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This study investigates into how organizations enable the compatibility between intermediary role of conventional systems with disintermediary potentials of blockchain toward the coordination of multiple actors in operations management.

The data were collected from 31 interviewees of the case organizations. We conduct an in-depth case study of successful BC implementation in operations management, by using affordance-actualization (A-A) theory as the theoretical lens.

This study identifies the incompatibility between the affordances of conventional systems and blockchain in coordination/operations management and offers a process model in which a fusion phase enables the affordances to be compatible and then to be actualized. The fusion phase extends A-A theory by transposing and connecting in the context of operations management. The result also shows that blockchain technology has decentralized potentials to address the issues caused by centralized organizations or information systems, while not to replace the intermediary roles of centralized organizations or information systems.

This study makes important theoretical contributions to the literature on blockchain used in operations management, the roles of blockchain enablement and affordance-actualization theory. The findings can also help IT practitioners to implement BC-based applications effectively.

Trust is the glue that holds cooperative relationships together and often exists in an asymmetric manner. The purpose of this study is to explore how to mitigate the issue of losses or increased transaction costs caused by opportunistic behavior in a soft environment where trust asymmetry is quite common and difficult to avoid.

This study focuses on examining asymmetric trust between the government and the private sector in public-private partnership (PPP) projects. Drawing upon both project realities and relevant literature, the primary conditional variables influencing asymmetric trust are identified. These variables encompass power perception asymmetry, information asymmetry, interaction behavior, risk perception differences and government-side control. Subsequently, through the use of a survey questionnaire, binary-matched data from both the government and the private sector are collected. The study employs fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to conduct a configurational analysis, aiming to investigate the causal pathways that trigger asymmetric trust.

No single conditional variable is a necessary condition for the emergence of trust asymmetry. The pathways leading to a high degree of trust asymmetry can be categorized into two types: those dominated by power perception and those involving a combination of multiple factors. Differences in power perception play a crucial role in the occurrence of high trust asymmetry, yet the influence of other conditional variables in triggering trust asymmetry should not be overlooked.

The findings can contribute to advancing the study of trust relationships in the field of Chinese PPP projects. Furthermore, they hold practical value in facilitating the enhancement of trust relationships between the government and the private sector.

The optimal payment in the whole operation and maintenance period of water environment treatment PPP projects has become the main approach to realize sustainable development of projects. This study is aimed at constructing an effective payment model for the whole life period of projects to achieve win-win among all stakeholders, so as to provide a theoretical reference and managerial implications for the public sector in the whole operation and maintenance period.

In the whole operation and maintenance period of water environment treatment PPP projects, this article investigates how the public sector optimizes the payment in the whole operation and maintenance period of projects. Firstly, the projects' whole operation and maintenance period is divided into several stages according to the performance appraisal period. And then, the multi-stage dynamic programming model is constructed to design the payment construct model for the public sector in each performance appraisal stage. The payment from the public sector is the decision variable, and the deduction from the private sector is a random variable.

The optimal payment model showed that the relatively less objective weight of public sector leaded to its relatively more total payment and vice versa. Therefore, the sustainable development of the projects can only be ensured when the objective weights both of them should be balanced. Additionally, the deduction from the performance appraisal of private sector plays an important role in the model construction. The larger deduction the private sector undertakes, the smaller profits private sector has. Since the deduction at each stage is a random variable, the deduction varies with the different probability distributions obeyed by the practical deduction in each stage.

The findings from this study have provided theoretical and application references, and some managerial implications are also given. First, the improvement of the pricing system of public sector should be accelerated. Second, the reasonable profit of the private sector must be guaranteed. While pursuing the maximization of social benefits, the public sector should make full use of the price sharing mechanism in the market and supervise the real income situation of the private sector. Third is increasing the public to participate in pricing. Additionally, it is a limitation that the deduction is assumed to conform to a uniform distribution in this study. Other probability distributions on deduction can be essentially further sought, so as to be more line with the actual situation of the projects.

The optimal payment in whole operation and maintenance period of the projects has become an important issue, which is a key to project success. This study constructs a multi-stage dynamic programming model to optimize payment in the whole period of projects. Additionally, this study adds its value through deeply developing the new theories of optimal payment to more suitable for the practical problems, so that to optimize the design of payment mechanism. Meanwhile, a valuable reference for public and private sectors is provided to ensure the sustainable development of the projects.

Integrating appraisal theories of discrete emotions with the emotion regulation literature, this study aims to explore the relationships between exploitative leadership and certain types of counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB). Besides, this study seeks to examine the mediating roles of discrete emotions (i.e. anger and fear) and the moderating role of cognitive reappraisal within the proposed relationships.

Based on time-lagged survey data from 440 Chinese employees, this study conducted hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping approach to test the hypotheses.

The results revealed that exploitative leadership was positively related to approach-oriented CWB and avoidance-oriented CWB. In addition, this study found that anger mediated the relationship between exploitative leadership and approach-oriented CWB, whereas fear mediated the relationship between exploitative leadership and avoidance-oriented CWB. Further, cognitive reappraisal buffered the positive effects of exploitative leadership on anger and fear and the indirect effects of exploitative leadership on approach-oriented CWB (via anger) and avoidance-oriented CWB (via fear).

Managers should reduce leaders' exploitation and enhance employees' skills on emotional management and cognitive reappraisal.

First, by verifying the effects of exploitative leadership on both approach-oriented and avoidance-oriented CWB, this study adds to the literature on exploitive leadership and provides a more complete understating of the relationship between exploitative leadership and workplace deviance. Second, this study enriches the understanding of the process through which exploitative leadership affects employees by demonstrating the novel mediating roles of discrete emotions (i.e. anger and fear) through the lens of appraisal theories of discrete emotions. Third, by verifying the moderating role of cognitive reappraisal, this study provides insights into the boundary conditions of the influences of exploitive leadership.