This research developed an effective supply chain management (SCM) operation model and a corresponding diagnostic methodology in the global competitive environment by combining three phases and methodologies. In Phases 1, a list of impact factors was collected from relevant studies, and a hierarchy for the current complex research issue was established. In Phase 2, an expert survey was conducted for enhancing the content effectiveness of the model. Subsequently, an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was applied to determine the weights of those factors. In Phase 3, a self-assessment framework was developed to examine the effectiveness of the global SCM. Finally, a case was analyzed to verify the effectiveness of the self-assessment scales. The results show that the concept of global SCM tends to be broader and more comprehensive than traditional one. Especially in the coordination and cooperation between market, organization itself and suppliers, while using information technology as a communication tool.

The online banking service is the key element for the development of e-commerce and e-businesses. It provides users with convenient daily transaction services, such as wire transfer and online payment. Past studies on online banking services mostly focused on their functionality, whereas little pay attention to users’ hedonic feelings or a sense of pleasure. Besides, discussions about post-adoption behavior are also immature. Thus, this study aims to explore the impacts of customers' positive or negative experience of using online banking services on consumers' emotions. Furthermore, a discussion of post-adoption behaviors, including recommendations, complaints, and continuance intention is also provided. The result shows that positive user experience will have a significantly positive impact on the generation of utilitarian emotion. As for the sense of utilitarian emotion, users concern more about whether their goal could be achieved successfully via their operations or not, such as completing wire transfer transactions in the online banking environment.

Recently, we have seen strong smartphone brands are associated repeatedly with exceptional sales, such as buyers queuing at Apple Stores on the first day of product release while some others are not. However, what factors influence our decision on choosing a particular brand of smartphone? Finding answers of this question is meaningful to the academic field as well as the sales of smartphones. This study tends to understand how product functions and social aspects have relationships on the emergence of the aforementioned phenomenon through validating a proposed model based on the survey results. A total of 319 valid questionnaires from smartphone and nonsmartphone users in Taiwan were received by this study. Our study found social dimensions namely, convergence, innovation, and network externality were the antecedents for product utility, and these antecedents are indirectly influencing to brand loyalty. Some implications and suggestions for smartphone manufacturers/retailers, governments, and academics are also given.

This article describes how in recent years, enterprises have increasingly adopted social technologies to support customer relationship management (CRM) practices. To increase CRM performance, enterprises have had to develop appropriate social CRM strategies in emerging social network applications. This article investigates the alignment between social network applications and the “4C strategy” as a social CRM strategy in organizations. It intends to understand how alignment influences CRM performance. A total of 225 Taiwanese companies, which have adopted Facebook to interact with customers, were surveyed. According to the results, alignment between the 4C strategy and social network applications has a positive and significant impact on CRM performance. The results also suggest that organizations require a high-level integration of social network applications with the 4C strategy to achieve high CRM performance.

By extending the updated D&M IS success model, this study examines the multi-dimensional aspects to identify influential factors and construct a suitable model for explaining NHSS success in Taiwan. Through the empirical results from the perspective of 1215 public healthcare workers, this study has arrived at several findings. First, eight salient factors were found which influenced NHSS success from the dimensions of user characteristics, organizational context, and system characteristics. Second, the factors of user experience, user training, information quality, service quality, and user satisfaction have a strong positive effect on system use, whereas user attitude and facilitating conditions have a significant and negative effect. Further, user attitude, user training, top management support, system quality, information quality, and service quality are also significantly correlated to user satisfaction. The results of this study can assist governments in other countries in developing more effective NHSS and better e-Government practices.

Business-to-business (B2B) transactions supported by the World Wide Web (Web) have become a major portion of e-commerce transactions. Despite growth, knowledge of the degree of Web site support capabilities in the B2B transaction process is limited. This paper longitudinally compares how Web sites supported the B2B transaction process in New Zealand and Taiwan between 2001 and 2007. The results indicate that, on average, New Zealand Web sites scored higher than those in Taiwan in both years. Yet, the rate of improvement of Taiwanese Web site scores is significant. Specifically, the support capability of several Web functions, including privacy, company information, financial information and product catalog has improved over the study period. The authors found that the sampled Web sites in New Zealand and Taiwan provide different support capabilities to the activities in the B2B transaction process. Taiwanese Web sites are more concerned with providing after-sale services via the Internet whereas New Zealand Web sites are more concerned with sharing information. These two countries’ Web sites share a similar focus on supporting B2B transactions, which provides strong support for users to conduct product promotion and information provision related activities over the Web. Based on these findings, this study suggests several implications for associated academics and practitioners.