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MD
49,2
Entrepreneurship, process
innovation and value creation by a
non-profit SME
284
Kun-Huang Huarng and Tiffany Hui-Kuang Yu
Feng-Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose – By using three key factors – namely, funding, stakeholders, and legitimacy – this study
seeks to analyse the successful entrepreneurial experiences of a non-profit small to medium-sized
enterprise: the Taiwan EBook Supply Cooperative Limited (TEBSCo).
Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a case study.
Findings – From a legitimacy perspective, TEBSCo is the only registered organisation facilitating
e-book consortia in Taiwan. From a stakeholder perspective, TEBSCo is managed by a board of
directors, who are elected from the member representatives. In addition to creating value for its
members, TEBSCo also creates value for non-members and vendors. Its major funding is from annual
membership fees. TEBSCo’s innovation process, as a collective entrepreneurial activity in a non-profit
SME, creates intangible as well as tangible value. The successful experiences of TEBSCo can be used
as examples for new entrants.
Originality/value – TEBSCo is the only registered organisation facilitating e-book consortia in
Taiwan. The successful experiences of TEBSCo can be used as examples for new entrants, and shows
a new form of entrepreneurial activity.
Keywords Entrepreneurialism, Economic cooperation, Libraries, Purchasing groups,
Small to medium-sized enterprises
Paper type Case study
Management Decision
Vol. 49 No. 2, 2011
pp. 284-296
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0025-1747
DOI 10.1108/00251741111109160
Introduction
The originality of this study lies first and foremost in the fact that entrepreneurial
activity, typically associated with the creation of new businesses and innovation in the
for-profit sector, is studied here in a non-profit SME. In this sense, the term “non-profit
entrepreneurship” may appear contradictory (Cordes et al., 2004) although Benz (2009)
and Chapelle (2010) argue that entrepreneurship is more properly characterised as a
non-profit seeking activity. Second, previous thinking on the nature of the entrepreneur
sees this figure as carrying out individual activity of discovery, evaluation, and
exploitation of opportunities (Schumpeter, 1934, 1950; Venkataraman, 1997; Shane and
Venkataraman, 2000; Shane et al., 2003; Hitt et al., 2001; Cuervo, 2005; Barret and
Mayson, 2008; Wagener et al., 2010; Rodriguez Ramı́rez et al., 2010) but the
entrepreneurial activity studied here refers to a collective activity in which individual
actions become a part of the collective effort.
In addition, there are many large and successful non-profit organisations that exist
today. Social entrepreneurship that corresponds to what is accepted as
entrepreneurship and that captures the way where entrepreneurship may be
altruistic (Tan et al., 2005). Meanwhile, many universities have created
entrepreneurship centres which offer a set of services to their students and
professors recently (Del-Palacio et al., 2008). Issues of performance have been studied
for public (Caruana and Ewing, 2002; Gripaios and Bishop, 2005; Kearney et al., 2008)
and private sectors (Gripaios and Bishop, 2005) and suggestions for the policy makers
have also been raised (Gert-Jan Hospers et al., 2009; Mas-Verdú et al., 2009).
Information and communication technologies (ICT) have been regarded as a good
means for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to demonstrate their entrepreneurial
strengths (Fathian et al., 2008; Martı́nez-Gómez et al., 2010). As ICT have been
progressing very rapidly, many institutional libraries (libraries hereafter) adopt
e-resources to extend their services, including e-books, e-journals, and so on (Bravo
et al., 2008; Varghese, 2008). The Gartner reports stated that one of the critical factors
underlying e-book proliferation was price (Knox et al., 2000; Knox and Latham, 2003).
In fact, price has always been at the top of the list when it comes to libraries acquiring
e-resources, including e-books. In particular, the prices of the e-resources have
increased drastically year by year. Therefore, it is critical for these libraries to find
ways to cut cost so as to maintain the same quality of service. In addition, the
acquisition of e-books involves a long process. Each library must go through a similar,
complicated and tedious process, which can result in a waste of resources. Library
consortia are formed to match the needs of each library and to improve efficiency via
network effects, which include the purchase of on-line books (Scott and Laws, 2010;
Arroyo-Barrigüete et al., 2010; Lin, 2010).
