extfieldsofstudy: Psychology Medicine

text:
Moderation of Housing-Related Factors on Psychological Capital–Job Embeddedness Association

This study identified three critical housing-related factors (HRFs) as moderators of the relationships between employees’ psychological capital (PsyCap) and job embeddedness (JE) in China’s entrepreneurial environment. The hypotheses were tested with multiple hierarchical regression modeling, using the data collected from 312 employees in manufacturing organizations. The results demonstrated that HRFs (i.e., home ownership, housing price satisfaction, and contributions to housing funds) moderate the relationships between employees’ PsyCap and JE. Specifically, these relationships were stronger when the HRFs were high. Such results contribute to the PsyCap and JE literature by incorporating housing as an extrinsic life-aspect factor that might affect employees’ psychological state and thus their retention in works. Implications for the organization policies and directions for future studies were discussed.

INTRODUCTION
In today's rapidly changing and hectic entrepreneurial environment, positive psychological factors are becoming much more important because such resources help people cope with work stress and anxiety and thus make employees more proactive, innovative, and resilient Rafiq and Chin, 2019).
Psychological capital (PsyCap) is one of the most significant positive psychological resources of an individual because it enables individuals to keep positive, hopeful, confident, resilient, and optimistic at the workplace (Luthans et al., 2007;Chen and Pan, 2019;Wang et al., 2019). Hu et al. (2018) indicated that PsyCap has been considered as an important antecedent of individuals' wellness, health, and other behavioral outcomes in a performance-oriented work setting. Although a large body of research has demonstrated the effect of PsyCap on job-related behaviors (Luthans et al., 2007) and the significance of positive psychology in an entrepreneurial context is widely recognized, there have been limited studies addressing how individuals' positive psychological strengths affect or reinforce their positive mental functioning. To fill this gap, this paper aims to investigate the impact of a critical mental force (i.e., PsyCap) on a crucial manifestation of positive psychological functioning (i.e., job embeddedness) in China. Mitchell et al. (2001) introduced the concept of "job embeddedness" as the forces that retain people's interest and energies in doing their jobs. These forces consisted of three dimensions: fit, link, and sacrifice. Fit is the extent to which an individual's ability is compatible with the surrounding environment and organization. Links include the number of connections to individuals and groups within their organizations. Sacrifice is defined as what an individual would have to give up (i.e., perceived costs of social, psychological, and financial benefits) if they decide to leave their organization.
Despite a variety of antecedents of job embeddedness (JE) have been proposed, the association of PsyCap with JE has not been fully understood (Sun et al., 2012). In consideration of such a gap in existing literature, we aim to investigate the impact of PsyCap on JE.
Moreover, potential moderators, especially those from the off-the-job, external aspects, should be considered and incorporated as we study the PsyCap-JE relationships. The contingency theory (Donaldson, 2001) suggested that context does matter when looking into employees' motivational and behavioral functions. Such an argument is explicitly supported in the PsyCap literature, too (Newman et al., 2014).
In such vein, we suggest incorporating critical environmental factors; especially those come in line with the logic of PsyCap and JE, into our examinations. Scholars have begun to emphasize the importance to investigate how key environmental factors shape employees' psychological outcomes (Rafiq and Chin, 2019;Sung and Choi, 2019). Evidence reveals that home ownership and fund-related opportunities can raise residents' satisfaction on social security whereby their social responsibility and sense of national identity can be largely enhanced (Saunders, 1990;Yeung and Howes, 2006;Groves, 2007). These studies also find a positive association among all these HRFs. But the existing research on HRF for China is limited. According to Chinese history, housing-related issues have been of particular importance to individuals' positive psychological feelings in this context. We thus attempt to focus on investigating the moderation effects of HRF here.
China's preference for HRF has a deep historical and socio-cultural background. Not China's but also for everywhere, housing is the prime consumption item in their lifetime, and home is the setting where one finds satisfaction, refuge, and rest. But in China, the traditional culture of "having a house has a home" or "having a family and career is the aim of life" subtly makes many Chinese residents prefer to obtain housing ownership, which directly affects people's sense of belonging and wellbeing-related outcomes (Yeung and Howes, 2006).
While the HRF can be regarded as a very important part of the social welfare system in contemporary China, it is expected that HRFs are widely recognized as critical environmental factors affecting Chinese people's mental state and sense of wellbeing. We thus expect that the key HRF such as local house ownership, satisfaction toward housing prices, and the contribution to the national housing funds may moderate the psychological state-behavior mechanisms. To concern and make a contribution to the contextual thinking, we make the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: Local house ownership positively moderates the relationship between psychological capital and job embeddedness in such a way that this relationship is stronger when the level of local house ownership is high than when it is low.
Hypothesis 2: Satisfaction toward local housing price positively moderates the relationship between psychological capital and job embeddedness in such a way that this relationship is stronger when the level of satisfaction toward local housing price is high than when it is low.
Hypothesis 3: The contribution to housing funds positively moderates the relationship between psychological capital and job embeddedness in such a way that this relationship is stronger when the level of contribution to housing funds is high than when it is low.

Samples and Procedures
The whole survey that lasted for about 6 months was conducted in four manufacturing organizations in Guangxi province of China. Before the formal date of collection, we carried out a pilot testing with a sample of 60 workers from a well-known manufacturing organization in Guanxi, so as to examine whether the overall survey was clear, thorough, and robust. After the pilot test, the investigators modified some items working according to the feedback from the participants. The formal survey was conducted in three large manufacturing firms in the same province. The researchers first contacted the human resource managers of all three organizations for their assistance to arrange an appropriate time and suitable venues to distribute the questionnaires. To control for extraneous influence, only the full-time employees were requested to participate in the survey, where confidentiality and anonymity were ensured. The human resource managers of all three firms helped us retrieve completed questionnaires at two separate time points. At time 1, participants completed the questionnaires on PsyCap, HRF, and demographics. After 3 months (time 2), the same participants were requested to complete the survey on the outcome variable, JE.
At time 1, a total of 380 surveys were distributed to the participants and 355 were returned yielding a response rate of 93.4%. Among them, 312 participants completed the time 2 questionnaires yielding a response rate of 87.8%. Finally, a total of 312 employees participated in this study, 260 were male (83.3%). The majority of the sample was male (83.3%) and had a undergraduate degree (41.7%). The age of respondents ranges from 19 to 45 years, with a mean age of 33.67 (SD = 0.70). Their average organizational tenure is 6.59 years (SD = 1.45).

Psychological Capital
Psychological capital (PsyCap) short scale was used to measure PsyCap Luthans et al. (2007). It is a 12-item scale that originally reduced from the 24-item scale consisting of four dimensions of PsyCap: hope (4-item), efficacy (3-item), resilience (3-item), and optimism (2-item). Sample items include: "There are lots of ways around any problem" (hope), "I feel confident presenting information to a group of colleagues" (efficacy), "I usually take stressful things at work in stride" (resilience), "I am optimistic about what will happen to me in the future as it pertains to work" (optimism). Responses were on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). In our sample, αs were 0.834 (hope), 0.825 (efficacy), 0.902 (resilience), and 0.854 (optimism). Overall, Cronbach's α of employees' PsyCap was 0.92.

Job Embeddedness
Job embeddedness was measured with a 7-item scale developed by Crossley et al. (2007). Sample items include: "I simply could not leave the organization that I work for" and "It would be difficult for me to leave this organization. " The participants were requested to respond on a 5-point Likert scale range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In the current research, the Cronbach's α obtained was 0.94.

