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Using the theoretical frameworks of public diplomacy and public relations, we mapped how the Chinese government has used panda imagery to build its national brand on Twitter and how this ‘panda diplomacy’ has facilitated its para-diplomatic actions. Our findings uncover new attempts by the Chinese government to engage in digital diplomacy. Mobilizing panda imagery on Twitter enhanced friendly relations with foreign political leaders and people and established a friendly and peaceful image of China on Twitter.

The purpose of this study is to examine the fulfillment of Panda’s mission statement in the organization’s macro and minor storytelling and provide a close look at the function of the organizational culture to enhance the fulfillment of organization missions. The study employs qualitative methodology and participant observation to inspect the fulfillment of Panda’s mission statement in the organization’s macro storytelling first. The fulfillment of the mission statement in the micro storytelling is examined at a local store. By comparing the macro and the micro storytelling, the study presents the consistency and inconsistency of fulfillment of the organization’s mission statement at different hierarchies of the organization. Lastly, the study discusses the function of organizational culture in enhancing the fulfillment of the mission statement of the organization. The first finding of this study is that there are consistencies and inconsistencies in fulfilling Panda’s mission statement in its macro- and micro-level storytelling. The second finding of the study readdresses that organizational culture can work as a buffer to enhance the fulfillment of the mission statement and mitigate the inconsistency between the macro and micro storytelling.

Microfinance programs across the countries are designed on the self-help and peer pressure model, aim at microentrepreneurship development. Despite of significant studies on microfinance-supported microentrepreneurship (MSM), not a single literature examines it from the systems thinking. In addition to that, the extant literature did not look MSM from the behavioral perspectives. To address the above gaps, the present study aims to examine self-help group (SHG)-based microfinance programs from the systems approach using the Stimulus-Organism-Behavior-Consequence (SOBC) model.

Information gathered from 786 women SHG members from four states of India through a structured interview schedule. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were conducted to process data. Additional statistical tests were performed to test the reliability and validity.

It was found that the “positive stimulus” (social intermediation, financial intermediation and business development services) positively impacted; and “negative stimulus” (intermediation accountability, and intermediation assumption) negatively impact, to “motive” (attitude, subjective norms, and perceived control) for micro-entrepreneurship in the SHG-based microfinance. Further, “motive” positively predicted “behavioral intention”; the “behavioral intention” positively determined “consequences” of micro-entrepreneurship. Intermediation as stimuli acted as “input”; the motive and behavioral intention acted as the “process”, and the consequence acted as the “output” in the SHG-based microentrepreneurship system.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this paper is the first one to examine the behavioral systems of microentrepreneurship programs through the Stimulus-Organism-Behavior-Consequence (SOBC) model.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2022-0801

This paper sets out to explore the proposition that building competences is more effective than privatisation and restructuring to improve performance in the Chinese chemical industry.

Case study research has been undertaken in the Chinese chemical industry. The two case companies provide representative data on the factors under investigation. The case investigations that are described were complemented by a survey, the results of which have been reported elsewhere.

Results obtained from the research show that privatisation of Chinese state‐owned enterprises is not always an effective strategy to improve performance. In the case study companies, the development of core competences was more effective in enhancing performance.

The research results are limited by the scope of the study, which was carried out in the Chinese chemical industry. They are also based on in‐depth case investigations in only two companies, but are supported by a large‐scale survey reported elsewhere. The results have implications for academic researchers interested in China's privatisation programme.

The research has practical implications for companies outside China that are considering collaborative operations with Chinese companies or investing in joint ventures. It also has implications for suppliers or customers of Chinese companies.

The paper is based on original case study investigations carried out in Chinese enterprises and is supported by a survey of representative companies in China's chemical sector. Value is derived from understanding the basis of improved performance in the companies studied.

Considerable effort has been made by this Laboratory and industry to make polyfunctional derivatives of rosin through the introduction of different groups into the resin acid moiety.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight a precise investigation of the relationship between information technology (IT) capability and organizational agility along with the moderating impact of environmental factors on this association.

Pre-tested structured questionnaires were administered during a matched-pair field survey to collect primary responses from 300 business and IT personnel working in various public and privately owned banking groups functioning in India. The structural equation modeling approach has been used for data analysis.

The two-folded research findings are first, IT capability enables organizational agility (studied as business process and market responsive agility), while IT capability has more effect on market responsive agility. Second, the environmental factors (studied as environmental diversity and hostility) possess a significant effect on the IT-agility relationship and, thereby, suggest that a more diverse and less hostile environment is required for the firms to build up superior IT capability for realizing enhanced agility.

The authors have studied IT capability as a first-order factor, organizational agility and environmental factors as second-order factors and by meticulously examining their critical dimensions this study greatly contributes to the existing IT-agility literature. The derived inferences provide various implications for the bank and IT managers to emphasize on superior IT capability for generating enhanced organizational agility.

