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From the intra- and inter-regional dimensions, this paper investigates the linkage between industrial agglomeration and inventory performance, and further demonstrates the moderating role of firm size and enterprise status in the supply chain on this linkage.

Using a large panel dataset of Chinese manufacturers in the Yangtze River Delta for the period from 2008 to 2013, this study employs the method of spatial econometric analysis via a spatial Durbin model (SDM) to examine the effects of industrial agglomeration on inventory performance. Meanwhile, the moderation model is applied to examine the moderating role of two firm-level heterogeneity factors.

At its core, this research demonstrates that industrial agglomeration is associated with the positive change of inventory performance in the adjacent regions, whereas that in the host region as well as in general does not significantly increase. Additionally, both firm size and enterprise status in the supply chain can positively moderate these effects, except for the moderating role of firm size on the positive spillovers.

In view of firm heterogeneity, managers should take special care when matching their abilities of inventory management with the agglomeration effects. Firms with a high level of inventory management are suited to stay in an industrial cluster, while others would be better in the adjacent regions to enhance inventory performance.

This paper is the first to systematically analyze the effects of industrial agglomeration on inventory performance within and across clusters, and confirm that these effects are contingent upon firm size and enterprise status in the supply chain. It adds to the existing literature by highlighting the spatial spillovers from industrial clusters and enriching the antecedents of inventory leanness.

The aim of this paper is to empirically examine whether environmental turbulence leads to the adoption of high-performance work systems (HPWS) and learning orientation (LO) in organizations and, if so, how these two elements contribute to innovativeness. Past research studies widely demonstrated that HPWS and LO are strong determinants of innovativeness. This study incorporates environmental turbulence as an antecedent and explains the interactions between these concepts.

This paper involves a questionnaire-based survey of 233 firms. For hypothesis testing, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used.

The results revealed the antecedent role of environmental turbulence in HPWS and LO. Additionally, HPWS and LO mediated the relationship between environmental turbulence and organizational innovativeness.

This research has the limitations of a cross-sectional study design. The study draws out some implications for firms facing turbulent conditions and intending to increase their innovativeness by stimulating a learning culture and focusing on human capital through HPWS.

The overarching contribution of this study is to test the assumption that organizations initiate changes in their internal systems as a response to environmental turbulence. By doing so, the study enriches current studies by exploring the mediator role of HPWS and LO between environmental turbulence and innovativeness. This research also contributes to the literature by demonstrating the antecedent role of environmental turbulence in HPWS for the first time. Additionally, it provides evidence for the relationship between environmental turbulence and LO.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of chloride along with NO₂ on the atmospheric corrosion of bronze using exposure tests.

Surface tension tests and electrochemical impedance measurements together with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive atomic X‐ray, and X‐ray diffraction are used to characterize the corrosion behavior.

The results of the weight loss measurements show that the whole corrosion kinetics can be described approximately by: ΔW=atb; the synergistic effect of chloride and NO₂ is observed clearly, though no nitrate existed in the corrosion products.

A new catalyst theory has been suggested in this paper, i.e. that NO₂ acts as a catalyst during the corrosion process when significant quantities of chloride also are present.

This paper analysed survey data of 715 rice-producing households in China to assess the determinants of adoption of five mutually exclusive soil conservation practices (SCPs) and their impact on rice yield and chemical fertiliser use.

The multinomial endogenous treatment effects model was used to account for selection bias and endogeneity arising from both observed and unobserved heterogeneity.

Farms that adopted SCPs as a package experienced an increase in rice yield and decrease in chemical fertiliser use. Adoption of SCPs as a package led to a 12.0% increase in yield and 15.2% decrease in chemical fertiliser use; these results have policy implications for the non-point source pollution control in the agricultural sector. In contrast, adoption of straw retention only significantly reduced yield by 4.9% and increased chemical fertiliser use by 18.1%.

The authors evaluate and compare multi-type of SCPs, such as straw retention, deep tillage and use of organic fertiliser, separately or in combination, and their impacts on smallholder farmers’ rice yield and chemical fertiliser usage.

Although technological diversification is often understood as an explorative activity, the authors argue that it can also be explained as exploitation. The purpose of this paper is to examine how exploitative technological diversification (ETD) affects firm performance and what factors may moderate this relationship.

The sample consists of 1,569 Chinese listed firms with 7,555 observations from 2003 to 2014. Patent data were collected from the State Intellectual Property Office, while financial information was collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research database. The system generalised method of moments model was used for testing the hypotheses.

The empirical findings indicate that the relationship between ETD and firm performance is inversely U-shaped. Moreover, this relationship is negatively moderated by environmental munificence, which refers to the availability of resources in the environment where the firm operates, and positively moderated by environmental dynamism, which refers to the extent of volatility and unpredictable change in firms’ external environments.

Overlooking ETD limits applications of diversification logic and the precision of their predictions. This paper tries to fill this gap by empirically testing the relationship between ETD and financial performance.

