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This paper aims to examine how a firm’s capability affects its political networking in emerging economies and how the institutional environment influences the relationship between a firm’s capability and its political networking.

The authors test the theoretical model by analyzing a database from a World Bank survey in China.

The results show a nonlinear (U-shaped) relationship between a firm’s capability and its efforts in political networking. The relationship between a firm’s capability and political networking is contingent on the institutional environment, as reflected in institutional development and industry regulation.

This study elucidates political networking in emerging economies and contributes to research on corporate political strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of a competitive action and its impact on the response of rivals in the digital market. Specifically, this paper introduces the concept of action complexity and action variation to delineate the configuration characteristics of each digital competitive action and empirically investigates how these action characteristics further affect rivals’ response speed.

This paper uses structural content analysis methods to code competitive actions based on the news of Chinese online travel agencies (OTAs) from 2010 to 2015. The cox proportional hazards regression models are employed to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that action complexity of the focal firm is negatively associated with rivals’ response speed as it constrains their interpretation (awareness), motivation and capability to respond, while action variation of the focal firm is positively associated with rivals’ response speed as it enhances their attention (awareness) and motivation to respond. Furthermore, the negative relationship between action complexity and response speed is weaker when action variation is high.

Further to advancing competitive dynamics theory, this paper proposes an action-configuration perspective to explore the particular content and quality of each digital competitive action. The discussion of competitive rivalry between OTAs also enriches the application of competitive dynamics in the digital market. Meanwhile, this paper further clarifies the decision-making process of rivalry drawing on the awareness–motivation–capability (AMC) framework.

This study proposed and examined a unique but underresearched strategic response to coercive institutional pressure, covert neutralization, in which organizations neutralize coercive institutional pressure by manipulating influential factors within their discretion while conforming to the pressure. In addition, this study pointed out that the extent of covert neutralization is contingent on organizational decision-makers' willingness and ability to take countermeasures.

To find evidence for covert neutralization and its strategic nature, a historical review with secondary data was conducted in the context of the coercive introduction of the independent director system in China. The board structure adjustments of 318 Chinese A-share listed companies from 2000 to 2004 were examined using univariate T-tests, robust ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models and ordered logit regression models to test the hypotheses.

This study found that in response to the coercive introduction of the independent director system, Chinese listed companies adjusted their board structures while conforming to the system, which neutralized the constraints on controlling shareholders' board control. Specifically, listed companies reduced the number of dependent directors and the ratio of directors representing noncontrolling shareholders to those representing controlling shareholders. Moreover, the extent of board structure adjustments was positively associated with the shareholding percentage of controlling shareholders. These findings provide evidence for covert neutralization and its strategic nature.

This study indicates the inefficacy of simple legal coercion and suggests that authorities should be aware of the covert countermeasures used by regulated organizations and employ normative approaches to improve the efficacy of regulations. This implication is rather instructive for regulators to effectively promote imposed changes in transitional economies with strong governments.

By differentiating conformity behavior from conformity inclination and considering the inevitable incompleteness of laws, this study challenges the conventional wisdom regarding organizational conformity and shows that organizations can strategically respond to coercive institutional pressure while conforming to it. In contrast to other strategic responses that aim to defy, avoid or resist the implementation (the means) of institutional pressure, covert neutralization aims to neutralize its efficacy (the ends).

The purpose of this paper is to examine firms’ early adoption decision regarding new practices, and what social factors – that is social status and political legitimacy – may influence decision processes under ambiguity.

The study examines outside director presence among publicly listed firms in China between 1991 and 2000, using discrete time – event history analysis based on observation of 770 firms.

Social status negatively influences early adoption decisions through the expectation of status enhancement, while political legitimacy is also influential because early adoptions are more attractive to firms in need of political access. Moreover, a firm’ political legitimacy moderates the effect of social status, due to their resource dependence on different stakeholders.

This study’s findings provide important insights for research on diffusion models of new practices by identifying the social processes during early diffusion, and articulating different effects of status and legitimacy. It further emphasizes the sociopolitical perspectives and social motives of governance structure changes in emerging economies.

The cultural tourism industry, which has subtly met the needs and solved the major problem of the current age, is a new growth point for the current city economic growth. Therefore, its position in the industrial structure system will be increasingly improved. The development of the cultural tourism industry also provides an important opportunity for the renewal and re-engineering of urban space. For the current urban space construction crisis needs the integration of historical and cultural elements urgently while the development of the cultural tourism industry itself happened to need the city to provide the necessary carrying space and incubation carrier urgently as well. Thus this research discusses the construction of urban visual planning system and the specific implementation path from the perspective of the development of cultural tourism industry.

