively relates to environmental activism. There is also evidence that trust and identity are moderators of attitude and public-sphere PEB. Specifically, social trust and environmentalist self-identity strengthen the effect of attitude on public-sphere PEB. Politicized identity increases the impact of attitude on environmental activism but not on non-activist behaviors, and there is no significant moderating effect of institutional trust. The findings deepen the understanding of public-sphere PEB and make more targeted policies accordingly.