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The purpose of this paper is to study the tribology behavior of steel–steel contact under the lubrication of water-based drilling mud with different oleic acid-filled microcapsules as lubricant additives.

A ball-on-disc tribometer was used to evaluate the lubrication properties of the steel–steel contact. The wear tracks of the worn surfaces were observed by a scanning electron microscope.

Results show that the dependence of both friction and wear on the category of additives shares a consistent pattern. In contrast to oleic acid and empty microcapsules, oleic acid-filled microcapsules achieve the best tribological performance which is related to the lubricant effect of oleic acid and the isolation and rolling abilities of microcapsules.

This study provides a helpful method of encapsulated lubricant additives to prolong lubrication performance for steel–steel contact.

This study has applied microcapsules to improve the tribological properties of drilling mud.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-08-2019-0320/

Seasonal fluctuation interference often affects the relational analysis of economic time series. The main purpose of this paper is to propose a new grey relational model for relational analysis of seasonal time series and apply it to identify and eliminate the influence of seasonal fluctuation of retail sales of consumer goods in China.

First, the whole quarterly time series is divided into four groups by data grouping method. Each group only contains the time series data in the same quarter. Then, the new series of four-quarters are used to establish the grey correlation model and calculate its correlation coefficient. Finally, the correlation degree of factors in each group of data was calculated and sorted to determine its importance.

The data grouping method can effectively reflect the correlation between time series in different quarters and eliminate the influence of seasonal fluctuation.

In this paper, the main factors influencing the quarterly fluctuations of retail sales of consumer goods in China are explored by using the grouped grey correlation model. The results show that the main factors are different from quarter to quarter: in the first quarter, the main factors are money supply, tax and per capita disposable income of rural residents. In the second quarter are money supply, fiscal expenditure and tax. In the third quarter are money supply, fiscal expenditure and per capita disposable income of rural residents. In the fourth quarter are money supply, fiscal expenditure and tax.

This paper successfully realizes the application of grey relational model in quarterly time series and extends the applicable scope of grey relational model.

This study aims to explore the structural relationship among food quality, usefulness, ease of use, convenience, brand trust and willingness to pay. The technology acceptance model was used as the theoretical foundation of this work.

Amazon Mechanical Turk was used to recruit survey participants, and 436 valid observations were ultimately used for the analysis. In the data analysis, the structural relationships between variables were explored through structural equation modeling.

The results of hypothesis testing show that ease of use positively affects the usefulness of the Starbucks mobile application. Usefulness also exerts positive impacts on both brand trust and convenience. Moreover, brand trust is positively associated with food quality. Finally, willingness to pay is positively influenced by both convenience and brand trust.

This study contributes to the literature by not only validating the technology acceptance model using the Starbucks mobile application but also proposing food quality-related attributes in the domain of the café business.

Charitable giving in China has moved from being subjected to government attention and public skepticism to receiving government encouragement and public support. The role played by political connections in philanthropy is indisputable, although very few studies have explored their association from the perspective of the country’s first Charity Law of 2016. This study aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the 2016 Charity Law and offers an understanding of the future trends in corporate charitable giving.

Using empirical analysis of data collected from listed companies in China, this study analyzes the impact of political connections on corporate charitable giving before and after the 2016 Charity Law. The study adopts three leading theories from previous research into corporate charitable giving and political connections: corporate social responsibility, resource dependence theory and stakeholder theory. A conceptual framework is outlined, and hypotheses are formulated accordingly.

The results show that political connections have a substantial positive impact on corporate charitable giving, both before and after the implementation of the 2016 Charity Law, which has significantly promoted and increased the amount and proportion of charitable giving. Although the 2016 Charity Law attempted to weaken the political connections of enterprises, the influence of political connections on corporate charitable giving has proved difficult to diminish or eliminate, as charity is dominated by the state.

This study explores the association between political connections and corporate charitable giving from the perspective of China’s Charity Law of 2016.

The primary goal of this article is to review the existing studies and offer clarity regarding the association between social media adoption and youth civic engagement.

This research systematically summarizes and reviews 42 original articles published from 2010 to 2019 with an objective of offering insightful results. Additionally, a theoretical framework was carefully designed by adopting various conceptions from citizen participation and computer-mediated communication research literature.

The findings demonstrate that social media usage could generally have a positive correlation with civic participation among younger generations. Moreover, the result also highlights that certain functional features of social media uses including using social media for news consumption and expression could significantly predict civic engagement.

Despite the ever-growing importance of social media technologies, investigations on their differential, nonlinear and even inconsistent effects on civic engagement remain theoretically ambiguous and empirically unsubstantiated. The study represents one of the first scholarly attempts to review, summarize and analyze the extant research evidence from the past ten years.

The purpose of this study is to identify the attributes that statistically affect reason intention. The triple bottom line, a theoretical framework of corporate social responsibility (CSR) consisting of economic, social and environmental subdimensions, is used as the theoretical foundation.

In this study, price fairness, quarantine and hygiene, and eco-friendliness represent economic, social and environmental CSR, respectively. Amazon Mechanical Turk is used for data collection. The valid number of observations is 474. Structural equation modeling is implemented to test the research hypotheses.

The results indicate that price fairness, quarantine and hygiene positively affect the reuse intention of coffee shops. However, eco-friendliness appears to be an attribute that does not significantly affect reuse intention.

