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This study investigates the mediating role of wage and workforce adjustments, along with the moderating influence of collective bargaining system and employees’ localization, in elucidating the relationship between the COVID-19 shock and workplace employee relations (ER) tension.

Survey data from 1,483 enterprises across 21 prefectural cities in China’s Guangdong Province are collected. The hypotheses are tested by logistic regression.

The study reveals a positive correlation between the COVID-19 shock and workplace ER tension across crisis-hit enterprises, irrespective of their size or industrial sector. Wage reduction and mass layoffs emerge as significant mediators, while the collective bargaining system (CBS) and employees’ localization act as moderators.

The measurement of ER is limited in a single-item scale. Representation of China is also limited since the study exclusively focuses on Guangdong province. The study offers some contributions that firm-level data reveal the pathway through which COVID-19 creates ER tension.

On the one hand, the authors recommend the establishment of an effective communication system between employers and employees. On the other hand, managers should consider the role of informal institutions. Furthermore, the authors suggest implementing tailored strategies at the enterprise level.

Intense external shocks result in widespread layoffs and increased wage reductions within workplaces, and under such circumstances, formal or informal institutions may be insufficient to alleviate ER tension. In this case, the state authorities – including governments and other public agencies or bodies – are necessary to intervene in to organize tripartite dialogue.

While numerous emerging studies on COVID-19 explore how different countries manage industrial relations tension at the national level, few focus on ER at workplace level, particularly in developing countries. Understanding how workplace ER evolve during external shocks and identifying institutional measures to mitigate their negative impact is crucial for future crisis management.

Existing Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms have been relatively well developed. However, when in complex dynamic environments, the movement of the dynamic points on the dynamic objects in the image in the mapping can have an impact on the observation of the system, and thus there will be biases and errors in the position estimation and the creation of map points. The aim of this paper is to achieve more accurate accuracy in SLAM algorithms compared to traditional methods through semantic approaches.

In this paper, the semantic segmentation of dynamic objects is realized based on U-Net semantic segmentation network, followed by motion consistency detection through motion detection method to determine whether the segmented objects are moving in the current scene or not, and combined with the motion compensation method to eliminate dynamic points and compensate for the current local image, so as to make the system robust.

Experiments comparing the effect of detecting dynamic points and removing outliers are conducted on a dynamic data set of Technische Universität München, and the results show that the absolute trajectory accuracy of this paper's method is significantly improved compared with ORB-SLAM3 and DS-SLAM.

In this paper, in the semantic segmentation network part, the segmentation mask is combined with the method of dynamic point detection, elimination and compensation, which reduces the influence of dynamic objects, thus effectively improving the accuracy of localization in dynamic environments.

This study aims to explore the connection between travel content consumption in social networks and social comparison, envy as well as travel intention. It analyzes whether tourists’ travel intention is affected by travel content consumption in social networks, and more importantly, whether social comparison and envy play a mediating role in this process.

Data was collected through intercept in four popular tourist spots in Guangzhou and Zhuhai in South China. A self-administered questionnaire was used. A total of 400 participants were recruited, and 291 valid questionnaires were obtained. Bias-corrected nonparametric percentile bootstrap mediation variable test method was used to test hypotheses.

The study yielded three results. First, travel content consumption in the social networks positively influences travel intention. Second, travel content consumption in social networks indirectly affects travel intention through social comparison and envy. Third, the control variables, such as gender, age, education and income, mainly affect envy.

This study constructs a theoretical framework of stimulus–cognitive appraisal–emotion–behavioral responses. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study to reveal that the internal psychological mechanism of travel content consumption affects travel intention. It also discloses that envy of seemingly negative emotions can encourage positive behaviors in certain situations.

The purpose of this empirical study is to explore the factors that influence college students' intention to engage in online gamified learning in Guangdong and Macao.

This study analyzed 289 valid questionnaires to statistically explore the factors that affect college students' intention to engage in online gamified learning.