A library consortium aims to aggregate the purchasing power of its members and to
reduce the redundant, tedious process of acquiring e-books from each member. Within
a relatively short period of time, many consortia have been formed all over the world.
As more and more consortia have been developed, communication among the various
consortia has become critical. Hence, a consortium of consortia has been formed in the
USA, known as the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC). However,
some problems remain. It is still an informal organisation, and the relationships
between the ICOLC and its members are rather loosely defined.
To share a successful case, this study analyses a cooperative, the Taiwan EBook
Supply Cooperative, Limited (TEBSCo). Access to funding, clients, capital, and
perceived legitimacy have been considered to be the factors affecting non-profit
entrepreneurial activity (Twombly, 1990). Accordingly, this study uses funding,
stakeholders, and legitimacy as key factors to analyse how TEBSCo creates value via
process innovation. TEBSCo is a registered (legal and formal) and non-profit
(cooperative) SME (with part-time staff). It has been formed by its members and
returns all the benefits to its members. Through process innovation, TEBSCo has
created value for its stakeholders, including its members, non-members,
vendors/publishers (hereafter, “vendors” for short), and so on.
To analyse process innovation and value creation in relation to TEBSCo, the
cooperative is introduced in the next section. The following section then describes its
innovative process, and points out that there are intangible and tangible values created
from entrepreneurial activity through innovation. The next two sections analyse the
intangible and tangible values, respectively, while the final section summarises the study.
TEBSCo, a non-profit SME
TEBSCo was founded in 2004, and has since then been the only organisation registered
with the Ministry of Interior of Taiwan that facilitates e-book consortia. Because
TEBSCo is a cooperative, it is a non-profit organisation. There are only two part-time
Process
innovation and
value creation
285
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286
staff who handle the routine work. TEBSCo is managed by a board of directors, who are
all volunteers (a collective and non-profit form of entrepreneurship). It is therefore also a
SME. It was formed by its members, and hence all benefits are returned to its members.
The number of members (libraries) associated with TEBSCo has increased in each
year since its establishment, as can be seen from Table I. TEBSCo had 46 members in
2009, having increased from 43 in 2008. The increase in the number of members
directly confirms its value to its members. To become a member, each library must
forward an application, which is reviewed at a meeting of the board of directors of
TEBSCo. After the application is approved, the applying library must pay for a share
of the stock in TEBSCo. This payment for stock is refunded if that particular library
withdraws from TEBSCo in the future. The only obligation that member has is to pay a
membership fee each year, which is the major financial resource for TEBSCo. Each
member may assign a representative, who can attend the member meetings, and at
such meetings can stand to be elected a director who will then join the meetings of the
board of directors. Hence, the members have a close involvement with the operations of
TEBSCo by means of a collective form of entrepreneurship.
TEBSCo creates value for its stakeholders by seeking to reduce the costs of each
member, to promote the sharing of e-resources among members and to prevent
unnecessary work having to be done by each member (Huarng and Wang, 2009).
TEBSCo aggregates the purchasing power of its members so as to reduce the costs borne
by each member of the consortium. In other words, it can achieve more cost effectiveness
for its members. Second, TEBSCo promotes the sharing of e-resources among its
members. When TEBSCo was initially established, most vendors preferred not to offer
shareable packages. However, following intensive negotiations, more and more vendors
have gradually decided to offer shareable packages, enabling TEBESCo’s
entrepreneurial activity. These shareable packages have greatly expanded the
collections of each member more than ten-fold. Finally, TEBSCo takes care of the
administrative work of purchasing e-books, and therefore, the amount of unnecessary
work of each member, and even of non-members and vendors, can be reduced.
Innovative process
The conventional process
The acquisition of e-books involves a long process, including product selection,
product trial and assessment, the evaluation of the pricing model, negotiating the price,
title selection, quotation, bidding, account set up, the acceptance test, uploading the
title records into an automatic system, sending invoices, closing cases and making
payment, training, and promotion, etc. Each library has to go through similar
complicated and tedious processes. The conventional interactions between vendors
and libraries can be very complicated. The interactions between vendors and any given
library can be very random. Library Lk can choose to interact with any vendor(s), V1,
V2, . . . , Vj and so can the other libraries, L1, L2, . . . , Lk. The conventional process is
Year
Table I.
