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This study aims to investigate the impact of seaport efficiency on economic growth in Ghana over the period 2006–2020.

Comprehensive methodology, diverse data analysis techniques, including Augmented Dickey–Fuller tests, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) modeling and Granger Causality, were applied to explore the intricate relationship between Seaport Efficiency and Economic Growth.

The findings reveal a statistically significant and positive association between seaport efficiency and GDP, underscoring the crucial role of efficient seaport operations in actively stimulating economic growth. Beyond seaport efficiency, influential factors such as capital, human capital, knowledge spillover and productive capacities were identified, contributing to the dynamics of economic growth.

The Granger Causality Test solidifies seaport efficiency as a robust predictor of GDP fluctuations, emphasizing its significance in economic forecasting. Notably, this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge with its nuanced exploration of the intricate relationship between seaport efficiency and economic growth in the specific context of Ghana.

This study’s implications extend beyond academia, offering invaluable guidance for policymakers and planners. It serves as a comprehensive roadmap for informed decision-making, emphasizing the pivotal role of efficient seaports in charting a trajectory for enduring and resilient economic progress in the nation.

While the broader theme has been explored in existing literature, the uniqueness of this study lies in its specific application to the Ghanaian context. The choice of Ghana, a nation where maritime transport handles over 90% of trade, underscores the significance of understanding seaport efficiency in this regional and economic setting. The study’s originality is reinforced by incorporating diverse economic variables, aligning with recommendations for a comprehensive analysis of factors influencing port performance.

The purpose of this paper is to review the four large and two small fluctuations in China’s economic growth since the reform and opening up, which can be further divided into five periods of economic upturn and six periods of economic downturn.

This paper also analyzes the performance, causes and practical countermeasures of these fluctuations and summarizes the experience and lessons from the eight aspects of dealing with economic downturn and stabilizing growth since the reform and opening up.

At last, the paper puts forward some measures to cope with economic downturn and stabilize growth under the new normal in the new era.

Any country’s economic growth is a tortuous process with many fluctuations. The rate of economic growth cannot rise or go down straight for a long time, and China’s economic growth is no exception. The drastic fluctuations of economic growth can lead to serious overproduction, waste of resources, increased unemployment, decreased income or supply shortages, rising prices and decline of living standards.

This study aims to take advantage of the unprecedented anti-corruption campaign launched in China in December 2012 and examine the effect of improved public governance on tunneling.

This study uses a sample of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange listed companies from 2010 to 2014 and conduct regression analyses to investigate the effect of improved public governance attributed to the anti-corruption campaign on tunneling.

This study finds that the level of tunneling decreased significantly after the anti-corruption campaign, suggesting that increased public governance effectively curbs tunneling. Cross-sectional results show that this mitigating effect is more pronounced for non-SOE firms, especially non-SOE firms with political connections, firms audited by non-Big 8 auditors, firms with a large divergence between control rights and cash flow rights and firms located in areas with lower marketization.

This study highlights the importance of anti-corruption initiatives in improving public governance and in turn reducing tunneling. This study provides important implications for many other emerging economies to improve public governance.

This study contributes to the literature on the role of public governance in constraining corporate agency problems and advances the understanding of the economic consequences of China's anti-corruption campaign in the context of tunneling.

An emerging line of research examining the role of numerological superstition in the capital market shows that it has significant impact on investor behavior (Bhattacharya, Kuo, Lin, & Zhao, 2018; Hirshleifer, Jian, & Zhang 2018). However, to the authors’ best knowledge, there is a dearth of evidence on whether numerological superstition affects corporate behavior. This study fills this void by examining the association between investors’ numerological superstition and earnings management using Chinese data.

Chinese culture views 6 and 8 as lucky numbers. Using Chinese publicly traded firms, the authors examine the relation between investors’ numerological superstition and corporate financial reporting behavior.

The results suggest that firms reporting lucky earnings-per-share (EPS) numbers ending with 6 or 8 are more likely to engage in earnings management. These firms also raise more capital through seasoned equity offerings in the following year; however, they do not have more capital investments. Instead, their controlling shareholders siphon a significant amount of capital through related party transactions. Overall, the findings suggest that managers collude with controlling shareholders to manage earnings by exploiting the superstitious beliefs of minority shareholders.