Housing-Related Factors
Housing-related factors were treated as dummy variables: (1) whether or not the respondents had owned a house (0 = no, 1 = yes), (2) whether or not the respondents had satisfied with the current house price (0 = no, 1 = yes), and (3) whether or not the respondents had contributed to the housing funds (0 = no, 1 = yes).

Demographic Variables
Gender, marital status, age, and education were applied as control variables in the data analysis.

Analysis
The data were analyzed using statistical software's SPSS 25.0. The Pearson bivariate correlation was used to explore the potential associations among variables. To examine the hypothesized moderation model, we used the SPSS macro PROCESS introduced by Hayes (2012). Additionally, we employed conventional methods for plotting simple slopes to understand moderation effects, at one standard deviation below and above the mean (Aiken and West, 1991).

Correlational Analysis
Before testing the hypotheses, we examined the means, standard deviation, Cronbach's α coefficients, and Pearson bivariate correlation among the study variables, as seen in Table 1. The Cronbach's α coefficients were all greater than 0.70 (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Results in Table 1 show that employees' PsyCap was positively associated with JE (r = 0.26, p < 0.01). House ownership, house price-related satisfaction, and the contribution to housing funds were also positively related to employees' JE (r = 0.18, p < 0.01; r = 0.11, p < 0.05; r = 0.20, p < 0.01), respectively. The results reflect a preliminary analysis of the anticipated associations.

Hypotheses Testing
In this study, all the hypotheses were tested by using moderation examination. Specifically, we employed SPSS macro PROCESS to estimate moderations and obtain the bias-corrected bootstrapped confidence intervals (Hayes, 2012). The SPSS macro PROCESS runs each predictor construct individually, with added predictor constructs run as covariates. The model consists of employees' PsyCap as the predictor construct (X), HRF as the moderator (W), and JE as the dependent (Y). For the analyses, all the continuous constructs were mean centered, a 95% bias-corrected percentile bootstrapped confidence interval (CI) method was used, and 5,000 bootstrap re-samples were produced for moderate examination.
In terms of Hypothesis 1, we proposed the moderation role of local house ownership on the association between employees' PsyCap and JE. The results show that the local house ownership strengthened the association between employees' PsyCap and JE (β = 0.144, p < 0.05). Furthermore, a follow-up simple slope analysis demonstrated that the positive association between employees' PsyCap and JE was more pronounced among the employees who have local house ownership as compared to those who do not have local house ownership (see Figure 1). Hence, Hypothesis 1 was fully supported.
In supporting Hypothesis 2, the results show that the positive association between employees' psychological and JE was positively moderated by satisfaction toward local house price   (β = 0.261, p < 0.00). Additionally, as presented in Figure 2, employees' PsyCap and JE were strengthened for those who feel satisfied toward local house price (see Figure 2) as compared to those who do not feel satisfied toward local house price. So, Hypothesis 2 was supported. Finally, in supporting of Hypothesis 3, the results show that the association between employees' PsyCap and JE was also positively moderated by the contribution to housing funds (β = 0.304, p < 0.00). Additionally, as presented in Figure 3, employees' PsyCap and JE were strengthened for those who have a local housing funding-related benefit as compared to those who do not have local housing funding-related benefit (see Figure 3).

DISCUSSION
All three hypotheses are fully supported; this current study thus examines the moderating role of HRF on the relationships between PsyCap and JE among manufacturing employees in an emerging entrepreneurial environment, China. By integrating contingency theory, our findings contribute to employees' PsyCap research by suggesting that the employees' PsyCap-JE linkage is affected by different housing-related factors, thus providing context-specific boundary conditions for this relationship. Overall, we make several theoretical and practical contributions to the existing body of knowledge in the following paragraphs: First, we unveil the critical role of local house ownership in intervening the underlying linear mechanisms between employees' PsyCap and JE, such that the relationship is strengthened for those who have their own house. Prior studies have consistently found that an accessible and supportive residential environment for individuals has a positive influence on their overall employees' wellbeing (Rioux, 2005;Oswald et al., 2007;Ahn and Lee, 2016). This is an important extension to the employees' PsyCap and JE literature because previous research has not taken into account the possibility that house ownership-related factors could interpret embeddedness differently.
Second, our findings show that the housing-related factor and employees' satisfaction toward local housing price moderate the relationship between their PsyCap and JE, such that the relationship is stronger for those who feel satisfied toward local housing price. Our results to a certain extent echo prior research. Berry and Dalton (2004) reported that continuously increasing house prices have become the main reason for increasing the average wage level and social insurance of local people in major cities of Australia. Chen and Ellinger (2011) manifested that in no region of the world is the business environment more competitive and dynamic than in the hastily transforming and developing a nation of Republic of China where even during the global recession, the economy was growing exponentially and the housing price was continuously rising. Ren and Hu (2016) also argued that Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org the living and housing conditions in China have changed substantially after the Housing Reforms and housing price have become a major concern for all Chinese families. Viewed from this angle, we further argue that all firms in China should pay more attention to local housing price as it may largely influence employees' happiness at work and their willingness to stay or leave the organizations.
Third, we also found that the contribution to housing funds moderates the relationship between employees' PsyCap and JE, such that relationship is stronger for those who have housing-related social insurance. Moreover, our findings show that a place that provides circumstances making individuals feel more psychologically attached is more attractive and individual tends to reside there longer and also feels more embedded. Viewed from this angle, we further suggest that Chinese firms may consider the contribution to housing funds as a motivation strategy to retain good local employees.
Final, the findings of this study also support a "contingency perspective" (Donaldson, 2001) to HR practices. These practices are "contingent practices" in which they are more strongly related to employee attitudes and behavioral outcomes. Support for such a "contingency perspective" is also provided by Chen and Ellinger (2011), who reported that a necessary condition for employees' motivational and behavioral relationships is, depends on different critical environmental factors.
Findings provided are instructive to practitioners. Our findings reveal that individuals who have housing-related opportunities such as housing ownership, the higher level of satisfaction toward local housing prices, and contributions to housing funds as critical contingency factors that substantially change the relationship between employees' PsyCap and JE at the workplace. As such, critical contingency factors can also assist organizations in understanding employee needs and accordingly taking appropriate measures to increase employees' performance and retention. In particular, given the great importance of employees' PsyCap and JE on firm performance (Chin, 2015;Rafiq and Chin, 2019), firms in China should put housing as a critical incentive to motivate Chinese employees, while counselors and educators could use these three HRFs to diagnose the problems individuals have during their career development process. For example, in China's unique cultural context, these HRFs may be especially influential in increasing employees' PsyCap as well as embeddedness and "make them feel wanted. " Our study is not without limitations. First, given the research was conducted in the manufacturing industry in China, the generalizability of its findings to other societies or industries must be made with caution. As mention above, there is no country in the world that continuously makes progress in hastily changing, transforming, and developing a nation of Republic of China where the economy also keeps growing in the periods of recession (Chen and Ellinger, 2011). Therefore, our results might be unique to China and might not be applicable to other cultural contexts. Future research can be extended to include samples from other cultures or other industries for the aim of enhancing the external validity of the findings. Second, causal inference cannot be made due to the non-experimental and cross-sectional nature of the current research design. Although the moderation model established by us was guided by empirical and theoretical research, it is possible that there are inverse relations between the variables. Furthermore, though we controlled for several potential demographic variables, we are unable to ignore the effects of all demographic variables. Thus, we call for future research to use a longitudinal design to further validate our hypothesized relationships found in the present research. Finally, our findings are based on self-reported data, which might be subjected to common method variance (CMV) issues (Podsakoff et al., 2012). Although we have employed several methods to reduce CMV (e.g., aggregation of individual responses and respondent confidentiality), and this problem may not be seen being completely eliminated. To better avoid potential CMV problems, we suggest that future researchers could incorporate multi-wave or multi-source data.

