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1 – 10 of 16Bingwei Gao, Wei Shen, Ye Dai and Yong Tai Ye
This paper aims to study a parameter tuning method for the active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) to improve the anti-interference ability and position tracking of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study a parameter tuning method for the active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) to improve the anti-interference ability and position tracking of the performance of the servo system, and to ensure the stability and accuracy of practical applications.
Design/methodology/approach
This study proposes a parameter self-tuning method for ADRC based on an improved glowworm swarm optimization algorithm. The algorithm is improved by using sine and cosine local optimization operators and an adaptive mutation strategy. The improved algorithm is then used for parameter tuning of the ADRC to improve the anti-interference ability of the control system and ensure the accuracy of the controller parameters.
Findings
The authors designed an optimization model based on MATLAB, selected examples of simulation and experimental research and compared it with the standard glowworm swarm optimization algorithm, particle swarm algorithm and artificial bee colony algorithm. The results show that the response time of using the improved glowworm swarm optimization algorithm to optimize the auto-disturbance rejection control is short; there is no overshoot; the tracking process is relatively stable; the anti-interference ability is strong; and the optimization effect is better.
Originality/value
The innovation of this study is to improve the glowworm swarm optimization algorithm, propose a sine and cosine, local optimization operator, expand the firefly search space and introduce a new adaptive mutation strategy to adaptively adjust the mutation probability based on the fitness value, improve the global search ability of the algorithm and use the improved algorithm to adjust the parameters of the active disturbance rejection controller.
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Cicero Eduardo Walter and Manuel Au-Yong-Oliveira
The present investigation aimed to evaluate the influence of envy on the predisposition to innovative behavior, starting from a conceptual model that considers not only…
Abstract
Purpose
The present investigation aimed to evaluate the influence of envy on the predisposition to innovative behavior, starting from a conceptual model that considers not only the direct influence of envy but its indirect influence through ostracism and alignment with the negative behaviors of superiors.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a survey applied to 168 individuals, a conceptual model was developed based on the relationship ignored in the literature between envy and innovative behavior. The model was validated using the multivariate statistical technique of structural equation modeling with partial least squares estimation (Partial least squares structural equation modeling [PLS-SEM]).
Findings
The results of the study suggest that envy not only has a direct positive influence on alignment with negative boss behaviors and ostracism, but also an indirect influence on ostracism mediated by alignment with negative boss behaviors. Another important result of the present investigation refers to the negative effect of envy on the predisposition to innovative behavior. The results suggest that the greater the envy, the lower the innovative behavior.
Practical implications
This research provides evidence that envy can act as a barrier to innovation by triggering counterproductive behaviors such as ostracism and a decrease in predisposition to innovative behaviors, either due to innovative individuals prematurely exiting the organization or due to them lessening/dampening their innovativeness to avoid the negative consequences. Given this scenario, it becomes necessary to increase managerial awareness on the subject to manage negative emotions to promote the conditions for organizational innovation.
Originality/value
The present research contributes in both practical and theoretical ways to understanding the effects of envy on the predisposition to innovative behavior. Adding to this, this research represents a conceptual advance by linking envy to innovative behavior, providing a promising avenue for extending the psychological relevance of the envy construct to organizational and management studies, which are generally positive, normative and outcome-oriented.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which Confucian moral standards may serve as a moral root of employees' organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which Confucian moral standards may serve as a moral root of employees' organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is conceptual, based on research within the field.
Findings
This paper suggests that the moral characteristics of Confucianism (based on a strong body of empirical studies): harmony, group orientation, guanxi (relationships), diligence, self‐learning and thrift, are the great virtues of the indigenous forms of OCB in the PRC, including helping co‐worker; individual initiative and/or functional participation; group activity participation; self‐development; social welfare participation; promoting company image; voice; protecting and saving company resources; interpersonal harmony and keeping the workplace clean; and keeping departmental harmony and coexistence in adversity.
Originality/value
First, this paper contributes to the extant knowledge as to the ways in which Confucian moral standards may affect Chinese exhibition of OCB. Second, this paper contributes to discerning Chinese economic success on employees' OCB performance with recourse to its traditional cultural heritage of Confucian moral standards. Finally, it highlights the presence of voice as a type of OCB which may be attributed to China's opening up to the West.
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Yong Ye and Yuanqin Ge
The research mainly aims at the hotspot of inventory management by knowledge mapping and provides a visualization reference in this research field.