To the authors’ best knowledge, there is a dearth of evidence on whether numerological superstition affects corporate behavior. This study fills this void by examining the association between investors’ numerological superstition and earnings management using Chinese data.

This paper comprehensively addresses the influence of chopped strand mat glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) patch configurations such as geometry, dimensions, position and the number of layers of patches, whether a single or double patch is used and how well debonding the area under the patch improves the strength of the cracked aluminum plates with different crack lengths.

Single-edge cracked aluminum specimens of 150 mm in length and 50 mm in width were tested using the tensile test. The cracked aluminum specimens were then repaired using GFRP patches with various configurations. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element method (FEM) was adopted to simulate the repaired cracked aluminum plates using composite patches to obtain the stress intensity factor (SIF). The numerical modeling and validation of ABAQUS software and the contour integral method for SIF calculations provide a valuable tool for further investigation and design optimization.

The width of the GFRP patches affected the efficiency of the rehabilitated cracked aluminum plate. Increasing patch width WP from 5 mm to 15 mm increases the peak load by 9.7 and 17.5%, respectively, if compared with the specimen without the patch. The efficiency of the GFRP patch in reducing the SIF increased as the number of layers increased, i.e. the maximum load was enhanced by 5%.

This study assessed repairing metallic structures using the chopped strand mat GFRP. Furthermore, it demonstrated the superiority of rectangular patches over semicircular ones, along with the benefit of using double patches for out-of-plane bending prevention and it emphasizes the detrimental effect of defects in the bonding area between the patch and the cracked component. This underlines the importance of proper surface preparation and bonding techniques for successful repair.

The study aims to investigate the consumers' behavioral intention toward green hotels. The tendency of individuals to afford green hotels is further escalating with progressing coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic recurring waves. The increased worry of consumers toward health, hygiene and the climate is acquiring momentum and transforming how consumers traditionally perceive green hotels.

The study has recommended an integrated framework incorporating various research fields as attitude-behavior-context theory, theory of planned behavior (TPB) and moderating influences to study the associations among the antecedents of consumers' behavioral intention toward green hotels. The study comprised the participation of 536 respondents residing in the Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR) of India. The data analysis strategy involved the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to test the proposed research framework.

The results and findings of the study indicated a significant influence of fear and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and environmental concern on green trust. The results also revealed the considerable impact of green trust on willingness to pay premium, attitude and subjective norms, which significantly influenced behavioral intention. The analysis also revealed the moderating influence of environmental concern in the relationship of green trust and behavioral intention.

The study has recommended significant theoretical. The theorists may use this research framework to analyze better the transforming consumer behavior trends toward green hotels in the ongoing fearful and uncertain COVID-19 pandemic scenario.

The study has recommended significant managerial implications. The industry practitioners may also utilize the framework to sustain the hotel business and bring new strategic insights into practice to combat the impact of the pandemic and simultaneously win consumers' trust in green hotels.

Although the researchers have previously emphasized consumers' intention toward green practices embraced by hotels, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the green hotel industry gained noticeable attention from researchers. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of literature providing insights on the behavioral dynamism of hotel customers' trust, attitude and willingness to pay for green hotels during the repetitive waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will support the existing literature gap by enlightening the associations among the various antecedents of green hotels' behavioral intention, COVID-19 and environmental concern.

Using a sample of 9,898 firm-year observations from 1,821 unique Chinese listed firms over the period from 2004 to 2019, this study aims to investigate whether the market rewards meeting or beating analyst earnings expectations (MBE).

The authors use an event study methodology to capture market reactions to MBE.

The authors document a stock return premium for beating analyst forecasts by a wide margin. However, there is no stock return premium for firms that meet or just beat analyst forecasts, suggesting that the market is skeptical of earnings management by these firms. This market underreaction is more pronounced for firms with weak external monitoring. Further analysis shows that meeting or just beating analyst forecasts is indicative of superior future financial performance. The authors do not find firms using earnings management to meet or just beat analyst forecasts.

