This study investigates how customers perceive and adopt Internet Banking (IB) in Hong Kong. We developed a theoretical model based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with an added construct Perceived Web Security, and empirically tested its ability in predicting customers' behavioral intention of adopting IB. We designed a questionnaire and used it to survey a randomly selected sample of customers of IB from the Yellow Pages, and obtained 203 usable responses. We analyzed the data using Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) to evaluate the strength of the hypothesized relationships, if any, among the constructs, which include Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Web Security as independent variables, Perceived Usefulness and Attitude as intervening variables, and Intention to Use as the dependent variable. The results provide support of the extended TAM model and confirm its robustness in predicting customers' intention of adoption of IB. This study contributes to the literature by formulating and validating TAM to predict IB adoption, and its findings provide useful information for bank management in formulating IB marketing strategies.

The extant operations management literature has extensively investigated the associations among quality, customer satisfaction, and firm profitability. However, the influence of employee attributes on these performance dimensions has rarely been examined. In this study we investigate the impact of employee satisfaction on operational performance in high-contact service industries. Based on an empirical study of 206 service shops in Hong Kong, we examined the hypothesized relationships among employee satisfaction, service quality, customer satisfaction, and firm profitability. Using structural equations modeling, we found that employee satisfaction is significantly related to service quality and to customer satisfaction, while the latter in turn influences firm profitability. We also found that firm profitability has a moderate non-recursive effect on employee satisfaction, leading to a ''satisfaction-quality-profit cycle''. Our empirical investigation suggests that employee satisfaction is an important consideration for operations managers to boost service quality and customer satisfaction. We provide empirical evidence that employee satisfaction plays a significant role in enhancing the operational performance of organizations in the high-contact service sector. #

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Today, manufacturing firms encounter pressure from multiple stakeholders to manage occupational health and safety issues properly, systematically and transparently. While manufacturing firms commonly use internally developed Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, there is growing pressure to adopt externally certified system such as OHSAS 18001. However, there are conflicting views and little empirical evidence that examines the linkage between OHSAS 18001 certification and operating performance. Hence, this paper examines the impact of OHSAS 18001 on operational performance through three theoretical lenses: Institutional Theory, Normal Accident Theory, and High Reliability Theory. We also investigate how complexity and coupling moderate the relationship between OHSAS 18001 and operational performance. Based on a sample of 211 U.S. listed manufacturing firms with OHSAS 18001 certification, we find that certification leads to significant increases in abnormal performance on safety, sales growth, labor productivity, and profitability and that these benefits increase as complexity and coupling increase.

This study investigates the unique and complementary effects of manufacturing technologies and lean practices on operational performance of manufacturing firms. Despite the importance of understanding how various resources are interrelated within firms, there have been few studies focusing on this area. Using data collected from 186 manufacturing plants in Thailand, we found that both manufacturing technologies and lean practice have unique effects on a range of operational performance dimensions, including quality, lead time, flexibility, and cost. More importantly, however, we also found that both organizational resources have complementary (or synergistic) effects on those operational performance dimensions. We offer both theoretical and practical insights of the findings which essentially support the importance of building both strong technological and managerial practices in organisations in order to maximise the benefits in terms of operational performance.

Social media have been increasingly adopted for organizational purposes but their operational implications are not well understood. Firms' social media initiatives might facilitate information flow and knowledge sharing within and across organizations, strengthening firm-customer interaction, and improving internal and external collaboration. In this research we empirically examine the impact of social media initiatives on firms' operational efficiency and innovativeness. Taking the resource-based view of firms' information capability, we consider firms' social media initiatives as strategic resources for operational improvement. We posit that firms' social media initiatives enhance dynamic knowledgesharing routines through an information-rich social network, leading to both operational efficiency and innovativeness. Collecting secondary data in a longitudinal setting from multiple sources, we construct dynamic panel data (DPD) models. Based on system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation, we show that firms' social media initiatives improve operational efficiency and innovativeness. We identify the importance of an information-rich social network to the creation of knowledge-based advantage through firms' social media initiatives, and discuss the theoretical and managerial implications from the perspective of operations management.

Researchers in supply chain management have found over the past two decades that supply management should be not merely a purchasing function but a strategic tool for supply chain integration. Supply management, the cornerstone of the integration of industrial supply chains, has evolved as a key research area. Based on quantitative and qualitative investigations of 225 electronics manufacturing firms, we examine the organizational impacts of strategic supply management (SSM) and the contexts of company size, process type, ISO 9000 certification, and quality management (QM) implementation that facilitate such an endeavor. We reveal that SSM is essentially a quality management initiative that requires bilateral efforts for continuous improvement and thus is not associated with the basic requirements of ISO 9000. We find that SSM improves on-time shipments, reduces operational costs, and leads to customer satisfaction and improved business performance. Developed based on contemporary premises in supply chain and QM, this research refines our understanding of the relationships among quality initiatives, SSM, and organizational performance. #

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