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The purpose of this paper is to examine the alternative accounts produced by Green Earth Volunteers (GEV), a Chinese environmental non-governmental organisation, over a 10-year period in the context of their campaign to create visibilities about hydroelectric dam projects along the Chang Jiang.

Drawing on conceptions of the human–nature relationship, including those evident in ancient Chinese philosophy and mythology, and the Chinese way of viewing and resolving conflict, this paper offers an interpretive analysis of the alternative accounts of GEV in terms of their form and content.

In terms of their content, the alternative accounts reflect elements of interrelated thinking, being underpinned by a recognition of the relationship between humans and nature, which is evident in Confucianism, Taoism and ancient Chinese mythology. The strategies adopted by GEV are a non-confrontational but feasible way to promote their ecological beliefs in the Chinese context.

The study suggests that social and environmental accounting (SEA) in developing countries is steeped in local cultural and philosophical traditions that need to be considered and incorporated into the design of alternative accounts.

The study contributes to the very limited literature that offers qualitative analyses of SEA in developing countries.

Numerical literature shows that agricultural insurance can affect pesticide investments, but few of them are devoted to explain how agricultural insurance affects farmers’ selection on green or traditional pesticides. This paper aims to develop a theoretical model about how agricultural insurance influences on green pesticides selections and tests our conclusions by using the data from China land economic survey (CLES) from 2020 to 2021.

We employ probit model to capture the effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticides adoption.

We indicate that green pesticides have a stronger effect on stabilizing yield and increasing income than traditional pesticides, but there are still risks disturbing farmers’ decisions on green pesticides usage. By providing premium subsidies after the farmers are affected by natural risk, agricultural insurance improves the farmers’ expected income and encourages farmers to use green pesticides. Further, we further confirm these conclusions by considering different scenarios such as climate risks, farmers’ entrepreneurship and credit constraints. We find that the effects are more salient if croplands are under higher natural risks and, farmers are equipped with entrepreneurship and formal credit. This paper implies that the agricultural insurance decoupled with green technologies also have salient positive effects on agricultural pollution control.

The potential contributions of this paper can be outlined in three aspects in detail. Firstly, this paper aims to revel the effects of agricultural insurance on pesticide selection by structuring a general theoretical model. By using the CLES data from 2020 to 2021, we confirm that agricultural insurance increases the probability for adopting green pesticides. Secondly, this paper discusses the effects of farmers’ characteristics on the results and finds that if farmers have entrepreneurship, the effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticide usage will be more salient. Thirdly, it uncovers some practices in China, which will supply experiences for other developing countries. For example, this paper further demonstrates that “insurance + credit” plan the present Chinese government carried out will be an important measure for strengthening effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticides usage. Moreover, it shows that decouple agricultural policies will also guide farmers to use green technologies eventually if the technologies are reliable and farmers can afford.

Prefabricated construction (PC) can benefit construction industry due to its high efficiency, energy saving, consumption reduction and safety. However, the high capital cost is a critical challenge hindering its development in China. The collaboration of PC stakeholders is conducive to improving cost management efficiency and optimizing resource allocation which has been ignored in previous studies. Therefore, this study aims to explore the collaboration paths of stakeholders in the process of solving critical cost influencing factors (CIFs) of PC to reduce costs.

Firstly, 25 CIFs and five main stakeholders that affect PC capital cost were identified through literature research and expert interviews. Then, questionnaires were used to investigate the relationship between stakeholders and CIFs from the perspectives of three stakeholder attributes of proximity, attitude and power, respectively. Finally, based on the survey data, three stakeholder-CIF networks from three attributes perspective and a comprehensive network were constructed and used for subsequent social network analysis.

(1) Stakeholders mainly show willingness and potential to collaborate on organization and management factors; (2) More stakeholders pay attention to incentive policies and the setting of prefabrication rates and assembly rates, while all stakeholders have the right to facilitate information and resource sharing in the PC supply chain; (3) The comprehensive network shows a core-periphery structure. As core stakeholders, contractor, designer and manufacturer are more likely to actively manage the 14 core CIFs.

This paper innovatively combined stakeholder and cost management in PC, and used two-mode network based on three stakeholder perspectives to reveal the collaboration potential and motivation of stakeholders in PC cost management. The findings not only provide guidance for stakeholders to find potential partners and optimize resource allocation in solving specific cost issues, but also facilitate stakeholders' sustainable collaboration to achieve PC's cost performance.

This study develops a model and algorithm to solve the decentralized resource-constrained multi-project scheduling problem (DRCMPSP) and provides a suitable priority rule (PR) for coordinating global resource conflicts among multiple projects.

This study addresses the DRCMPSP, which respects the information privacy requirements of project agents; that is, there is no single manager centrally in charge of generating multi-project scheduling. Accordingly, a three-stage model was proposed for the decentralized management of multiple projects. To solve this model, a three-stage solution approach with a repeated negotiation mechanism was proposed.

The experimental results obtained using the Multi-Project Scheduling Problem LIBrary confirm that our approach outperforms existing methods, regardless of the average utilization factor (AUF). Comparative analysis revealed that delaying activities in the lower project makespan produces a lower average project delay. Furthermore, the new PR LMS performed better in problem subsets with AUF < 1 and large-scale subsets with AUF > 1.

A solution approach with a repeated-negotiation mechanism suitable for the DRCMPSP and a new PR for coordinating global resource allocation are proposed.

This study aims to examine the effect of supervisor developmental feedback on employee silence behaviour by developing a moderated mediation model. The model focuses on the mediating role of role breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect underpinning the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour, and the moderating role of interdependent self-construal.

The two-wave survey was conducted among 265 employees. Structural equation modelling was conducted to test the mediation and moderation mediation hypotheses.

