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This research explores the differential effects of pixel-level and object-level visual complexity in firm-generated content (FGC) on consumer engagement in terms of the number of likes and shares, and further investigates the moderating role of image brightness.

Drawing on a deep learning analysis of 85,975 images on a social media platform in China, this study investigates visual complexity in FGC.

The results indicate that pixel-level complexity increases both the number of likes and shares. Object-level complexity has a U-shaped relationship with the number of likes, while it has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the number of shares. Moreover, image brightness mitigates the effect of pixel-level complexity on likes but amplifies the effect on shares; contrarily, it amplifies the effect of object-level complexity on likes, while mitigating its effect on shares.

Although images play a critical role in FGC, visual data analytics has rarely been used in social media research. This study identified two types of visual complexity and investigated their differential effects. We discuss how the processing of information embedded in visual content influences consumer engagement. The findings enrich the literature on social media and visual marketing.

Although the targets of envy have received increasing attention in management research, how envied employees respond to envy remains ambiguous and merits further investigation. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory, this paper aims to reconcile these inconsistent findings by developing and testing a model that elucidates how different types of being envied (i.e. benignly or maliciously) can elicit either favorable or unfavorable motivational and behavioral reactions.

An experience sampling study was conducted on 131 employees across 10 consecutive workdays in China. Focusing on within-person effects, multilevel mediation models using multilevel structural equation modeling were applied.

Results indicated that on days when employees are benignly envied, they engage in more organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) due to increased daily promotion focus. On the contrary, on days when employees are maliciously envied, they participate in more counterproductive work behavior (CWB) due to decreased daily promotion focus.

Organizations and managers should take a more holistic view of workplace envy when considering that envied employees may use OCB to deal with benign envy. Conversely, considering that CWB may emerge from employees who are maliciously envied, it is crucial for managers to be vigilant in discouraging and addressing malicious envy in the workplace.

This paper takes an initial foray into incorporating the concepts of benign envy and malicious envy into the literature on being envied and provides a novel perspective to explain why being envied can lead to both functional and dysfunctional responses.

This study proposes a novel method utilising a speech-word pair bipartite network to examine the correlation structure between members of parliament (MPs) in the context of the UK- China relationship.

We construct MP-word pair bipartite networks based on the co-occurrence relationship between MPs and words in their speech content. These networks are then mapped into monopartite MPs correlation networks. Additionally, the study calculates correlation network indicators and identifies MP communities and factions to determine the characteristics of MPs and their interrelation in the UK-China relationship. This includes insights into the distribution of key MPs, their correlation structure and the evolution and development trends of MP factions.

Analysis of the parliamentary speeches on China-related affairs in the British Parliament from 2011 to 2020 reveals that the distribution and interrelationship of MPs engaged in UK-China affairs are centralised and discrete, with a few core MPs playing an integral role in the UK-China relationship. Among them, MPs such as Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, David Cameron, Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Lord Howell of Guildford formed factions with significant differences; however, the continuity of their evolution exhibits unstableness. The core MP factions, such as those led by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and David Cameron, have achieved a level of maturity and exert significant influence.

The research has several limitations that warrant acknowledgement. First, we mapped the MP-word pair bipartite network into the MP correlation network for analysis without directly analysing the structure of MPs based on the bipartite network. In future studies, we aim to explore various types of analysis based on the proposed bipartite networks to provide more comprehensive and accurate references for studying UK-China relations. In addition, we seek to incorporate semantic-level analyses, such as sentiment analysis of MPs, into the MP-word -pair bipartite networks for in-depth analysis. Second, the interpretations of MP structures in the UK-China relationship in this study are limited. Consequently, expertise in UK-China relations should be incorporated to enhance the study and provide more practical recommendations.

Firstly, the findings can contribute to an objective understanding of the characteristics and connotations of UK-China relations, thereby informing adjustments of focus accordingly. The identification of the main factions in the UK-China relationship emphasises the imperative for governments to pay greater attention to these MPs’ speeches and social relationships. Secondly, examining the evolution and development of MP factions aids in identifying a country’s diplomatic focus during different periods. This can assist governments in responding promptly to relevant issues and contribute to the formulation of effective foreign policies.

First, this study expands the research methodology of parliamentary debates analysis in previous studies. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study the UK-China relationship through the MP-word-pair bipartite network. This outcome inspires future researchers to apply various knowledge networks in the LIS field to elucidate deeper characteristics and connotations of UK-China relations. Second, this study provides a novel perspective for UK-China relationship analysis, which deepens the research object from keywords to MPs. This finding may offer important implications for researchers to further study the role of MPs in the UK-China relationship.

This study proposes a novel scheme for analysing the correlation structure between MPs based on bipartite networks. This approach offers insights into the development and evolving dynamics of MPs.

