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Wool, mainly composed of keratin, is a relatively high-grade clothing material. Although woollen textile has the advantages of high wearing comfort and excellent warmth retention property as we have known, its inherent disadvantage of easy pilling has easy puzzled people for a long time. Most of the existing technologies for pilling resistance are not eco-friendly or severely damaged the internal structure of wool.

In this work, a controlled and effective surface treatment method was proposed to controllable micro-dissolution the scale layers of wool with minor damage to its internal structure, thereby improving the anti-pilling property of wool. Thiourea dioxide (TD) is used as a dissolving agent to swell and dissolve wool surface flakes. After TD treatment, the morphology changes of wool fibers were observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and methylene blue staining. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize the structural changes of TD wool. At the same time, the anti-pilling properties and wettability of wool fabrics were tested.

The results show that the wool scale layer is destroyed after TD treatment, which reduces the friction between fibers and improves the anti-pilling performance of wool fabrics. The methylene blue-stained images further demonstrate that low concentrations of TD can damage the superficial scale layer of wool without significant loss of strength.

This method is simple, eco-friendly and economical, and opens up a new direction for the surface treatment of wool fabrics.

Employee Stock Options are the most widely used incentive compensation tool, and prior research has shown their advantages. However, research among different peer groups, different time frames, different research methodologies, and the constantly changing public opinion prevents unanimous agreements on the various benefits of Employee Stock Options. In this paper we apply a number of research hypotheses tested in recent US studies to a European sample of EuroStoxx 50 companies. Due to the globalisation, the similar accounting regulations and the IT and telecommunications revolu tions, Europe and the United States have grown closer together than ever before and are expected to display similar business practices. This assessment should be especially relevant for the large European companies, which mostly have a dual listing in the United States and are therefore essentially forced to manage according to American practices. How ever, the results differ significantly from the existing US research, providing insufficient grounds to accept previous findings for European companies.

Based on Kansei Engineering, this study obtained consumers' emotional preferences aiming to enhance the emotional connection between consumers and clothing to extend the service life of clothing and realize sustainable clothing design.

Six Kansei word pairs that are the most important to consumers were identified through literature reviews, magazines, websites, card sorting of consumers and cluster analysis. Finally, the consumers scored the 32 product specimens through a 5-level rating semantic differential scale questionnaire of six Kansei word pairs. The researchers verified the consumers' emotional preferences through principal component analysis and established the relationship between Kansei words and design elements of color through partial least squares.

The study found consumers' emotional preferences: elegant, minimalist, formal, casual, mature, practical and distinctive style. Besides white, black, gray, blue, consumers will also like red and yellow-red in the future. The crucial findings of this study are to get recommended guidelines that consumers' emotional preferences match the corresponding design elements.

The study's findings can be used to style the design of men's plain-color shirts and guide online marketers and designers to design apparel that meets consumers' emotional needs to develop consumers' sustainability reliance on clothing. This study also explains the overall process and methodology for integrating consumer preferences and product design elements.

Community colleges are an under-recognized but vital component of higher education. Public two-year colleges provide a foundation for baccalaureate degree attainment, educate a skilled math and science workforce, and support local economic development. Our research, which examines women STEM faculty at community colleges, highlights the role of gender in reproducing advantages and disadvantages within the academy.

Data were collected by face-to-face interviews with 27 women faculty at nine community colleges in Ohio. We utilized semi-structured interviewing techniques to examine key dimensions such as decision-making leading to employment in two-year institutions, perceived advantages and disadvantages of such work, job satisfaction, and challenges to balancing career and family.

Results indicate considerable satisfaction among women faculty members, but contradict a popular stereotype that work at community colleges is easier for women with families. Despite relative parity in terms of occupational composition, pay, and tenure, community colleges are gendered in that they lack formal programs, institutionalized support, and leadership opportunities to support women.

Adjunct faculty play an important role in higher education but are underrepresented in our sample. Future research is needed to examine the unique situation of part-time faculty.

Community colleges are uniquely poised to contribute to improving gender equality for women in STEM. Understanding community colleges and the academic careers of women in STEM employed by these institutions is a vital step in our nation’s efforts to develop systemic approaches to increase representation and advancement of women in STEM careers.

Drawing on theories of social information processing and social identity, the authors explore how abusive supervision climate affects team creativity in a Chinese cultural context. The authors propose that this relation will be mediated by collective efficacy and group identification and moderated by task interdependence

The study conducted a confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression to analyze the paired data from 67 research and development (R&D) teams involving 378 employees and employers in a Chinese cultural context.