Abstract
Purpose
The research mainly aims at the hotspot of inventory management by knowledge mapping and provides a visualization reference in this research field.
Design/methodology/approach
First, inventory management journals during 1986 to 2017 were selected as the research object and text formatting in the Web of Science (WOS) database is exported. Then inventory management knowledge mapping is done and clustering keywords are extracted by using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software. Based on co-word analysis, the three special clusters are exported: inventory optimization strategy, inventory pricing and inventory technology. Besides, the clustering structure and time evolution are analysed. Finally, bibliographic item co-occurrence matrix builder (BICOMB) was used to extract the “journal” and “researchers” keywords in the inventory management research fields. Setting three parameters such as the cited half-life, centrality, frequency and keywords for data mining, it can infer the trend keywords of future research.
Findings
Results showed that inventory management research has been abundant in literature over the past 30 years and has experienced a change from focusing on inventory optimization strategy to inventory pricing and inventory technology in process. It shows that inventory management research focused on the classic topics and includes economic order quantity, dynamic pricing, design and technology, and the new topics include channel coordination, hierarchical price and simulation.
Research limitations/implications
Based on knowledge mapping, this study is still relatively macro and cannot cover all areas of inventory management. This study only investigated the state of correlational research in WOS and Google Trends and not additional databases.
Originality/value
The current research mainly builds on knowledge mapping for the research hotspot of inventory management and provides visual references for future research in this field.
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This study aims to model tourist activities in a network and explore the properties of the network. Such network enables the author to explain and quantify how tourist…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to model tourist activities in a network and explore the properties of the network. Such network enables the author to explain and quantify how tourist activities are connected in determining tourist consumption as well as the organization of destination supply.
Design/methodology/approach
The author developed a network formation mechanism to create edges between nodes based on the joint probability of a pair of activities undertaken by tourists at a destination. By adjusting network sparsity, the author created an ensemble of four topologically similar networks for empirical testing. The author used tourist activity data of Hong Kong inbound tourists to test the network model.
Findings
The author found a robust hub–periphery topological structure of the tourist activity network. In addition, the network is featured by high clustering, short diameter and positive correlations between four node centralities, namely, degree, closeness, betweenness and eigenvector centralities. The author also generated the k-cores of the networks to further unravel the structure of hub nodes. The author found that the k-cores are dominated by tourist activities related to shopping or sightseeing, suggesting the high complementarity of these activities.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides a different lens through which tourist consumption can be understood from a macroscopic angle by examining network topology and from a microscopic angle by examining node centralities.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study attempting to model tourist activity and consumption in a network and explore the properties of the network. Not only has this study provided a new real-world network for network research, but it has also suggested an innovative modeling approach for tourist behavior research.
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Leo Y.M. Sin, Suk‐ching Ho and Stella L.M. So
Examines the recent research on advertising in mainland China over the 1979‐1998 period. Suggests that findings show a sustained effort in academic research/publications…
Abstract
Examines the recent research on advertising in mainland China over the 1979‐1998 period. Suggests that findings show a sustained effort in academic research/publications on advertising in China is in the early stage of its development and whilst many areas have been researched, there are many more yet to be touched. Concludes that the research is seldom based on established theoretical or conceptual framework and the research methods and types of analysis used have not been very advanced when compared to general advertising research.
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From the sixteenth to eighteenth century, China underwent a commercial revolution similar to the one in contemporaneous Europe. The rise of market did foster the rise of a…
Abstract
From the sixteenth to eighteenth century, China underwent a commercial revolution similar to the one in contemporaneous Europe. The rise of market did foster the rise of a nascent bourgeois and the concomitant rise of a liberal, populist version of Confucianism, which advocated a more decentralized and less authoritarian political system in the last few decades of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). But after the collapse of the Ming Empire and the establishment of the Qing Empire (1644–1911) by the Manchu conquerors, the new rulers designated the late-Ming liberal ideologies as heretics, and they resurrected the most conservative form of Confucianism as the political orthodoxy. Under the principle of filial piety given by this orthodoxy, the whole empire was imagined as a fictitious family with the emperor as the grand patriarch and the civil bureaucrats and subjects as children or grandchildren. Under the highly centralized administrative and communicative apparatus of the Qing state, this ideology of the fictitious patrimonial state penetrated into the lowest level of the society. The subsequent paternalist, authoritarian, and moralizing politics of the Qing state contributed to China’s nontransition to capitalism despite its advanced market economy, and helped explain the peculiar form and trajectory of China’s popular contention in the eighteenth century. I also argue that this tradition of fictitious patrimonial politics continued to shape the state-making processes in twentieth-century China and beyond.