This study aims to improve the maneuverability and stability of four-wheel chassis in a small paddy field; a front axle swing steering four-wheel chassis with optimal steering is designed.

When turning, the front inner wheel stops and the rear inner wheel is in the following state. The hydraulic drive system of the walking wheel adopts a driving mode in which two front-wheel motors are connected in series and two rear wheel motors in parallel. The chassis uses a combination of a gasoline engine with a water cooling system, a CVT continuously variable transmission and a hydraulic drive system to increase the control capability. The front axle rotary chassis adopts a step-less variable speed engine and a hydraulic control system to solve the hydraulic stability of the chassis in uphill and downhill conditions so as to effectively control the over-speed of the wheel-side drive motors. Through the quadratic orthogonal rotation combination design test, the mathematical models of uphill and downhill front-wheel pressures and test factors are established.

The results show that the chassis stability is optimal when the back pressure is 0.5 MPa, and the rotating slope is 4°. The uphill and downhill pressures of the front wheels are 2.38 MPa and 1.5 MPa, respectively.

The influence of external changes on the pressure of hydraulic motors is studied through experiments, which lays the foundation for further research.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the environmental efficiency level and trend of the transportation sector in the upper–mid–downstream of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the JingJinJi region in China and assess the effectiveness of policies for protecting the low-carbon environment.

This study uses the meta-frontier slack-based measure (SBM) approach to evaluate environmental efficiency, which targets and classifies specific regions into regional groups. First, this study employs the SBM with the undesirable outputs to construct the environmental efficiency measurement models of the four regions under the meta-frontier and group frontiers, respectively. Then, this study uses the technology gap ratio to evaluate the gap between the group frontier and the meta-frontier.

The analysis reveals several key findings: (1) the JingJinJi region and the downstream of the YEB had achieved the overall optimal production technology in transportation than the other two regions; (2) significant technology gaps in environmental efficiency were observed among these four regions in China; and (3) the downstream region of the YEB exhibited the lowest levels of energy consumption and excessive CO₂ emissions.

To evaluate the differences in environmental efficiency resulting from regions and technological gaps in transportation, this study employs the meta-frontier model, which overcomes the limitation of traditional environmental efficiency methods. Furthermore, in the practical, the study provides the advantage of observing the disparities in transportation efficiency performed by the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei regions.

Based on the density dependence theory, this paper attempts to explore how two types of interdependence among firms located in the same national high-tech zones (NHTZs) – mutualism and competition – affect entrepreneurship in the NHTZs. The authors suggest that increasing firm density can help enhance legitimacy and form mutual networks. However, as the competition becomes fierce, the above positive relationship will weaken when the firm density exceeds a certain level. In addition, the authors are interested in whether the age of NHTZs would affect their sensitivity to legitimacy and competition and whether firm density affects entrepreneurship.

This article formulates two hypotheses from the theoretical deduction. The hypotheses are examined using the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with a unique, unbalanced panel dataset of Chinese NHTZs spanning from 2014 to 2021. Considering potential endogeneity risk among the variables, the authors attempt to lag variables and ultimately find the results are still robust.

Drawing upon the density dependence theory, the empirical results show firm density is conducive to promoting entrepreneurship, while the positive relationship between community density and NHTZs' entrepreneurship gradually weakens as the firm density surpasses a certain level. The dynamics between mutualism and competition have different impacts on NHTZs' entrepreneurship. In addition, the results demonstrate that the linkage between firm interdependence and entrepreneurship is stronger for younger NHTZs. Firm density has an impact on entrepreneurship through legitimacy and excessive competition effects.

On the one hand, the research period of this paper is 2014–2021, as the China Torch Statistical Yearbook only started to publish operating revenues in 2014, so the data period of this paper is relatively short. More research can be done in the future when more data is disclosed. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis cannot be conducted because of the limited data and materials. In future research, the qualitative analysis of entrepreneurial activities in NHTZs, such as questionnaires or case studies, needs to be supplemented, which will be an interesting direction.

Most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs.

Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs.

First, this paper provides new evidence on how agglomeration affects entrepreneurship from an ecological perspective with the help of mutualism and competition interdependence. Most studies have explored the role of agglomeration in entrepreneurship, focussing on social networks, knowledge spillovers or resource endowments (Acs et al., 2013; Capozza et al., 2018; Yu, 2020). Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs. Second, the emphasis of science parks has been primarily on qualitative or case studies (Salvador et al., 2013; Guo and Verdini, 2015; Xie et al., 2018). We have diversified the quantitative research between agglomeration and entrepreneurship by using panel data from Chinese NHTZs from 2014 to 2021. Third, most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs. Finally, this paper meticulously investigates the profound influence and underlying mechanisms of firm density within NHTZs on entrepreneurship. It discerns two distinct mechanisms at play: the legitimacy effect and the impact of excessive competition resulting from firm density. This comprehensive analysis significantly contributes to our comprehension of the intricate interplay between firm density and entrepreneurship, shedding light on the dynamics of competition and mutual benefits.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether COVID-19 had an impact on the brand equity of the Top 100 global brands in the Americas, European and Asian regions over the three years of assessment (2020–2022).

