In this study, 236 heavy-drinking college students completed measures of self-efficacy for limiting drinking, specific coping skills for limiting drinking, outcome expectancies associated both with expected effects of drinking and expected effects of limiting drinking, and retrospective drinking behavior. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine reliability and validity, as well as serving as a pre-requisite for structural equation modeling (SEM). Results were generally consistent with predictions and supported the distinction between self-efficacy and outcome expectancies. One notable exception was that positive expectancies for limiting drinking did not load heavily on the predicted expectancy construct. Three models predicting drinking were compared utilizing SEM. The first was a model in which all constructs predicted drinking with no indirect effects. The second was based upon the ideas of Kirsch (1995) and predicted that outcome expectancies influence self-efficacy judgments. The third was based upon Bandura's (1986) theory and predicted that self-efficacy judgments would instead influence outcome expectancies. Both the models based on Kirsch and Bandura appeared to better fit the data than the model with no indirect effects. Differences in model-fit between models based on Kirsch and Bandura were not large, but slightly supported the Kirsch model. Additional analyses also supported the importance of outcome expectancies in predicting drinking behavior. Implications for theory and future directions for research are discussed. / Ph. D.

"To satisfy the global energy demand while accommodating the rapidly increasing consumption rate in its domestic market, Saudi Arabia must develop and implement fuel efficiency programs in many sectors. Since transportation is a major contributor to fuel consumption and emission levels, introducing Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) provides a viable solution to mitigate the current problems. However, existing studies on the diffusion of innovative vehicle technologies as well as on the understanding of the vehicle ownership and consumer behavior in Saudi Arabia are sparse. To fill this knowledge gap, I have aimed at developing an in-depth knowledgebase about general vehicle ownership and HEV ownership potential in particular for Saudi Arabia in my dissertation. I have achieved the research goal through a comprehensive online questionnaire that contains three different perspectives with each contributing a chapter in my dissertation. The first perspective provides a general understanding of the vehicle owners’ behaviors by analyzing over 600 questionnaire responses. It sheds light on the vehicle ownership determinants of the respondents that currently own vehicles as well as on respondents’ future vehicle purchase plans. This research perspective reveals the importance of vehicle price and seating capacity and points out that seating capacity is not necessarily defined by the household size in Saudi Arabia. As HEV is not yet available in the Saudi market, the next perspective applies the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) by analyzing 847 questionnaire responses to identify factors that might drive Saudis’ intention to adopt such technology. The results indicate that, while both subjective norm and attitude are significant in explaining the intention, subjective norm has three times stronger effect on adopting HEV than attitude. The last perspective contains a three-stage analysis to help identify the profiles of the most potential HEV early adopters and increase the chance for the relevant stakeholders to reach out to an effective range of consumers. Three characteristics of such adopters are identified: at least 35 years old, part of a larger household (more than 6 people), and owning more than one vehicle. "

This study is based on the fundamentals of Perceptions of Organizational Politics (POP) proposed by Ferris et al. (2002). We use the SPSS 15.0 and the structural equation modeling (SEM) to verify the relationship between the POP and the turnover intention. And we further confirm the mediating effects of job anxiety and organizational cynicism. This study used the scales of 35 items collected by Dr. Chin-ming Ho and the other members of the last research team of POP in 2008. The research is based on the revision model of POP and questionnaire survey. The sample consisted of 1,890 employee selected from 40 organizations covering 9 industrial sectors in Taiwan. We further use of the SEM to measure the relationship amongst the constructs. The results of this study are as following. Perception of organizational politics has a significant effect on turnover intention. Perceptionsof organizational politics has three measured dimentions. Both measured dimentions of gerenal political behavior and organization policies and practices present positive effect on turnover intention. Measured dimention of go alone to get ahead presents negative effect on turnover intention. Perception of organizational politics and job anxiety present positive remarkable related. Perception of organizational politics and organizational cynicism present positive remarkable related. Job anxiety has a significant moderate effect on the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and turnover intention. Organizational cynicism has a significant moderate effect on the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and turnover intention.

The employee¡¦s perceptions of organizational politics will increase due to the ¡§uncertainty¡¨ of environment and ¡§scarcity¡¨ of resources. It will also affect employee¡¦s attitude and behavior. This study is based on the revision model of Perceptions of Organizational Politics (POP) proposed by Ferris et al. (2002). We investigate the relationship between the perceptions of organizational politics, the organizational citizenship behavior, and the organizational cynicism. Finally we further confirm the mediating effects of organizational cynicism. This study used the scales of 35 items collected by Dr. Chin-ming Ho and the other members of the last research team of POP in 2008. The research is based on the revision model of POP and questionnaire survey. The sample consisted of 1,890 employee selected from 40 organizations covering 9 industrial sectors in Taiwan. We further use of the structural equation modeling (SEM) to measure the relationship amongst the constructs. The perceptions of organizational politics have been reduced to three factors: general political behavior, going along to get ahead and pay and promotion policies. The major results of this study are as fallowing: 1.The pay and promotion policies had negative effect on the organizational citizenship behavior. 2.The perceptions of organizational politics had positive effect on the organizational cynicism. 3.The organizational cynicism had negative effect on the organizational citizenship behavior. 4.The perceptions of organizational politics had an indirect negative effect, through the mediating effects of organizational cynicism, in the organizational citizenship behavior.