DATA AVAILABILITY
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this manuscript will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher.

ETHICS STATEMENT
This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the Institutional Review Board of Zhejiang University of Technology (ZJUT) in China, with written informed consent from all subjects. All the employees participated in the survey voluntarily. The protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of ZJUT and the Secretariat of Academic Committee of ZJUT, with the permit number 2019002.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
TR and MR were responsible for data collection. All authors contributed equally to formulating the conceptual framework, analyzing the data, and writing the manuscript.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We deeply appreciate the constructive suggestions from the guest editor, reviewers, and Mr. Chien-Hsing Lee, who have helped us largely improve our manuscript.


s2fieldsofstudy: Business Economics

text:
Public Procurement of Innovation: Selection of the Sustainable Alternative

Abstract The European Union has been highly emphasising the role of public procurement for innovation as a policy instrument that can be used to stimulate sustainable development. This development reflects and responds to improvements in social welfare, growth of entrepreneurship and of national competitive advantage. In the process of selection, the awarding tender public procurement institutions lack an overall approach for choosing the most advantageous and sustainable innovation alternative. To contribute purchasing of innovative solutions, the present paper elaborates a framework of innovation measurement and quality evaluation. Thus, it makes possible to assess proposals from different aspects and to choose the most valuable offer notwithstanding the lowest price criteria. The paper studies the concept of public procurement, its pitfalls and prospects, dimensions of innovation definition and innovation added value assessment. The authors conducted expert interviews, which were analysed using an AHP method in order to set the most appropriate evaluation criteria indicator. The authors also designed the framework for assessing the quantitative and qualitative value of innovation proposals. The proposed approach is based on the analysis of innovation quality, added value, its potential impact and the sustainability of changes it produces.

INTRODUCTION
Sustainable development, which premises social welfare, growth of entrepreneurship and international competitiveness, is the key objective of the European Union. In the 20th century, innovation is described as the creative destruction or industrial mutation process that constantly changes the existing economic structure, destroying the old and creating the new. Nowadays, innovation is seen as an essential part of business and a key factor of its success. Public authorities implement public procurement procedures to promote efficient, sustainable and inclusive growth by ensuring the most efficient use of public funds.
Procurement of innovation is one of the most effective policy tools for knowledge-based economic development; it provides efficient, smart and economical consumption of resources, develops a green economy, and promotes decoupling. __________________________________________________________________________ 2019 / 33 234 The outcome of the procurement process depends on the award criteria and the qualifications of the stakeholders involved. Most procurement procedures are still valued using the lowest price criterion, destroying both innovation and competition among suppliers. There is no single sustainable model for the evaluation of proposals. The main pitfalls of public procurement of innovation are the formulation of tenders, conservatism of society, avoidance of risk and change, evaluation and selection of the best alternative.

Public Procurement (PP)
Public procurement of innovation (PPI) has become the matter of focus among EU governmental bodies. One basic justification for making public procurers more prone to innovation is that public procurement annually represents up to 16 % of EU gross domestic product (GDP), a purchasing power, which if directed wisely could significantly contribute to the EU sustainability and welfare through innovation, technical transfer and knowledge share (European Commission, 2019).
Public procurement comprises and operates tenets of neoliberalism and neoclassical economy (Cox, 1995) creation of a free market, evolving the need to continually improve international competitiveness, guided by principle of transparency and non-discrimination. Although the profit maximisation is not a priority for most public buyers (Kunzlik, 2013), their political interests mainly relate to cost-effectiveness of public spending (Lember, 2014). Hence, it is essential to define the concept of the most advantageous tender.
Public entities can embody the role of an intermediary or a public money holder, who through public procurement, would implicitly be returning to the public its assets, which were paid in taxes, by supporting entrepreneurship, raising the level of prosperity, improving the country's competitiveness and promoting the transfer of international knowledge. Public procurement can contribute to the ecoeconomic decoupling effect (Hennicke, 2014), support sustainable economic development and favour to inclusion of equal society.

Innovation, Invention and Technology Transfer
To meet the needs of society with sustainable and smart solutions, it is necessary to develop an administrative culture in the country that by default supports the innovation policy. Innovation used to be described as creative destruction or a process of industrial mutation (Schumpeter, 1942) that continually changes the existing, destroying the old and creating a new one. Development of new combinations of changes (Schumpeter, 1934) may emerge in new products, processes, new manufacturing methods, new markets and supply chains, new organisational methods and others novelties, which proffers the most favourable alternative to the one existing.
Deliberately creating a long-lasting and repetitive value or utility is associated with a certain company, educational institution, market or industry, municipality, state, but is not consistently ought to be global (Ahuja, 2001). According to Hamberg (1959), the added value of product and process innovation can be represented in the production function, but not all the factors influencing it could be reflected.
The paper examines the concept of innovation, which states that innovation is a process of a new or substantially improved product, idea, method or business process being implemented or commercialised in the market or organisation, creating a new value for the consumer, competitive advantage and improving the welfare of society. The term defines an innovating activity, as well as an innovative result of it (Fig. 1). According to Schumpeter, the innovation process consists of three phases: invention, when a new idea that is favourable to a market is created (Dahlinm, 2005), innovation, when the idea is being implemented into marketable products, and diffusion phase, when the product is being spread to a market. Innovation is the first commercial application phase of the invention.
Since not all innovations are the same, they are classified as typologies to identify their innovative degree (Garcia, 2002) by comparing changes in the underlying concepts to their linkage to components. Open innovations are an inception for knowledge integration (Chesbrough, 2003), evolving cooperation and openness of intellectual property, extermination of single scope skills.
Technology transfer is the process of transferring skills, knowledge and technology from one research organisation to another with the aim of making science and technology progress more accessible to a wider range of users (Mitasiunas, 2013). It has been defined that the key elements of innovative activity interact with each other (Fig.2); however, innovation is the result that benefits society.