The authors provide evidence of market underreaction to meeting or just beating analyst forecasts, with the market's over-skepticism of earnings management being a plausible mechanism for this phenomenon.

The findings of this study are informative to researchers, market participants and regulators concerned about the impact of analysts and earnings management and interested in detecting and constraining managers' earnings management.

The authors provide new insights into how the market reacts to MBE by showing that the market appears to focus on using meeting or just beating analyst forecasts as an indicator of earnings management, while it does not detect managed MBE. Meeting or just beating analyst forecasts is commonly used as a proxy for earnings management in the literature. However, the findings suggest that it is a noisy proxy for earnings management.

The literature review aims to facilitate a broader understanding of on-demand service platform operations management and proposes potential research directions for scholars.

This study searches four databases for relevant literature on on-demand service platform operations management and selects 72 papers for this review. According to the research context, the literature can be divided into research on “a single platform” and research on “multiple platforms”. According to the research methods, the literature can be classified into “Mathematical Models”, “Empirical Studies”, “Multiple Methods” and “Literature Review”. Through comparative analysis, we identify research gaps and propose five future research agendas.

This paper proposes five research agendas for future research on on-demand service platform operations management. First, research can be done to combine classic research problems in the field of operations management with platform characteristics. Second, both the dynamic and steady-state issues of on-demand service platforms can be further explored. Third, research employing mathematical models and empirical analysis simultaneously can be more fruitful. Fourth, more research efforts on the various interactions among two or more platforms can be pursued. Last but not least, it is worthwhile to examine new models and paths that have emerged during the latest development of the platform economy.

Through categorizing the literature into two research contexts as well as classifying it according to four research methods, this article clearly shows the research progresses made so far in on-demand service platform operations management and provides future research directions.

Starting from the theoretical mechanism of profit sharing between finance and the real economy, this paper reviews and analyzes the profitability of China's banking industry and makes a horizontal comparison with the banking industry of the United States, Japan, and Germany.

Based on the panel threshold model, it is found that there is a dual-threshold asymmetric effect between banking profit and the growth of real economy. When the net profit rate of the banking industry is lower than 0.491%, the increase in banking profitability will inhibit the growth of real economy due to profit grabbing; when the rate falls within the range of 0.491–0.801%, the increase in bank profitability is conducive to the growth of real economy.

Finance and the real economy are in the most comfortable symbiotic state; when the rate is higher than 0.801%, the continued increase in bank profitability will weaken the promotion effect of finance on the real economy, but bank profitability and the growth of real economy are still in a symbiotic state of positive promotion.

The promotion effect of China's bank profitability to the growth of real economy has shifted from the suboptimal state to the optimal range as a whole, which is attributed to the strong deleveraging and strict supervision of the Chinese government after 2016, the timely and decisive “stepping on the brakes”, pulling the financial sector back from the “illusion” caused by “self-circulated” profits and preventing it from harming the real economy.

The purpose of this paper is to study the participation behaviors in the context of crowdsourcing projects from the perspective of gamification.

This paper first proposed a model to depict the effect of four categories of game elements on three types of motivation based upon several motivation theories, which may, in turn, influence user participation. Then, 5 × 2 between-subject Web experiments were designed for collecting data and validating this model.

Game elements which provide participants with rewards and recognitions or remind participants of the completion progress of their tasks may positively influence the extrinsic motivation, whereas game elements which can help create a fantasy scene may strengthen intrinsic motivation. Besides, recognition-kind and progress-kind game elements may trigger the internalization of extrinsic motivation. In addition, when a task is of high complexity, the effects from game elements on extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation will be less prominent, whereas the internalization of extrinsic motivation may benefit from the increase of task complexity.

This study may uncover the motivation mechanism of several different kinds of game elements, which may help to find which game elements are more effective in enhancing engagement and participation in crowdsourcing projects. Besides, as task complexity is used as a moderator, one may be able to identify whether task complexity is able to influence the effects from game elements on motivations. Last, but not the least, this study will indicate the interrelationship between game elements, individual motivation and user participation, which can be adapted by other scholars.