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The purpose of this study is to explain the rapid growth of urban residents' sugar consumption in China from the perspective of habit formation.

Using the provincial panel data of Chinese urban households from 1995 to 2012, this study uses the two-step System Generalized Moment Method (GMM) to test the habit formation effect on residents' sugar expenditure in urban China. We also use system GMM and the recursive estimated method to explore the changes of the habit formation coefficients in different years.

We find a significant habit formation effect on overall residents' sugar expenditure and different types of sugary foods expenditure. The habit formation effect on total residents' sugar expenditure and different types of sugary foods is decreasing over the years. The patterns of the changes of the habit formation effect on different types of sugar foods are slightly different.

Due to data limitations, we are not able to do household-level analysis and to examine the heterogeneity of the habit formation effect.

This is the first study that examines changes in the habit formation effect on residents' sugar expenditure in urban China. Our findings provide a reasonable explanation for the rapid growth of residents' sugar consumption in urban China. The result helps to formulate targeted policies for future interventions to control the growth of sugar consumption.

This paper explores the workplace experiences of aesthetic labour among racially diverse frontline women workers in a fashion retail store.

This qualitative study is based on an ethnographic study, drawing on findings from participant observation and interviews with frontline workers at a fashion retail store in the UK.

This paper explores how the embodiments of aesthetic labour are perpetually produced and commodified through the discipline of management in a fashion retail store. It challenges the notion of phenotypical Whiteness as the beauty standard within fashion retail and demonstrates how embodiments differ according to race. While White women are continuously scrutinised by their appearance, the aesthetic demands for women of colour tend to focus on speech and racialised bodies to provide “authentically” exotic experiences for customers. Additionally, this study highlights how the mobilisation of aesthetic labour can create work humiliation and work alienation.

Despite this study being based on an ethnographic study at one British fashion retailer, this paper seeks to give voices to an underrepresented group by exploring the lived experiences of racially diverse women workers.

This paper contributes to the intersection between aesthetic labour and race from an embodiment perspective, exploring the workplace experiences of racially diverse women workers in fashion retail and how their various forms of embodiment are racialised and commodified.

A green innovation strategy is an important step for enterprises to balance economic and environmental. As the executors of strategic decisions, the attitude and capabilities of senior managers determine the effectiveness of implementing green innovation. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the relationship between executive compensation incentives and green innovation.

Based on the data of heavily polluting enterprises listed in China's A-share market from 2015 to 2020, this study constructs an OLS model with fixed effects of time and industry, and uses the mediation three-step method to verify the correlation between executive compensation incentives, innovation openness and green innovation. Meanwhile, the grouping regression was used to test the moderating effect of environmental regulation on executive compensation incentives.

The empirical results show that executive salary incentives promote green innovation and equity incentives inhibit green innovation; the openness breadth partially mediates the relationship between salary incentives, equity incentives and green innovation, while the openness depth only partially mediates the relationship between equity incentives and green innovation; and environmental regulation positively moderates executive incentives.

Due to sample selection and variable measurement, the study lacks certain generality. Therefore, future research needs to further analyze the internal factors affecting green innovation from multiple dimensions.

This study provides a new evidence for analyzing how executive compensation measures affect green innovation, and further enhances the mediating mechanism of open innovation.

This study has significant theoretical implications for examining the intra-firm factors that affect green innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an English Proficiency (EP) programme and its efficacy with respect to students' academic performance in a university within a multi-lingual context, as the programme had been in effect for some years.

A quasi-experimental approach was used to study the efficacy of an EP programme in a university within a multilingual context. Data across two academic years were used, along with regression discontinuity design.

Results suggest that the EP programme had a significant and positive intervention effect on students' initial semester grade point average. The programme effect size was found to be medium to large.

It might be useful to extend the study for one more year for more concrete conclusions. As the study was anchored upon the structure of the 2016 EP programme, any major curricular/structural change to the programme warrants another study.

This study demonstrated that the implementation of EP programmes in higher education institutions is essential not only for international students who are foreign language speakers of English but also for domestic students in English-speaking countries, especially for bi/multilingual speakers.