I N N O V A T I O N Process
Implementation and/or commercialisation of a new or improved product or a process Change Creation of new industries and jobs or destruction of the old ones Improvement of the welfare of society, catalysing the economic growth and reaching better quality and money ratio Potential

Value
Its object is market attractive, provides competitive advantage and added sustainable edge

Public Procurement for Innovation: Benefits and Barriers
Public procurement of innovation and definition of innovation have their discrepancies. The concept of public procurement of innovation is understood as the procurement activity of a public authority leading to innovation. A public body purchases or orders a product, which may be new to the market or not yet available, but which may be developed within a reasonable period (Rolfstam, 2012). The procurement of innovation also involves purchase of products that require research and experimental development.
Although public procurement has a long history, there are challenges to surmount before conducting a successful procedure. Those mainly concern nonexclusion of innovation and process of selecting the award tender: Specifications for order preparation: the technical specifications developed in a descriptive and detailed manner often reflect current market opportunities and facilitate the purchase of the market products.
The award criteria: in 2017 among EU countries 60 % (European Commission, 2018) of procurement procedures were assessed using the lowest price criterion, which excludes both innovation and healthy competition among suppliers.
Habits: economy reacts slowly to changes and innovations, mostly due to past investment decisions, existing economic structures and dominant institutions. Technological habits (UN, 2014), behavioural patterns (EC, 2011), business models (Hudson, 2013) and institutional norms interfere the innovation process. People have a habit of evaluating an existing one more than before its appearance (Kahneman and Knetsch, 1990). Short-term financial benefits hinder investment in the long term (EC, 2011). When external conditions change, political reforms are lagging behind, leading to situations in which the transition to innovation is delayed (Georghiou, 2014).
Innovation non-encouraging directives: the need to adapt informal collaboration between the customer and the supplier, which may involve technical changes, has never been met by legislation (Rolfstam, 2009

The Value of Innovation in Public Procurement
Concluding that the integrated criteria for assessing innovation procurement have not been developed in Europe, which hinders the implementation of procurement, this paper studies methods for evaluating innovation and selecting the best alternative, so that not only the price criteria are used.
Object evaluation is its compliance with certain norms, needs, and determination of the value offered; the process of determining its quality, significance and/or value (Cambridge, 2018). Hence, in order to evaluate the proposal of innovation in public procurement it is necessary to find out its value.
To define the value for the consumer, Osterwalder (2014) offered using the value map. Value map indicates consumer needs, long-term goals and problems, according to the author's definition, "pains". The closer the proposal is to the customer's profile, the more valuable it is.

Practice Analysis: Bid Evaluation Criteria
In 2014, with the new Public Procurement Directive the EU Commission introduced a new and only award criterion -MEAT (most economically advantageous tender) (European Parliament, 2014). Each contractor is entitled to define the explanatory criteria that are individually considered the best. MEAT includes three indicators: best price-quality ratio (BPQR), which is assessed based on price and cost elements and qualitative criterion, including environmental and social aspects, cost-effectiveness approach, and life-cycle costs (LFC).
The Directive mentions a non-exhaustive list of possible award criteria, including environmental and social aspects, quality, accessibility, technical advantages, aesthetic and functional characteristics, organisational structure, qualifications and experience of performing personnel, but does not determine what weight should be determined for them. However, this paper states that criteria relating to the applicant's profile should be distinguished from the criteria by which a tender is being assessed and the supplier's experience cannot influence the selection, especially if an innovative solution is considered.
The EU Commission does not define the joint quality criterion of the tender and the comprehensive bid evaluation methods. Therefore, the present study examined literature to determine evaluation indicators that could be used to define MEAT: Quality: according to Cooper et al. (1987), quality is a unique advantage, strong technological, management and marketing synergy. The criterion indicators include customer satisfaction, reliability, and product performance (Story, 1999). Harris (2004) determines the convenience and functionality of a product. Cummings defines quality as the product's ability to meet consumer needs (Cumming, 1998). Cottam (2001) sees innovation as a way to create long-term stability, achieve shareholder returns, maximise employee satisfaction and provides the ability to stay at the forefront of the industry, which contributes to sustainable and balanced development. Product quality can be assessed by its market competitiveness and durability (Bossel, 1999).
Risks: Jasinki (2006) deems that the value of innovation or technology transfer should be determined by their viability, benefits, costs and associated risks.
Degree of novelty: measure of change caused by innovation; it is important to identify it, which would designate potential risks and ways to prevent them before they appear (Garcia & Calantone, 2002).
Effectiveness: it is determined by the simplicity of the process (Chatzoglou & Chatzoudes, 2018).
Competitive advantage: innovations manage new knowledge and intellectual capital, increase organisational capacity and enrich its culture. Drucker (1985) emphasises that innovative institutions are more flexible and better adapt to changes. Table 1 summarises the criteria groups and their indicators that can be used to define MEAT in public procurement of innovations.

Research: Expert Method
Evaluating a product before its commercialisation is difficult and tends to be biased, as it is largely based on expert opinions and experience that are dependent on the current market situation, potential and capabilities, which tend to make creative thinking difficult.
In order to determine the most appropriate criteria for the evaluation of innovation proposals from those that were compiled after the analysis of the literature and to determine their degree of importance in different economy sectors, the study was based on the expert method.
The research period lasted from February to December 2018. Forty-nine experts from twenty-one economy sectors participated in the study; experts were invited to assess the evaluation criteria. The experience of each expert is longer than three years in their field; experts included managers of private companies, professors, leading specialists of ministries of the Republic of Latvia and other state institutions.
First, experts discussed the possible types of innovation in an industry, then clarified concept and the role the public procurement of innovations, as well as its limitations and challenges. Experts were asked to evaluate 14 criteria (Table 1) of innovation and relevance of their indicators. Importance of criteria was identified by comparing each of the two criteria to the potential for innovation success. More conducive conditions to enhancing innovation value were also determined.
No complete consensus was established due to industry differentials. After the first interviews, the inadequacy of the two criteria "supplier's competences" and "management structure" was concluded and they were not discussed further in the interviews.

The Analytic Hierarchy Process
The Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to analyse the responses. Experts compared the criteria according to a 7-point scale, where 1 is the equality of criteria, while 7 determines the very importance of one criterion. For each group of criteria, a normalised priority vector was determined (Saaty, 1987). Thomas Saaty, the author of the HAM method, determines the consistency of the matrix (Consistency Ratio) by no more than 10 %, but for large matrices, as well as when the valuation object is not clearly defined (potential innovation), a consistency ratio of up to 20 % is acceptable (Saaty, 2012). Analysis of the matrices completed by the experts was calculated by relative weight of each criterion in different sectors and in general.
Overall, the group of quality indicators reached the highest weight with 16.6 %, followed by functionality (10.6 %) and environmental impact criteria (10.1 %) (Fig. 3). Such a ratio is considered logical as functionality is closely related to quality and innovation must be environmentally friendly.

Fig. 3. Innovation evaluation criteria weight (created by the authors).
After assessment the criteria and their indicators, to simplify the evaluation of offers, it was decided to group some criteria into four groups. The groups were formed based on their expert mark and reciprocal link. The weight of the significance of criteria and sub-criteria groups was determined by the AHP results.

GUIDELINES FOR THE BEST ALTERNATIVE SELECTION
The customer defines what quality criteria will be assessed, what methodology will be used and how the overall quality score will be obtained from different variables. The aim of the best alternative selection is to determine which offer best meets the requirements of a request for proposal or which one will provide the customer with the greatest value. The criteria for evaluating innovation offers should reflect the customer's sustainable, smart and socially oriented goals.
The criteria, which will be used to evaluate innovation, should be interpreted by means of indicators. Following the assessment guidelines, the buyer can define the similarities and differences between competing bids, as well as the strengths and weaknesses, and justly select the best alternative.
To prevent inexpedient use of public funds in public procurement for innovation, the study suggests using the agile methodology (Highsmith, 2009). When examining public procurement as a project, the agile methodology makes it possible to implement the procurement procedure faster and easieravoiding difficult corrections and rare communication with suppliers and saving money.

