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The purpose of this paper is to provide an effective solution method for the truck and trailer routing problem (TTRP) which is one of the important NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems owing to its multiple real-world applications. It is a generalization of the famous vehicle routing problem (VRP), involving a group of geographically scattered customers served by the vehicle fleet including trucks and trailers.

The meta-heuristic solution approach based on bat algorithm (BA) in which a local search procedure performed by five different neighborhood structures is developed. Moreover, a self-adaptive (SA) tuning strategy to preserve the swarm diversity is implemented. The effectiveness of the proposed SA-BA is investigated by an experiment conducted on 21 benchmark problems that are well known in the literature.

Computational results indicate that the proposed SA-BA algorithm is computationally efficient through comparison with other existing algorithms found from the literature according to solution quality. As for the actual computational time, the SA-BA algorithm outperforms others. However, the scaled computational time of the SA-BA algorithm underperforms the other algorithms.

In this work the authors show that the proposed SA-BA is effective as a method for the TTRP problem. To the authors’ knowledge, the BA has not been applied previously, as in this work, to solve the TTRP problem.

The view that dynamic capabilities theory can help explain how lean organizations improve has been put forward by scholars. However, there is still a lack of research on the matching relationship between the application of lean practice and the internal elements of enterprise organization from the perspective of dynamic capabilities. The purpose of this study is to validate the moderating effect of dynamic capabilities on the relationship between lean practices and operational performance.

This study used the method of survey and empirical research to collect sample data from 263 enterprises in China. Through literature review, this study put forward the moderating hypotheses around dynamic capabilities, lean practices and operation performance and used the method of regression analysis to validate these hypotheses.

The results showed that dynamic capabilities have a partially moderating effect on the application of lean practices. Specifically, dynamic capabilities have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between just-in-time, total quality management, total preventive maintenance and operational performance, while dynamic capabilities have no significant moderating effect on the relationship between human resource management and operational performance.

The research conclusion complements and enriches the lean practices literature from the perspective of dynamic capabilities. Existing studies mainly focus on the moderating role of external environmental factors, while there is a lack of empirical research on the role of dynamic capabilities in lean practices literature. The research results will help enterprises further understand the matching relationship between lean practices and dynamic capabilities and then improve the success of lean practices application.

Steered by upper echelon theory, this study aims to scrutinize the prevalence of project manager demographic factors (age, education and experience) in project sustainability management and project performance.

We used a sample of 209 project managers/supervisor/team leaders who were working in the projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The results indicate that project manager demographic factors have a significant influence on project performance (except experience) and project sustainability management. Moreover, project sustainability management partially mediates the relationship between age, education and project performance while it fully mediates the path between experience and project performance.

The research recommends senior, high educated and experienced managers for CPEC who promote sustainability and gain high project performance.

A number of studies have been carried out to assess the relationship between top managers’ attributes and environmental activities. However, so far, none of the studies has paid attention to the CPEC and projects working in Pakistan.

This paper aims to explore the effects of leadership style and trust in leadership on employees’ affective commitment under the epidemic situation.

A total of 580 valid questionnaires were collected online targeting the hospitality and tourism employees working from home during the particular period of the COVID-19 Coronavirus crisis. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data with AMOS software.

The findings indicated that perceived transformational leadership was a positive predictor of trust in leadership and affective commitment. In addition to the positive contribution to commitment, trust in leadership also mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment.

The current study contributes to the literature on leadership and organizational commitment. The results of this study may provide a valuable guide to organizations, leaders and young employees.

变革型领导对员工信任及员工情感承诺的影响研究

本文旨在研究在新冠疫情背景下, 变革型领导对员工信任度以及情感承诺的影响。

本文研究对象为旅游及酒店行业工作人员, 由于新冠疫情, 调查问卷通过线上的方式向居家办公的酒店工作人员进行发放, 调查结束共收集到580份有效问卷, 利用AMOS软件对收集到的数据进行结构方程分析。

本研究发现, 变革型领导对员工组织信任具有正向影响, 员工信任对员工的组织情感承诺具有正向影响, 变革型领导正向影响员工的组织情感承诺, 并且, 变革型领导通过增强员工信任度, 正向影响员工的组织情感承诺, 即员工信任在变革型领导和情感承诺中间起中介作用。

本研究为拓展企业管理领域研究做出了贡献, 本文研究结果验证了相关的领导理论及组织管理理论, 丰富了职业承诺领域的研究, 为组织、领导以及青年员工的职业发展提供了参考借鉴。

Investigación sobre la influencia del liderazgo transformacional en la confianza y el compromiso emocional de los empleados

Este artículo tiene como objetivo estudiar la influencia del liderazgo transformacional en la confianza y el compromiso emocional de los empleados bajo el impacto del Covid-19.

