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This paper aims to examine whether and to what extent the practical wisdom contained in classical Confucianism can provide conceptual and ethical resources for ethical leadership for Chinese companies in the twenty‐first century. The objectives of the paper are: to reconstruct the core elements of Confucianism; to account some major issues confronting corporate China; to identify the attributes of the Confucian ethical leadership through those of Junzi against such a backdrop; to identify some major challenges for Junzi leadership in today's business environment in China; and to consider some implications of this analysis for management development and management education.

The paper adopts a normative analysis.

A critical articulation of the concept of ethical leadership based on the Confucian notion of Junzi is presented, and the concept is examined against the context of problems confronting business in China. The challenges for Confucian ethical leadership are identified in the conclusion.

The paper presents a critical reference for managers who adopt or intend to adopt Confucian ideas in management.

The paper provides a critical reference for those in society who assume leadership positions to learn about Chinese ethical leadership.

Few works in the literature have made the connection between Confucian ethical leadership and the Chinese corporate context with a critical approach and rigorous analysis to help reveal the inherent challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a concise introduction of sustainability in human resource management (HRM) from the western perspective. With a review of Confucian thinking, it argues that the application of sustainability in HRM is more effective and efficient under the influence of Confucian values. Therefore, Chinese companies are likely ready to embrace the concept of sustainability and implement sustainable people management practices.

The paper is mainly theoretical in perspective. It also draws on semi-structured interview data derived from a study conducted in companies that operated in two cities in China: Guangzhou and Beijing to support the discussion of synergies between Confucian values and the western concept of sustainability in HRM.

In the interviews, it was evident that the interviewees were adhered to Confucian values, although they did not make the connection explicit. The interview data also showed how Confucian values (e.g. Ren, Yi, Li) affect Chinese management of human resources.

The number of interviewees involved was not sufficient to allow a conclusive comparison between groups. Further research is needed to develop comparisons.

The paper suggests a favourable application of Confucian values in sustainable people management practices.

The interview data provide insight into how Confucian values lend support to sustainability in HRM.

This paper aims to present a multi-scale stochastic damage model (SDM) for concrete and apply it to the stochastic response analysis of reinforced concrete shear wall structures.

The proposed SDM is constructed at two scales, i.e. the macro-scale and the micro-scale. The general framework of the SDM is established on the basis of the continuum damage mechanics (CDM) at the macro-scale, whereas the detailed damage evolution is determined through a parallel fiber buddle model at the micro-scale. The parallel buddle model is made up of micro-elements with stochastic fracture strains, and a one-dimensional random field is assumed for the fracture strain distribution. To represent the random field, a random functional method is adopted to quantify the stochastic damage evolution process with only two variables; thus, the numerical efficiency is greatly enhanced. Meanwhile, the probability density evolution method (PDEM) is introduced for the structural stochastic response analysis.

By combing the SDM and PDEM, the probabilistic analysis of a shear wall structure is performed. The mean value, standard deviation and the probability density function of the shear wall responses, e.g., shear capacity, accumulated energy consumption and damage evolution, are obtained.

It is noted that the proposed method can reflect the influences of randomness from material level to structural level, and is efficient for stochastic response determination of shear wall structures.

While current management theory is largely based on economic assumptions, there is evidence to suggest capitalism is at a crossroads. Humanistic management is accordingly proposed as an alternative new paradigm. The present study follows this approach in considering Confucianism as a humanistic practice. The purpose of this study is to explore humanistic leadership displayed by a Confucian leader and how he/she presents humanistic concern in corporate management to pursue the common good.

This study adopted a structured–pragmatic–situational approach to conduct a case study and collected data from three sources: semi-structured interviews, consultant observations and archival data.

The findings reveal that a Confucian leader takes all stakeholders' interests into account while engaging in corporate management and displays humanistic behaviors toward the stakeholders that are in line with five Confucian virtues. The leader cultivates the employees as Confucian humanistic agents. These employees accordingly act as bridges to transmit the humanistic spirit to their customers and other industries in the same market. To initiate an industry change to achieve collective welfare, a Confucian leader must first influence his/her primary stakeholders. The primary stakeholders next collectively influence the secondary stakeholders (i.e. the industry). Consequently, the overall goal of the common good is ultimately sustained.

This study identifies valuable practical implications for humanistic practices in corporate management from a Confucian perspective. In addition, this study takes a significant academic step forward by illuminating the humanistic paradigm.

This paper aims to develop a culturally sensitive model based on the Chinese Confucian philosophy and normative ethics, which emphasizes the wholehearted social responsibility of a Junzi (a noble man). Analogous to the popular marketing concept and strategic marketing orientation concepts, the authors define the Junzi concept as a business philosophy and Junzi orientation as the implementation of this philosophy. It proposes a Junzi orientation has a positive influence on companies' performances.

An 18-item scale comprising five dimensions: (1) Ren – benevolence, humaneness; (2) Yi – appropriateness, righteousness; (3) Li – propriety, harmonious differentiation; (4) Zhi – wisdom, knowledge management; and (5) Xin – integrity, trustworthiness, was developed to measure Junzi orientation. A total of 423 questionnaires were collected from different industries in Hong Kong, and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted.

The multidimensional behavioral construct of Junzi orientation scale was reliable and valid. The data supported that Junzi orientation has a positive influence on companies' performances.

The paper suggests that Junzi orientation could enhance a firm's competitive advantage.

This paper develops a culturally sensitive business orientation scale based on Chinese Confucianism and normative ethics.