Innovation Proposal Evaluation
Depending on the sector and target product of the innovation, the order of the evaluation stages can be changed; some may be omitted or divided into smaller levels (Fig. 4). Step 1: Compulsory Requirements At this stage, the bidding commission should assess the compliance of the bid with the minimum requirements, if any, mentioned in the RFP. Mandatory conditions may be related to the maximum budget and the duration of the deadlines, or other factors that are relevant to the customer.
Step 2: Evaluation of the Tender Quality The quality criterion group applies to sustainability (indicators: ecology, society, economy), functionality (indicators: efficiency, effectiveness, technical advantage), environmental impact (indicators: eco-design, resource consumption, emission), and proposal performance (indicators: design, usability). Starting from Step 2, the buyer determines weight of each subsequent step before the procurement publication.
Step 3: Determination of the Added Value of the Proposal The value of innovation is reflected in the improvements provided. To evaluate the proposals at this stage, it is necessary to determine the level of innovation, the competitive advantage and the added value provided to the customer.
Step 3.1: Innovation Measurement What gets measured gets done (Drucker, 1954). It is important to determine what changes the submitted proposal can cause, what and how much investment is needed in resources and how valuable they can be. This stage is important for assessing the ability of innovation to influence and promote smart development.
The basis of the valuation approach was the Porter's value chain (Porter, 1985), which reflected the organisation's primary and supporting activities. A new product Beginning of the proposal evaluation process Step 1: Proposal compliance with minimum requirements Step 2: Evaluation of the proposal quality Step 3: Determination of the added value of the proposal Step 4: Identification of the risks of the proposal, the cost analysis and evaluation of other non-financial factors Step 5: Identification of the social benefits of the proposal Selection of the best alternative There are correction options at each stage is expected to affect the value chain activities by requiring re-organisation of the current processes.
Step 4: Identification of the Risks of the Proposal, the Cost Analysis and Evaluation of Other Non-financial Factors At the risk assessment stage, attention is devoted to the weakness of the supply of innovation to be affected by a particular risk and the ability to avoid it. In the cost analysis, only the costs of the public customer are calculated in the guidelines. Non-financial factors include the due date of the performance and logistics.
A complete understanding of all the costs that make up the total cost of the system over its lifetime will allow for a significant reduction in energy, operating and maintenance costs, with significant environmental benefits (Woodward, 1997).
Step 5: Social Criteria In order to make the selection of alternatives in public procurement as objective and comprehensive as possible, it is necessary to calculate their impact on society. Social innovations are new ideas that meet social needs, build social relationships and new collaborations.

Selecting the Best Alternative
Once the bids have been evaluated at all stages, it is possible to define which one offers the greatest value and is the most economically advantageous. When evaluating the sustainability of a product, it is necessary to distinguish separate processes: product evaluation, analysis of the manufacturing process, as well as the evaluation of the production equipment. Evaluating consumer goals differs if the public procurer has an investor role. Before evaluating a tender, it is crucial to determine its consumer, a final user or an innovation buyer.

CONCLUSION
In the light of the increasing concern for public procurement for innovation, this paper has aimed at providing better knowledge on how public bodies can evaluate the received proposals. It has been concluded that public organisations lack the knowledge of public procurement for innovation opportunities and its implementation procedure. Theoretically, the paper contributes to the development of smart PPI platform for tender evaluation. Innovation mandatory features create a new value and deliver benefits to the user. Its evaluation is based on the analysis of the value it offers, the impact potential and the sustainability of the changes caused. The functional description of the required object creates significant obstacles to the development of the procurement and objective evaluation of tenders; therefore, it is necessary to involve industry experts in public procurement, who can assist the procurer to develop the right procurement description.
The price and cost of an innovation offer does not reflect its added value. When implementing innovation procurement, it is necessary to evaluate the offers according to qualitative criteria, which reflect its impact, the degree of novelty and the level of profitability. In the process of developing the guidelines for public procurement of innovation evaluation, the issue has been raised whether it is necessary to complicate the evaluation process with quantitative indicators. An outcome of each change can be reflected in financial terms, but it is a timeconsuming and resource-intensive process. This issue is the basis for the authors' further research.


Working capital management and financial performance of Malaysian construction sector companies

This study examines the effects of working capital management on financial performance of construction companies listed in Bursa Malaysia for the period of 2012 to 2016. The findings show that only a shortening collection period and a positive working capital are significant to improve financial performance of local construction firms. An effective working capital management however does not contribute significantly to operating cash flow and share price of construction firms in Malaysia. The findings of this study suggest the management of account receivable is the most critical factor to improve financial performance for the local construction firms.

INTRODUCTION
Construction industry in Malaysia has witnessed an accelerated upward trend since a decade ago due to its remarkable growth in several projects undertaken as well as the strong support of Government initiated by the Construction Industry Master Plan (CIMP) 2006 -2015. The compilation from Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) revealed that the construction sector is the most substantial economic driver for Malaysia during the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) from 2011 to 2015 with a high average growth of 11 percent. During the period of 10MP, the Government invested heavily in infrastructure, industrial parks and residential buildings. Among them, the residential construction was the largest market and charted a nominal compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.7 percent supported mainly by the Government's affordable housing scheme. Moving forward, Malaysia's mega infrastructure projects are expected to bode well for the growth trajectory of the construction industry and other downstream industries under the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP) from 2016 to 2020. These projects include the High Speed Rail, the Pan Borneo Highway, East Coast Rail Link, Bandar Malaysia and Vision Valley, are expected to boost the economy by more than 50 percent to RM2 trillion by the end of 11MP.
Despite the significant contribution of construction industry to economic growth in Malaysia, liquidity has been an issue of major concern as it really gives pressure to firms in managing their cash flow problem. Contractors supervise their projects very closely with the aim to minimise the wastage and optimise the workforce to make sure the scheduled delivery is achieved in time for DOI: https://doi.org/10.37134/jcit.vol9.9.2019 the clients. Nevertheless, the industry has been facing a chronic problem of delayed and nonpayment disputed by contractors. The payment due is postponed until the resolution of the dispute which is generally take a long duration in the court. Delayed payments can stretch working capital and drive a need to finance these payment delays and hence drive up costs that were not factored into the price of the bid. As a result, a working capital position that can provide a short-term financial cushion to construction companies is essential particularly in a fast growing economy like Malaysia.
Working capital involves investment and financing in short term to ensure a firm can sustain longer and increases the firm value in a longer period. This can be achieved through the management and improvement of firm's liquidity. Basically, the liquidity is the result of the time lag between the expenditure for the purchase of raw materials and the collection for the sales of finished products. The components of working capital are inventories, accounts to be paid to suppliers, and payments to be received from customers after sales. The proportions of these components in the working capital change from time to time during the trade cycle and hence affect the financing and investing decisions. It can be implied that lesser requirement of working capital leads to less need for financing and less cost of capital and hence availability of more cash for shareholders. However, the lesser working capital may lead to lost sales and thus a tradeoff between liquidity and profitability may exist.
The popular measure of working capital management is the cash conversion cycle (CCC). It translates the financial information of companies into a tool that is useful in making strategic investment decisions. CCC provides concrete information about the management of cash flows through the management of receivables, the management of inventories, and the use of trade credit. A shorter CCC can be related with high profitability as it implies a company manages and operates the inventory more quickly, collects cash from receivables in shorter time and delays the cash payments to supplier with least negative impact to its own credit reputation.
This study differs from previous studies as it provides the first and a timely analysis to ascertain the relationship of working capital management and financial performance of 40 local listed construction firms for the period of 2012 to 2016. The study is organised as follows. Section 2 provides some arguments on liquidity and firm's performance. Section 3 describes the data and methodology. Section 4 contains summary of the results and discussion, and Section 5 concludes.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The primary purpose of working capital management is to manage current assets and current liabilities to ensure the company always meets its short-term operating costs and short-term debt obligations. Inefficient management of working capital may lead to bankruptcy even though the company's profitability is constantly positive, while excessive levels of working capital can easily result in a substandard return on assets (Mandiefe, 2016). In a simpler way, firms can increase profitability by reducing the CCC. In the long run, management of cash flow is much more important than profit. Investigating changes in working capital is critical to manage firm's cash flow as an optimal level of working capital is the level expected to have maintain positive cash flow position and hence maximise the shareholders' wealth. Vural, Sokmen and Cetenak (2012) examined 75 selected listed companies on the Istanbul Stock Exchange and found a significant negative association between the CCC and profitability. Similarly, Ukaegbu (2014) investigated 102 firms in Africa for a period of five years also found a significant increase in profitability by shortening the CCC. In Malaysia, Kasiran, Mohamad and Chin (2016) conducted a study on efficiency of working capital management to profitability of 24 small and medium enterprise (SME) firms for a sampling period of 2009 to 2013. Their findings concluded a significant positive relationship between working capital management and profitability. Another recent study by Bulin, Basit and Hamza (2016) on 50 listed consumer product firms at Bursa Malaysia between 2011 and 2015 also found a consistent result of the impact of working capital management towards the profitability of firms in Malaysia.
As the cash is the most liquid of all assets, an increase in liquidity from working capital management would increase the operating cash flow of the company and vice versa. Based on 184 companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange, Rashvand and Tariverdi (2015)  As the management of working capital may have both negative and positive impact on the firm's liquidity and profitability, which in turn, has negative and positive effect on the shareholders' wealth. For example, Raheman and Nasr (2007) based on a sample of 94 Pakistani firms listed on Karachi stock exchange from 1999 to 2004 have found an increase in CCC will lead to a decreasing profitability of firms. Their findings conclude that managers can create a positive value for the shareholders by reducing the CCC to a possible minimum level. Similar findings and implications are found by Dong and Su (2010)