Previous studies related to the efficacy of EP within higher education have focused on international students who speak English as an additional/foreign language. Further, most studies have focussed on students' self-reported experiences and have yielded disparate findings. This study contributes to scholarship as it addresses the under-researched area related to domestic students who speak English as the first language in a bi/multi-lingual context.

The highly uncertain and turbulent environments nowadays intensify the paradoxical effects of supply base concentration (SBC) on improving cost efficiency while increasing idiosyncratic risk (IR). Digitalization is regarded as a remedy for this paradox, yet digitization's potentially curative effect has not been empirically tested. Leveraging the lenses of paradox theory and information processing theory (IPT), this study explores how two distinct dimensions of digitalization, i.e. digitalization intensity (DI) and digitalization breadth (DB), reconcile the paradoxical effects of SBC.

Using a panel dataset of 1,238 Chinese manufacturing firms in the period of 2012–2020, this study utilizes fixed-effects regression models to test the proposed hypotheses.

The authors discover that SBC enhances a firm's cost efficiency but induces greater IR. More importantly, there is evidence that DI restrains the amplifying effect of SBC on IR. However, DB weakens the enhancing effect of SBC on cost efficiency and aggravates the SBC's exacerbating effect on IR.

This study advances the understanding of the paradoxical effects of SBC on cost efficiency and IR from a paradox theory perspective. More importantly, to the best of the authors' knowledge, the authors' study is the first to untangle the differential roles of DI and DB in reconciling the paradox of SBC. This study also provides practitioners with nuanced insights into how the practitioners should use appropriate tactics to deploy digital technologies effectively.

The purpose of this study is to provide a non-iterative linear method to solve the power flow equations of alternating current (AC) power grid. Traditional iterative power flow calculation is limited in speed and reliability, and it is unsuitable for the real-time and online applications of the modern distribution power system (DPS). Thus, it would be of great significance if a fast and flexible linear power flow (LPF) solution could be introduced particularly necessary for the robust and fast control of DPS, especially when the system consists of star and delta connections ZIP load (a constant impedance, Z, load, a constant current, I, load and a constant power, P, load) and the high penetration of distributed solar and wind power generators.

Based on the features of DPS and considering the approximate balance of three-phase DPS, several approximations corresponding to the three-phase power flow equations have been discussed and analyzed. Then, based on those approximations, two three-phase LPF models have been developed under the polar coordinates. One model has been formulated with the voltage magnitudes [referred to the voltage magniudes based linear power flow method (VMLPF)], and another model has been formulated with the logarithmic transform of voltage magnitudes [referred to the logarithmic transform of voltage based linear power flow method LGLPF)].

The institute of electrical and electronic engineers (IEEE) 13-bus, 37-bus, 123-bus and an improved 615-bus unbalanced DPSs are used to test the performances of the methods considering star and delta connections ZIP load and PV buses (voltage-controlled buses). The test results validate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed two models. Especially when considering the PV buses and delta connection ZIP load, the proposed two models perform much well. Moreover, the results show that VMLPF performs a bit better than LGLPF.

Except for the transformer with Yg–Yg connection winding can be dealt with directly, the transformers with other connections are not discussed in this proposed paper and need to be further studied.

These proposed two models can deal with ZIP load with star and delta connections as well as multi slack buses and PV buses. The single-phase, two-phase and three-phase hybrid networks can be directly included too. The proposed two models are capable of offering enough accuracy level, and they are therefore suitable for online applications that require a large number of repeated power flow calculations.

In this study, a highly sensitive and quantitative analysis method using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-labeled immunoassay is adopted for bisphenol A bisphenol A (BPA) detection in water samples.

Primarily, an excellent SERS immuno-nanoprobe is prepared, which relays on Au/Ag core-shell nanoparticles tagged 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4MBA) and labeled with specific antibody against BPA. Second, the coating antigen of 4,4-Bis(4-hydroxyphenol) valeric acid (BVA) coupling poly-L-lysine (PLL) conjugate (BVA-PLL) is fastened on the substrate. Based on competitive immunoassay, the antibody labeled on SERS immuno-nanoprobe will bind with the free BPA and BVA-PLL competitively.