The number of TEBSCo
members each year
Number of members
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
36
38
40
42
43
46
very inefficient. Most administrative work is unnecessary, the overall interactions are
complicated, and the purchasing power is not aggregated.
Consortia
To resolve the dilemma, library consortia comprised of groups of libraries are formed
in different regions (Bostick, 2001; Termens, 2008; Weiner, 2005). The term “library
consortia” refers to the cooperation, coordination and collaboration among libraries for
the purpose of sharing e-resources (Moghaddam and Talawar, 2009). After a library
participates in a consortium, most of the above processes can be avoided. In other
words, the consortium handles most of the work. The process for the consortium and
each participating library is depicted in Figure 1. The consortium is responsible for
extra work such as recruiting members, sending title lists to members, title selection,
the collection of members’ title lists, the deletion of duplicate copies, re-selecting title
lists if necessary, and preparing quotations for the consortium, etc. The participating
library only needs to focus on the selection of titles.
The interactions via a consortium can be exemplified as below. A member library
Mp can participate in any consortium, c1, c2... cn. Consortium cn may need to interact
with vendors V1, V2. . . Vj. There are some advantages of participating in a consortium,
because a consortium cn handles most of the work for its members. Furthermore, cn can
aggregate the purchasing power of all its members. Hence, all the members, including
Mp, may be able, relatively speaking, to get better discounts from a vendor via cn.
Meanwhile, Mp has the opportunity to share the acquired e-resources with other
members of cn.
Although we have consortia serving as the intermediaries between member
libraries and vendors, the overall interactions remain complicated. When libraries are
members of different consortia, they still need to deal with different consortia and may
need to commit more and pay more for different memberships, etc. (Hirshon, 1999). The
interactions between libraries and consortia may therefore remain as complicated as
before. In addition, the complicated interactions between vendors and consortia
remain, too.
As the number of library consortia has gradually increased, communication among
the consortia themselves has become necessary. For this reason, some informal
discussion groups that were founded among consortia in the USA became referred to as
The Consortium of Consortia in 1997, and soon the name was changed to the ICOLC. The
original informal discussion groups were later replaced with meetings twice a year.
ICOLC meetings provide an opportunity for consortia and vendors to discuss different
Process
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value creation
287
Figure 1.
The acquisition process of
a consortium
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288
ways of acquiring materials, and to listen to each group’s concerns (Bostick, 2001). The
ICOLC plays the role of information provider. It remains an informal group, and
comprises (as of September 2000) nearly 150 library consortia from around the world.
Innovative process
Instead of playing the role of intermediary, the entrepreneurial activity of TEBSCo has
been innovative as a hub among vendors, consortia and libraries. TEBSCo can initiate
as many consortia as are needed. Each member can choose whether to join any
particular consortium. In addition, TEBSCo members can initiate consortia when they
consider it to be necessary. TEBSCo helps to handle the rest of the process, including
calls for members. Of course, the vendors can propose any consortia to TEBSCo, which
then reviews and then introduces the proposals to the libraries. As a result, different
libraries can join various consortia based on their needs. All of which correspond to the
type of innovation, venturing and strategic renewal (inside and outside each library) as
identified by Zotto and Gustafsson (2008), and show the entrepreneurial results of the
collective board of representative members.
For example, member M1 participates in three consortia, c1, c2, and cn; member M2
participates in two consortia, c1 and cn; and non-member L1 participates in one
consortium, cn, via TEBSCo. In other words, M1 and M2 participate in the same
consortium c1, and M1, M2, and L1 participate in the same consortium cn. In addition to
members and non-members, TEBSCo has to work very closely with consortia and
vendors. Furthermore, TEBSCo works with the consortia in other regions, such as C1,
C2, . . . Cq.
