Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present a crack initiation mechanism of the external hydrogen effect on type 304 stainless steel, as well as on fatigue crack propagation in the presence of hydrogen gas.

The effects of external hydrogen on hydrogen-assisted crack initiation in type 304 stainless steel were discussed by performing fatigue crack growth rate and fatigue life tests in 5 MPa argon and hydrogen.

Hydrogen can reduce the incubation period of fatigue crack initiation of smooth fatigue specimens and greatly promote the fatigue crack growth rate during the subsequent fatigue cycle. During the fatigue cycle, hydrogen invades into matrix through the intrusion and extrusion and segregates at the boundaries of α′ martensite and austenite. As the fatigue cycle increased, hydrogen-induced cracks would initiate along the slip bands. The crack initiation progress would greatly accelerate in the presence of hydrogen.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is an original work carried out by the authors on the hydrogen environment embrittlement of type 304 stainless steel. The effects of external hydrogen and argon were compared to provide understanding on the hydrogen-assisted crack initiation behaviors during cycle loading.

This paper aims to use intellectual thinking to solve the problem of how to carry out collaborative governance of the academic ecological environment.

This paper selected academic ecosystem, academic ecological environment and academic ecological governance as three keywords to collect literature data. The hot issues on the academic ecological environment and its governance system in China are analyzed, with visualization software such as Citespace, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and other literature metrology tools.

The previous research literature cannot fully explain the governance mechanism of the academic ecological environment. In this paper, the authors use the way of group cooperation thinking in the crowd science category, to build a collaborative governance framework of the academic ecological environment from the national level, the institutional level and the individual level, taking full advantage of the in-depth analysis on crowd intellectual thinking.

The authors use the way of group cooperation thinking in the crowd science category, to build a collaborative governance framework of academic.

This study examined a curvilinear and moderated relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative performance in a real-world setting by drawing from the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect and the substitutes for leadership perspectives.

We used multisource data collected from 232 employees and their immediate supervisors to test all hypotheses.

We found empirical support for an inverted U-shaped relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative performance. Moreover, job factor (i.e. job formalization) and individual differences (i.e. power distance) moderated the curvilinear relationship, such that the curvilinear relationship was more pronounced with lower job formalization or higher power distance of employees.

Our findings shed light on the inconsistent reports of transformational leadership's effects on employee creativity in previous studies. We extended substitutes for leadership perspective by providing a more systematic view for future research on how leadership and its substitutes jointly influence employee outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how analyst recommendation change is associated with a firm’s magnitude of strategic change.

This study argues that unfavorable analyst recommendation change serves as a powerful external assessment that current strategies are inappropriate and that changes are needed. This study also incorporates the moderating roles of CEO power and board’s informal hierarchy in the relationship between analyst recommendation change and firm’s magnitude of strategic change. Results from a sample of 824 observations generally support our predictions.

The findings of this study show that the greater the analysts downgrade for the company’s stock, the larger the magnitude of strategic change will be made. This study also considers the moderating roles of CEO power and the clarity of board’s informal hierarchy. In particular, the higher the CEO power, the weaker the relationship between analyst recommendation change and the magnitude of strategic change will be. The higher the clarity of board’s informal hierarchy, the more positive the relationship between analyst recommendation change and the magnitude of strategic change will be.

It extends research on the external predictors of strategic change by incorporating the role of unfavorable analyst recommendation change. In addition, it contributes to institutional theory by showing how external legitimacy pressure and internal corporate governance tool complement each other.

As megaprojects bear extensive and profound social responsibilities throughout the project life cycle, formulating effective measures for improving construction enterprise social responsibility is key to project success. Given the current research is relatively lack of these measures, this study aims to formulate a meta-network framework to improve the megaproject social responsibility behaviour (MSRB) for construction enterprises.

First, this study implements literature review, expert interview and field investigation to identify the construction enterprise MSRB and its influencing factors. Second, this study evaluates the MSRB implementation level of the selected construction enterprises and proposes the above mentioned meta-network framework. Next, this meta-network is configured to reflect the impact of MSRB strategic adjustment. Last but not least, a real-world case study is carried out to validate this framework.

The best MSRB performance is always witnessed from the contractor group, followed by the project client group and the site supervisor group. The outcomes of implementing certain managerial strategies indicate that (1) social responsibility cognition is a critical factor for all the groups; (2) communication mechanism and normative pressure are the critical factors for clients; (3) coercive pressure is a critical factor for supervisors and (4) cultural cognitive pressure is a critical factor for clients and contractors.

The use of the framework in proactive assessment and management of MSRB can lead to effective strategies for construction enterprises to increase the efficiency and quality of projects.

Drawing upon person–supervisor fit theory, a model is developed to illustrate how leader–member trait mindfulness (in)congruence may impact leader–member exchange (LMX) and how such trait mindfulness (in)congruence can indirectly influence taking charge.