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Leo Yat Ming Sin and Suk‐ching Ho
Looks at consumer research in Greater China including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Maps out the contributions within this area and guides future research…
Abstract
Looks at consumer research in Greater China including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Maps out the contributions within this area and guides future research. Examines the state of the art over the 1979‐97 period, with particular emphasis on the topics that have been researched, the extent of the theory development in the field and the methodologies used in conducting research. Uses content analysis to review 75 relevant articles. Suggests that, while a considerable breadth of topics have been researched, there remains much to be done, there is further room for theoretical development in Chinese consumer behaviour studies; and the methodologies used need improvement and further refinement.
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Jeffrey Boon Hui Yap and Sin Yi Cheah
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the major challenges faced by Chinese international contractors (CICs) in the Malaysian construction industry.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the major challenges faced by Chinese international contractors (CICs) in the Malaysian construction industry.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory sequential mixed-methods research approach was adopted where following a detailed literature review and semi-structured interviews with local professionals, 20 prevalent challenges experienced by CICs are identified. Subsequently, a questionnaire survey was used to elicit the views of 100 construction practitioners. Descriptive statistics were used to prioritise the challenges, while exploratory factor analysis was conducted to uncover the underlying factors.
Findings
The five most crucial challenges identified relate to: changes of regulation, cost control, contract clauses, language barrier and quality control. Exploratory factor analysis revealed four major underlying dimensions of these challenges, in connection to financial and government policy management, organisational performance management, supplier relationship management and cross-cultural management.
Research limitations/implications
The challenges are considered primarily involving CICs in the context of Malaysia; further work can be extended to Western or other East Asian, such as Japanese and Korean, international contractors undertaking construction projects in Malaysia or selected developing countries around the region.
Practical implications
This study will benefit professionals involved with China-backed construction projects in countries sharing demographics and socio-economic characteristics akin to Malaysia. The outcome of the study is expected to facilitate project managers to devise proactive risk-mitigation measures to reduce the impact of these challenges and to improve project delivery.
Originality/value
The paper examined the challenges faced by CICs in the Malaysian context. This is a timely study, as China’s Belt and Road Initiative will provide considerable opportunities for Chinese companies in Malaysia.
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Jeffrey Boon Hui Yap, Wen Jie Leong and Martin Skitmore
Teamwork in the construction industry has attracted much attention from both academic and industrial circles. Most importantly, improving team effectiveness will increase…
Abstract
Purpose
Teamwork in the construction industry has attracted much attention from both academic and industrial circles. Most importantly, improving team effectiveness will increase the likelihood of successful project delivery. Recognising the factors influencing team dynamics is important for enhanced team performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a detailed literature review, a survey questionnaire containing 10 aspects and 25 attributes of teamwork relevant to construction is used to collect feedback from Malaysian construction practitioners from client, consultant and contractor organisations to prioritise these hypothesised variables. The data are then subjected to reliability analysis, descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, and frequencies), a one-sample t-test, the Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA and exploratory factor analysis.
Findings
The significance of these aspects and attributes is then presented. The three most crucial aspects are “project performance”, “decision-making capability” and “problem-solving ability”. The most influential attributes are “effective communication between project team members”, “efficient team leadership”, “well-defined team responsibilities and roles”, “clear team goals and objectives” and “good collaboration between all project leaders”. The Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA reveals five attributes having statistically significant differences with respect to company size, namely “clear team goals and objectives”, “commitment to the project”, “adequate resources”, “team or task processes” and “creativity and innovation”. Six underlying dimensions are found, comprising (1) participative engagement and task commitment; (2) team responsibility structure and accountability; (3) culture of trust and respect; (4) leader's skills and abilities; (5) top management support; and (6) synergic working environment.
Practical implications
The identification of these dimensions for team effectiveness provides rigorous basis for formulating useful team-building strategies for integrating a collaborative environment among project stakeholders and consequently improving project performance.
Originality/value
This paper bridges the identified knowledge gap concerning the dimensionality of teamwork attributes in construction-based setting and adds to existing knowledge of how team effectiveness can be leveraged to improve project performance in the construction management literature.
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