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The purpose of this paper aims to model interaction relationship of traffic agents for motion prediction, which is critical for autonomous driving. It is obvious that traffic agents’ trajectories are influenced by physical lane rules and agents’ social interactions.

In this paper, the authors propose the social relation and physical lane aggregator for multimodal motion prediction, where the social relations of agents are mainly captured with graph convolutional networks and self-attention mechanism and then fused with the physical lane via the self-attention mechanism.

The proposed methods are evaluated on the Waymo Open Motion Dataset, and the results show the effectiveness of the proposed two feature aggregation modules for trajectory prediction.

This paper proposes a new design method to extract traffic interactions, and the attention mechanism is used in each part of the model to extract and fuse different relational features, which is different from other methods and improves the accuracy of the LSTM-based trajectory prediction method.

The study aims to examine the effect of inclusions and inherent microstructure on fatigue behavior of 34Cr2Ni2Mo steel.

Fatigue behavior of 34Cr2Ni2Mo steel was investigated for up to 1E10 cycles.

Results showed that both inclusion and inherent microstructure have an influence on the crack initiation mechanism. Fatigue cracks mostly initiated from inclusions, whereas substrate-induced crack initiations were also observed. Fatigue life of inclusion-induced failures is mostly determined by the location of inclusions rather than the loading stress. The inherent microstructure seems to tolerate inclusions at a lower stress level in very high-cycle regime owing to the absence of internal inclusion-induced failure. For the substrate-induced crack initiations, high-density dislocations are found to be accumulated around the carbide particle-matrix interface, which may be the cause of crack initiation in the inherent structure due to strain localization.

The effect of inclusions and inherent microstructure on fatigue behavior of 34Cr2Ni2Mo steel up to 1E10 cycles.

Highlights

• Fatigue failure occurs even at a lifetime of 5.76E9 cycles.

• Surface inclusion induced premature failures.

• Inherent microstructure tolerates inclusions at lower stress level.

• Internal carbides promote substrate-induced crack initiations.

Fatigue failure occurs even at a lifetime of 5.76E9 cycles.

Surface inclusion induced premature failures.

Inherent microstructure tolerates inclusions at lower stress level.

Internal carbides promote substrate-induced crack initiations.

Interorganizational dependence is considered as a liability for each firm and needs to be managed properly. Rather than exploring the opportunistic outcome of dependence, the authors focus on the moderating role of supply chain boundary spanners' guanxi. This study tends to uncover the way and the conditions under which boundary spanners' guanxi influences dependence-opportunism relationships.

Using a survey of 380 buyer–supplier exchanges in China, this study first examines the relationship between dependence and opportunism, then assesses the contingent role of boundary spanners' guanxi and further tests how unfairness perception and legal inefficiency alter the role of guanxi in managing dependence.

This study finds that buyer dependence increases supplier opportunism while supplier dependence lowers supplier opportunism. Boundary spanners' guanxi weakens the opportunism-facilitating impact of buyer dependence and mitigates the opportunism-restricting effect of supplier dependence. However, unfairness perception would attenuate the value of guanxi in restricting depended sides' opportunism but strengthen the value of guanxi in motivating depending sides' opportunism; legal inefficiency would amplify the value of guanxi in facilitating depending suppliers' opportunism.

First, the study enriches supply chain dependence studies by incorporating interpersonal guanxi into the investigation of dependence-opportunism relationships. Second, the study adds to the supply chain management literature by uncovering a contrasting role of guanxi in influencing the dependence-opportunism relationship. Third, the study incorporates an agency view to uncover two boundary conditions under which guanxi is mobilized for personal interest seeking or for organizational purposes.

Power is central to inter-organizational relationships. The literature distinguishes between structural power (i.e. dependence) and behavioral power (i.e. use of power), yet few studies considered them simultaneously. Opportunism is generally linked to use of power, but it remains unclear whether use of power deters or invites opportunism. In this study, the authors treat dependence as a driver of use of power and opportunism as its outcome, and empirically test relationships among dependence, power, and opportunism from both buyer and supplier perspectives. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study examines how buyer and supplier dependence influence the other’s and their own use of coercive and non-coercive power, which lead to opportunism of two parties, based on data from 240 companies in China on their perceived relationships with major suppliers.

Results show that buyer/supplier dependence is positively related to supplier’s/buyer’s use of coercive and non-coercive power. Buyer’s and supplier’s use of coercive power also positively influences their opportunism. Buyer’s use of non-coercive power is negatively related to both partners’ opportunism, whereas supplier’s use of non-coercive power is not significantly related to either partner’s opportunism.

This study contributes to literature in two ways. First, the authors distinguish the structural aspect of power from its behavioral aspect and demonstrate that dependence, which represents structural power, generates different patterns of influence on use of coercive and non-coercive power when considered from buyer’s and supplier’s perspectives. Second, the authors reexamine relationships between use of power and opportunism and show that buyers and suppliers react differently to use of different types of power.

Although the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an important means for local dealers to learn from MNEs. By adopting local firms’ viewpoint, our study draws on organizational learning theory to examine how local dealers benefit from their participation with foreign suppliers in Africa.

The empirical setting is a combinative dataset of secondary data and primary survey of 164 small- and medium-sized local dealers with nine subsidiaries of a Chinese motorcycle company in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This research shows that dealer participation is positively associated with dealer performance, and this positive effect is stronger when local dealers operate in regions with low government corruption and high government support. However, the positive relationship is weaker when local dealers use the local tongue extensively but becomes stronger when their foreign suppliers have a high dealer coverage.

