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The effects of board composition on performance have long been discussed in management research using fractionalization measures. In this study, we propose an alternative measurement approach based on board polarization.

Using an exploratory analysis and applying the polarization measure to German Deutscher Aktienindex (DAX)-, Midcap-DAX (MDAX)- and Small Cap-Index (SDAX)-listed companies, this paper applies the polarization index to examine the relationship between board diversity and performance.

The results show that the polarization concept is well suited to measure principal-agent problems between the members of the management and supervisory boards. We reveal that board polarization is negatively associated with firm performance, as measured by return on investment (ROI).

This exploratory study shows that the measurement of board polarization can be linked to performance differences between companies, which offers promising starting points for further research.

The global prevalence of social media and its potential to cause polarization are highly debated and impactful. The previous literature often assumes that the ideological bias of any media outlet remains static and exogenous to the polarization process. By studying polarization as a whole from an ecosystem approach, the authors aim to identify policies and strategies that can help mitigate the adverse effects of polarization and promote healthier online discourse.

To investigate online polarization, the authors perform a systematic review and analysis of approximately 400 research articles to explore the connection between cognitive bias and polarization, examining both causal and correlational evidence. The authors extensively evaluate and integrate existing research related to the correlation between online polarization and crucial factors such as public engagement, selective exposure and political democracy. From doing so, the authors then develop a PolarSphere ecosystem that captures and illustrates the process of online polarization formation.

The authors' review uncovers a wide range of associations, including ideological cognition, bias, public participation, misinformation and miscommunication, political democracy, echo chambers and selective exposure, heterogeneity and trust. Although the impact of bias on social media polarization depends on specific environments and internal/external conditions, certain variables exhibit strong associations across multiple contexts. The authors use these observations as a basis from which to construct PolarSphere, an ecosystem of bias-based polarization on social media, to theorize the process of polarization formation.

Based on the PolarSphere ecosystem, the authors argue that it is crucial for governments and civil societies to maintain vigilance and invest in further research to gain a deep comprehension of how cognitive bias affects online polarization, which could lead to ways to eliminate polarization.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of polarisation on trust in government.

The authors use the ordered probit technique to model trust as a function of polarisation and various control variables. The authors apply the instrumental variables approach to address potential endogeneity in polarisation, using ethnic diversity as an instrument.

The results reveal that an increase in polarisation reduces trust in central government. However, trust in local government is non-responsive to this polarisation. The estimations controlled for government performance, and the authors found a positive association between government performance and trust in government, which, however, does not alter the relationship between polarisation and trust in government.

In ethnically polarised nations, policymakers should consider decentralisation measures. This can help sustain trust and development support, particularly in regions where citizens prioritise ethnicity over nationality.

The social implications of this research underscore the importance of promoting trust in government to foster social cohesion and stability, particularly in ethnically diverse societies.

The authors find that increased ethnic polarisation reduces trust in the central government, particularly among those prioritising their ethnicity over nationality. This adds a non-performance dimension to government trust literature, suggesting that policies focusing solely on performance may yield limited results. The research extends beyond central government trust to include local governments. Unlike central government, local government trust remains tied to performance attributes unaffected by polarisation. Hence, investing resources through local governments is a viable strategy for enhancing citizen support while mitigating polarisation’s adverse effects.

Corporations are now taking stands on contemporary and controversial social issues that share no obvious connection to the corporations’ business practices. At the same time, political polarization continues to intensify, which begs the question: Are these corporate stands – referred to as corporate social advocacy (CSA) – and political polarization related to each other, and if so, how? The purpose of this study is to provide a conceptualization of the connections between CSA and political polarization through a series of propositions that can be tested in subsequent research studies. Corporations have influence in society, and the ways in which they communicate on controversial social issues could further intensify or help assuage political polarization. Conversely, political polarization may be causing CSA in the first place, which would put into question the legitimacy and desirability of CSA because of the environment from which CSA is cultivated.