This study aims to review the recent advancements in high entropy alloys (HEAs) called high entropy materials, including high entropy superalloys which are current potential alternatives to nickel superalloys for gas turbine applications. Understandings of the laser surface modification techniques of the HEA are discussed whilst future recommendations and remedies to manufacturing challenges via laser are outlined.

Materials used for high-pressure gas turbine engine applications must be able to withstand severe environmentally induced degradation, mechanical, thermal loads and general extreme conditions caused by hot corrosive gases, high-temperature oxidation and stress. Over the years, Nickel-based superalloys with elevated temperature rupture and creep resistance, excellent lifetime expectancy and solution strengthening L12 and γ´ precipitate used for turbine engine applications. However, the superalloy’s density, low creep strength, poor thermal conductivity, difficulty in machining and low fatigue resistance demands the innovation of new advanced materials.

HEAs is one of the most frequently investigated advanced materials, attributed to their configurational complexity and properties reported to exceed conventional materials. Thus, owing to their characteristic feature of the high entropy effect, several other materials have emerged to become potential solutions for several functional and structural applications in the aerospace industry. In a previous study, research contributions show that defects are associated with conventional manufacturing processes of HEAs; therefore, this study investigates new advances in the laser-based manufacturing and surface modification techniques of HEA.

The AlxCoCrCuFeNi HEA system, particularly the Al0.5CoCrCuFeNi HEA has been extensively studied, attributed to its mechanical and physical properties exceeding that of pure metals for aerospace turbine engine applications and the advances in the fabrication and surface modification processes of the alloy was outlined to show the latest developments focusing only on laser-based manufacturing processing due to its many advantages.

It is evident that high entropy materials are a potential innovative alternative to conventional superalloys for turbine engine applications via laser additive manufacturing.

The deposition of particles onto a substrate during the cold spraying (CS) process relies on severe plastic deformation, so there are various micro-defects induced by insufficient deformation and severe crushing. To solve the problems, many post-treat techniques have been used to improving the quality by eliminating the micro-defects. This paper aims to help scholars and engineers in this field a better and systematic understand of CS technology by summarizing the post-treatment technologies that have been investigated recently years.

This review summarizes the types of micro-defects and introduces the effect of micro-defects on the properties of CS coating/additive manufactured, illustrates the post-treatment technologies and its effect on the microstructure and performances, and finally outlooks the future development trends of post-treatments for CS.

There are significant discoveries in post-treatment technology to change the performance of cold spray deposits. There are also many limitations for post-treatment methods, including improved performance and limitations of use. Thus, there is still a strong requirement for further improvement. Hybrid post-treatment may be a more ideal method, as it can eliminate more defects than a single method. The proposed ultrasonic impact treatment could be an alternative method, as it can densify and flatten the CS deposits.

It is the first time to reveal the influence factors on the performances of CS deposits from the perspective of microdefects, and proposed corresponding well targeted post-treatment methods, which is more instructive for improving the performances of CS deposits.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the use of Chinese medicine in the prevention and treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China and Asia.

This paper provides a brief overview of the COVID-19. Based on the syndrome differentiation (辨證論治), the concept of clearing heat and detoxifying lung in traditional Chinese medicine is used to prevent and treat COVID-19 through restoring the vital qi (正氣) in human body and regulating the lung as well as spleen to strengthen the immune system. Traditional Chinese medicine has been used as a complementary therapy for the possible intervention of COVID-19 including traditional Chinese herbal decoctions, Chinese traditional patent medicines, acupuncture and moxibustion as well as the traditional health exercises in China and parts of Asia.

Traditional Chinese medicine plays a significant role in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 pandemic. The infection cases of China are around 80,000 and a steady decline compared with the USA which has 5,000,000 infection cases and continuous increases. It is shown that more than 90% of patients recovered after the treatment of traditional Chinese herbal decoctions and Chinese traditional patent medicines without any side-effect compared to the use of Remdesivir (GS-5734). Acupuncture (針灸) and moxibustion (艾灸) stimulate the immune and nervous systems for preventing infectious diseases. Taichi (太極) and Baduanjin (八段錦) as the auxiliary aerobic exercise under the theory of Chinese medicine can enhance the immune system and improve the lung function. Thus, an integration of traditional Chinese Medicine and Western medicine is the best strategy for the prevention, treatment and control of COVID-19 pandemic in the future.

This paper describes traditional Chinese medicine as an effective way for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.