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This study aims to posit that managerial value would be one of the responsible factors for the difference in corporate social responsibility practice among businesses. It then empirically tested the effect of managerial value, with the moderation of organizational culture, on corporate social responsibility practice.

The authors have devised a “moderated micro-macro model” type of multilevel model, wherein managerial value took the micro (individual level) predictor variable role, stakeholder-based corporate social responsibility practice the macro (organizational level) outcome variable role and organizational culture the macro level moderating variable role. Because they need the attention of inquiry, large manufacturing firms in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, with a sample size of 53, constituted the organizational level units. The recent performance of the firms against corporate social responsibility practice and organizational culture have been judged by 473 randomly chosen employees. Managerial value has been rated by randomly picked managers, numbered 253. Analytically, Croon and van Veldhoven’s multilevel analytical package and Mplus software suited the designed model.

The study has revealed that managerial value, indeed, is a potential positive driver of CSR practice, the two managerial value dimensions demonstrated differential effects on corporate social responsibility practice and only one of the organizational culture dimensions, hierarchical culture, played a moderation role in managerial value – corporate social responsibility practice link.

The model and this empirical test have not been previously verified.

Despite the growing interest in the role of relation-specific investments (RSIs) in superior firm performance, their impact on sustainability performance remains unexplored, as do the underlying mechanisms of such effects. Drawing on the relational view and resource orchestration theory (ROT), the authors propose that supply chain learning (SCL) mediates the link between RSIs and sustainability performance.

A multi-method approach was adopted, combining a case study and survey. An exploratory case study of four Chinese manufacturing firms was first conducted to develop research hypotheses. A quantitative survey of data collected from 269 firms was then undertaken to test hypotheses.

Property-based, knowledge-based and personal-based RSIs positively impact firm sustainability performance and SCL. SCL fully mediates the relationship between knowledge-as well as personal-based RSIs and sustainability performance, and partially mediates the relationship between property-based RSIs and sustainability performance.

The study unveils important practical insights and approaches for firms endeavouring to achieve sustainability performance through RSIs and SCL.

The study extends the RSIs literature by linking RSIs and sustainability performance and differentiating the effects of different types of RSIs on sustainability performance. The theorized underlying mechanism advances the understanding of SCL in the link between RSIs and sustainability performance.

Drawing on organizational learning and dynamic capabilities literature, this study aims to explore how suppliers from traditional emerging economies (STEE) can acquire, assimilate and use new knowledge essential for the development of production and marketing capabilities. These capabilities then facilitate suppliers in climbing the value chain from B-to-B to B-to-C.

The study adopted a longitudinal and multiple case study design to examine the practices of suppliers operating in a traditional emerging economy setting. This study selected Pakistan textile industry as an empirical setting, which is a predominantly supplier market for global buyers. Data sources entail semi-structured interviews with top executives and senior-level managers in four case firms and secondary data obtained from diverse sources.

The study identified transitionary phases of capabilities development that are facilitated by boundary-spanning knowledge acquisition and transformation in a dynamic manner. These capabilities are essential for a supplier’s entry into downstream international markets (i.e. launching its own products/brands in the end consumers’ market).

The findings could help managers in STEEs to understand the strategic importance of supply chain ties in their learning and capabilities development. It also provides strategic insights on what, how and why involved parties do engage over an extended period of time. Moreover, the findings of this study could help other firms to know and adopt the right type of technology(s) and systems that can help them reduce the technological gap in producing and marketing market-winning products.

This study advances the recent academic discussion that focusses on learning by supplying and the value-chain movement of suppliers (i.e. B-to-C) from their B-to-B engagements. The findings identified the vital and beneficial role of long-term relationships with global value chain partners in learning and capabilities development that led to value creation in the traditional emerging economy.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of asymmetric trust on construction project management performance in China's construction industry. Moreover, the authors explore the mediating role of two types of knowledge sharing (explicit knowledge sharing and tacit knowledge sharing) in explaining the association between asymmetric trust and project management performance.

A theoretical model based on the research hypotheses proposed in this study was developed and a questionnaire survey was conducted with 271 professionals. The data collected was analyzed by the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique.

The results of this study indicate that there is a significant and negative association between asymmetric trust and project management performance. Moreover, two types of knowledge sharing (explicit knowledge sharing and tacit knowledge sharing) have different degrees of impact on improving project management performance. In addition, tacit knowledge sharing is a mediator between asymmetric trust and project management performance.

The data used in this study is from Chinese scenarios, so the research conclusions and application effects based on this are bound to have certain regional limitations. Besides, there are many factors that affect project management performance improving, and the relationships among them are so complex. The theoretical model proposed in this study may not be fully considered. Therefore, follow-up researchers can consider bringing more suitable variables into their researches, so that the theoretical researches can be more in line with the actual project management practice, and the specific mechanism for improving project management performance can be explained more deeply.

This research's value is as follows: Firstly, this paper contributes to the trust and relational governance literature by expanding the research perspective of mutual trust to asymmetric trust. Specially, this research designs a measurement scale for asymmetric trust and then reveals the impact mechanism of it on project management performance, which will certainly promote research paradigm change of trust. Secondly, this research is beneficial to knowledge sharing literature in the construction management field by expanding the research scope of knowledge sharing from a cross-organizational perspective.