This study is designed to be conceptual, and the approach is based on theory building.

The study conceptualizes the relationship between CSA and political polarization to be symbiotic because both are bidirectional causes of each other. Engagement in CSA is also argued to be positively associated with perceptions that corporations contain particular political ideologies, i.e. more “liberal-leaning” or “conservative-leaning.” This study also predicts that – dependent on particular conditions – CSA will also lead to an increase in both boycotts and skepticism.

This study will contribute to scholars’, practitioners’ and consumers’ understanding of the causes and effects of CSA. The way in which political polarization is potentially causing CSA puts into question the legitimacy of corporations engaging in CSA in the first place. If CSA is cultivated in the soil of political polarization, is CSA desirable for corporations? Conversely, the way in which CSA is potentially causing political polarization also puts the legitimacy of CSA into question. If CSA is causing political polarization, is CSA desirable for society?

Corporations are an influential part of society, and thus will influence how society views controversial social issues. If the predictions in this study hold, corporations will play an important role in either intensifying or reducing political polarization, and political polarization will also play an important role in how corporations communicate about CSA issues.

Research focused on CSA is burgeoning, yet limited studies have examined how CSA and political polarization interact. Although there could be positive aspects of corporate involvement in CSA, this study examines some of the potential negative aspects of corporate involvement in CSA. Future research will also be able to test the propositions proposed in this study.

Once a corporate crisis is entangled with a social issue, how consumers make sense of the crisis can be impacted by issue-based opinion polarization. This study investigates the underlying mechanisms as consumers go through this process. This study also examines whether corporate social advocacy (CSA) can be an effective crisis-response strategy for mitigating reputational loss.

Theoretical inquiries were empirically tested using an online experiment (N = 792). The experiment set the context in China, in a working-overtime-issue-related crisis. It had a 2 (online exposure: anti-issue opinion vs. pro-issue opinion) × 2 (CSA: absence vs. presence) between-subject design with a continuous variable (pre-existing issue attitudes) measured before the manipulation.

This study found that pre-existing issue attitudes can be directly and indirectly associated with corporate reputation, for the issue attitudes influence how consumers attribute crisis blame. Such a direct effect of pre-existing issue attitudes varies depending on which polarized opinion consumers were exposed to on social media. This study also found CSA to be a robust crisis response strategy, through multiple mechanisms, in protecting the corporate reputation.

Scholars are scarcely aware of the threats that issue-based opinion polarization poses to corporate reputation. This study serves as an early attempt to provide theoretical explanations. In addition to this, this study extends the current conceptual understandings of CSA during corporate crises that involve social issues while adding fresh insights into the established typology of crisis-response strategies.

In this paper, the authors aim to study the effect of hydrogen on the pitting corrosion behavior of Incoloy 825, a commonly used material for heat exchanger tubes in hydrogenated heat exchangers.

The pitting initiation and propagation behaviors were investigated by electrochemical and chemical immersion experiments and observed and analyzed by scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive spectrometer methods.

The results show that hydrogen significantly affects the electrochemical behavior of Incoloy 825; the self-corrosion potential decreased from −197 mV before hydrogen charging to −263 mV, −270 mV and −657 mV after hydrogen charging, and the corrosion current density increased from 0.049 µA/cm² before hydrogen charging to 2.490 µA/cm², 2.560 µA/cm² and 2.780 µA/cm² after hydrogen charging. The pitting susceptibility of the material increases.

Hydrogen is enriched on the precipitate, and the pitting corrosion also initiates at that location. The synergistic effect of hydrogen and precipitate destroys the passive film on the metal surface and promotes pitting initiation.

The purpose of this study is to develop an efficient model to solve the electromagnetic forward problem using a novel semi-analytical approach to compute the electromagnetic fields because of the presence of a scatterer.