The aim of the present study is to add to the existing research on online city branding by studying how metropolitan cities are internationally positioned using the internet and online branding. The focus is on objectives and strategies, method and expression (including five illustrations), and challenges in online city branding.

The article relies on a single-case study approach, using the Chinese city of Chengdu as a case and illustration. Methods used are interviews, observations and documentation (including online material).

The study illustrates how Chengdu uses online city branding in its international positioning. Chengdu's online branding is influenced by certain imagery, as well as challenges. Collaboration and endorsement crystalize as central elements in Chengdu's online city branding.

This article and study can be seen as an important element in broadening the understanding for online city branding to international audiences.

The study offers insights to practitioners on how online city branding is carried out in a Chinese context and in the city of Chengdu.

The study can be regarded as an important contribution to an area of practice and research which still is fairly new and unexplored, and an area that hitherto has not been well covered in the international literature.

This study aims to understand the coevolution and coexistence of cooperation and competition in the interorganizational collaboration of management consulting firms (MCFs) in India.

The narrative inquiry method was applied to understand the central phenomenon. The narrative inquiry method was found pertinent because the aim of the research was to inquire human-based phenomenon, especially life experiences, tensions, feeling, thought processes, emotions and personal puzzles. Narrations from 47 respondents from 32 MCFs from various consortiums were collected to make textual and phenomenal narrative inquiry. Finally, causal relationships were designed using the mapping method.

The study noticed coevolution and coexistence of cooperation and competition in the MCF consortiums. Cooperation was higher than the competition at the entry level, and the competition was higher than cooperation at the operational level of the consortium life cycle. Organizational side of coopetition was higher than human side of coopetition at the entry level, and human side of coopetition was higher than organizational side of coopetition at the operational level. A higher level of competition (than cooperation) pushes the consortium beyond the threshold level, creating a lesser value creation. Further higher level of competition (than cooperation) shoved the consortium beyond the injury limit, leading the consortium to collapse.

This study paid major attention on the human side and organizational side of coopetition from the life cycle perspective, but the findings and discussions concentrated more on entry level and operational level. The study, in fact, did not capture the status of coopetition at the termination phase of the consortium.

This study is one of the few studies that examined cooperation and competition as a single construct in interorganizational collaboration in the management consulting industry. This study is unique in two ways, one, examination from the human side of coopetition and organizational side of coopetition, and two, life cycle analysis of the consortium from the perspective of coopetition.

This study aims to test a model in which the effect of strategic information technology (IT)-business alignment capability (hereafter referred to as “strategic alignment”) on organizational performance is examined via the mediating role of organizational agility [studied as operational adjustment agility (OAA) and market capitalizing agility (MCA)] along with the moderating influence of environmental uncertainty.

The research uses survey data accumulated from 220 managers (IT and bank managers) working in the regional rural banks of Odisha, India. A structural equation modelling approach is used to investigate the strategic alignment-performance relationship.

The findings demonstrate the positive effect of strategic alignment on agility (studied as OAA and MCA). This paper finds the positive effects of strategic alignment and both OAA and MCA on organizational performance. The moderation analysis reveals that in an uncertain environment, strategic alignment has more impact on MCA than OAA. However, the test of mediation exhibits OAA as a more significant mediator promoting the strategic alignment-performance linkage, than MCA. This was further validated from the moderated-mediation analysis.

Although previous research studies (mostly conducted in the context of developed countries) have reported about the positive strategic alignment-agility-performance linkages, yet the literature is silent regarding the influence of external contingent factors on these relationships from a rural banking perspective in a developing country setting (such as India). The research extends the strategic alignment-agility-performance theories and provides empirical support for these unique associations in the context of rural banking in India and thereby, greatly contributes to the existing strategic alignment literature.

As a practical engineering method, earthquake response spectra play an important role in seismic hazard assessment and in seismic design of structures. However, the computing scale and the efficiency of commercial software restricted the solution of complex structures. There is a clear need of developing large-scale and highly efficient finite element procedures for response spectrum analysis.

In this paper, the kernel theories for earthquake response spectra are deduced and the corresponding parallel solution flow via the modal superposition method is presented. Based on the algorithm and the parallel data structure of JAUMIN framework, a parallel finite element (FE) solution module is established. Using the solution procedure on a supercomputer equipped with up to thousands of processors, the correctness and parallel scalability of the algorithm are evaluated via numerical experiments of typical engineering examples.

The results show that the solution module has the same precision as the commercial FE software ANSYS; the maximum solution scale achieves 154 million degrees of freedom (DOFs) with a favorable parallel computing efficiency, going far beyond the computing ability of the commercial FE software.

The solution scale in this paper is very challenging for the large-scale parallel computing of structural dynamics and will promote the dynamic analysis ability of complex facilities greatly.