Intangible value
TEBSCo’s innovative process creates intangible value, including removing the
complicated interactions between libraries and consortia, promoting shareable
e-resources and providing different consortia for various purposes, and stimulating
cooperation among the consortia across regions. First, it is clear that the complicated
interactions can be avoided. Both vendors and libraries can benefit from the innovative
process.
Since its establishment, TEBSCo has promoted the sharing of e-books among
members. Over the years, the vendors have gradually accepted the provision of
shareable packages. Meanwhile, TEBSCo may form e-book consortia with different
focuses, thereby providing the participants with more options to choose from.
However, unlike the situations applying to conventional consortia, the participants in
the consortia formed by TEBSCo only need to deal with TEBSCo. The complicated
process can be avoided, too. For example, a participant participated in c1, c4, c6, and c7
in 2005, and only needed to focus on title selection. The rest of the work was taken care
of by TEBSCo. Furthermore, the participant only needed to deal with TEBSCo.
In addition to working with libraries in Taiwan, TEBSCo also works with consortia
in other regions. The achievement of a critical mass can always help consortia to obtain
better discounts. The purchasing amounts from these different consortia can be
summed together and the joint consortia can therefore get even better discounts than
the individual consortium. For example, in 2005, there were 48 participants (including
42 local and six in Hong Kong) participating in consortium c5. In 2009, consortium c10
worked with consortia in China and Hong Kong to aggregate the purchasing power so
as to get better discounts for each individual consortium. The participants (libraries)
did not need to get involved in the cooperation details across regions.
Economic value
TEBSCo’s innovative process has been creating value for its members and later for
non-members, too. Three different saving models have been used for different
consortia, and these are elaborated with examples below.
Model 1: Separate collections
In the early years of the TEBSCo, the concept of e-book sharing was not widely
accepted by vendors. Hence, many consortia provided separate collections of e-books,
which meant that although there were many libraries joining together to purchase
e-books, each of the libraries was allowed to access the e-books on its own. The
advantage of participating in consortia was only to obtain better discounts from the
vendors due to the aggregation of purchasing power. Hence, the first saving model is
mainly based on discounts:
pricet;cn ;M p ¼ ð1 2 dt;cn ;M p Þ £ listt;cn ;M p ;
saving1t;cn ;M p ¼ listt;cn ;M p 2 pricet;cn ;M p ;
where listt;cn ;M p is the total list price of all the titles purchased by member Mp for
participating in consortium cn in year t, d t;cn ;M p is the discount for member Mp, and
pricet;cn ;M p is the amount that Mp pays for its purchased titles. In addition, saving1t;cn ;M p
is the saving of member Mp. In this model, the discount for member Mp usually
depends on listt;cn ;M p ; the higher listt;cn ;M p is, the higher dt;cn ;M p is.
Hence, the total price and saving for consortium cn is calculated as follows:
total_price1t;cn ¼
z
X
pricet;cn ;M g ;
g¼1
total_saving
z
X
saving1t;cn ;M g ;
g¼1
where there are a total of z members participating in consortium cn.
Table II lists all the exclusive usage e-book consortia (c1 to c5) initiated by TEBSCo
from 2004 to 2009. For c1 in 2007, the total purchasing price was $US70,578.00. There
were nine members participating in the consortium. The highest saving of a single
member was:
saving12007;c1 ;M p ¼ $US28; 397:00:
The total saving of c1 was:
total_saving12007;c1 ¼ $US171; 906:90:
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290
Table II.
The savings from the
exclusive usage models
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
64,787.00
10
19,827.00
97,180.50
70,578.00
9
28,397.00
171,906.90
50,762.00
7
28,152.00
109,932.10
47,460.84
7
c1
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
–
–
–
–
c2
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
5,904.36
4
354.63
656.07
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
c3
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
13,114.50
2
1,976.20
2,195.50
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
c4
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
–
–
–
–
36,962.59
7
465.56
2,124.65
17,288.20
4
2,494.66
4,668.62
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
c5
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
41,104.98
5
1,561.22
5,605.18
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
52,052
9
19,393
75,214
Note: Total prices and savings are shown in US dollars
Model 2: Shareable
In the shareable model, each member can share all the e-books that are purchased by
all the members of a consortium. So in the shareable saving model, the saving is equal
to the total list price less the member Mp’s purchasing price:
saving2t;cn ;M p ¼
z
X
listt;cn ;M g 2 pricet;cn;M p ;
g¼1
where saving2t;cn ;M p is the saving of member Mp participating in cn, by paying in year t.
