With rapid advances in digital technologies and artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles (AVs) have developed substantially, yet consumer adoption remains constrained by psychological barriers. Against this backdrop, this study examines the factors shaping consumers' willingness to adopt AVs, with particular emphasis on trust. Drawing on a UTAUT2-informed perspective on technology adoption and extending it with trust, we develop and test a framework for explaining consumers' willingness to adopt AVs in the context of Level 3 AVs. Evidence from a field experiment conducted in China (N = 400) shows that trust serves as a critical mechanism through which consumers' perceptions translate into willingness to adopt AVs. Specifically, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, perceived enjoyment, and anthropomorphism are all positively associated with trust. The findings further show that perceived privacy risk weakens all of these positive effects on trust except the effect of anthropomorphism. By clarifying the mediating role of trust and identifying perceived privacy risk as an important boundary condition, this study advances research on AV technology acceptance. It also offers practical insights for firms and designers seeking to strengthen consumer trust through better system performance, more intuitive user experiences, and clearer privacy protections.

How does prior entrepreneurial experience influence crowdfunding performance? Drawing on social learning theory, this study examines how prior success and failure experiences affect crowdfunding performance while accounting for the moderating roles of peer influence and government digital support. Using a sample of 5,335 crowdfunding projects initiated by 2,322 entrepreneurs on the Modian platform, the empirical analysis reveals that success experience demonstrates an inverted U-shaped effect, and failure experience exhibits a U-shaped effect on crowdfunding performance. The two types of experience interact complementarily to enhance performance outcomes. Additionally, peer influence accentuates the curvilinear effect of success experience on crowdfunding performance, while government digital support amplifies the curvilinear effect of failure experience on crowdfunding performance. These findings contribute to the literature on social learning theory, advance understanding of the mechanisms shaping crowdfunding performance, and offer practical implications for entrepreneurs, platform operators, and policymakers.

The international management literature has paid limited attention to expatriates’ psychological capital (PsyCap), which may act as a key determinant of success on international tasks. Drawing upon social cognitive theory, this research develops a novel theoretical model to unpack the mechanisms, conditions, and outcomes of PsyCap on international tasks. Paired data from 221 expatriates and their supervisors/foreign colleagues revealed a positive effect for PsyCap on expatriates’ cross-cultural competence, which further impacts both their short-term and long-term performance. In addition, we found that a low error aversion attitude strengthened the positive indirect relationship between PsyCap and both short-term and long-term performance via cross-cultural competence. Our findings reorient international management research towards positive psychology, with important implications for MNEs’ expatriate development, organizational support, and error management culture to foster expatriate success. JEL Classification: M12, M16

Innovation is crucial for a firm’s development and requires substantial search activities for heterogeneous knowledge. Drawing on search strategies and institutional theory, this study explores the relationship between search strategies and innovation performance in high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) while considering two moderators of government subsidies and market-supporting institutions. Next, we empirically tested our proposed hypotheses by collecting data on 268 listed high-tech SMEs, with a total number of 1482 firm-year observations, and applied the negative binomial regression method in our analysis. Our analysis results revealed that both search breadth and depth had inverted U-shaped effects on SMEs’ innovation performance. We further found that the curves were steeper in firms with more government subsidies and flatter in firms with high levels of market-supporting institutions. The discussion includes the study’s theoretical contributions and implications for organizational management.

Practice- and Policy-Oriented Abstract Our study of online medical consultation platforms shows that, when physicians work in virtual teams, they perform better even in their individual patient consultations. This improvement occurs primarily through peer effects: physicians are motivated to work harder when they can observe their teammates’ performance. The findings from our study offer valuable insights for the design and operation of online medical consultation (OMC) platforms. Specifically, whereas the rise of OMC platforms has significantly improved the connectivity among patients and physicians by reducing or even eliminating certain frictions in patient–physician encounters, there remain major challenges as to how to effectively match patients and physicians and facilitate value creation for both sides given the overall supply shortage of physicians. Our analysis indicates that team consultation may complement rather than cannibalize individual consultation. Whereas our research focuses on the healthcare sector, these insights apply broadly to other contexts (e.g., open-source software development and massive open online course platforms) in which professionals can form voluntary teams. The key is to carefully balance individual work with teamwork, providing the right tools and incentives for collaboration.

Based on the stimulus–response framework, this study examines the external environmental stimuli influencing online rumour sharing about COVID-19 and considers the contingent effect of fear. A large-scale online survey was used to test the proposed research model and hypotheses. The final data set comprised 2807 valid responses. The results indicate that perceptions of community safety and infection risk negatively affect online rumour sharing, while social influence positively affects online rumour sharing. Fear weakens the negative effects of community safety on online rumour sharing but strengthens the positive effect of social influence on online rumour sharing. This study provides a comprehensive analysis by applying the stimulus–response framework to explore the underlying drivers of online rumour sharing with regard to COVID-19 and the moderating effects of fear in the Chinese context.

Big-data analytics capability (BDAC) is crucial for the value creation process and collaboration innovation of manufacturing enterprises. Based on the knowledge-based view, this study aims to explore the relationship between BDAC, the value creation process (collaboration breadth and collaboration depth), and collaboration innovation quality while considering the contingency of technology risk. On the basis of 2,366 firm-year observations in 896 Chinese manufacturing enterprises between 2015 and 2022, the empirical results indicate that BDAC positively affects collaboration breadth and collaboration depth. Additionally, both collaboration breadth and collaboration depth mediate the relationship between BDAC and collaboration innovation quality, and technology risk weakens the positive effect of BDAC on collaboration depth. Our findings contribute to literatures on BDAC, technology risk and collaborative innovation by introducing knowledge-based view into collaborative innovation, and provide managerial implications for manufacturing enterprises and government policy-making.

