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This study aims to explore the conditional relationships between supplier involvement and financial performance. From a problem-solving perspective, this study takes the focal firm as a problem-solving system. It is postulated that supplier involvement enhances financial performance by helping solve complex problems of new product development. Furthermore, product modularity and smartness are considered contingent factors to clarify the boundary conditions.

The ordinary least squares regression was conducted to test the hypotheses based on survey data from 136 high-tech firms in China.

Supplier involvement is positively related to financial performance. Product modularity weakens the impact of supplier involvement on financial performance. Furthermore, product smartness strengthens the negative influence of product modularity on the relationship between supplier involvement and financial performance.

This study combines supplier involvement with product attributes. It takes a problem-solving perspective to rethink suppliers’ roles in new product development as problem-solvers rather than resource holders. Furthermore, this study advances the encapsulation effects of product modularity and smartness to influence the supplier involvement–financial performance link.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nuanced effects of downstream complexity on supply chain resilience, based on portfolio theory and normal accident theory. Intelligent manufacturing is considered to clarify their boundary conditions.

The ordinary least squares regression was conducted, based on the data collected from 136 high-tech firms in China.

Horizontal downstream complexity has a positive effect on supply chain resilience significantly, while the negative impact of vertical downstream complexity on supply chain resilience is not significant. Contingently, intelligent manufacturing plays a negative moderating role in the relationship between horizontal downstream complexity and supply chain resilience, while it positively moderates the relationship between vertical downstream complexity and supply chain resilience.

This study disentangles the nuanced effects of both horizontal and vertical downstream complexity on supply chain resilience, based on portfolio theory and normal accident theory. It also clarifies their boundary conditions by considering the focal firm's intelligent manufacturing level as the contingent factor.

As an effective mode to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) raise working capital, supply chain finance has recently gained extensive attention. The purpose of this paper is to explore the intrinsic mechanism of how both weak and strong ties in the supply chain network impact the supply chain financing performance (SCFP) of SMEs from the perspective of the supply chain network.

Based on the extended resource-based perspective, this paper proposes a theoretical model to explain the mode in which strong ties and weak ties of SMEs in the supply chain network influence SCFP through both physical distribution flexibility and demand management flexibility. Based on data from 182 manufacturing firms in China, this paper uses multiple regression analysis to test hypotheses.

The results of this paper indicate that weak ties improve SCFP more effectively than strong ties. Furthermore, both physical distribution flexibility and demand management flexibility exert different mediating roles either between strong ties and SCFP or between weak ties and SCFP. Moreover, the effect of physical distribution flexibility and demand management flexibility on SCFP of SMEs is not reinforced.

This paper highlights the importance to expand supply chain finance research from the perspective of the supply chain network. In particular, this paper explores the poorly understood mediating effect both physical distribution flexibility and demand management flexibility exert on the relationship between network ties and the SCFP of SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the individual effects of boundary-spanning search from suppliers (supplier-side search (SS)). It is proposed that SS contributes to innovation ambidexterity (IA) and then business performance (BP). Further, this paper includes buyer–supplier relationships (BSRs) and competitive intensity (CI) as moderators to clarify boundary conditions.

An ordinary least squares regression was employed to test hypotheses, based on 184 sets of data from Hong Kong manufacturing firms. The SPSS version of PROCESS was utilized.

The results show that IA partially mediates the relationship between SS and BP. Contingently, the direct effect is negatively moderated by BSRs and CI.

This paper confirms the partial mediating effect of IA on the relationship between SS and BP. Additional mediators, such as organizational innovation and marketing innovation, can be examined in the future.

This paper contributes to practice by suggesting that suppliers are a rewarding single source for firms to undertake boundary-spanning search. IA plays a significant role in reinforcing the effects of SS on BP and should be implemented with sustaining efforts. BSRs and CI can be detrimental and should be responded to cautiously.

This paper highlights the individual effects of SS on BP. Furthermore, the underlying process and boundary conditions are analyzed. The exploitation-exploration framework is applied throughout the entire study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance impact of supplier involvement, based on the knowing processes and contingencies of knowledge-based view. Ambidextrous innovations (i.e. exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation) are taken as intermediary processes. Furthermore, product smartness is considered to clarify boundary conditions.

The ordinary least squares regression was conducted, based on the two-source data collected from 125 high-tech firms in China.

Ambidextrous innovations positively mediate the relationship between supplier involvement and financial performance. Product smartness weakens the indirect impact via exploratory innovation but not exploitative innovation.