P
The larger the value of z, the higher is zg¼1 listt;cn ;M g , and the higher the saving.
The total saving for consortium cn is calculated as follows:
total_saving2t;cn ¼
z
X
g¼1
saving2t;cn ;M g :
All the shareable e-book consortia (c6 to c10) initiated by TEBSCo from 2004 to 2009 are
listed in Table III. For c6 in 2004, the total purchasing price was $US273,015.64. There
were 18 members participating in the consortium. The highest saving of a single
member was:
saving22004;c6 ;M p ¼ $US244; 579:53:
Process
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value creation
291
The total saving of c6 was:
total_saving22004;c6 ¼ $US4; 402; 431:54:
Model 3: Different pricing for members and non-members
Before 2008, all the participants of the consortia were members of TEBSCo.
Afterwards, TEBSCo started to invite non-members to participate. There have been
member and non-member prices for TEBSCo consortia. Hence, the third saving model
2004
c6
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
273,015.64
18
244,579.53
4,402,431.54
ca7
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
2005
179,448.46
10
99,759.64
997,596.40
2006
2007
2008
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
2009
51,781.01
7
26,380.28
105,602.99
2,400,000.00
48
3,971,165.00
190,615,920.00
cb8
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
63,940.57
8
N/A
N/A
c9
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
627,556.68
41
612,208.66
25,081,528.46
439,902.71
41
429,520.65
17,596,108.21
ca10
Total price
Number of libraries
Highest saving
Total saving
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
274,086.38
13
262,666.11
3,289,036.54
53,210.72
6
N/A
N/A
–
–
–
–
Notes: Total prices and savings are shown in US dollars. aBoth c7 and c10 were supported by the
Ministry of Education of Taiwan. bNo list prices were available for c8
Table III.
The savings from the
sharable models
MD
49,2
is equivalent to the difference between member and non-member prices plus either the
saving of model 1 or model 2. For members, the saving model is given as follows:
difft;cn ¼ pricet;cn ;X p 2 pricet;cn ;M p ;
saving3t;cn ;M p ¼ difft;cn þ saving1t;cn ;M p ;
292
or:
saving3t;cn ;M p ¼ difft;cn þ saving2t;cn ;M p :
As for non-members, the saving remains the same as in model 2:
saving3t;cn ;X p ¼ saving1t;cn ;X p or saving2t;cn ;X p :
where saving1t;cn ;X p and saving2t;cn ;X p are the saving models for non-member Xp,
respectively. Note that difft;cn is always higher than the membership fee of t. In other
words, once a member participates in any consortium in a given year, the member is
paid off.
The total saving for consortium cn is the sum of the savings from members and
non-members as follows:
total_saving3t;cn ¼
z
X
saving3t;cn ;M g þ
l
X
saving3t;cn ;X y ;
y¼1
g¼l
where there are l non-members.
Consortium c9 in Table III is a typical example. For example, in 2008, the difference
between member and non-member prices in c8 is diff2008;c9 ¼ $US951:33, which is
higher than the membership fee for that year of $US317.11. The saving of a
non-member is:
saving22008c9 ;X y ¼ $US611; 257:32;
saving3t;c9 ;M p ¼ $US951:33 þ $US611; 257:32 ¼ $US612; 208:66;
total_saving3t;c9 ¼ $US25; 081; 528:46:
Degree of operating leverage
The overall saving for year t is calculated as follows:
total_price1t;cn ¼
z
X
g¼1
pricet;cn ;M g ;
overall_pricet ¼
3 X
n
X
Process
innovation and
value creation
total_priceht;cs :
h¼1 s¼1
The overall savings for the period from 2004 to 2009 are summarised in Table IV. In
2004, the overall saving was more than $US4m, which was the least among all the
years. For the remaining years, the overall savings always exceeded $US20m.