Countryside planning has become popular due to the improvement in the economic level of China. A rural construction planning permission system is an important means to guide and standardize village construction. Therefore, this study investigates the current condition of rural planning in Guangdong and the general condition of Guangdong Province. Village planning problems, such as the village theory, lack of characteristics, and lack of coordination, are also presented. The bottleneck of the construction village planning permission system is presented. A “three-step” strategy and mode transformation (i.e., legal, personalized, and independent steps) is established based on the analysis of the Guangdong rural planning problems. Finally, the general requirements for village construction under the permission system are proposed along with the study of the village planning in Guangdong, which is the representative case. Therefore, this study provides a reference for the effective linkage between village planning and the rural construction planning permission system.

The high-pressure nature of the construction industry, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, triggered abusive supervision (i.e. workplace bullying and incivility behaviour) that has diminished workers' well-being. However, despite the growing prevalence in practice and increasing concern in academia, abusive supervision remains largely unexplored by construction management scholars. This study aims to fill the gap in the current literature by analysing the effects of abusive supervision on construction workers' well-being, the mediating role of guanxi closeness and the moderating role of trust in the manager.

A questionnaire survey was completed by 258 Chinese construction workers. The data underwent mediation and moderation analyses using PROCESS macro 3.5 for SPSS.

The results revealed that managers' abusive supervision reduced construction workers' well-being at work and in life. Guanxi closeness between manager and workers mediated the relationship between managers' abusive supervision and construction workers' well-being. Additionally, trust in managers moderated the mediating effect of guanxi closeness. This study further revealed that the emotional connection between construction managers and workers, such as expressive guanxi closeness and affective-based trust, is important in handling the impact of abusive supervision on the workers.

The findings of this study provide support for recent calls to address negative manager behaviours such as abusive supervision in construction management. They aid the development of a more comprehensive internal mechanism that considers the influence of guanxi closeness on the outcomes of abusive supervision by managers at construction sites. Additionally, interventions that develop trust in managers may be particularly effective in alleviating the tension of abusive supervision. More attention should be paid to managers' emotional connections in daily construction project management.

Rather than concentrate on positive leadership, this study shifts the focus to negative leadership in construction project management by identifying abusive supervision as a negative primary antecedent of workers' well-being. While prior research has highlighted how negative manager behaviours affect workers' well-being from the conservation of resources theory (COR) perspective, this study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to adopt a social exchange theory perspective by introducing guanxi closeness as a mediator. It contributes to a greater understanding of how trust in the manager alleviates the negative effect of the person's abusive supervision on construction workers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify if the implementation of ultrasonic vibration in laser engineered net shaping (LENS) process can help to reduce internal weaknesses such as porosity, coarse primary TiB whisker and heterogeneous distribution of TiB reinforcement in the LENS-fabricated TiB reinforced Ti matrix composites (TiB-TMC) parts.

An experimental investigation is performed to achieve the results for comparative studies under different fabrication conditions through quantitative data analysis. An approach of microstructural characterization and mechanical testing is conducted to obtain the output attributes. In addition, the theoretical analysis of the physics of ultrasonic vibration in the melting materials is presented to explain the influences of ultrasonic vibration on the microstructural evolution occurred in the part fabrication.

Because of the nonlinear effects of acoustic streaming and cavitation induced by ultrasonic vibration, porosity is significantly reduced and a relatively small variation of pore sizes is achieved. Ultrasonic vibration also causes the formation of smaller TiB whiskers that distribute along grain boundaries with a homogeneous dispersion. Additionally, a quasi-continuous network (QCN) microstructure is considerably finer than that produced by LENS process without ultrasonic vibration. The refinements of both reinforcing TiB whiskers and QCN microstructural grains further improve the microhardness of TiB-TMC parts.

The novel ultrasonic vibration-assisted (UV-A) LENS process of TiB-TMC is conducted in this work for the first time to improve the process performance and part quality.

In this study, a modeling method for a clamped deformable cable simulation based on Kirchhoff theory is proposed. This methodology can be used to describe the physical deformation configuration of any constrained flexible cable in a computer-aided design/manufacturing system. The modeling method, solution algorithm, simulation and experimental results are presented to prove the feasibility of the proposed methodology. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

First, Kirchhoff equations for deformable cables are proposed based on the nonlinear mechanics of thin elastic rods, and the general solution of the equations described by the Euler angles is given in the arc coordinate system. The parametric form solution of the Kirchhoff equations, which is easy to use, is then obtained in a cylindrical coordinate form based on Saint Venant’s theory. Finally, mathematical expressions that reflect the clamped cable configuration are given, and the deformable process is simulated based on an open source geometry kernel and is then tested by a 3D laser scanning technology.

The method presented in this paper can be adapted to any boundary condition for constrained cables as long as the external force and torque are known. The experimental results indicate that both the model and algorithm are efficient and accurate.

A more comprehensive study must be executed for the physical simulation of more complicated constrained cables, such as the helical spring and asymmetric constraint. The influence of the material properties of the cable on the calculation efficiency must be considered in future analysis.

The semi-analytical algorithm of the cable simulation in cylindrical coordinates is a novel topic and is more accurate and efficient than the common numerical solution.