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Reports on the development and the validation of a measurement scale of International Business Negotiators (IBNs), derived from the literature and confirmed byself‐perceptions of Chinese business negotiators. Following a qualitative approach, the authors analyzed literature based on prior works in international business negotiations, cross‐cultural management, international business executives, and Sino‐Western business negotiations, to derive themes and items for developing an IBNs measurement scale. The key‐informant method was used to survey Chinese business negotiators (N₁=92, N₂ =478) for operationalizing the IBNs scale. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, as well as structural equation modeling analysis, were carried out to examine and to validate factor structures, internal consistency, unidimensionality and the construct validity of the IBNs. The results justify a ten‐factor IBNs scale with significant psychometric properties.

Ceramic superconductors experience losses when carrying alternating currents. A first step in an attempt to macroscopically model the loss mechanism is to consider the ac transport current in a ribbon that has a cross‐section of width much greater than thickness. To some extent high‐temperature superconductors behave in a way similar to type II superconductors in which the loss mechanism is described by the critical state model, where the current is assumed to flow with a constant critical density Jc and is independent of the magnetic flux density B and ∂B/∂t. The dominant mechanism is the irreversible motion of fluxoids due to their interaction with the pinning sites, resulting in a form of hysteretic loss that can be represented in macroscopic terms (in a system with only one component of magnetic field) as proportional to ∫HsdBa/T over a complete cycle of period T, where Hs is the surface magnetic field strength and Ba is the space average value of flux density. However, it is found that the high‐temperature materials exhibit strong flux creep effects, and so the critical state model may not provide a sufficient description. To find an alternative formulation it is necessary to consider the flux creep E‐J characteristic of the ceramic material. If a highly nonlinear expression for the resistivity ? can be found, it may be possible to model the flux and current behaviour as a diffusion process.

This study aims to explore how two affective factors (i.e. brand attachment and consumer affinity) influence host country consumers' responses to an international brand alliance (IBA).

A two (brand attachment: high vs low) × two (consumer affinity: high vs low) factorial experiment was conducted with 336 US university students. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method was used to test the conceptual model.

(1) Pre-attachment to the host brand and consumer affinity for the country-of-origin (COO) of the foreign partner brand positively influence attitudes toward the IBA. (2) Attitudes toward the IBA positively influence post-attachment to the host brand, intention to buy the IBA product and willingness to recommend the IBA product. (3) Pre-attachment to the host brand positively influences post-attachment to the host brand.

This study extends the literature on factors influencing attitudes toward IBAs by finding the significant influences of pre-attachment to the host brand and consumer affinity for the COO of the foreign partner brand on host country consumers' responses to IBAs.

Creating green ports, while observing international and international standards and maritime conventions and regulations and moving toward smart ports, can increase the speed of goods transfer, enable the tracking of ships and goods, increase the transparency of statistics, increase the quality and capacity of ports and reduce costs. Hence, the purpose of this study the development and evaluation of ports play a key role in their commercial success. Development policies can be formulated for these ports by properly evaluating their performance indicators. On the other hand, traditional methods of performance evaluation cannot provide a good multidimensional evaluation of the status of ports.

More than 90% of the world’s heavy transit today is carried out by the sea. With this volume of freight, transit accidents are inevitable for ships passing through oceans, seas, waterways, rivers, ports and mooring at docks. Besides, gases from ships’ fuels at sea, especially in ports, oil spills due to maritime incidents, the negligence of the ship’s crew, the use of port equipment, dirty fuel of diesel power substations, etc., have increased greenhouse gases, polluted the environment and endangered human lives.

A new approach has been introduced in the field of port performance evaluation based on the components of greenness and intelligence. This approach performs evaluations in two stages and a network. In this study, the performance of 11 Iranian ports was evaluated based on the network data envelopment analysis approach in 2 stages of greenness and intelligence during 4 years. The results indicated that only 5% of the ports meet the standards of intelligence and greenness.

On the other hand, as shown in the above studies, the issue of green ports is directly related to the development of animal and plant ecosystems in the seas and the environment around ports. The presence of pollution in the ports has caused the animal and plant habitats around the ports to face a complete pollution crisis or to be completely destroyed. Therefore, the development of green port concepts in third world countries will help prevent environmental pollution of the seas. Therefore, it is necessary for ports to review their strategic maritime transport model and use the development of green port indicators in their implementation processes. Therefore, the strategic development of green ports is created to create and benefit from the components of intelligence, and as mentioned in previous research, intelligence and greenness are in line and the lack of development of one of the concepts causes defects in others. According to reports provided in Iran’s maritime transport systems, most accidents have led to environmental disasters during the absence of intelligent equipment. The use of smart technologies prevents all environmental damage and the development of port services. On the other hand, in evaluating the published articles in the field of development of green and smart ports, so far, the components of intelligence and greenness have not been evaluated and analyzed in a practical and operational way in ports and only the influencing the development of agents on each other has been done (Chen, 2019). Therefore, evaluating the efficiency of ports based on green components and intelligence causes ports to fundamentally review their executive infrastructure and take an active part in the global green development plan.