El objeto de investigación de este artículo es el personal del sector turístico y hotelero. Se recogieron un total de 580 cuestionarios válidos y se analizaron los datos recopilados mediante ecuación estructural utilizando el software AMOS.

Esta investigación encontró que el liderazgo transformacional tiene una influencia positiva en la confianza de los empleados, la confianza de los empleados tiene una influencia positiva en el compromiso emocional de los empleados, el liderazgo transformacional afecta positivamente el compromiso emocional de los empleados y la confianza de los empleados juega un papel intermediario entre el liderazgo transformacional y el compromiso emocional.

Esta investigación enriquece la investigación sobre la teoría del liderazgo y el compromiso organizacional, y proporciona una referencia para el desarrollo profesional de organizaciones, líderes y empleados jóvenes.

This study aims to explore a new restaurant category’s development from birth to maturity, thereby explaining the rationale for category innovation strategies.

The authors conducted a qualitative case study analysis of the New Chinese-style Fusion Restaurant category’s development from birth to maturity. Thematic analysis was conducted on data collected from semi-structured interviews and textual information.

A new restaurant category’s maturation is determined by the formation of society’s shared knowledge about the category’s crucial attributes, which is an outcome of market participants’ category-related social practices. The authors develop a novel, four-stage framework for the socialized construction of this shared knowledge: a knowledge creation (KC), knowledge diffusion (KD), knowledge integration (KI) and knowledge structuralization (KS). This knowledge evolution along this KC–KD–KI–KS sequence can holistically describe the category maturation process. This framework can help understand the rationale for a restaurant category’s maturation by analyzing the interrelationships among market participants’ social practices, knowledge-related activities and market development.

This study explains how market participants’ knowledge-related activities facilitate a new restaurant category’s maturation. This can help restaurant managers cope with increasingly homogeneous competition by applying a category-innovation strategy.

This study extends product categorization research on restaurants by articulating a product category’s maturation process from a knowledge perspective.

This study aims to minimize the research gap by finding out what are the current state of knowledge management (KM) in the Chinese private science and technology organizations, the essential factors for promoting KM behaviors and the role of knowledge-oriented leadership in determining employees’ KM behaviors. Specifically, this research attempts to create a theoretical framework, which can be used to facilitate KM implementation in general, in the Chinese context in particular.

Semi-structured interviews with executives, senior managers and specialists were used to capture interviewees’ responses to the research question. The responses were analyzed with Nvivo to detect the obstacles of KM behaviors within Chinese private science and technology organizations.

This study highlights that poor KM behaviors are caused by knowledge-oriented leaders’ weak awareness of the KM values, and also these leaders are not equipped with the necessary knowledge-oriented leadership skills. As a result, there is a lack of knowledge sharing and knowledge inheritance. To respond to the identified KM related issues, while maximizing the KM values, some effective countermeasures focusing on the strategic, managerial as well as operational levels are proposed.

There is a need for knowledge-oriented leaders to recognize the growing significance of KM practices, and to increase the level of awareness of KM values. To achieve such ambition, they need to build a corporate knowledge culture, which promotes knowledge development, application, preservation, sharing and inheritance.

This study contributes to deepening the understandings of the linkage between knowledge-oriented leadership and KM behaviors, which is of great significance to promote the soft power of KM on employees’ attitudes and behaviors.

This study aims to empirically examine knowledge management practices in China with the purpose to provide a holistic view regarding the current status of knowledge management at both national and organizational levels.

Using a survey method, this study collected primary data from organizations across several regions in China. The data were analyzed to detect possible relationships among institutional force, organizational culture and knowledge management process in Chinese organizations. More specifically, to what extent are these relationships moderated by national culture?