DATA AND METHODOLOGY
The sample is drawn from all the construction companies listed on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia from 2012 to 2016. These companies are subjected to the following selection criteria: the companies must be available over the test period; the companies are Malaysian-domiciled and not foreign companies; the complete set of financial data is available from the Bloomberg. These selection criteria resulted in a final sample of 40 companies which is detailed by the complete data that is required to calculate the CCC such as the account receivable turnover, account payable turnover and inventory turnover as well as the other financial variables such as return on asset and return on equity.
To examine whether working capital management influences firm's financial performance, five alternative regression models (Model A to Model E) are adopted and their associated variables are defined as follow: Model A: Y1 = β0 + β1X1 + β2X2 + β3X3 + β4X4 + ε where βi is partial regression coefficients which represent expected change in the dependent variable (Y) for each unit change in ith independent variable (Xi), ε is the random error. Dependent variable: Y1, where Y1 = EBITDA to Total Asset ratio (%) Independent variables: X1, X2, X3, X4 where X1 = Net Working Capital to Total Asset ratio (%), Net Working Capital is computed as total current assets minus total current liabilities X2 = Average Collection Period (days) X3 = Average Inventory Holding Period (days) X4 = Average Payment Period (days) Kumaraswamy (2016) studied the relationship between EBITDA and net working capital. He found that average collection period and inventory conversion period are significant factors in predicting the firm profitability, followed by the average payment period.
Model B: Y2 = β0 + β1X1 + β2X2 + β3X3 + β4X4 + ε Dependent variable: Y2, where Y2 = Operating Cash Flow to Total Asset ratio (%) Independent variables: X1, X2, X3, X4 Kroes and Manikas (2013) examined the relationships between changes in cash flow measures and changes in firm financial performance. They concluded that changes in both average collection period and average inventory holding period are negatively and significantly associated with changes in cash flow. Average payment period however is not significant to the changes in cash flow measures.
Model C: Y3 = β0 + β1X1 + β2X2 + β3X3 + β4X4 + ε Dependent variable: Y3, where Y3 = Return on Asset (%) Independent variables: X1, X2, X3, X4 Obermaier and Donhauser (2012) found that firms with the lowest inventory level have the worst performance level. Their findings of net working capital to total asset is significant with return on asset is consistent with a recent study by Sheikh, Rafique and Nauman (2016).

FINDINGS
Descriptive statistics for each of the ten variables are obtained in Table 1. The results in Table 1 show that the operating cash flow to total asset ratio has the lowest mean compare to other ratios with a negative value of negative 0.67 percent suggesting a larger expenses or loses on operating activities. The annualised share return has the highest mean of 10.18 percent which is a reasonably high return to investors but with notably highest standard deviation of 36.5 percent indicating the construction industry in Malaysia exposed to a greater investment risk. The return on asset has the lowest standard deviation of 5.48 percent and an average of 4.32 percent suggesting companies are sound in managing its assets to generate earnings. Correspondingly, the net working capital to total asset with a mean of 27.28 percent indicates the strong ability of construction companies in using short-term assets to cover its short-term debt with a standard deviation of 16.66 percent. The average value of long-term debt to total asset ratio is 12.5 percent indicates percentage of assets financed with long-term debt for the construction industry is fairly low during the period, implying a strong cash flow generated by the companies consistent with the strong growth rate of the industry. The average inventory holding period is 436.28 days (or 1.2 years) with a very high standard deviation of 1049.24 days (or 2.87 years) suggesting a severe problem of oversupply and unsold units. The respective mean for average collection period and payment period of 246.33 days and 214 days are considered healthy and normal for construction industry, suggesting working capital management is of great concern for local companies probably due to rising costs in a highly competitive market.  Table 2 show that three models are useful for predicting financial performance of construction firms in Malaysia where the significance F is smaller than 0.05 which indicates the results are reliable. These results suggest that at least one independent variable in each of the Model A, C and D is useful in estimating their respective dependent variables. As such, the null hypotheses of these models are rejected. The coefficient of determination, R-square and adjusted R-square of these three models are above 40 percent, suggesting the variation in the dependent variables can be well explained by the independent variables of respective model. On the contrary, Model B and E are not statistically useful in predicting financial performance of construction industry. As such, these two models have failed to reject the null hypotheses.
A closer examination reveals that average collection period (X2) is statistically significant to EBITDA to total asset (Y1), ROA (Y3) and ROE (Y4), while net working capital to total asset ratio (X1) is significant to EBITDA to total asset (Y1) and ROA (Y3) only. Specifically, the predictive power of average collection period (X2) is negative suggesting the shorter the average collection days in working capital management for construction firms in Malaysia contributes significantly to higher earnings before-and after-tax hence a higher return of equity for shareholders. In addition, the results show a positive net working capital in relation to its total asset leads to a higher earnings before-and after-tax but not a higher return of equity for shareholders. These results suggest the cash flow from shortening collection from account receivables exhibits a more vital role in the working capital management of construction industry in Malaysia due to its unique business nature. As such, the local construction firms should act more prudent in sourcing credible contractors to avoid or minimise the potential problem of delayed and non-payment by contractors.
In contrast, the results of this study show that the length of time holding inventory, payment to the creditors or suppliers, and leverage are not statistically significant in achieving a better financial performance for the construction companies in Malaysia. These results suggest the local construction firms to certain extent are efficient in holding their inventory, managing their payment, and also less dependent on external financing especially through long-term debts.