Results demonstrate that abusive supervision climate was negatively related to team creativity, fully mediated by collective efficacy and group identification in a Chinese cultural context. In addition, task interdependence strengthened the positive relation between collective efficacy and team creativity, as well the positive relation between group identification and team creativity.

Although research has explored how abusive supervision climate influences individual creativity, few studies have investigated the relation between abusive supervision climate and team creativity in a Chinese cultural context. This study is one of the first to explore how abusive supervision climate affects team creativity in a Chinese cultural context and examine the moderating role of task interdependence in the relation between abusive supervision climate and team creativity.

This chapter looks at the sex trade in Japanese society and the manner in which it has been accepted for decades, both socially and legally, as a ‘necessary evil’. This passive and disinterested tolerance of the industry's quasi-legal state, neither banning prostitution completely nor ensuring that it follows the transparent rules and regulations expected of other industries, means that it fails to satisfy either of the primary views on transactional sex: prohibition or legalisation. The result is that the women involved in the industry are subject to various forms of exploitation and abuse that the Japanese government, by failing to take active steps to reform the industry in either direction, becomes complicit to. Shaped by personal interviews with members of the industry and the NGOs that provide them with support, the chapter provides an examination of the industry's historical development, its portrayal in popular media and the prevailing social norms regarding the industry. It then assesses the political and legal responses to the industry and the glaring oversights that exist in their failure to provide adequate support. Finally, it considers, based upon the self-expressed interests of the women working in the industry, in what areas meaningful reform might occur.

The aim of the paper is to theoretically and empirically explore the issue of well-being (WB) of female administrative employees who work on managerial positions at higher education institutions (HEIs).

This study is based on both literature studies and explorative empirical research conducted in Poland with the use of snowball sampling. It adopted a questionnaire authored by Parker and Hyett and covered 121 respondents.

Literature studies show that invisibility of work, low level of empowerment, increased stress, workload and expectations, reduced resources, high level of anxiety, fatigue and low level of vitality negatively impact the WB of HEIs’ administrative staff. The presented research provides insight into the internal structure of the administrative staff’s WB. Both the main construct (i.e. employees’ WB) and its subconstructs are on moderate level. Respondents’ age and tasks performed are correlated only with the subconstruct of WB in the form of intrusion of work into private life.

Although the research is not based on large sample, it provides both practical and theoretical implications.

Most of studies discuss the issue of WB of scholars. The paper fills the research gap in terms of examining female administrative employees who work on managerial positions at HEIs.

Triggered by the extensive use of social media brand communities (SMBCs) in interactive marketing, this article aims to explore how brand connectedness (BC) affects consumer engagement behavior (CEB) in SMBCs.

The research model was verified with the partial least squares structural equation modeling applied to the actual data collected from the web crawling largest microblogging platform in China (Sina Weibo).

Results indicate that BC may positively influence consumer emotions (CEs), eventually leading to engagement behavior in SMBCs. In addition, gender and duration of membership act as vital moderators in the model. One of the most interesting findings is the differences between posting and commenting, although both are CEBs. BC has a more significant effect on commenting than posting, and the mediating effect of CEs between BC and posting behavior is not significant.

This research contributes to the literature on interactive marketing by examining BC in the context of SMBCs, which is under-researched in the literature but is highly pertinent to social media contexts. Moreover, we measure BC through social network analysis for the first time, which not only supports the empirical work but also expands the social network theory and social capital theory. This research also extends the body of knowledge on consumer engagement by investigating the differences between posting and commenting behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some specific, current social phenomena in China that may influence consumers’ ethical beliefs and practices, focusing on how some top-down, social and political changes could shape consumer behavior that needs to be understood in the Chinese context.

Extensive literature was critically reviewed to explore recent macro-societal reforms in China and their impact on consumers’ (un)ethical practices.

The authors lay out how China, a government-led society, underwent a series of political reforms resulting in demographic shifts that differentiate it from its western, industrialized counterparts. The authors connect these societal changes with Chinese characteristics to consumers’ ethical evaluations, forming a new angle to understand consumer ethics in China. The authors also draw on two empirical examples to illustrate the argument.

While consumer ethics are often explained by either cultural factors or individual variations, the authors discuss how one’s ethical practice is shaped by one’s social position, which is a product of national-level public policy. The discussions have ramifications for the study of consumers’ social class and ethical practices because they take into account the elusive social positions and ambiguous social class consciousness of the Chinese population that have resulted from social mobility. The discussions may give practitioners a better understanding of the ethical rationale behind consumers’ changing lifestyles especially in the Chinese context.