Enhancing employee engagement for small and medium enterprises in Taiwan

Employee engagement is crucial to the success of small-and-medium-enterprises (SMEs). As SMEs are the major GDP contributors in Taiwan, both policy makers and scholars have called further research to evaluate the significance of employee engagement in order to promote business prosperity. Following this logic, the current research has examined how employee engagement is interpreted by Taiwan's SMEs and discussed what could be done to improve employee engagement. Specifically, a qualitative approach is employed for data collection, and both managers and subordinates from five main types of SMEs in Taiwan are recruited for interviews. These types include: Electronics Information, Metal transportation, Machinery Equipment, Food Manufacturing, and Textile. Interview findings have shown that the majority of employees regard employee engagement as a psychological commitment and attachment to their organizations. Based on the views of interviewees, both monetary reward (e.g. bonus) and non-monetary rewards (e.g. performance recognition) generate salient impact on engagement enhancement, i.e., monetary and non-monetary rewards have jointly facilitated employee to make stronger commitment towards organizations and organizational goals. Research findings have also supported the proposition that employees with stronger engagement at work are more likely to have higher level of organizational commitment, contributing to the organizational productivity. The current research is the first of its kind to investigate how employee engagement interacts with organizational commitment and productivity in Taiwan SMEs, providing empirical evidence to decipher the imperativeness of employee engagement enhancement. Research findings have first contributed to the engagement literature, and the implication of findings is also insightful to SME managers and policymakers in their personnel management

Node-graceful graphs

AbstractA disconnected forest F = (V,E) with | V | = p and | E | = q cannot be graceful as there is no possible numbering of V with distinct integers from the set {0,…,q. However, the augmented set {0,…,p − 1} has just enough numbers for V and suggests the concept of a node-graceful graph. On the other hand, some problems arising from radar and sonar sequences of distinct frequencies in consecutive time slots can be regarded as the two-dimensional analog of the one-dimensional “ruler problems”. These two-dimensional synchronization patterns are formulated in terms of node-graceful graphs. It is shown that the matching graph nK2 is node-graceful if and only if there exists an (s,n)-Skolem sequence with s = 2. Other results are obtained and the current state of knowledge is summarized

On shortest three-edge-connected Steiner networks with Euclidean distance

AbstractGiven a set of points P on the Euclidean plane, we consider the problem of constructing a shortest three-edge-connected Steiner network of P. Let l3(P) denote the length of the shortest three-edge-connected Steiner network of P divided by the length of the shortest three-edge-connected spanning network of P, and let inf{l3(P)|P} be the infimum of this value over all point sets P in the plane. We show that for any P, 3/2⩽inf{l3(P)|P}⩽(3+3)/5, and there is a polynomial-time (5/3)-approximation algorithm for the problem. Moreover for those P whose points lie on the sides of its convex hull, l3(P)>(2+3)/4, and there exists a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme for the problem in this special case

Distributed loop network with minimum transmission delay

AbstractDistributed loop networks are networks with at least one ring structure. They are widely used in the design of local area networks, multimodule memory organizations, data alignments in parallel memory systems, and supercomputer architecture. In this paper, we give a systematic and unified method of solutions in the design and implementation of these networks. We show that doubly linked loop networks with transmission delay less than or equal to (1+ε)√3N can be constructed asymptotically for sufficiently large N, the number of nodes in the network. This is close to the optimal value within a number which is small as compared to N. We then give several infinite classes of values of N for which optimal doubly linked loop networks can be actually designed. The method is then generalized to obtain a new upper bound for possible transmission delays in multiply linked loop networks. Routing and rerouting algorithms are designed for the optimal loop networks