The Perceptions of Politics Scale (POPS) that the researchers use to measure organizational politics vary greatly among different scholars of different countries. Even the inventors, (Kacmer & Ferris) themselves were inconsistent in using the measurement scales. Therefore, the motive and purpose of this study were to construct generalizability, confirmation, validity scale, the predictive relations between the perceptions of organizational politics and job stress, effect of the cross-sample and cross-circumstance so as to apply the model to other sampling population, hoping to faithfully reflecting the variables observed in them. This study used the scale of 26 items collected by Dr. Ho Chin-ming et al. using the statistics of 2002 and 2003 measured among 36 organizations of 9 industries in Taiwan. A total of 6,143 questionnaires (return rate of 63.44%) were used. Up to 82.9% of the valid questionnaires were adopted in the final analysis. The data were analyzed by applying statistical methods, including item analysis, reliability (Cronbach¡¦s £\), consistency corrected item-total correlation, alpha if item deleted and exploratory factor analysis for data-reduction. The structural model for POPS was empirically derived and developed. Model development strategy was used to choose the best from four measurement models, all 25 items mapping to one factor (perceptions of organizational politics), five factors retained, three factors retained (19 items), four factor retained (17 items). All were competing models. One measurement model was job stress. First order of hybrid model and second order of hybrid model forecast relationship between the perceptions of organizational politics and job stress. The result of hybrid model factors produced the most parsimonious set of items of acceptable reliability as the best model chosen. Models needed to follow, model specification, parameter estimates ( factors were analyzed and mean values for each item across the factors were calculated ), model identification, t-rule and overall model-fit (e.g., absolute fit indexes: £q2, df, GFI, SRMR, RMSEA & ECVI; relative fit indexes: NFI, NNFI, CFI, IFI & RFI; parsimonious fit indexes: PNFI, PGFI, AIC, CN & Normed £q2) using the available LISREL indicators. The result of using discriminating validity measure ¡¨supervisor behavior¡¨ and ¡§coworker and clique behavior¡¨ indicates that they are different constructs. Criterion-related validity measure is also distinct form criterion. Discriminate validity measures three factor and four factor model which are unidimension. The chi-square difference test comparison of three and four factor model is significant. Indicators of AIC, ECVI, CAIC and double cross-validation indicate the first order hybrid model is the best model chosen by the study. Loose replication strategy and tight replication strategy of cross-validation indicate model effect of the cross-sample and cross-circumstance and extension to other sampling population.

Job Satisfaction of employees is the most important topic in organization today. There are many scles to measure the degree of employees¡¦ satisfaction. But it also has some problems. To resolve these issues, the study uses item analysis and factor analysis to reconstruct a new job satisfaction scale with 6 subscales and 33 items. Finally the study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to confirm the new scale. The findings indicate that the six subscales and 33 items job satisfaction scale is a reasonable and an accurate measurement model. The scale includes ¡§Job Achievement¡¨, ¡§Payroll Satisfation¡¨, ¡§Supervision Satisfaction¡¨, ¡§Job Support¡¨, ¡§Coworkers Satisfaction¡¨, and ¡§Promotion Satisfaction¡¨. The study wishes that the reconstruction of Job Satisfaction Scale can be a useful tool in Taiwan.

As virtual channels on the internet grow full-blown, two major chain department store corporations in Taiwan entered internet markets one after another in 2007. Since the department store is a typical service industry highly based on interactions, the salesclerk has been a major mediator for serving customers and therefore face-to-face interaction between consumers and salesclerks is especially important. With the coming of brand-new self-service system combined with technology, consumers are able to take advantage of the technology to serve themselves. The relationship between corporations and consumers is hence transformed with a delivery system of ¡§low contact but high technology.¡¨ Researchers of previous studies mainly focus on interpersonal-based service encounter for investigation of relationship marketing and customer loyalty and researches about technology-based self-service and interaction with consumers are rarely seen. This research takes department store customers as subjects of investigation and adopts their viewpoints from questionnaire, aiming to probe into the influence of the department store¡¦s introduction of self-service technology on the effect of relationship marketing for better understanding of the relationship between the effect and customers loyalty. The study will take questionnaire survey of internet, and put the questionnaire on the Telecommunication Laboratories (TL) website to gather data via the customer¡¦s e-mail in cooperation with the Web-based Newspaper for the credit card users of the department store of the department store. The questionnaire will put for one month from February 1 to February 28, 2008 to gather enough data for analysis. A total of 1412 copies of questionnaire are issued, retrieving 396 copies, with 1016 copies of effective questionnaire. Structural Equation Modeling is used in this research. The followings are four points of conclusion: (1) the quality of web-based self service has significantly positive influence on result indicators of relational benefits by means of customer relational benefits; (2) the quality of web-based self service, except for delivery service speed, has significantly positive influence on customer relational benefits; (3) customer relational benefits have significantly positive influence on result indicators of relational benefits; (4) customer relational benefits bring significant effect as a mediator between web-based self service and result indicators of relational benefits. Therefore, we suggest that the department store managers shall create more elements of relationship benefit so that the customers all feel highly of the relationship benefit in the hope to enhance the customer's satisfaction and loyalty on the enterprise.