Polynomial regression and response surface methodology are used to analyze 237 valid matched leader–member dyads.

LMX increases as leaders' and members' trait mindfulness become more aligned; LMX is higher when leader–member dyads are congruent at high levels (vs low levels). In the case of incongruence, LMX is higher when the member's trait mindfulness exceeds that of the leader. Furthermore, the relationship between leader–member trait mindfulness (in)congruence and taking charge is mediated by LMX.

The joint and interactive role of high trait mindfulness in leader–member dyads can help them to generate high-quality interpersonal exchange, as well as to cope with challenges posed by present and future changes.

The linear, nonlinear, simultaneous and interactive effects of dyadic trait mindfulness expand previous research, clarifying that the evaluation of leader–member congruence and incongruence at various degrees, and for various patterns of trait mindfulness, is more informative than examining the direct effect alone.

This study investigates business model innovation in small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) and its impact on firm growth.

The study was based on analyzing data collected through a questionnaire survey. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses.

Business model innovation has a positive effect on SME growth in the manufacturing sectors. Moreover, growth is also achieved through the indirect effect of business model innovation on customer trust and commitment.

Managers will benefit from understanding how business model innovation can help their companies to overcome resource constraints and achieve sustained growth. When manufacturing SMEs engage in modular or structural changes to their business model, they may find it worthwhile to focus on maintaining a relationship of trust and commitment with their customers.

This study highlights business model innovation as a unique and important, yet underexplored, factor in manufacturing SME growth. The findings also untangle the complex processes of customer relationship management by which business model innovation improves manufacturing competitive advantage for SMEs.

The alienation of megaproject environmental responsibility (MER) behavior is destructive, but its mechanism has not been clearly depicted. Based on fraud triangle theory and the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method, this study explored the combined effect of antecedent factors on alienation of MER behavior.

Based on the fraud triangle theory and literature review, eight influencing factors associated with the alienation of MER behavior were first identified. Subsequently, the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis was used in this study to reveal configurations influencing alienation of MER behavior.

The study found nine configurations of MER behavioral alienation antecedent factors, integrated into three types of driving modes, i.e. “economic pressure + learning effect,” “institutional defect + moral rejection,” and “information asymmetry + economic pressure + expectation pressure.”

By analyzing the configuration effects of various induced conditions, this study puts forward a comprehensive analysis framework to solve the alienation of MER behavior in the megaprojects and a practical strategy to control alienation of MER behavior.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between information integration, supply chain capabilities and credit quality of small and middle enterprises (SMEs) in supply chain finance (SCF).

Grounded in the resource-based view (RBV) and signaling theory, this study proposes a theoretical model. Then, structural equation modeling and interview analysis are employed to test the theoretical model.

The results show that both two aspects of information integration, namely, information technology and information sharing, have positive effects on the SMEs’ credit quality in SCF, and these effects are mediated by supply chain capabilities.

First, the paper contributes to SCF literature by simultaneously examining the role of two dimensions of information integration (information technology and information sharing) in enhancing SMEs’ credit quality. Second, this paper enriches the existing theoretical research on SCF by integrating the SMEs perspective and SCF service provider perspective. Moreover, this paper explores the indirect effects of information integration on SMEs’ credit quality by incorporating supply chain capabilities as a mediating factor.

With the yearly increase of mileage and passenger volume in China's high-speed railway, the problems of traditional paper railway tickets have become increasingly prominent, including complexity of business handling process, low efficiency of ticket inspection and high cost of usage and management. This paper aims to make extensive references to successful experiences of electronic ticket applications both domestically and internationally. The research on key technologies and system implementation of railway electronic ticket with Chinese characteristics has been carried out.

Research in key technologies is conducted including synchronization technique in distributed heterogeneous database system, the grid-oriented passenger service record (PSR) data storage model, efficient access to massive PSR data under high concurrency condition, the linkage between face recognition service platforms and various terminals in large scenarios, and two-factor authentication of the e-ticket identification code based on the key and the user identity information. Focusing on the key technologies and architecture the of existing ticketing system, multiple service resources are expanded and developed such as electronic ticket clusters, PSR clusters, face recognition clusters and electronic ticket identification code clusters.

The proportion of paper ticket printed has dropped to 20%, saving more than 2 billion tickets annually since the launch of the application of E-ticketing nationwide. The average time for passengers to pass through the automatic ticket gates has decreased from 3 seconds to 1.3 seconds, significantly improving the efficiency of passenger transport organization. Meanwhile, problems of paper ticket counterfeiting, reselling and loss have been generally eliminated.

E-ticketing has laid a technical foundation for the further development of railway passenger transport services in the direction of digitalization and intelligence.