The advent of the new retail era witnessed the consumers’ demand shift from on the traditional product quality to on the full supply chain service quality, and product service and service manufacturing is gradually taking shape. The purpose of this paper is to propose whether there is a “quality bridge” in the dynamic evolution process of retail service supply chain (RSSC) and discuss the system role, steady-state characteristics and dynamic evolution mechanism of service quality in this dynamic evolution process.

This paper proposes the dissipation system structure of the RSSC under the steady-state quality constraint, constructs a Markov chain model (MCM) for the evolution of the service quality of RSSC, and tests the objective existence of the steady-state distribution of the service quality by taking Chinese HJ retail enterprises as samples.

The research value of this study is summarized as follows. The research finds that the evolution of service quality of RSSC is a dynamic and non-linear growth process, which has significant characteristics of complex adaptability and steady-state convergence. The study finds that the quality evolution process of the RSSC is a steady-state convergence process, and there is a steady-state distribution of quality in its co-evolution, in which different process input levels have a significant positive impact on the stable level of quality state. The study finds that the steady state of quality plays a crucial role in the collaborative evolution of the RSSC, that is, when the service quality reaches a certain steady state distribution, the operating efficiency and profit level of the whole chain will show an “explosive” growth trend.

Quality bridge, an original concept in this paper, represents the role of quality steady-state in the operation of RSSC. Based on Markov chain and system simulation tools, this paper verifies the existence of steady-state service quality and its positive effect on the co-evolution and sustainable development of RSSC. When the service quality reaches a certain steady distribution, the operating efficiency and income level of the whole chain will show n trend of explosive growth.

This study aims to design to assess the traditional, complementary and alternate medicine (TCAM) usage and its association with the quality of life (QOL) of Type 2 diabetic patients in a tertiary hospital (Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia) in Malaysia.

A total of 300 respondents included in this study were divided into the following two major categories: TCAM (34.33% of respondents) and non-TCAM users (65.67% of the respondents), respectively. The mean ages of the respondents were 59.3 ± 10.2 for the TCAM users and 57.7 ± 12.0 for the non-TCAM users.

A greater percentage of non-TCAM users reported poor control of diabetes (14.7%) and blood glucose (55.8%) compared with the TCAM users (9.7% and 48.5%, respectively). Further, the diabetic patients on TCAM reported lower rates of coma, stroke and kidney problems but higher rates of diabetic foot ulcers, heart diseases and retinopathy than the non-TCAM users. Additionally, the diabetic patients with TCAM usage had a significantly better physical (p = 0.02) and overall (p = 0.03) qualities of life compared to the non-TCAM users. However, psychological, social and environmental health did not show any significant difference.

The prevalence of TCAM usage among diabetic patients was lower than in other comparable studies. Diabetic patients on TCAM reported lower rates of coma, stroke and kidney problems but higher rates of diabetic foot ulcers, heart diseases and retinopathy than the non-TCAM users. Further, diabetes patients on TCAM reported better QOL compared to non-TCAM users especially in terms of physical health.

This paper challenges the philosophy underlying traditional management thinking. The historic and possibly arcane purpose of business, to maximise shareholder wealth, is no longer a relevant proposition. Academics and managers need to rethink the philosophical framework of management theory. For the past 50 years the management literature has adopted a more “human” approach to the management of organisations yet the importance of systems and process and performance measurers associated with the scientific theory of management prevails. With the growing importance of knowledge creation and the corporate social responsibility movement it is timely to reflect on the purpose of business as adding value to society and rejecting the focus on accumulation of personal wealth. Knowledge‐creating enterprises are founded on the development of sustainable relationships within the organisation and with stakeholders and thus require a different philosophical perspective.

In order to reflect the essential characteristics of interval grey number and study the ranking method of interval grey number as a whole, this paper aims to establish a ranking method of interval grey number.

First, based on the generalised greyness of interval grey number, the definitions of referenced grey number and proximity degree are given. Second, based on the greyness distance of interval grey number, the proximity degree model is constructed and its properties are analysed. Finally, some examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proximity degree model.

The results show that the index of proximity degree can better reflect the degree that the interval grey number is relatively close to the referenced grey number in different cases. The proximity degree model used to compare interval grey numbers is an extension of the model used to compare real numbers. The examples show that the proximity degree model of interval grey number proposed in this paper is feasible and effective.

The research studies show that the proximity degree model can be used for the ranking of interval grey numbers or real numbers and also for the ranking of numbers where interval grey numbers coexist with real numbers. In addition, the proximity degree model provides a theoretical basis for the establishment of grey comprehensive evaluation model.

The paper succeeds in putting forward the conceptions of referenced grey number and proximity degree based on the generalised greyness of interval grey number and constructing the proximity degree model for the ranking of interval grey number.

Magnetic permeability variations of ferromagnetic materials under elastic stress offer the potential to monitor tension based on the inverse magnetostrictive effect. The purpose of this paper is to propose an innovative self-inductance tension eddy current sensor to detect tension.

The effectiveness of conventional elasto-magnetic (EM) sensor is limited during signal detection, due to its complex sensor structure, which includes excitation and induction coils. In this paper, a novel self-inductance tension eddy current sensor using a single coil is presented.

The output signal was analyzed through oscilloscope in the frequency domain and via self-developed data logger in the time domain. Experimental results show the existence of a linear relationship between voltage across the sensor and tension. The sensor sensitivity is dependent on operating conditions, such as current and frequency of the input signal.

The self-inductance sensor has great potential for replacing conventional EM sensor due to its low cost, simple structure, high precision and good repeatability in tension detection.

A spilt sleeve structure provides a higher permeability path to magnetic field lines than a non-sleeve structure, thus reducing the loss of magnetic field. The self-developed data logger improves sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio of sensor. The novel sensor, as a replacement of the EM sensor, can easily and accurately monitor the tension force.