CONCLUSION
This study concludes that there an effective working capital management is essential to the financial performance of construction firms in Malaysia. The findings reveal that ability to efficiently collect payments in a timely manner is important for construction firms in generating earnings before any contractual obligations must be paid and contributes to higher return on equity shareholders have invested. Within this context, an improved short-term liquidity measured by net working capital does not provides shareholders with a higher return on the amount they invested in these construction firms. The findings further conclude that the power to hold inventory, time takes to pay off credit purchases and long-term borrowings do not exhibit significant impact for construction firms in Malaysia. In addition, working capital management for construction firms does not affect significantly to operating cash flow and firm value measured by the share price. In summary, debtor management is the most critical determinant for the financial performance of construction companies in Malaysia.


extfieldsofstudy: Physics Engineering

text:
Development of Dynamometer for Cutting Force Measurement in Turning Operation

This paper presents the development of dynamometer to measure cutting force in turning operation in particular the tangential force (Ft). The dynamometer utilises a straight bar load cell that connected to holder tool to measure at least one axis of force. The designed dynamometer is capable of computing the forces acting on the workpiece in turning operation using any data acquisition system. Two materials of low elastic modulus, Polyoxymethylene (POM) and Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), were employed as workpieces to test the performance of dynamometer. The performance of the dynamometer to measure one axis of cutting forces is considered satisfactory mainly because of the simplicity and low cost are the main requirements in design and construction.

Introduction
Machining is one of the most important manufacturing processes. The industrial revolution and the growth of the manufacturing-based economies of the world can be traced largely to the development of the various machining operations [1]. Industrial products that produce components from the machinery process always emphasize quality to win the competition. For many years the innovation process was needed to produce better quality industrial products to meet the requirements and specifications arising from the demands of the times. The common machinery processes are turning, grinding, milling and drilling in which a sharp cutting tool is used to remove metal from the work piece to produce the desired shape and features. In the turning operation, understanding the cutting force mechanism is very influential on the final result. The cutting forces generated during turning operation have a direct effect on the stability of the system, tool wear, quality of machined surface and accuracy of the workpiece. These forces can be measured theoretically, numerically or experimentally. In the experimental work, the cutting forces can be measured by using a dynamometer that attach to the toolpost. Although it is commercially available, dynamometer is still attractive to be designed to suit their individual needs. The most obvious background is certain price and quality [2][3][4][5][6]. This study was conducted to enrich the design of the current dynamometer to measure low modulus of elasticity materials. Design requirements are dynamometer that can be used to measure at least one directional force simultaneously for low elasticity materials at affordable prices.

Design and Testing of Dynamometer
The design of dynamometer must be simple and can be mounted on a conventional lathe machine. For this objective, the final design of frame that mounted the load cell is shown in Fig.1(a) and (b), while Fig. 1(c) showed the dynamometer apparatus. Inside the frame, a straight bar load cell is used that connected to tool holder. The choice of straight bar load cell, limits only 2 axes can be evaluated simultaneously. For current study, conventional lathe machine and one axis of load cell are employed to measure the cutting force (Ft) as shown in Fig. 2. If three axis are used, three forces can be recorded simultaneously, e.g. Ft = tangential force (cutting), Fr = radial force (thrust) Ff = feed force (axial), however in this case only two forces are sufficient. The load cell is connected to Arduino micro controller board, displayed in LCD board and analysed in MS. Excel (Fig. 3). Static calibration for cutting force was performed in a cantilever beam condition with loads ranging from 0.05 to 0.5 N with linear regression models [6].

Materials
Two materials with low elastic modulus, Polyoxymethylene (POM) and Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), were employed as workpieces to test the performance of dynamometer. The photograph of both materials can be seen in Fig. 4. The workpiece have dimension of 25 mm diameter and 200 mm long which will be evaluated with a carbide insert tool of DCMT. Mechanical properties of both materials are shown in Table 1 [7].

Testing method
The tangential force (Ft) is evaluated using one axis of load cell. The first test was performed by changing the spindle speeds of 100, 110, 155 and 190 rpm while the depth of cut was maintained at 0.2 mm. For second test, the depth of cut varies from 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 mm while the spindle speed is maintained at 155 rpm. Both tests were carried out in dry conditions. The outer surfaces of the workpiece were machined to minimize the roll forming effects such as the outer surface hardness.

Results and Discussion
Performance current dynamometer to measure the force in one direction that is tangential force can be considered satisfactory especially when simplicity and low cost are key requirements in the design and construction. It can be seen in Fig. 5 that the tangential force (Ft) is not drastically affected by spindle speed, despite a slight increasing when the spindle speed is elevated. For this test, the depth of cut is maintained at 0.2 mm. The response of tangential force for POM material is slightly high compared to PTFE. Both responses also observed when the depth of cut increase gradually as in Fig. 6. POM, which has higher elastic modulus compared to PTFE, shows higher response. It can be noticed that for a depth of cut of 0.5 mm, the response of the cutting force showed a significant different between POM and PTFE materials. This behaviour can be explained by the fact that with the increase in the depth of cut, the tool indents more into the workpiece and the width of cut becomes reasonably high. This effect increases the chip section and material response in stiffness when it contacts with the tool. The correlation between the increases of cutting force responds to material properties, by the current design, considered well explained.

Conclusion
In this paper, lathe tool dynamometer for turning operation has been developed. The dynamometer can only be used in two axes of force elements at the same time during turning. The performance of the dynamometer developed was considered satisfactory, especially when simplicity and low cost are taken into account as requirements for the design and construction of the device. The dynamometer was built at the total cost of USD 120 which can be concluded that it was a cost effective manufacture.   Figure 6. Effect of cut depth to tangential force.


Advertising Effectiveness and Influence of Consumer Buying Decision of LED Television

The main aim of the present study was to identify the influence of advertising effectiveness on the consumer buying decisions of different brands of ‘LED’ television. The study was descriptive. Five television showrooms in Dinajpur district, Bangladesh (Sony, Singer, Samsung, LG, and Walton) were purposively selected for collecting primary data for this study. The respondents were selected using a convenience sampling method that came to the television showroom for purchasing ‘LED’ television. The primary data for this study were collected through a structured questionnaire. The study result shows that advertisement has a positive effect on consumer buying decisions of ‘LED’ television, Sony brand (p =.000 0.05) and the null hypothesis is accepted for LG band and Walton brand p =.000 <0.05) and 42.3% of variation in consumer buying decision has been contributed by advertisement effectiveness.

INTRODUCTION
In the vibrant and multifarious world business atmosphere is becoming refined day by day and as such, decisionmaking is challenging and risky. Business organizations are failing due to poor decisions. Investors are losing their money and are unhappy. Some are successful in the marketing of their products and services, while others are still akin to the barber's chair syndrome where all is motion but no movement, struggling to reach their target audience. Consumers are also faced with the challenge of choicemaking due to indecisiveness, skepticism, indifference, and confusion, which are among the key sales killers in the business world (Ezeoha, 2007). So many companies spend so much money on advertising, sales promotion, point of purchase displays and other marketing communications only to discover that many people don't even remember the product or the promotion. On the other hand, whether consumers ultimately purchase the marketer's brand also depends on whether the promotion and marketing communication variables facilitate purchasing. Among the whole marketing tools, the advertising is distinguished for the continuing impact on the observer's mind as its impact is broader. Basically, advertisement is a tool of the promotional mix that includes the 4p's of the marketing mix as well as Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Presently advertisement is a great source for promotion. The consequences of advertisement continue to speed up by every year. Advertisement use to build up the product's robust image in consumer's attention. Advertisement helps the company to create awareness in its customers and ingredients the advertisements shape the perception of the customers positively. People can perceive the quality of the products by gathering the information which they usually get through advertisements. The perception of the quality, awareness of the product and consumer opinion drives the consumer buying decision (Fatima and Lodhi, 2015). The present study evaluates the effectiveness of advertisement and its influence on consumer buying decision of 'LED' television.

