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This paper aims to draw on the network perspective of organizational innovation to present an argument on how a subsidiary should select innovation behavior.

In this framework, the paper analyzes middle- and high-level managers of subsidiaries from various industries located in the Chinese Mainland.

The results suggest the following ideas: internal embeddedness is positively related to exploitation innovation, external embeddedness is inverted-U related to exploration innovation, the availability of alternatives positively moderates the main effects, whereas restraint in the use of power negatively moderates them.

The current study has a few limitations that provide meaningful research directions for future investigations. First, it only considers the industry and ownership as control variables. Second, this study was conducted in the Chinese context.

The analysis of the relationship between embeddedness and innovation behavior also shows that focal subsidiary must dynamically adjust the way of embeddedness on the basis of its strategy, and it can reasonable leverage strategic assets for exploitation innovation or exploration innovation. From the perspective of headquarters, establishing deep embeddedness with a subsidiary and giving it indispensable support are important to promote that subsidiary’s exploitation innovation.

The focal subsidiary should establish relationships with more alternative partners and develop relationships with power-advantaged partners through strategies such as a long-term contract, establishing an R&D alliance and entering a joint venture. Besides this, more powerful partners in the internal network should adopt various power usage strategies to promote focal subsidiary exploitation innovation and more powerful partners in the external network should show restraint in the use of power toward any subsidiary in an over-embedded situation. The result shows environment dynamism affects subsidiary exploration innovation more deeply than exploitation innovation. Consequently, managers should recognize the importance of dynamic adaptation to environmental changes and adjust their firms’ innovation behavior accordingly, especially when they are implementing an exploration innovation strategy.

The extent of embeddedness in an innovation network shapes the subsidiary innovation behavior, and this effect is moderated by power. The focal subsidiary should dynamically and strategically adjust its innovation behavior considering various its type and level of embeddedness.

The paper aimed to summarize innovative rules of Chinese manufacturing enterprises, and put forward some insights in optimal allocation of innovation resources and enhancing the capability of indigenous innovation, so as to overcome the innovation dilemma.

Having diagnosed the current research of innovation flows, the authors defined the concept and stated characteristics of mainstream and new‐stream innovation. Innovation life cycle theory and technology trajectory theory were used to map two evolution patterns of mainstream and new‐stream innovation. It took weeks to stay in firms to obtain original data and interview managers, engineers, and mechanists. From the case study the authors proposed the improvement projects and opportunities for firms to overcome the “innovation dilemma”.

In the indigenous innovation process, enterprises should breed new‐stream innovation as they strengthen the mainstream innovation, view the new‐stream technology as the innovation direction, and fulfill the constant innovation in the convergent innovation and replace evolution process. Meanwhile, enterprises should take precautions both to expand and develop, and fulfill technology transition and innovation upgrade through convergent innovation. Furthermore, firms' convergent innovation, which will finally achieve the “projects‐talents‐products‐markets” collaborative innovation, should be clear about target market and project‐oriented, take the product as the carrier, and be committed to cultivate creative talents and innovative teams.

This paper enriches the existing theory on indigenous innovation by introducing the new concept of mainstream and new‐stream innovation. The findings would help firms to jump out from the innovation morass.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate significant impact of partner similarity on the success of horizontal alliances in logistics service providers (LSPs) from China.

Primary data were collected via questionnaire distribution to 380 Chief Executive Officers and Managing Directors in 262 small and medium logistics enterprises in China. There are 316 valid questionnaires for further analysis with 83 percent accuracy in response rate. Structural equation modeling was used to test the impact of partner similarity on alliance management capability, stability and performance.

Partner similarity and logistics alliance management capability (LAMC) are positively correlated to alliance stability and performance in horizontal alliances among Chinese LSPs, especially competence similarity and cultural similarity. Moreover, alliance stability mediates the impact of partner similarity and LAMC on alliance performance.

The basic limitation of this research is to collect data just from small and medium logistics enterprises that operate in China with sample size (n=316). This research could further be extended to other regions in China or other countries.

This research verifies the positive relationship between partner fit and management capability. Besides, based on research findings, the research proposes guidelines for LSPs pursuing horizontal alliances

This research proposes an experimental model for Chinese LSPs to cooperate successfully and build horizontal alliances in order to increase their effective customer response capability.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a robust correntropy assisted blind channel estimator for multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) for improved channel gains estimation and channel ordering and sign ambiguities resolution in non-Gaussian noise channel.

The correntropy independent component analysis with L₁-norm cost function is used for blind channel estimation. Then a correntropy-based method is formulated to resolve the sign and order ambiguities of the channel estimates.

Simulation study on Gaussian noise scenario shows that the proposed method achieves almost the same performance as the conventional L₂-norm based method. However, in non-Gaussian noise scenarios performance of the proposed method significantly outperforms the conventional and other popular estimators in terms of mean square error (MSE). To solve the ordering and sign ambiguities problems, an auto-correntropy-based method is proposed and compared with the extended cross-correlation-based method. Simulation study shows improved performance of the proposed method in terms of MSE.

This paper presents for the first time, a correntropy-based blind channel estimator for MIMO-OFDM as well as simulated comparison results with traditional correlation-based methods in non-Gaussian noise environment.

Low levels of human capital in rural China are rooted in the poor schooling outcomes of elementary school students. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the distribution of academic performance in rural China and identify vulnerable groups.

The authors draw on a data set of 25,892 observations constructed from 11 school-level surveys spanning nine provinces and one municipality in China conducted from 2013 to 2015.

The authors find that the distribution of academic performance is uneven across provinces and subgroups. In general, male students, Han, living in richer counties, living with their parents and studying in rural public schools do better academically than female students, non-Han, living in poorer counties, left behind and studying in private migrant schools in cities.

Using the results of this study, policymakers should be able to better target investments into rural education focusing on at risk subpopulations.

With limited data sources, the research on the academic performance of students in rural China is largely absent. The findings of this study help to fill the gaps in the literature base.

Because of the properties of loess, the occurrence of collapse following deformation of a large settlement is a common problem during the excavation of tunnels on loess ground. Hence, risk management for safer loess tunnel construction is of great significance. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of factors on collapse risk of loess tunnels and establish a risk assessment model using rough set theory and extension theory.

The surrounding rock level, groundwater conditions, burial depth, excavation method and support close time were selected as the factors and settlement deformation was the verification index for risk assessment. First, using rough set theory, the influence of risk factors on the collapse risk of loess tunnels was calculated by researching engineering data of excavated sections. Then, a collapse risk assessment model was developed based on extension theory. As the final step, the model was applied to practical engineering in the Loess Plateau of China.

The weights of surrounding rock level, groundwater conditions, burial depth, excavation method and support close time obtained using rough set theory were respectively 10.811 per cent, 18.919 per cent, 24.324 per cent, 40.541 per cent and 5.406 per cent. The assessment results obtained using the model were in good agreement with field observations.

This study highlights key points in collapse risk management of loess tunnels, which could be very useful for future construction methods. The model, using easily obtained parameters, helps in predicting the collapse risk level of loess tunnels excavated under different geological conditions and by different construction organizations and provides a reference for future studies.