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This paper sets out to explore the proposition that building competences is more effective than privatisation and restructuring to improve performance in the Chinese chemical industry.

Case study research has been undertaken in the Chinese chemical industry. The two case companies provide representative data on the factors under investigation. The case investigations that are described were complemented by a survey, the results of which have been reported elsewhere.

Results obtained from the research show that privatisation of Chinese state‐owned enterprises is not always an effective strategy to improve performance. In the case study companies, the development of core competences was more effective in enhancing performance.

The research results are limited by the scope of the study, which was carried out in the Chinese chemical industry. They are also based on in‐depth case investigations in only two companies, but are supported by a large‐scale survey reported elsewhere. The results have implications for academic researchers interested in China's privatisation programme.

The research has practical implications for companies outside China that are considering collaborative operations with Chinese companies or investing in joint ventures. It also has implications for suppliers or customers of Chinese companies.

The paper is based on original case study investigations carried out in Chinese enterprises and is supported by a survey of representative companies in China's chemical sector. Value is derived from understanding the basis of improved performance in the companies studied.

This study aims to compare Chinese students' educational and career trajectories in Japan and Australia and to explore the factors that have influenced their choices that shaped their trajectories.

The authors applied the push-pull and life planning models to compare the factors that shaped the Chinese students' trajectories in Japan and Australia. The mixed-method approach was adopted by combining the result of 353 questionnaire responses and ten semi-structured interviews of Chinese international graduates to understand the factors influencing their decision-makings when choosing a study destination, a workplace and a place for settlement. The authors also interviewed six human resources managers of local companies to understand how Chinese international graduates are evaluated in the host country's labor market.

When choosing a study destination, cultural interest and inexpensive tuition fees are the pull factors for Japan, while family and friends' recommendations are strong motivations in choosing Australia. After graduation, utilization of capacity/specialty is a pull factor to work in Japan, while the prospect of promotion, good living environment and consideration for spouse/parents/children are the pull factors for Australia. Chinese graduates in Australia have stronger aspiration to remain in their study destination.

Since there are few cross-national studies on international students' trajectories, this study filled the research gap by comparing the trajectories of Chinese students in Japan and Australia and clarifying the factors that shaped them.

The purpose of this study is to provide insights into value creation within a newspaper consumption community, adding to current information research by demonstrating how an atypical consumption community can co-create value in ways different from those identified in extant research. The upheaval of the newspaper industry’s business model and value chain in the face of digitalisation has led to significant decreases in newspaper revenue. To stay successful in the modern digital climate, it is essential for newspapers to utilise the interactive features of Web 2.0 to find new value sources. To do so, it is necessary to focus not just on tangible financial value but also symbolic value. The study supports the notion that consumers collectively co-create value through consumption community practices.

Through the conduction of a netnographic exploration of active consumers on the Guardian website and interviews with passive consumers, the study’s aims of understanding co-creation in digitally facilitated newspaper consumption environment were achieved.

The findings have opened up new ways in which newspapers can harness value through consumption communities as well as suggesting the future scope of research. This study indicates that newspapers foster an atypical environment for the creation of a cohesive consumption community – something that has failed to be appreciated in extant information research – because their diverse content influences the formation of multiple community pools with members who do not always share the same beliefs. In addition, the study reveals that the Guardian’s online consumption community co-creates value without strict adherence to the prescribed contingencies set out in current literature. The findings uncover new patterns in community behaviour proving value to be created not just through their co-consumption but also through individual consumption.

This study contributes to discussions on how communities co-create value and how this differs with different article subjects (lifestyle and political and types of participants, both active and passive).

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and impact of higher education institution (HEI) in a distributed, open innovation system using a survey of some 600 firms in the UK.

Primary data are used from a postal questionnaire survey of 600 firms across three UK regions: Wales, the North West and the East of England.

The analysis reveals significant differences in firm collaboration with HEIs across the UK and the value and impact that such collaborations have on firm development. The nature and effects of such collaboration vary significantly between the type of firm involved and their location and the analysis investigates this in relation to various aspects of innovative activity and firm performance.

Although much of the nature and effects of such collaboration are as one would expect, some of the results are counter‐intuitive and highlight the care we should place on assessing the role of universities and other HEIs in open innovation systems.