The study discovered that extroverted learning style, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment have a positive and significant impact on students' intent to participate. Moreover, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment partially mediate the effect of extroverted learning style on the intention to engage in online gamified learning. Additionally, the impact of perceived usefulness on intention is moderated by different cultural backgrounds, with the moderation effect being stronger for Macao students than for non-Macao students.

This empirical study, based on the technology acceptance model (TAM), explores the factors that influence college students' intention to engage in online gamified learning in Guangdong and Macao and constructs a gamification acceptance model.

There is consensus among scholars on how political institutional imprinting interprets the unique management and practice phenomenon of Chinese enterprises. However, little scholarly attention has been given to the different political institutional imprints that shape firms’ internationalization. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how communist and market logic political institutional imprintings influence firms’ initial ownership strategies in outward foreign direct investment.

Based on the propensity score matching difference in difference method and a sample of 464 foreign investments from 2009 to 2020 for 310 Chinese private firms.

The results show that private firms with market logic political institutional imprintings tend to adopt higher ownership and vice versa. As institutional differences increase, private firms with market logic imprintings are more risk-taking and adopt higher ownership, whereas private firms with communist imprintings are more conservative and choose lower ownership. When diplomatic relations are friendlier, private firms with market logic imprintings prefer higher ownership to grasp business opportunities and vice versa.

This study not only identifies the net effect of political institutional imprinting on private firms’ initial ownership strategy but also investigates the different moderating effects of current institutional forces to respond to the call for research on bringing history back into international business research and the fit between imprinting and the environment.

Downward line extension is a valuable growth strategy that enables multiple products and services to meet diverse customer needs. However, downward extended products launched by high-status brands may be challenged by horizontal extended products launched by relatively low-status brands when these two types of products target similar consumers. This study aims to examine the impact of product type (horizontal extended versus downward extended) on consumers’ purchase intentions, the underlying mechanism and the moderating role of power distance belief.

Four scenario-based experiments were conducted to probe the research questions.

Consumers develop lower purchase intentions for downward (versus horizontal) extended products due to the reduction of perceived fit and self-congruity (Study 1). Beyond that, power distance belief moderates the impact of product type on consumers’ purchase intentions, as a low power distance belief reduces the negative effect of downward line extension (Studies 2a, 2b and 2c). Perceived fit and self-congruity mediate the interaction effect between product type and power distance belief on consumers’ purchase intentions (Study 2c).

This study provides marketing practitioners with guidance on implementing the strategy of downward line extension.

This study serves as a preliminary effort to compare consumers’ responses between downward and horizontal extended products, which deepens the understanding of downward line extension. It also contributes to the body of knowledge about line extension and power distance belief by demonstrating the moderating role of power distance belief in a line extension context.

This paper aims to focus on the high-speed rotary lip seal in aircraft engines, combining its service parameters, its own structure and application conditions, to study the influence of different eccentric forms, eccentricity, rotational speed and other factors on the performance of the rotary lip seal.

A numerical simulation model for high-speed eccentric rotary lip seals has been developed based on the theory of elastic hydrodynamic lubrication. This model comprehensively considers the coupling of multiple physical fields, including interface hydrodynamics, macroscopic solid mechanics and surface microscopic contact mechanics, under the operating conditions of rotary lip seals. The model takes into account eccentricity and uses the hazardous cross-sectional method to quantitatively predict sealing performance parameters, such as leakage rate and friction force.

Eccentricity has a large impact on lip seal performance; lips are more susceptible to wear failure under static eccentricity and to leakage failure under dynamic eccentricity.

This study provides a new idea for the design of rotary lip seal considering eccentricity, which is of guiding significance for the engineering application of rotary lip seal.

At present, the scale of China's floating population has reached 376 million people. Compared with the local inhabitants, the poverty problem of the floating population is more complex, and this problem should also attract the attention of all sectors of society. This paper aims to measure and analyze the multidimensional poverty of the floating population in China.