A calibration curve was obtained by plotting the intensity of SERS signal of 4MBA at 1007 cm⁻¹ versus the concentration of BPA. The results indicated that the limit of detection (LOD) for BPA is 1 ng/mL and present a great capacity for higher sensitivity. Furthermore, the method was able to quantitatively detect BPA in water samples, which was validated by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

The method was developed based on competitive immunoassay, and the conjugate (BVA-PLL) was chosen as the coating antigen. Au/Ag core-shell nanoparticles played as the SERS active substrate and were labeled with Raman reporter. The value of this paper is supplying a wide potential for analysis of target analytes in the environmental monitoring and food safety.

This paper aims to establish a service efficiency-oriented framework for training design and evaluation as a pivotal service procedure in the workplace to fill the gap between training and organizational performance in a service context.

A semi-structured interview was first employed to confirm the primary indicator for training programs and criteria design as the pivotal factor for operational efficiency. An observation experiment was subsequently conducted to reveal that the training program can be redesigned according to the concrete operation effects and influencing factors for operational efficiency in the workplace.

The proposed service efficiency-oriented training model is suggested to underline and guide the activities for training requirements, training methods, training criteria and training evaluation for the service sector. Training auditing, analyzing and redesigning based on service efficiency could help to integrate service efficiency so that service organizations can readjust their specific training needs and concise the training program in the human resource management practice.

This study only conducted an on-site observational experiment on one of the casinos in Macau. An observational method assessed the conceptual model in the context of table game operations. More quantitative approaches like AI-assisted systems may be employed in the future. The representativeness of the sample is somewhat limited. In addition, the service efficiency-oriented training concept model is an open system that any organization could extend by incorporating more elements in each part that can be developed to meet their human resource management needs. Finally, other service-oriented organizations like airlines and banks can learn from the theoretical model proposed in this article. It is suggested that non-profit organizations would be a better research area.

The finding can provide organizations and practitioners with insights and tools on how to provide and evaluate service efficiency and assess employee performance.

The proposed service efficiency-oriented training model provides a theoretical foundation for training and organizational performance for service organizations.

This study is the first to develop a service efficiency-oriented training framework with training needs, methods, criteria and evaluation. A service industry sample was used to verify the framework in the context of casino game pace and dealer training for table games. Suggestions for a combination of management are provided for casino operators to redesign and evaluate the dealer training program for service improvement.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the contingencies of supply chain risk management (SCRM) in manufacturing multinational corporations (MNCs) by exploring the moderating role of international asset dispersion in the performance effect of SCRM, as well as the counteraction effect of supply chain integration (SCI).

Multi-country survey data from a sample of 378 responses collected by the sixth round International Manufacturing Strategy Survey were analyzed. Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results demonstrate that SCRM improves the operational effectiveness of manufacturing MNCs but this performance effect is attenuated by international asset dispersion. Nevertheless, external integration can counteract the negative effect of international asset dispersion and ensure the efficacy of SCRM practices.

The results of this study provide suggestions for supply chain managers of manufacturing MNCs to better conduct SCRM practices under the condition of dispersed international assets. Besides, supply chain managers can leverage external integration to ensure the efficacy of SCRM practices.

Although there are plenty of studies on the relationship between SCRM and operational performance, prior findings are inconsistent. This study sheds light on the SCRM-operational performance relationship by considering how a manufacturing MNC’s international asset dispersion can influence the efficacy of SCRM practices and how SCI can attenuate the negative effect of international asset dispersion.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of intellectual capital (IC) in supply chain intelligence integration (SCII) and the interrelationships of the three components of IC (i.e. human capital (HC), structural capital (SC) and relational capital (RC)) in the supply chain context.

This paper conducted an empirical study by using primary data from 389 sample firms. The authors applied structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results indicate that both HC and RC have direct impact on SCII, whereas SC only influences SCII through RC.

This study evidences that IC is an enabler of SCII. Furthermore, this study reveals the interrelationships of human, structural and RC.