The objective of this paper was to systematically review published studies to determine if disability limits access to health care and to attempt to identify what body functions, structures and activities and participation, as well as contextual factors (environmental and personal factors), interact with the health condition to limit this access. The AMED, CINAHL, EMBASE, Medline and psychINFO databases were searched for original study articles in English, dating from 1974 to 2008. Review articles and expert opinion were excluded. Each study had two independent reviews by either a general practitioner or specialist in rehabilitation medicine. Each study was critically appraised according to the National Service Framework for Long‐term Conditions (Department of Health, 2005a) methodology and recorded on standardised data extraction sheets. Studies of poor quality were excluded. Sixty studies were included. No randomised controlled trials were identified. Studies broadly fell into the following three main groups: database studies (n=27), quantitative surveys (n=20) and qualitative interviews (n=13). Disabled people are restricted in accessing health care and report less satisfaction with their medical care. Many of the identified studies were from the United States (US) and based on subjective reporting. More objective evidence is needed, especially in the UK, to clarify the true level of access to health care in people with disabilities. The complex, interdependent factors in providing health care to disabled people require complex solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether customer-company identification (CCI) can transfer from one organization to the next within the context of service alliances.

A between-subjects experiment using a fictitious alliance and a field study focused on a real alliance tests identification transfer at the time of a service alliance announcement and while the service alliance is in operation.

Identification transfer is enabled by an exclusive service alliance but not an inclusive one. For identification transfer to be maintained, customers must perceive the companies as a coherent group (i.e. high entitativity) and have close physical proximity to the alliance.

By drawing heavily on self-categorization theory for the proposed effects, the current research provides a new theoretical framework to the service and brand alliance literature that contrasts with the attitude-based theories commonly used. Furthermore, the current research explores how company-company relationships influence CCI whereas most research has focused on characteristics of the customer-company relationship. These two differences suggest service alliances provide more value to the companies and customers than currently realized.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of a teacher leadership academy (TLA) organized through a school district/university partnership in a small, US Suburban School District in increasing teachers’ participation in leadership activities.

TLA participants (n=11) were surveyed using the Teacher Leadership Activities Scale, and their results were compared to a control group of teachers in the district who were not participating in the TLA (n=12). Interviews and open-ended response items provided qualitative data to examine how the TLA contributed to teachers’ growth as leaders.

Results indicated that teachers in the TLA did increase participation in teacher leadership activities. Qualitative data revealed themes of many espoused benefits from TLA participation, including increased interactions with administrators, improved understanding of the obstacles associated with implementing changes, and expanded leadership capacity.

Conditions that both enhanced and detracted from teacher leaders’ growth were identified and outlined, including formal leaders’ participation in TLA activities, material support for projects, and a supportive atmosphere (enhancers) and administrative roadblocks and the inability to remediate capacity issues for teacher leaders (detractors).

The conditions outlined above will assist those interested in creating TLAs in doing so with purpose and increased chance for buy in and success.

The global energy industry transports supplies and personnel via helicopter to offshore locations and is increasingly focusing on optimizing upstream logistics. This paper aims to and achieves a mutually beneficial balance between research and practice by providing generalizable methods to a problem routinely encountered in practice. Overall, the development and execution of the heterogeneous capacitated helicopter routing problem with split deliveries and multiple depots is validated by the networks’ results.

Using a unique sample of deepwater and ultra-deepwater permanent offshore locations in the Gulf of Mexico, transportation networks consisting of 57 locations operated by 19 firms are optimized via a randomized greedy algorithm. The study’s randomized greedy algorithm yields depot assignment, vehicle assignment, passenger assignment and routing. All data processing techniques and iterative algorithm processes are defined and explained.

Results show that the model effectively solves the complex transportation networks consisting of subject firms’ offshore nodes and eligible depots. Specifically, average load factors related to seat capacity and effective vehicle capacity of 87.7 and 95.7% are realized, respectively. The study’s model is a unique contribution to the extant literature and provides researchers and practitioners a practical approach to model development and solution deliverance.

The extant literature encompasses works that inadequately observe the complexity associated with the transportation of personnel. Specifically, this research, unlike many works in the extant literature, uses a heterogeneous versus homogeneous fleet, includes multiple depots versus a single depot and allows split deliveries. Also, the current research ensures all relevant aircraft capabilities and limitations are observed. In particular, the paper takes into account vehicles’ seat capacities, effective capacities via maximum gross takeoff weights and reserve fuel requirements. The current model, which is built upon a heterogeneous capacitated helicopter routing problem with split deliveries and multiple depots (HCHRPSDMD), sufficiently provides a practical approach to model development and solution deliverance while promoting future research endeavors. Future research may use these findings for other geographical regions and similar transportation networks and could adopt firm-specific actual cost parameters instead of the estimated average hourly costs of operating different helicopters. Furthermore, future endeavors may employ other techniques for the derivation of solutions. Future works may be enhanced with actual cost data in lieu of estimations. In the current study, cost data were not available; however, estimations do not inherently proscribe sound interpretations of the models’ outputs. Also, future research endeavors including manual method results may enable comparative results to establish cost variance analysis. Although the current study is, to some extent, limited, the practicality for practitioners and contribution to researchers is comprehensible. Due to the idiosyncrasies and complexity prevalent in modern transportation networks, optimization is and will continue to be a rich opportunity for implementation and research.