This study theoretically contributes to the literature by demonstrating the explanatory power of triple bottom line theory for café customer intention.

Introduction: AI technologies are transforming the industrial sectors, and the impact of AI technologies does not leave behind human resource management (HRM). From recruitment to development and payroll, AI has its own impact. In recruitment, selection, training and development, compensation, and remuneration AI play an important role.

Purpose: The main purpose of this chapter is to analyse the challenges in adopting AI in HRM. This chapter investigates the various strategies to overcome challenges encountered by companies while adopting AI in HR practices. Moreover, this chapter also examines the role of AI in HR practices.

Methodology: To achieve the purpose of this chapter, various case studies were analysed and literature studies with emphasis on what types of challenges are face in adopting AI in HR practices. The authors of various newspaper articles, books, published journals, and websites on AI analyse the various newspaper articles, books, published journals, and websites on AI in human resources (HR). Electronic databases are used as the most effective technique to begin a literature search for the current overview, specifically Science Direct, Google Scholar, and Emerald. In addition to this, the application of AI in HRM practices used by leading organisations globally is also reviewed. The analysis used four keywords: HRM, AI, challenges and adopting. This research has been conducted by searching scholarly papers and relevant studies using similar keywords.

Findings: The adoption of AI technologies is continuously increasing in HR practices. AI performs various HR functions such as recruitment, selection, training and development practices, scanning resume, etc. Organisations can be benefitted in many ways by adopting AI in HRM practices, such as better employees engagement and relations, accelerating competitive advantages and effectively utilising HR budgeting. The findings show that many companies like IBM, Deloitte, Amazon, etc., adopt AI in their HR practices.

This paper aims to investigate how brand identity is co-created, with a specific focus on how employees contributed to the process in a five-star hotel setting. The focus of this study is on understanding how two hotels planned and executed their brand identity strategy simultaneously, differentiating one from the other and how employees actively participated in this process.

A longitudinal case study approach was adopted, centred on building the identity of two luxury hotels owned by a single company in Seoul, Korea. Various organizational documents were collected and analyzed to understand the brand identity of the hotels and how brand co-creation has been implemented. In addition, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 42 employees to understand the brand co-creation process from their perspective.

The brand co-creation process of the hotels was conducted simultaneously and evolved over the following four phases, with employees’ roles varying in each phase, namely, establishing a clear brand identity strategy; designing and selecting sensory identity; aligning organizational identity; and delivering brand identity through external communication. Employees that participated in brand co-creation enhanced their brand knowledge, developed emotional bonds with the brand and were motivated to deliver the brand identity. Furthermore, those that immersed themselves in the new brand identities were able to enable positive guest perceptions towards the brand image, which consequently enhanced employees’ pride in their work.

This research advances the brand management literature in defining branding and brand identity elements, as well as emphasizing the importance of consistent branding. In addition, the current study expands the scope of internal branding, highlighting the process of brand co-creation and the role of employees as active participants. Moreover, it reveals that employees’ participation enhances not only their brand knowledge but also their emotional bonds with the brand. The proposed conceptual framework demonstrates the flow of branding elements, brand identity elements and the “infinite loop” of employee participation in brand co-creation.

The case study approach adopted here enables an in-depth investigation of employee participation in brand co-creation, including their different roles and activities in the process; a phenomenon that has not been adequately explored in previous research.

This paper develops a framework for selecting the most efficient and effective preventive maintenance policy using multiple-criteria decision making and multi-objective optimization.

The critical component is identified with a list of maintenance policies, and then its failure data are collected and the optimization objective functions are defined. Fuzzy AHP is used to prioritize each objective based on the experts' questionnaire. Weighted comprehensive criterion method is used to solve the multi-objective models for each policy. Finally, the effectiveness and efficiency are calculated to select the best maintenance policy.

For a fleet of buses in hot climate environment where coolant pump is identified as the most critical component, it was found that block-GAN policy is the most efficient and effective one with a 10.24% of cost saving and 0.34 expected number of failures per cycle compared to age policy and block-BAO policy.

Only three maintenance policies are compared and studied. Other maintenance policies can also be considered in future.

The proposed methodology is implemented in UAE for selecting a maintenance scheme for a critical component in a fleet of buses. It can be validated later in other Gulf countries.

This research lays a solid foundation for selecting the most efficient and effective preventive maintenance policy for different applications and sectors using MCDM and multi-objective optimization to improve reliability and avoid economic loss.

The new campus of Tianjin University was designed, built and now operates following a green and sustainable concept. The campus’ eco-friendly water environment was formed by establishing a water recycling system. The campus is divided into three drainage sections based on the masterplan. Each drainage section adopts different methods of collecting, utilizing and discharging water according to specific conditions, aimed at achieving both high drainage capability and the efficient utilisation of rainwater. The campus was designed so runoff pollution is reduced through the utilisation of low-impact development methods, ensuring the quality of the recharge water. Through studying the fundamentals of treatment measures and models for simulating water quality, water circulation, constructed wetlands and pollution control of rain runoff, parameters for efficient water recycling could be mathematically forecast, ensuring that stakeholders can be continuously engaged in improving and preserving the water quality of landscaped water on campus. The overall system integrates a variety of measures being implemented into one cohesive entity, which contributes to establishing the sustainable and healthy water cycling system of the green campus.