Describes a probabilistic methodology for fracture assessments of flawed structures constructed of ferritic steels using the research code WSTRESS. The probabilistic formulation for cleavage fracture implements a multiaxial form of the weakest link model which couples the macroscopic fracture behavior with a micromechanics model based on the statistics of microcracks. The Weibull stress, σ_w, emerges as a suitable near‐tip parameter to provide a connection between the microregime of failure and remote loading (J). WSTRESS builds on an iterative procedure to incorporate a 3‐D finite element description of the crack‐tip stress field and measured values of fracture toughness to calibrate the Weibull modulus, m, and the scale parameter, σ_u. Specific features of the code include statistical inference of Weibull parameters based on uncensored and censored models (with maximum likelihood method), construction of confidence intervals, several definitions for the near‐tip fracture process zone and other general facilities such as spatial integration of the stress field (to incorporate the random orientation of microcracks) and stochastic simulation of fracture data using the Monte Carlo method. The code also includes a convenient free‐form command language and a seamless interface with finite element results files stored in Patran binary or ASCII format.

The paper presents an extension to previous work on modelling AC losses in high‐temperature superconducting tapes as a highly non‐linear diffusion process. Following successful formulation for a bulk superconductor the presence of silver in a tape has now been included, using a “sandwich” model, to represent more realistically the practical arrangement. The results of the extended 1‐D model are included and a new 2‐D scheme is described using finite difference formulation. Effects of non‐linearity are emphasised.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a descriptive analysis of the carbon management activities of the cement industry in Europe, based on a study involving the four largest producers of cement in the world. Based on this analysis, the paper explores the relationship between managerial perception and strategy, with particular focus on the impact of government regulation and competitive dynamics.

The research is based on extensive documentary analysis and in‐depth interviews with senior managers from the four companies who have been responsible for and/or involved in the development of climate change strategies.

It was found that whilst the cement industry has embraced climate change and the need for action, there remains much scope for action in their carbon management activities, with current effort concentrating on hedging practices and win‐win efficiency programs. Managers perceive that inadequate and unfavourable regulatory structure is the key barrier against more action to achieve emission reduction within the industry. Interestingly, EU cement companies are also shifting their CO₂ emissions to less developed countries of the South.

The paper analyses corporate climate strategy in one of the most carbon intensive and yet least studied industries. With specific focus on the EU, the paper highlights a number of policy approaches for encouraging the cement industry on the path of deeper emission reduction.

This paper applies a complexity-theory-based simulation to the diverse field of organizational behavior. The specific form or level of competency emerges from the involved people and resources and the interactions among them. This paper focuses on an organizational competency of being capable to change which arises from the set of individuals involved (a leader and direct reports) and their interactions. This model is a simplified version of reality that may provide insight into the complex processes of organizations. The Context-for-Learning (CFL) competency is based on the work of Black and Boal 1997. Leader behavior is based on Quinn's competing values framework (1984, 1988). In addition to complexity theory, the simulation uses social constructivism to explain the coevolution of the individual, leader, and organizational capabilities. Using the same set of individual responses for a set of subordinates and varying leader behavior, we examine the resulting level of organizational CFL. This simulation demonstrates that leader behavior impacted the level of the emerging CFL in ways that were unique to individual leaders. Even two “good” leaders had surprisingly different impacts.

Globalization and the rapid development of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have advantaged economies which have invested in (re)skilling their human capital in technical knowledge. Similarly, ICT have spearheaded the growth and development of industrial and service sectors in emerging economies. This accounts for the progress of some Asian economies and the lagging behind of many sub-Saharan African countries, including Ghana. Primarily, reorientation of economic development strategy and human development policy in tandem with the demands of knowledge-based economy (KBE) and related development in ICT explain the differences among the world's economies. Our chapter discusses the extent to which ICT has been incorporated into the educational system to transform it from traditional education in order to reskill human capital in postprimary schools to support the creation and growth of KBE in Ghana. Moreover, the chapter assesses whether ICT infrastructure and syllabuses at postprimary schools meet the challenges of a KBE and an enhanced growth development in Ghana. Using the theories of evolutionary economic change, new growth, technology and knowledge gap, we intend to analyze the progress and challenges faced by Ghana as it strives to build a KBE that thrives on innovation and creativity, which in turn drive economic growth and development. In this respect, we examine postprimary schools in Ghana.