The data used in this paper are the data of the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) in China. This survey is a large-scale national migratory population sampling survey organized by the China National Health Commission, covering 31 provinces (autonomous regions and cities) and other autonomous regions. This paper uses the dynamic monitoring and Alkire and Foster (A-F) method to study the multidimensional poverty problem of the floating population.

This study finds that income poverty is no longer the main type of poverty faced by the floating population. The multidimensional poverty of the floating population mainly occurs in the social security and education dimensions, of which social security has become the most severe poverty dimension of the floating population. From the perspective of group differences, compared with the floating population in urban areas, the multidimensional poverty of migrant workers is more serious. However, the poverty of migrant workers is mainly concentrated in one-dimensional poverty and two-dimensional poverty.

In the future, the authors should focus on the social security of the floating population in the place of influx and the education of the floating population.

Through the review of the existing literature, the authors find that the current research on the multidimensional poverty of the floating population is mainly concentrated on the migrant worker groups that move from rural areas to urban areas. However, insufficient attention is paid to the urban floating population groups moving between cities.

This paper aims to promote the higher quality development of high-tech enterprises in China. While science and technology have greatly promoted human civilization, resources have been excessively consumed and the environment has been sharply polluted. Therefore, it is particularly important for current enterprises to make use of scientific and technological innovation to maximize the benefits of mankind, minimize the loss of nature, and promote the sustainable development of our country.

By using DEA-Banker-Charnes-Cooper (BCC) model and DEA-Malmquist model, this paper comprehensively examines the innovation efficiency of high-tech enterprises from both static and dynamic perspectives, and conducts a provincial comparative study with the panel data of ten representative provinces from 2011 to 2020.

The research findings are as follows: the rapid number increase of high-tech enterprises in most provinces (cities) is accompanied by an ineffective input–output efficiency; the quality of high-tech enterprises needs to comprehensively examine both input–output efficiency and total factor productivity; and there is not a positive correlation between element investment and innovation performance.

Because the DEA model used in this paper assumes that the improvement direction of invalid units is to ensure that the input ratio of various production factors remains unchanged but sometimes the proportion of scientific and technological activities personnel and the total research and development investment is not constant. In the future, the nonradial DEA model can be considered for further research. Due to historical data statistics, more provinces, cities and longer panel data are difficult to obtain. The samples studied in this paper mainly refer to the provinces and cities that ranked first in the number of national high-tech enterprises in 2020. Limited by the number of samples, DEA analysis failed to select more input and output indicators. In the future, with the accumulation of statistical data, the existing efficiency analysis will be further optimized.

Aiming at the misunderstanding of emphasizing quantity and neglecting quality in the cultivation of high-tech enterprises, this paper comprehensively uses DEA-BCC model and DEA Malmquist index decomposition method to make a comprehensive comparative study on the development of high-tech enterprises in ten representative provinces (cities) from two aspects of static efficiency evaluation and dynamic efficiency evaluation.

Drawing on signaling theory and the “signal transmission–interpretation–feedback” framework, this study explores the effects of perceived distributive justice and respect from managers on nurses' work meaningfulness and work effort in public hospitals in China and examines the moderating role of work self-efficacy.

We collected 341 paired questionnaires for nurses and managers from four public hospitals in China. The data were analyzed by structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analysis.

Distributive justice and managers' respect for employees are positively related to work meaningfulness. Additionally, work self-efficacy negatively moderates this relationship. Work meaningfulness is positively related to work effort and fully mediates the relationships between perceived distributive justice and respect from the manager and work effort.

This study provides useful insights for healthcare organizations to improve nurses' work meaningfulness from the perspectives of their material and emotional needs, according to their work self-efficacy characteristics, thus promoting their work effort. The findings offer important guidance for improving the effectiveness of grass-roots human resources to cope with unpredictable situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study focuses on the organization's environmental factors that affect the primary staff's work meaningfulness. Further, it analyzes the differences in signal interpretation among nurses with different work self-efficacy characteristics, thus providing new insights into work meaningfulness. Through manager–nurse pairing data, it reveals the important role of work meaningfulness in motivating work effort.