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Macro synthetic steel fibers were incorporated into the concrete material as a toughening agent to improve the corrosion and cracking resistances of concrete in a sulfate-containing service environment.

To study the basic mechanical properties of this system, an accelerated concrete degradation test was designed to evaluate the influence of the sulfate ions on the concrete. A three-point bending test was carried out in the laboratory to evaluate the fracture toughness. The thickness of the damaged concrete layer and changes of microstructure of the degraded concrete were monitored by using ultrasound, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction detection methods.

The results showed that compared to the performance of ordinary concrete, in an exposure environment containing sulfate ions, the structure compactness of macro synthetic steel fiber concrete was improved, degradation resistance to the sulfate solution was enhanced and the fracture resistance performance was improved significantly.

The thickness of the degradation layer on the macro synthetic steel fiber concrete was less than a half of that of ordinary concrete in the sulfate environment, and was generally unchanged with increase in the sulfate concentration. Through micro-structural analysis, it was confirmed that macro synthetic steel fiber improved the compactness of the concrete structure, inhibiting access of sulfate ions to the interior of the concrete and thereby reducing the degree of sulfate degradation to the concrete.

Building on social identity theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how European managers construct their multiple identities after being acquired by a Chinese firm and to determine the key factors contributing to the changing dynamics of multiple organizational identities.

The paper presents a qualitative, single case study of a Chinese acquisition of a European manufacturing firm at two points in time.

We find that multiple identities initially trigger ambivalence toward the acquisition, but over time, the ambivalence diminishes. The reduction of ambivalence results from concurrent integration and separation: a newly constructed boundary spanning the organization separates positive identities from negative ones, and integration interventions foster the development of a new, shared identity.

The findings reveal that organizational identity change is facilitated by the aligning of a post-merger identity with the acquired organization's historical identity and by creating an ambivalent boundary spanning identity.

Stressors emanated from construction projects are causative factors for occupational stress inherent in the construction industry. Concomitant implications of stressors ignite a burst of empirical evidence, which necessitates a systematic review to capture the state of art of the extant literature. Therefore, this paper addresses this significant gap by conducting a systematic review of mental stressors.

A three-stage screening and data extraction method were employed to retrieve 38 papers that met the inclusion criteria for the study.

The annual publication trends and contributions of selected journals were elucidated. Moreover, this review identified 49 stressors from 38 selected peer-reviewed journals between 1997 and 2020. The most frequently reported mental stressors include work overload, home-work conflict, poor working environment, role ambiguity and poor working relationships. The 49 stressors could be classified into five main categories, namely; organizational stressors, task stressors, personal stressors, physical stressors and gender-related stressors.

The findings of the study broaden the understanding of the practitioners and policymakers on the dynamics of stressors for the development of stress interventions. Future research should focus on exploration of mental stressors specific to construction projects and different occupational trades.

Information overload has become ubiquitous during a public health emergency. The research purpose is to examine the role of mixed emotions in the influence of perceived information overload on individuals’ information avoidance intention and the state of fear of missing out.

A mixed-methods approach was used in this study: a qualitative study of 182 semi-structured interviews and a quantitative study of 309 surveys.

The results show that perceived information overload negatively affects peace of mind and positively affects fatigue and fear. Emotions with a low activation level (peace of mind and fatigue) promote emotions with a high activation level (hope and fear), and peace of mind negatively influences fatigue. Additionally, peace of mind negatively affects information avoidance intention, while hope positively affects the state of fear of missing out. These two information processing outcomes are positively impacted by fatigue and fear.

This study extends existing knowledge by uncovering the underlying influence of mixed emotions on individuals’ different information processing outcomes caused by perceived information overload. It provides practical insights for online media platforms and Internet users regarding how to process overwhelming information during a public health emergency.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an exploratory understanding of the impact of social support on job stress of shift working mothers in Macao casinos.

A qualitative research method was adopted in this study. A snowball sampling strategy was used to recruit participants, and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted on participants from different casinos of six Macao gaming operators.

The paper found out that emotional and instrumental supports from families and friends are the most important social support for shift working mothers to cope with their job stress in casinos.

A qualitative method may lead to a misinterpretation or ignorance of key information due to the researcher bias. The snowball sampling strategy may lead to a biased sample which may not represent the entire population.

The understanding of what types of social support that shift working mothers appreciate and need the most may provide managerial implications for casino operators for a better support to their female employees.

Few extant studies have focused on digital rituals and investigated the relationship between them and customer citizenship behavior in the context of online brand communities (OBCs). This study aims to examine the sequential mediation mechanism of emotional energy and spiritual brand identification under interaction ritual theory and identifies membership prototypicality as the moderator.