This study reveals the knowledge application and recombination mechanisms of ambidextrous innovations to mediate between supplier involvement and financial performance. It also highlights digital encapsulation function of product smartness as a contingent factor.

This study is based on knowledge-based view to examine the relationships among buyer–supplier interaction, ambidextrous innovation and business performance. It includes competitive intensity and dysfunctional competition to clarify boundary conditions.

The ordinary least squares regression was conducted to test hypotheses. The survey data were collected from 182 Hong Kong manufacturing firms.

Buyer–supplier interaction facilitates ambidextrous innovation, namely exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation. In turn, exploitative innovation enhances business performance, whereas exploratory innovation has no influence on business performance. Competitive intensity strengthens while dysfunctional competition weakens the impact of buyer–supplier interaction on ambidextrous innovation.

This study is based on the knowing processes of knowledge-based view. It contends that business performance is derived from ambidextrous innovation, which depends on the utilization of acquired supplier knowledge and the influence of external competitive environment. The test of relationships is constrained by the single-source and cross-sectional data.

Firms should engage in buyer–supplier interaction to acquire and utilize supplier knowledge. Meanwhile, they should monitor competitive environment to seize opportunities and avoid threats.

This study builds a holistic framework for buyer–supplier interaction, which reconciles the mixed arguments by distinguishing its effects on ambidextrous innovation, and by clarifying boundary conditions in terms of competitive intensity and dysfunctional competition.

The purpose of this study is to examine how cloud computing assimilation reduces supply chain financing (SCF) risks of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study also investigated the mediating roles of internal and external supply chain integration between cloud computing assimilation and the SCF risks of SMEs, as well as the moderating role of environmental competitiveness.

Data was collected from surveys of SMEs located in China. Multiple regression analysis was used to validate the proposed theoretical model and research hypotheses.

The findings show that cloud computing assimilation could reduce the SCF risks of SMEs directly. The results also indicate that both internal and external supply chain integration mediate the relationship between cloud computing assimilation and SCF risks. Furthermore, environmental competitiveness inhibits the effects of cloud computing assimilation on SCF risks.

To our best knowledge, this is the preliminary study to explore the role of cloud computing assimilation in reducing the SCF risks of SMEs. Also, this study attempted to investigate the process by which cloud computing assimilation affects the SCF risks of SMEs.

The modeling cost of the gradient-enhanced kriging (GEK) method is prohibitive for high-dimensional problems. This study aims to develop an efficient modeling strategy for the GEK method.

A two-step tuning strategy is proposed for the construction of the GEK model. First, an auxiliary kriging is built efficiently. Then, the hyperparameter of the kriging model is served as a good initial guess to that of the GEK model, and a local optimal search is further used to explore the search space of hyperparameter to guarantee the accuracy of the GEK model. In the construction of the auxiliary kriging, the maximal information coefficient is adopted to estimate the relative magnitude of the hyperparameter, which is used to transform the high-dimension maximum likelihood estimation problem into a one-dimensional optimization. The tuning problem of the auxiliary kriging becomes independent of the dimension. Therefore, the modeling efficiency can be improved significantly.

The performance of the proposed method is studied with analytic problems ranging from 10D to 50D and an 18D aerodynamic airfoil example. It is further compared with two efficient GEK modeling methods. The empirical experiments show that the proposed model can significantly improve the modeling efficiency without sacrificing accuracy compared with other efficient modeling methods.

This paper developed an efficient modeling strategy for GEK and demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method in modeling high-dimension problems.

In this paper, the effects of geopolymer adhesive, the number of CFRP layers and the width of pre-crack on the flexural performance of reinforced concrete beams strengthened with CFRP were studied, and the flexural capacity of strengthened beams was calculated theoretically.

Reinforced concrete beams were strengthened with CFRP by geopolymer adhesive, and flexural load tests were conducted to observe the reinforcement effect. Based on the method of calculating the flexural capacity of reinforced concrete beams, a theoretical calculation model on the flexural capacity of reinforced concrete beams strengthened with geopolymer adhesive bonded CFRP was established.

The test data shown the flexural capacity of epoxy resin adhesive CFRP strengthened reinforced concrete beams is 7.76% higher than that geopolymer adhesive is used. The flexural capacity of reinforced concrete beams strengthened with three layers of CFRP is 1.86% higher than that two layers are adopted. The mean ratio of the test data and the calculation results of the flexural capacity is 0.973, and the mean square error is 0.008. It can be seen that the test data are in good agreement with the theoretical value.

This paper provides data support for the popularization and application of the new environment-friendly reinforcement technology, contributes to the cause of environmental protection, and provides a new method for strengthening reinforced concrete beams.