Objectives of the Study
 To know the relationship between the consumer demographic and advertising effectiveness with consumer buying decisions of different brands. Asian Business Review • Volume 9 •Number 3/2019  To study the consumer opinion regarding the most effective media for advertisement.  To identify the influence of the advertisement effectiveness on consumer buying decision of different brand of 'LED' television.

H1 :
There is no relation between the consumer demographic characteristics and buying decisions of different brands of television.

H2 :
There is no relation between advertising effectiveness and buying decisions of different brands.

H3 :
Advertising effectiveness does not influence the consumer buying decisions of different brand of television. Purushothaman et al. (2015) found that advertisement creates considerable impact and it paves the way for the customers to perceive the quality and other features of the product. Advertisements are very useful in creating the awareness among the people but they are failed to build strong perceptions in the mind of consumers. Both of these variables such as consumer awareness and consumer perceptions will motivate the consumer to buy a certain product, as there is a positive relationship present in between them (Fatima and Lodhi, 2015). Rafique (2012) argued that advertisement is a way to connect with the expected audience. People are highly affected by the advertisements and organizations are trying to target the masses of the people. Advertisement and consumer perception both have a significant positive relationship with consumer buying behavior. Consumer buying behavior can be enhanced with rich quality and creative advertisements and by building positive consumer perception through strong marketing strategies (Malik et al. 2014). Again, Rehman (2014) found that advertising has positive and statistically significant effects, while, the factors of rural areas have negative but statistically significant effects on consumers buying behavior. Further, advertising is positively but factors of rural areas are negatively correlated with consumers buying behavior. Advertisements shape the behaviors of the people through cognition, which is the perception of a person towards the information communicated through advertisements (Jakstiene, 2008). Sumathi & Begum (2016) argued that advertising satisfies the needs of both the firm and the consumers. Its role cannot be replaced by any other means. Hence, firms must strategize and know when and where they should advertise. On the other hand Sharma and Sharma (2009) found in their study besides advertising other factors like company's brand, quality of the invention and company's reputation affect the sales of a company. Again, Barroso (2008) found when the sale of any product increases, it is because the consumer is aware about the product's value and this point is achieved through efficient advertisement about product. Sawant (2012) found that if the consumers experience dissonance or discomfort owing to their purchase decision, then advertisement reduces this feeling of discomfort by providing information on the products attributes. It is even more necessary to neutralize the impact of the advertisements of rival brands. Advertising is to impact on buying behavior and this impact about brand is changed or strengthened frequently people's memories. Memories about the brand consist of those associations that are related to brand name in consumer mind. These brand cognitions influence consideration, evaluation, and finally purchases (Romaniuk and Sharp, 2004). The above literature reviews regarding advertisement and buying behavior emerged with the gap, that no serious study was attempted at national and international level to determine the influence of advertising effectiveness on consumer buying decision of 'LED' television. So, the present could able to fill the gap of previous studies.

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY
This study was descriptive in nature. Five television showrooms in Dinajpur district, Bangladesh (Sony, Singer, Samsung, LG and Walton) were purposively selected for this study. 112 respondents (Sony-27, Singer-15, Samsung-21, LG-13 and Walton-36) were selected using convenience sampling method for collecting primary data. Data were collected from the respondents who came to the television showroom for the purpose of purchasing 'LED' television.
The primary data for this study were collected through a well-structured questionnaire developed from literature review. A five-point Likert scale (where, 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree) was used to evaluate the respondent opinion of different brands. Besides primary data, secondary data were also used in this study. The secondary data were collected from books, published journals, articles, and research papers. Collected primary data from the respondents were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software so as to obtain a more comprehensive analysis of the study. Simple percentage method was used to analysis the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Chi-square technique was used to find out the association between advertising effectiveness and consumer buying decision of different brands. Kendall's coefficient of concordance was used for ranking most effective media for advertisement and simple regression analysis was used to identify the influence of the advertisement effectiveness on consumer buying decision of different brand.  Source: Field survey data, January-March 2017

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The following table 2 shows the association between consumer demographic characteristics and advertising effectiveness with buying decision of different brands. The positive association found monthly income of respondent and buying decision of 'LED' television,    Table 3 shows the respondent opinion on most effective advertisement media for buying decision of 'LED' television. By applying the Kendall's co-efficient of concordance, the mean rank shows that television is the top best media for advertising as indicated by respondent (mean rank 2.36), followed by newspaper advertising (mean rank 2.49), followed by point of purchase display (mean rank 2.98), then poster (mean rank 3.11), then magazine (mean rank 3.60), then billboard (mean rank 4.21), then neon sign (mean rank 5.46), then SMS advertising (mean rank 5.56), then internet (mean rank 6.65). By ranking the priority items from 1-9, the top association item got the rank of 1 and the least priority item got the rank of 9. The Kendall's W is found 0.169. Simple linear regression analysis is applies to find the influence of advertising effectiveness on customer buying decision of different brand of 'LED' television. For Sony brand the regression result shows that advertisement has a positive effect on consumer buying decision (p =.000 <0.05). So, null hypothesis is rejected. The R square value is (.439) which indicates that 43.9% of variation in consumer buying decision has been contributed by advertisement effectiveness. For Singer brand p =.010 <0.05 and 29.3% of variation in consumer buying decision has been contributed by advertisement effectiveness. For Samsung brand p =.003 <0.05 and 32.1% of variation in consumer buying decision has been contributed by advertisement effectiveness. For LG brand p =.341>0.05 and the null hypothesis is accepted for LG band. For Walton brand p =.000 <0.05 and 42.3% of variation in consumer buying decision has been contributed by advertisement effectiveness. So, the null hypothesis is rejected for Walton brand.

CONCLUSION
This study is related to advertising effectiveness and its influence of consumer buying decision of 'LED' television. According to the study profile it is found that maximum numbers of respondents 32.14% are Walton television user and 24.11% respondents are Sony television user. 29.46% respondents income limit between 40,001-50,000 tk. and 41.07% respondents income >50,000 tk. Chi-square test result found a positive association between monthly income of respondent and buying decision of 'LED' television (χ 2 c = 14.171, p=.003<0.05). Positive association also found between respondent profession and buying decision (χ 2 c = 20.153, p=.010<0.05). Television is the top best media for advertising as indicated by respondent (mean rank 2.36) and newspaper advertising (mean rank 2.49). Regression result shows that except LG brand advertisement has a positive effect on consumer buying decision of all brand of 'LED' television.
The R square value of regression result shows that for Sony brand 43.9%, Singer brand 29.3%, Samsung brand 32.1%, Walton brand 42.3% of variation in consumer buying decision has been contributed by advertisement effectiveness. It has been conclude that before purchasing any product customers collects information for their proper purchasing decision making activities, hence advertisement is mostly adopted to get information about the products. In our study we found advertising effectiveness has great impact on consumer buying decision of different brand of 'LED' television. Therefore, advertisers must use such advertisement to establish their brand identity and creating awareness in consumer about the product.