This study investigates the way in which acquisition-related human factors affect knowledge transfer in the context of Chinese cross-border M&A for strategic assets. The authors find that the process of knowledge transfer is reciprocal for revenue and cost synergies, including explicit and tacit knowledge. The establishment of joint ventures (JV) in China after the takeover boosts product-oriented knowledge transfer from overseas-acquired firms in mature markets to Chinese acquirers. The promotion of overseas synergies stimulates complementary knowledge transfer flow, which is reversely transferred from Chinese acquirers to overseas-acquired subsidiaries such as low-saving sourcing and new market applications. This study identifies three acquisition-related human factors that impact overseas knowledge senders for knowledge transfer. These human factors are implemented by Chinese strategic investors as new shareholders during the loosen integration phase. The first facilitator is all-round communication programs with top management involvement, aiming to build up constructive communication channels to boost knowledge transfer. The second facilitator is competence-based trust, which stimulates cooperation and application based on similar professional competence between Chinese acquirers and their overseas-acquired subsidiaries. The impeder is a high turnover of key skilled workers at Chinese acquirers to undermine the effectiveness of knowledge transfer.

This review aims to give a critical view of the wheel/rail high frequency vibration-induced vibration fatigue in railway bogie.

Vibration fatigue of railway bogie arising from the wheel/rail high frequency vibration has become the main concern of railway operators. Previous reviews usually focused on the formation mechanism of wheel/rail high frequency vibration. This paper thus gives a critical review of the vibration fatigue of railway bogie owing to the short-pitch irregularities-induced high frequency vibration, including a brief introduction of short-pitch irregularities, associated high frequency vibration in railway bogie, typical vibration fatigue failure cases of railway bogie and methodologies used for the assessment of vibration fatigue and research gaps.

The results showed that the resulting excitation frequencies of short-pitch irregularity vary substantially due to different track types and formation mechanisms. The axle box-mounted components are much more vulnerable to vibration fatigue compared with other components. The wheel polygonal wear and rail corrugation-induced high frequency vibration is the main driving force of fatigue failure, and the fatigue crack usually initiates from the defect of the weld seam. Vibration spectrum for attachments of railway bogie defined in the standard underestimates the vibration level arising from the short-pitch irregularities. The current investigations on vibration fatigue mainly focus on the methods to improve the accuracy of fatigue damage assessment, and a systematical design method for vibration fatigue remains a huge gap to improve the survival probability when the rail vehicle is subjected to vibration fatigue.

The research can facilitate the development of a new methodology to improve the fatigue life of railway vehicles when subjected to wheel/rail high frequency vibration.

Based on signaling theory, this paper aims to explore the impact of supply chain transparency (SCT) on firms' bank loan (BL) and supply chain financing (SCF) in the context of voluntary disclosure of supplier and customer lists.

Based on panel data collected from Chinese-listed firms between 2012 and 2021, fixed-effect models and a series of robustness checks are used to test the predictions.

First, improving SCT by disclosing major suppliers and customers promotes BL but inhibits SCF. Specifically, customer transparency (CT) is more influential in SCF than supplier transparency (ST). Second, supplier concentration (SC) weakens SCT’s positive impact on BL while reducing its negative impact on SCF. Third, customer concentration (CC) strengthens the positive impact of SCT on BL but intensifies its negative impact on SCF. Last, these findings are basically more pronounced in highly competitive industries.

This study contributes to the SCT literature by investigating the under-explored practice of supply chain list disclosure and revealing its dual impact on firms' access to financing offerings (i.e. BL and SCF) based on signaling theory. Additionally, it expands the understanding of the boundary conditions affecting the relationship between SCT and firm financing, focusing on supply chain concentration. Moreover, it advances signaling theory by exploring how financing providers interpret the SCT signal and enriches the understanding of BL and SCF antecedents from a supply chain perspective.

This study aims to provide the theoretical roots, research trajectories and promising research directions of green marketing in marketing and related fields.

This study integrates three bibliometric analyses, i.e. co-citation analysis, historical direct citation analysis and co-occurrence analysis, and a qualitative review to examine the 781 publications that matched the search criteria between January 1991 and December 2021 from the Web of Science (WoS) database.

The research findings show that eleven groups of cited references characterize the theoretical roots of green marketing in marketing and related fields. Besides, the two main research trajectories identified were found to be developed under the impact of prior studies. Moreover, the four research themes concerning this research domain are presented. The results also highlight promising research directions.

Based on the quantitative bibliometric analysis and qualitative literature reviews, this study has provided a comprehensive overview of the current stage of this domain. The study also has underscored an abundance of green marketing literature and revealed the research topics that require further investigations to theoretically and empirically advance the understanding of green marketing.

Some topics about green marketing were recommended for further research. Some practical examples and suggestions are also given in the study.

This study reviewed 781 publications at the intersection of green marketing research domain in marketing and related fields to identify the theoretical roots, research trajectories and research themes and to propose promising research avenues.