Many environmental behavior models have been proposed to predict or explain environmental behavior in the past two decades. Due to limitations in practice, these models were mostly tested on a basis of self-reported measures of environmental behavior. How would these models perform if an observed measure of environmental behavior was used? What are the differences between the results of testing a model with a self-reported environmental behavior (SB) measure and the same model with an other-reported environmental behavior (OB) measure? And, what do these differences imply? A major model, Ajzen¡¦s (1985) theory of planned behavior (TPB), was tested with SB and OB measures respectively with structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Data were collected through questionnaires and participant observation in which students living in dormitories in a university were trained to observe their 172 roommates¡¦ five environmental behaviors. The other-reports of these roommates¡¦ environmental behavior made by the observers were based on their observation as well as experiences in living with and understanding of their roommates. Results showed that there existed significant frequency gaps between behavioral intention (BI) and SB and between SB and OB. The difference between SB and OB frequency was about 1.25 points on a 7-point scale. The BI-SB correlation (.87) was much larger than BI-OB correlation (.31) implying that SB was better predicted than OB was by BI. It was found that the subjects¡¦ SB tended to be conservative compared with BI and that OB was provided even more conservatively by the observers. BI could be the common cause of both SB and OB or SB could intervene in the relationship between BI and OB. A few significant differences were found in the results of testing the TPB model with SB and OB. The preference for the behavior might have played an essential role in predicting one¡¦s SB. The model had a very large proportion of variance explained (.814) because of the strong connection between BI and SB. It also seemed to have a better model fit when SB was used while the model¡¦s capability in predicting behavior was greatly reduced due to the large disparity between BI and OB when OB was used. Finally, it seemed that social desirability was a not cause of the SB-OB gap.

Nowadays experience marketing is the most common strategy to promote. Cultural- based activities in Kaohsiung is one of the examples to use such strategy. Culture is far more powerful than economy and politics. The influence by art and culture activities is direct, indirect and derivative on regional economy. Promoting art and culture activities as well as tourism industries significantly enhances conglomerate economy strength in the city. In terms of criticizing culture, the study concerns what aesthetic type created by urban experiential marketing strategy as well as what internet communications influence on cultural marketing. The study theory is based on B. Joseph Pine¢º& James H. Gilmore¡¦s experiential marketing aesthetics in 1998 and Schmitt¡¦s experience marketing theory in 1999, and thus explores three dimensions as experiential marketing strategy, aesthetics culture index and communication results. The survey research was performed by a questionnaire through convenient sampling method. A total of 280 questionnaires were administered, and 263 questionnaires were retrieved. AMOS Statistical Software was used to apply data analysis of the correlation among variables by using Structure Equation Modeling (SEM). The research results showed that: (1) experiential marketing strategy has positive effect on enhancing aesthetics culture; (2) there is no mediating effect about computer-mediated communication (CMC) between experiential marketing strategy and enhancing aesthetics culture of urban culture; (3) the cultural activities of experiential marketing strategy are prone to the entertainment. In addition to the entertainment, the long-term strategy of the government shall emphasize both on artistic and educative function when promoting the experiential marketing on urban culture. On the aspect of information context, both richness and interactivity of computer-mediated communication media content shall be enhanced. From the perspective of esthetical form of experiential marketing, we expect the findings of this study are helpful to consider the cultural information into the field of communication research in future planning for the urban cultural marketing to advance a city's global competitiveness.

The economy of Taiwan relies heavily upon the electronic manufacturing industry; hence choosing appropriate generic business strategies which are consistent with the environment based on suitable resources can allow small and medium size firms to sustain their competitive advantages and earn a higher return for the electronic manufacturing industry in Taiwan. This study intensities the effect of the precedent factors and generic business strategies chosen on the performance of small and medium size firms in the Taiwanese electronic manufacturing industry. It explores simultaneously the impact of the resources and the environment on business strategy which affects a firm's performance will provide valuable insight into the formulation of competitive strategies by structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. Finally, the use of SAS 9.0 with Amos 5.0 perform first order confirmatory factor analysis for the reliability of questionnaire and explores the relationship among variables in the proposed model based upon path analysis and multiple regression statistical methods and to recommends a new model depending on survey data gathered from firms in Taiwanese electronic manufacturing industry.