As described by previous researchers, energy firms may more efficiently use their contracted aircraft via implementation of a decision-making mechanism for passenger assignment, aircraft selection, depot selection and aircraft routing. Most energy firms possess numerous and spatially segregated offshore facilities and, therefore, are unable to efficiently and effectively make such decisions. Ultimately, the efficient use of firms’ contracted helicopters can enhance profitability via reduced costs without compromising operational performance. Reduced costs are likely to be realized by a potential workforce or workload reduction, reduced flight hours and enhanced bargaining power with commercial helicopter operators. Specifically, enhanced bargaining power may be realized as a result of minimized depots from which the aircraft are operated and an overall reduction of aircraft via increased asset utilization. In essence, the efficient use of commercial helicopters may yield systemic efficiencies that can be shared among all stakeholders, contracting energy firms and commercial helicopter operators. The achievement of operational efficiencies, ultimately, may determine the realization of target performance or solvency of a plethora of firms in the future (Krishnan et al., 2019).

For economies, communities and industries depending on crude oil and natural gas production, people’s livelihoods are significantly impacted due to price fluctuations (Rostan and Rostan, 2020; Solaymani, 2019). Based on a unique set of inputs and outputs, the International Energy Agency region (IEA), which includes the current study’s sample set, was found to achieve greater overall production efficiency relative to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) (Ohene-Asare et al., 2018). Therefore, enhanced logistics efficiency within the energy industry’s transportation sector across the globe is reasonably likely. For countries relying on these commodities’ exportation, production efficiency is and will continue to be a priority. With limited resources available in industry and society, efficiency is prone to yield advantageous results for all stakeholders. Furthermore, in the context of this study, a reduction of carbon dioxide and noise pollution in air, above water and on land will contribute to society’s drive to protect the environment and preserve our natural resources for future generations.

The current study represents the lone or one of few research endeavors to evaluate the heterogeneous capacitated helicopter routing problem with split deliveries and multiple depots. Furthermore, research pertaining to transportation via helicopter in the Gulf of Mexico’s offshore basin is unprecedented. Lastly, this work yields actionable knowledge for practitioners while enhancing current and promoting future research endeavors.

Research in tourism and hospitality industry marketing has identified many highly effective applications of social media. However, studies in the existing literature do not enable a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon because they lack a theoretical foundation. Therefore, this study systematically reviewed the literature from the perspective of the task-technology fit (TTF) theory. The purpose of this paper is to map out what is known about social media use in tourism and hospitality marketing and what areas need further exploration.

A descriptive cumulative review of the literature obtained 99 articles published in tourism and hospitality journals from 2010 to 2019.

The analysis suggests that to understand social media use in tourism marketing, researchers and practitioners in the industry must clarify the following four issues: the control variables, longitudinal analyzes and TTF concepts that should be used in future studies; the fitness of social media platforms for tourism marketing; how various social media platforms differ in terms of performance outcome; and the digital divide in the use of social media for tourism.

An integrated framework was developed to identify constructs and to understand their relationships. Recent studies in this domain are discussed; theoretical and practical suggestions and implications for future research are given.

The purpose of this paper is to examine British policy towards Hong Kong from the protests of 2019 through political controversies in 2020.

The paper offers a foreign policy analysis based on a chronological account of the public interventions made by London from April 2019 to the passage of the national security law in the middle of 2020. It discusses the factors which contributed to the UK's positions and looks in more detail at an issue which relates to the British colonial legacy: the status of British National (Overseas) passport holders.

The paper argues that the UK's policy was influenced by a combination of factors: developments in Hong Kong, the implications of and perceptions about its historical position as the former colonial power, the growing influence of lobby groups in the UK and Hong Kong (especially in agenda setting), and (to a lesser extent) the UK's wider relations with China. In trying to balance these, British policy tended to be reactive rather than strategic. London generally took positions sympathetic to the protest movement and political opposition, characterised in the paper as “soft partisanship”, shifting to clear opposition to Beijing's approach when the National Security Law was announced.

The paper helps to understand international policy towards Hong Kong.

The paper offers the first account of British policy towards Hong Kong during this period and adds to the limited existing literature on the UK's Hong Kong policy over recent years. This case study sheds light on wider questions of international perceptions of developments in Hong Kong during a tumultuous period in the city's history and informs broader studies of foreign policymaking.