An online investigation of 515 OBC users was conducted to gather data, and structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses.

The empirical results revealed that OBC rituals were positively related to customer citizenship behavior. Emotional energy and spiritual brand identification could play mediating roles in the relationship between OBC rituals and customer citizenship behavior. Furthermore, there existed a sequential mediation mechanism with emotional energy as the first mediator and spiritual brand identification as the second. The effect of OBC rituals on emotional energy was more significant for peripheral members than prototypical members.

Managers of OBCs should conduct various ritualistic strategies to stimulate users to perform customer citizenship behaviors. Discrete ritualized activities should be intended for members of different prototypicalities.

This study provides a profound insight on how OBC rituals foster customer citizenship behavior and is among the first to explore such a relationship. It also investigates the sequential mediation mechanism, thus broadening the research on the influencing processes of OBC rituals on customer citizenship behavior.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between supervisor and coworkers’ workplace incivility and newcomer proactive behaviors. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, the authors examined resource depletion as a mediator and newcomer proactive personality, as well as their current organizational tenure as moderators of the relationship between workplace incivility toward newcomers and their proactive behaviors.

A time-lagged research design was used to test hypotheses with data covering 322 newcomers and their immediate supervisors in two subsidiaries of a large food processing company in China. Regression analysis using the PROCESS macro in SPSS is used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that workplace incivility toward newcomers is negatively related to their proactive behaviors. This relationship is mediated by resource depletion. Furthermore, newcomers’ proactive personality moderates the relationship between workplace incivility and resource depletion. Moreover, both the direct effect of workplace incivility on resource depletion and its indirect effect on newcomer proactive behaviors are moderated by the combination of newcomer proactive personality and their current organizational tenure.

Drawing on COR theory, a theoretical framework is constructed that specifies the process through which workplace incivility affects proactive behaviors to expand collective understandings of workplace incivility in the newcomer context. Furthermore, the boundary conditions of the underlying process are investigated, which further enhances the contribution of this paper to the extant literature on workplace incivility.

This study aims to empirically examine the relationship between Internet use and personal privacy risk perceptions, the mediating effect of trust and the moderating effect of satisfaction on that relationship, which is exactly conducive to the practice of personal information protection.

A moderated mediation model will be employed to test the hypothesized relationships using the 2017 Chinese Society Survey data.

The authors find that Internet use positively relates to citizens' risk perceptions toward privacy security, and trust partially mediates the relationship between Internet use and privacy risk perception. In addition, the analysis of moderating effects showed that satisfaction with social life significantly enhances the negative impact on individuals' privacy risk perceptions of interpersonal trust. The positively moderating effect of satisfaction with local governments' work mainly reveals the relationship between interpersonal trust (or institutional trust) and citizens' privacy risk perception. Moreover, satisfaction with Internet platforms positively moderates the relationship between consumer trust and privacy risk perception.

This article contributes to the social risk amplification framework by applying it to the personal privacy information protection field, which was rarely discussed before. It also enriches privacy research by identifying the internal mechanism of how Internet use influences citizens' risk perceptions towards privacy information leakage.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between school climate and teacher stress. Specifically, the authors construct two parsimonious models to test two main hypotheses. First, whether preschool collegial leadership predicts teachers’ job stress through the mediating role of teacher self-efficacy; second, whether teacher professionalism influences teachers’ perceptions of occupational stress through the mediating role of teacher self-efficacy.

The authors conceptualized the mediating role of teacher efficacy as an important mechanism that can help to explain the effect of school climate on teacher stress. School climate consisted of two dimensions: principal collegial leadership and professionalism. Therefore, the authors constructed and examined two mediation models by using Bootstrapping mediation modeling: first, preschool teacher self-efficacy as a mediator between preschool collegial leadership and teacher stress; second, preschool teacher self-efficacy as a mediator between preschool teacher professionalism and teacher stress.

Results from two mediation analyses showed that principal collegial leadership exerts a significant negative effect on preschool teachers’ stress through the mediating role of teacher self-efficacy. Moreover, professionalism was also a significant predictor of preschool teachers’ stress through the mediating role of teacher self-efficacy.

This study contributes to the literature in terms of understanding the mechanism of how school climate helps to reduce teacher stress. First, the authors found that teachers’ individual well-being can be efficiently enhanced through a more collegial leadership. Second, the preschool leadership teams can create a supportive climate to reduce teachers’ stress by improving teachers’ professionalism.

This study offers a new perspective about understanding the internal and external mechanism of teacher stress. The authors discussed the results in light of the recent push by the Chinese Government to teacher quality improvement in early childhood education. The authors argued for prioritizing support for building a supportive school climate for teachers.