By taking a local-participant perspective, our study extends the participation literature to show how firms from a resource-constrained region may benefit from their proactive participation with foreign counterparts. Additionally, we identify the boundary conditions of institutional factors and strategic choices of local dealers and foreign suppliers, providing a nuanced understanding of firm behaviors in complex and uncertain markets.

In the pursuit of co-exploration, the strength and brokerage dimensions of dyadic ties create a novelty–action trade-off: tie strength facilitates coordination but constraints novelty, while tie brokerage expands knowledge diversity but aggravates coordination difficulty. This study contributes towards a better understanding of this tension by comparing two dimensions of relational ties and examining their contingent values given different environmental factors and exchange characteristics.

The authors used survey data from 194 matched buyer–supplier dyads in China's high-tech industries and employed hierarchical moderated regression analysis to test the proposed hypotheses.

The authors find that compared with tie strength, tie brokerage has a stronger positive effect on co-exploration. Moreover, guanxi importance amplifies the effect of tie strength while decreasing the value of tie brokerage. As market uncertainty increases, the role of tie brokerage becomes more salient. Additionally, tie strength becomes less effective when buyer centralization is high, whereas tie brokerage exerts a stronger impact on co-exploration when an exchange is highly formalized.

This study contributes to the supply chain literature by adopting a relational perspective to integrate relational ties into the study of buyer–supplier co-exploration and by elaborating on the different implications of tie strength and tie brokerage in resolving the novelty–action trade-off. Furthermore, it provides a more nuanced understanding of when distinct dimensions of relational ties are effective, by clarifying boundary conditions in terms of environmental factors and exchange characteristics.

Asset specificity is a focal feature of buyer–supplier exchanges; however, whether unilateral asset specificity encourages opportunistic value expropriation or promotes trust-based value creation remains controversial. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how institutional forces shape the controversial roles of buyer asset specificity in supply chain relationships.

With a survey of 217 matched manufacturer–supplier dyads in China, the study adopts ordinary least squares regression analyses to test hypotheses.

The results show that two key institutional forces, guanxi importance and government intervention, play different roles in shaping the value expropriation and value creation roles of buyer asset specificity. As an informal institutional force, guanxi importance weakens the impact of buyer asset specificity on opportunistic value expropriation and facilitates trust-based value creation. Moreover, as a formal institutional force, government intervention amplifies the effect of buyer asset specificity on opportunism but strengthens its connection with trust.

By incorporating an institutional view to investigate how institutional forces affect this “valuable but vulnerable” dilemma of asset specificity, this study reconciles the controversy concerning value expropriation vs value creation and enriches understanding of the critical roles of institutional parameters in supply chain management.

Given the pivotal influence of institutional forces, an important yet underexplored question in supply chain management literature is how contractual and relational governance jointly affect supplier performance under weak legislative environments. This study tends to solve the debate by distinguishing contractual definability from contractual enforceability and by considering the contingent role of legal development in China.

Using a combined dataset of secondary data and a survey of 224 buyer–supplier dyads in China, this study examines how contractual definability and contractual enforceability interact with relational governance differently in driving supplier performance, and assesses the contingent role of legal development.

This study finds that contractual definability complements yet contractual enforceability substitutes relational governance in affecting supplier performance. Moreover, legal development weakens the complementary effect but strengthens the substitutive effect.

The study firstly enriches supply chain management literature by classifying the roles of contracts into contractual definability and contractual enforceability and showing their differential interplay with relational governance. Second, the study contributes to the complements–substitutes debate by revealing the shifting role of legal development. Third, the research enriches the understanding of supply chain management in the Chinese market.

The purpose of this paper is to study the pricing problem of product transfer price under the channel advantages; determine the structure models of optimal transfer price expectation; and compare the differences in pricing of different pricing dominant parties.

Uncertain factors are introduced into dynamic pricing mathematics models; production and storage models are combined; the method of functional analysis is used to solve transfer pricing question under different advantage conditions; and price matching models in supply chain integration are put forth.

There is a proportional relationship between the optimal transfer price expectation and price fluctuation. The party which has channel advantages will gain relatively more profit, but the maximum revenue can be obtained only in the supply chain integration.

There is no appropriate empirical data to verify the models.

The paper provides pricing reference method to monopoly competitive enterprises on different stages. The matching pricing models based on E‐commerce can deal with the price deviation caused by goal difference and random factors automatically.

The paper considers production and inventory pricing, reflects the influence of the whole pricing factors under different channel advantages, and puts forth dynamic matching pricing models and algorithm under the E‐commerce circumstances.

The relationship between government and market is the key to the economic development performance of market economy countries. Due to the limits such as the state/market dichotomy, the focus on static allocation efficiency and the ignorance of the diversity of the market economy and the relationship between government and market, economic liberalism and state interventionism can hardly position and explain the role and evolution of government and market in the real world accurately.

China’s economic transition has always adhered to the reform direction of the socialist market economy and the development goal of a modern socialist country as well as the symbiosis and positive and progressive evolution of government and market, blazing a “third way” in handling the relationship between government and market.

The “China’s experience” shows that the key for emerging market economies to achieve good economic development performance lies in whether they can build a new relationship of the mutual integration between and common prosperity of government and market regarding target selection, production organisation, technological innovation, institutional change and regulatory adjustment.

The second part of this paper analyses the inherent defects of economic liberalism and state interventionism as well as the reasons why they can hardly be adopted as the theoretical guidance for emerging market economies to handle the relationship between government and market. The third part analyses how China has transcended the inherent thinking of liberalism and interventionism and shaped the new relationship between government and market through goal-oriented, active and progressive, two-way interactive exploration and practice to ensure the success of China's economic transition.