A secondary data method (document scanning) was used to gather the study’s data from Brand Finance’s Global 500 annual reports from 2019 to 2022. The data for this study was analysed using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. The data were subjected to a descriptive test and one-way analysis of variance.

The findings showed that most of the Top 100 global brands from the Americas, Europe and Asia experienced little or no impact due to COVID-19. Thus, no significant differences were found to exist among the Top 100 global regional brands due to COVID-19 in the years 2020 and 2021. However, there is a significant difference in 2022 due to its small effect size.

The findings of this paper contribute to brand equity literature and global branding literature in the context of COVID-19. This paper innovatively frames brand equity and provides guidelines to help brands sustain their financial-based brand equity during a worldwide crisis.

Studies have shown that customer orientation has a substantial impact on a business's success. This study examines the effects of positive personality on salespeople's proactive customer orientation (PCO) and responsive customer orientation (RCO) by incorporating the effects of job enthusiasm and transformational leadership.

A questionnaire survey is conducted. A total of 511 questionnaires are received from Taiwan's life insurance salespeople. Partial least squares (PLS) regression is used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that positive personality influences PCO and RCO both directly and indirectly through job enthusiasm. The effect of transformational leadership is also found to be significant. Financial service companies should be concerned about the important role of positive personality and transformational leadership in promoting job enthusiasm, PCO and RCO among salespeople.

Previous studies mostly focused on the direct relationship between customer orientation and organizational outcomes, neglecting the role of individual personality. This gap leaves us wondering how a positive personality influences a salesperson's proactive and responsive customer orientation. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the mechanisms of a positive personality, job enthusiasm, and transformational leadership on salespeople's PCO and RCO.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the friction reduction performance and mechanism of granular flow lubrication during the milling of difficult-to-machining materials and provide a high-performance lubrication method for the precision cutting of nickel-based alloys.

The milling tests for Inconel 718 superalloy under dry cutting, flood lubrication and granular flow lubrication were carried out, and the milling force and machined surface quality were used to evaluate their friction reduction effect. Furthermore, based on the energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) spectrums and the topographical features of machined surface, the lubrication mechanism of different granular mediums was explored during granular flow lubrication.

Compared with flood lubrication, the granular flow lubrication had a significant force reduction effect, and the maximum milling force was reduced by about 30%. At the same time, the granular flow lubrication was more conducive to reducing the tool trace size, repressing surface damage and thus achieving better surface quality. The soft particles had better friction reduction performance than the hard particles with the same particle size, and the friction reduction performance of nanoscale hard particles was superior to that of microscale hard particles. The friction reduction mechanism of MoS₂ and WS₂ soft particles is the mending effect and adsorption film effect, whereas that of SiO₂ and Al₂O₃ hard particles is mainly manifested as the rolling and polishing effect.

Granular flow lubrication was applied in the precision milling of Inconel 718 superalloy, and a comparative study was conducted on the friction reduction performance of soft particles (MoS₂, WS₂) and hard particles (SiO₂, Al₂O₃). Based on the EDS spectrums and topographical features of machined surface, the friction reduction mechanism of soft and hard particles was explored.

Abusive supervision provokes subordinates’ interpersonal deviant behavior. It is, therefore, essential to explore the contingent factors of this relationship. Drawing upon gender role theory, this study aims to explore how subordinate and leader genders moderate the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinate interpersonal deviance. Furthermore, this study posits a three-way interaction effect of abusive supervision with leader and subordinate genders on interpersonal deviance.

Multisource survey data were collected from 45 supervisors and 170 subordinates in eight companies in China. The data were analyzed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS.

The results showed that the positive relationship between abusive supervision and interpersonal deviance was stronger among female leaders than male leaders. Furthermore, the authors found a three-way interaction effect between abusive supervision and leader and subordinate genders on subordinates’ interpersonal deviance. Compared with female subordinates, male subordinates engaged in significantly more interpersonal deviance when experiencing abusive supervision from a female leader than from a male leader.

The authors reveal that gender differences exist in the effect of abusive supervision on subordinates’ interpersonal deviant behavior. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that subordinate and leader genders jointly influence the effect of abusive supervision. Finally, the findings extend the literature on gender’s moderating effects from constructive and neutral leader behaviors to destructive leader behaviors.