Furthermore, we use the degree of operating leverage (DOL) to measure how
TEBSCo performs each year. DOL is simply defined as follows (Shim and Siegel, 2000):
DOLt ¼
293
overall_pricet
;
overall_pricet 2 fixed_costst
where “fixed_costt” refers to the salaries of the two part-time staff. The DOL for each of
the years are listed in Table IV. As we can see, all of the DOLs are close to 1.0, which
implies very low operational risk (Campsey and Brigham, 1985).
Conclusion
Entrepreneurship is typically associated with the creation of new businesses and
innovation in the for-profit sector. This study shares the successful experiences of a
non-profit SME in an entrepreneurial collective form. Three key factors – namely,
funding, members, and legitimacy – are used to analyse the non-profit SME TEBSCo.
From a legitimacy perspective, TEBSCo is the only registered or formal
organisation facilitating e-book consortia in Taiwan. This is very different from
many consortia or a consortium of consortia, which are informal meetings or
organisations. Its major funding is derived from annual membership fees. The DOL for
each year is close to 1.0, which implies that TEBSCo has very low operational risk.
From a stakeholder perspective, the number of TEBSCo’s members has grown year by
year, which confirms its value. It is managed by a board of directors, who are elected
from the member representatives. In addition to creating value for its members, it also
creates values for non-members and vendors.
2004
2005
c1
c2
c3
c4
c5
c6
c7
c8
c9
c10
–
5,904.36
–
–
–
273,015.64
–
–
–
–
52,052
–
–
36,962.59
–
179,448.46
2,400,000.00
–
–
–
64,787.00
–
13,114.50
79,907.50
41,104.98
–
–
–
–
–
Overall price
DOL
278,920.00
1.08
2,668,463.05
1.01
198,913.98
1.13
Note: Prices are shown in US dollars
2006
2007
2008
2009
70,578.00
–
–
–
–
–
–
63,940.57
–
–
50,762.00
–
–
–
–
–
–
53,210.72
627,556.68
–
47,460.84
–
–
–
–
51,781.01
–
–
439,902.71
274,086.38
134,518.57
1.20
731,529.40
1.03
813,230.94
1.03
Table IV.
Overall prices and DOL
for each year
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294
TEBSCo’s innovative process creates intangible value, including removing the
complicated interactions between libraries and consortia, providing different consortia
for various purposes, and stimulating cooperation among the consortia across regions,
etc. The innovative process also creates tangible value, including different saving
models. These successful experiences can serve as examples for new e-book consortia
or a consortium of consortia.
This is the form in which the case studied herein shows a type of entrepreneurship
that is different from those found in the literature. It is an entrepreneurship that is
driven by a collective agent (the board made up of representative from different
libraries) which, moreover, is not, at least in principle, particularly qualified nor
motivated to carry out technical or organisational innovations, and in a non-profit
sector, which makes entrepreneurial action even more unexpected.
The consequent explanation can be found in the diffusion of new ICT and in the
context of current social and organisational change (Wong, 2008). However, this
question lies beyond the bounds of the present study.
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About the authors
Kun-Huang Huarng is Professor of International Trade and Director of the Library, Feng Chia
University, Taiwan. He serves as the Editor of Journal of Economics and Management, as the
Executive Editor of International Journal of Intelligent Technologies and Applied Statistics, and as
an Associate Editor of Journal of Modelling in Management, Advances in Doctoral Research in
Management, and International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research. His
current research interests include computer modelling, innovation and e-commerce. Kun-Huang
Huarng is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: khhuarng@mail.fcu.edu.tw
Tiffany Hui-Kuang Yu received a BA (Economics) from the National Taiwan University,
Taipei, Taiwan, in 1986 and the MS and PhD degrees in Economics from Texas A&M
University, College Station, TX, in 1989 and 1994, respectively. Since 1994, she has been with the
Department of Public Finance, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, where she also served
as the Chair of the Department from 2000 to 2002. She is currently a Professor and the Dean of
the Office of International Affairs, Feng Chia University. Her current research interests include
public finance, fuzzy time series, data mining, and financial forecasting.
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