While knowledge management practices in China were partly influenced by institutional forces, most of the predicted connections between organizational culture and knowledge management were supported. In addition, the dynamic nature of national culture is predominant, that pervasively influencing knowledge management processes and thus contextualization determines how knowledge is being managed in China. Indeed, the ideologies of relationships and trust are key vehicles for knowledge management in the Chinese organizations.

This study comprehensively reviews existing literature to form an integrative framework, which is under explored in a Chinese context. Such initiative helps scholars and practitioners to gain a full understanding of knowledge management, in general, in the Chinese business environment in particular.

This paper provides a detailed and empirical insight into the knowledge management practices in Chinese organizations and suggests that knowledge management in a distinctive and yet diverse cultural context should be considered with caution.

Hydrostatic thrust bearing is a key component of the vertical CNC machining equipment, and often results in friction failure under the working condition of high speed and heavy load. The lubricating oil film becomes thin or breaks because of high speed and heavy load and it affects the high precision and stable operation of the vertical CNC machining equipment; hence, it is an effective way of avoiding friction failure for achieving the oil film shape prediction

For the hydrostatic thrust bearing with double rectangular cavities, researchers solve the deformation of the friction pairs in hydrostatic bearing by using the computation of hydrodynamics, elasticity theory, finite element method and fluid-thermal-mechanical coupled method. The deformation includes heat deformation and elasticity deformation, the shape of gap oil film is got according to the deformation of the friction pairs in hydrostatic bearing, and gets the shape of gap oil film, and determines the influencing factors and laws of the oil film shape, and achieves the prediction of oil film shape, and ascertains the mechanism of friction failure. An experimental verification is carried out.

Results show that the deformation of the rotational workbench is upturned along its radial direction under the working condition of high speed and heavy load. However, the deformation of the base is downturned along its radial direction and the deformation law of the gap oil film along the radius direction is estimated; the outer diameter is close but the inner diameter is divergent wedge.

The conclusion can provide a theoretical basis for the oil film control of hydrostatic thrust bearing and improve the stability of vertical CNC machining equipment.

This paper aims to explore the psychological process by which front-line employees (FLEs) in hospitality firms make decisions on hiding knowledge.

A qualitative methodology was used, with triangulated data collection from six different types of hospitality firms. By using the thematic analysis approach, a conceptual framework consisting of seven main themes was constructed to reflect the replicable logic of an individual’s knowledge exchange decision-making in various situations.

This study proposes a theoretical framework describing how hotel employees evaluate the cost and benefit of knowledge exchange implicitly. Using this framework, this paper illustrates the strategies that FLEs use to make a bounded-rational decision on knowledge exchange in situations characterized by time constraints and limited information.

Hotel managers can use the psychological process presented in this paper to better understand how FLEs make knowledge-hiding decisions in the workplace. Furthermore, specific measures are suggested to reduce FLEs’ knowledge-hiding behaviors in each stage of their knowledge exchange decision process.

This paper uncovers the psychological process of individuals’ decision-making regarding hiding knowledge from others in the hotel context, thus increasing the understanding of the rationale of FLEs’ knowledge hiding behaviors from the perspective of bounded-rational decision theory.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of clients' trust, opportunism and adaptation on contractual (non)cooperation with a mediating role of coordination in the construction industry.

A questionnaire was used to collect data from employees of the Pakistani construction industry. Smart partial least square (SmartPLS) has been used for analyzing the data of 270 respondents from construction projects.

The results of the SmartPLS indicate that (1) Trust and contract coordination positively while opportunism negatively influence contractor's contractual cooperation. (2) Contract adaptation and contract coordination positively influence the noncontractual cooperation of the contractor. (3) Moreover, contract coordination positively mediates the relationship between trust and noncontractual cooperation, but negatively mediates the relationship between opportunism and contract adaptation and noncontractual cooperation.

The findings of this research suggest several policy implications for administrative authorities, project managers and policymakers. These authorities need to focus on clients' trust, opportunism and adaptation because these factors significantly influence contract coordination and cooperation in the construction industry. Emphasizing these factors will enable project managers to gain economies of scale and mitigate project failure.

To the best of the authors’ search and knowledge, they did not find any study examining the mediating role of coordination between trust, opportunism, adaptation and cooperation in the construction industry. Hence, the present study advances their understanding in the field of project management and construction business.