What influences the success of academic entrepreneurship? Drawing on the motivation theory, this study investigates the effects of entrepreneurial intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on entrepreneurial persistence and consequently academic entrepreneurship performance with the moderating roles of female entrepreneurs and innovation and entrepreneurship support institutions analyzed. To test these effects, we used hierarchical regression with data collected from 211 academic entrepreneurs at Chinese universities. We find that entrepreneurial intrinsic motivation increases (but extrinsic motivation decreases) entrepreneurial persistence, which also mediates their effects on the academic entrepreneurship performance. The positive relationship between entrepreneurial intrinsic motivation and entrepreneurial persistence is strengthened for female entrepreneurs. Innovation and entrepreneurship support institutions alleviates the negative effect of entrepreneurial extrinsic motivation on entrepreneurial persistence and enhances the positive effect of entrepreneurial persistence on academic entrepreneurship performance. This study contributes to the literature of academic entrepreneurship and motivation theory. Managers are advised to pay attention for these motivation aspects and the entrepreneurial persistence to bring academic entrepreneurship performance.

Cross-cultural competence (CCC) is one of the most effective means for expatriates to overcome cultural tensions and liabilities of foreignness on international assignments. Drawing upon a paradox theory lens, this study delineates a moderated mediation model that unpacks the mindset, behavior, and work design features which empower the development of CCC in the context of expatriate assignment. To test this model, we obtained survey data from 244 expatriate managers, matched with survey responses from 244 local colleagues, nominated by each expatriate. Structural equation modelling revealed that both holistic thinking and attributional complexity predict CCC via paradoxical behavior. In addition, opportunity-enhancing work design positively moderated the indirect relationship between attributional complexity and CCC. Such findings highlight the importance of embracing a paradox mindset and paradoxical behaviors for competency building on international tasks. The practical implications for expatriate selection, training, and continuous development are also discussed.

Academic entrepreneurs often shift back and forth between "scholar" and "entrepreneur." This identity shift creates a "Who am I?" type of question. Can academic entrepreneurs achieve harmonious roles during their career transition? Drawing on identity theory and social identity theory, we predict an inverted U-shaped relationship between academic entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial identification and role harmony. We found a U-shaped relationship between scholarly identification and role harmony. Additionally, the role of entrepreneurial narrative as a sense-making process is examined, as it could potentially exacerbate or ameliorate the aforementioned relationship between the identification of the two identities and role harmony. The analysis of survey data from 246 Chinese academic entrepreneurs supports our hypotheses. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and policy implications of our findings.

EDITORIAL article Front. Public Health, 26 May 2023Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion Volume 11 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1211285

Online platforms make it possible for physicians to share online information with the public, however, few studies have explored the underlying mechanism of physicians’ sharing of paid health information. Drawing on motivation theory, this study developed a theoretical framework to explore the effects of extrinsic motivation, enjoyment, and professional motivation on the sharing of paid information, as well as the contingent role of income ratio (online to offline) and online reputation. The model was tested with both objective and subjective data, which contain responses from 298 physicians. The results show that extrinsic motivation, enjoyment, and professional motivation play significant roles in inducing physicians to share paid information. Furthermore, income ratio can moderate the effects of motives on paid information sharing. Besides, the effect of professional motivation can be more effective in certain situations (low-level income ratio or high online reputation). This study contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing, online health behaviour, and motivation theory, and provides implications for practitioners.

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, a significant health threat, influenced information-related behaviors and induced increased rumor-sharing behaviors on social media. Fighting COVID-19 thus entails the need to fight the rumors as well, providing a strong motivation to explore rumor-related behavior during this extraordinary period. From the perspective of information acquisition, we predicted that information acquisition from social and traditional media would interactively influence rumor-related decisions (i.e., rumor belief and sharing) and that critical thinking would shape this relationship. Through a survey of 2424 individuals who used social media during the pandemic, we found that information acquisition from social media was negatively related to rumor sharing and that rumor belief mediated this relationship. Meanwhile, information acquisition from traditional media weakened the negative effect of information acquisition from social media on rumor belief, and critical thinking alleviated the positive effect of rumor belief on rumor sharing. This study contributes to the literature by explaining the diffusion of COVID-19 rumors on social media from an information perspective and revealing how different information sources and thinking styles come into conflict in rumor decisions.

Purpose Based on the literature on disruptive innovation, this research explores how disruptive innovation directly and indirectly (via innovation speed and innovation quality) influences firm performance in relation to the contingency of market-supporting institutions. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 207 firms was gathered through questionnaires targeting senior managers and R&D managers from high-tech firms in China with two waves including explanatory variables and outcome variables. Findings This empirical results indicate that disruptive innovation positively affects firm performance, and that innovation speed and innovation quality mediate the relationship between disruptive innovation and firm performance. Meanwhile, market-supporting institutions positively moderate the relationship between innovation speed and firm performance, but negatively moderate the relationship between innovation quality and firm performance. Research limitations/implications This study suggests that disruptive innovation is important to firm performance, innovation speed and innovation quality play mediating roles, and market-supporting institutions acts as moderating effects. A research limitation is that the data were collected mainly through a questionnaire. Practical implications Firms should incorporate disruptive innovation as an important strategy and improve innovation speed and innovation quality to promote firm performance, and policymakers should improve the levels of market-supporting institutions to facilitate innovation and performance. Originality/value This study contributes the literature of disruptive innovation by uncovering the positive effect of disruptive innovation and firm performance and the mediating effects of innovation speed and innovation quality on the abovementioned relationship, and revealing their contingency effects of market-supporting institutions.