The proposed model involves a novel formulation of a complete orthonormal set of radiating/nonradiating polarization currents. Furthermore, an integral equation-based representation is derived, and the appropriate boundary conditions are imposed to get the scattered electromagnetic field. An error term is introduced to evaluate the obtained results.

The proposed model was tested using several examples at different frequencies. The results of this study show that the novel representation exhibits fast convergence behavior and achieves highly accurate results, when compared to the results provided by the transmission line method.

The derived formulations presented in this study are significant in the electromagnetic forward modelling field because of the meaningful physical representation they provide. This is an important aspect that leads to precise calculation of electromagnetic fields for various applications.

This study aims to prevent mild steel (MS) against corrosion in 0.5 M HCl solution, 2-amino-4-methoxy-6-methyl-1,3,5-triazine was used. The effectiveness of the compound as a corrosion inhibitor was studied via electrochemical, surface and theoretical calculation techniques.

For concentrations ranging from 0.5 to 10.0 mM, almost similar polarization resistances were obtained from electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and linear polarization resistance tests. It also investigated inhibitive activity of 2-amino-4-methoxy-6-methyl-1,3,5-triazine on the steel surface using scanning electron and atomic force microscope instruments. Langmuir adsorption is the best matched isotherm for the adsorption of the inhibitor to the steel surface.

EIS method was used to determine inhibition efficiency, which was determined to be 95.7% for 10.0 mM inhibitor containing acid solution. Density functional theory’s predictions for quantum chemistry agreed well with the other experimental results.

The methods used in this study are effective and applicable; the used organic inhibitor is 2-amino-4-methoxy-6-methyl-1,3,5-triazine; and protective effectiveness is important, which is crucial for the task of MS corrosion prevention.

In the face of increasing political polarization worldwide, this study explores whether people create biased perceptions of political knowledge and how this affects their selection and evaluation of political content on YouTube.

For this study, an online experiment was conducted with 441 panels of South Korean respondents. In the first phase, participants answered 10 questions designed to capture their level of objective political knowledge, and for each question, they indicated whether they had responded to that question correctly as a means of measuring their subjective political knowledge. In the second phase, two types of YouTube thumbnails were presented to represent progressive and conservative claims on two controversial political issues, and participants rated and selected the content they would like to see.

Participants with low political knowledge perceived their knowledge as more than it really was. In contrast, participants with high political knowledge perceived their political knowledge as less than it really was. This biased perception of political knowledge influences respondents' choice and evaluation of political YouTube channel videos.

At a time when political polarization is increasing around the world, this study sought to explore how perceptions of political knowledge differ from actual political knowledge by applying the Dunning-Kruger effect. The authors also used political YouTube channels, whose role in forming public opinion and political influence is rapidly growing, to study the behavior and attitudes of a group of Korean respondents in the media according to their actual and perceived level of political literacy.

This paper aims to propose a single element, dual feed, polarisation diversity antenna. The proposed antenna operates from 2.9 to 10.6 GHz for covering the entire ultra-wideband (UWB) frequency range. The antenna is designed for usage in massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and closed packaging applications.

The size of the antenna is 24 × 24 × 1.6 mm³. The radiating element of the antenna is derived from the Sierpinski–Knopp (SK) fractal geometry for miniaturization of the antenna size. The antenna has a single reflecting stub placed between the two orthogonal feeds, to improve isolation.

The proposed antenna system exhibits S₁₁ < −10 dB, S₂₁ < −15 dB and stable radiation characteristics in the entire operating region. It also offers an envelope correlation coefficient < 0.01, a diversity gain > 9.9 dB and a capacity loss < 0.4 bps/Hz. The simulated and measured outputs were compared and results were found to be in similarity.

The proposed UWB-MIMO antenna has significant size reduction through usage of SK fractal geometry for radiating element. The antenna uses a single radiating element with dual feed. The stub is between the antenna elements which provide a compact and miniaturized MIMO solution for high density packaging applications. The UWB-MIMO antenna provides an isolation better than −20 dB in the entire UWB operating band.