Results indicated that high activated positive affect mediated the negative relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour. The authors also found that interdependent self-construal moderated the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and role breadth self-efficacy, as well as the indirect effect of supervisor developmental feedback on employee silence behaviour via role breadth self-efficacy.

This empirical study provides preliminary evidence of the mediating role of breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect in the negative relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour. The moderated mediation results further show that the mediation of role breadth self-efficacy between supervisor developmental feedback is contingent on individual interdependent self-construal, such that the mediation effect is significant among individuals with high interdependent self-construal, but the mediation effect of high activated positive effect is independent of individual interdependent self-construal. The findings further extend boundary conditions (interdependent self-construal) that may constrain the effect of supervisor developmental feedback on role breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect. The research makes considerable contributions to the cognitive-affective personality system theory by specifying the cognitive and affective mechanisms between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour, as well as the boundary conditions.

Production and transportation of precast components, as two continuous service stages of a precast plant, play an important role in meeting customer needs and controlling costs. However, there is still a lack of production and transportation scheduling methods that comprehensively consider delivery timeliness and transportation economy. This article aims to study the integrated scheduling optimization problem of in-plant flowshop production and off-plant transportation under the consideration of practical constraints of customer order delivery time window, and seek an optimal scheduling method that balances delivery timeliness and transportation economy.

In this study, an integrated scheduling optimization model of flowshop production and transportation for precast components with delivery time windows is established, which describes the relationship between production and transportation and handles transportation constraints under the premise of balancing delivery timeliness and transportation economy. Then a genetic algorithm is designed to solve this model. It realizes the integrated scheduling of production and transportation through double-layer chromosome coding. A program is designed to realize the solution process. Finally, the validity of the model is proved by the calculation of actual enterprise data.

The optimized scheduling scheme can not only meet the on-time delivery, but also improve the truck loading rate and reduce the total cost, composed of early cost in plant, delivery penalty cost and transportation cost. In the model validation, the optimal scheduling scheme uses one less truck than the traditional EDD scheme (saving 20% of the transportation cost), and the total cost can be saved by 17.22%.

This study clarifies the relationship between the production and transportation of precast components and establishes the integrated scheduling optimization model and its solution algorithm. Different from previous studies, the proposed optimization model can balance the timeliness and economy of production and transportation for precast components.

Precast wall lifting during prefabricated building construction faces multiple non-lean problems, such as inaccurate lifting-time estimation, unreasonable resource allocation and improper process design. This study aims to identify the pathways for improving lifting performance to advance lean construction of prefabricated buildings.

This study developed a methodological framework that integrates the discrete event simulation method, the elimination, combination, rearrangement and simplification (ECRS) technique and intelligent optimization tool. Two schemes of precast wall lifting, namely, the enterprise's business as usual (BAU) and enterprise-leading (EL) schemes, were set to benchmark lifting performance. Furthermore, a best-practice (BP) scheme was modeled from the perspective of lifting activity ECRS and resource allocation for performance optimization.

A real project was selected to test the effect of the methodological framework. The results showed that compared with the EL scheme, the BP scheme reduced the total lifting time (TLT) by 6.3% and mitigated the TLT uncertainty (the gap between the maximum and minimum time values) by 20.6%. Under the BP scheme, increasing the resource inputs produces an insignificant effect in reducing TLT, i.e. increasing the number of component operators in the caulking subprocess from one to two only shortened the TLT by 3.6%, and no further time reduction was achieved as more component operators were added.

To solve non-lean problems associated with prefabricated building construction, this study provides a methodological framework that can separate a typical precast wall lifting process into fine-level activities. Besides, it also identifies the pathways (including the learning effect mitigation, labor and machinery resource adjustment and activities’ improvement) to reducing TLT and its uncertainty.

Customer referral programs (CRPs) are popular; however, they often generate low referral rates. The authors propose that certain CRP referral tasks may hinder consumers’ referral likelihood. This study aims to explore the effects of referral tasks (communication content and approach) on customers’ referral likelihood on social platforms and the role of self-construal.

This study establishes a theoretical model based on online social platforms and conducts three scenario-based experiments. The authors obtain data from consumers on Sojump platform and test the hypotheses using analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis and mediation analysis in SPSS. The valid sample sizes for these three experiments are 288, 203 and 214, respectively.

Three experimental studies indicate that communication content and approach have a significant effect on referral likelihood. Furthermore, the effect of communication content on referral likelihood depends on the communication approach. Self-construal plays a moderating role in the effect of communication content and approach on perceived social costs.

CRPs typically involve tasks and rewards; consumers are asked to complete a referral task and then receive a reward. Both tasks and rewards can affect an individual’s willingness to participate; however, existing studies on CRP focus primarily on the reward component. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to systematically investigate the role of referral tasks (communication content and approach) in CRPs. The authors extend the related research by examining the impact of referral tasks on consumers’ willingness to recommend. In addition, this study introduces self-construal into CRPs research.

Reverse mentoring is gaining attention as a means to engage and retain young employees by facilitating the exchange of knowledge, ideas and perspectives with their senior counterparts (leaders). Despite its widespread recognition, there remains a significant scarcity of empirical evidence regarding its enablers and effectiveness. Building on this research gap, this study aims to investigate the association between leader humility, reverse mentoring and subordinate turnover intentions using the theoretical frameworks of job demand resource theory and social exchange theory. In addition, the study assesses how leader competence moderates the impact of leader humility on promoting reverse mentoring.

The study used time-lagged multi-wave data with a two-week interval between each wave, collected from 386 information technology professionals working in different organisations in India. The hypotheses developed were tested using partial least square structural equation modelling.

The finding from the analysis reveals that leader humility had a significant impact in promoting reverse mentoring, which consequently led to reduced subordinate turnover intentions. In addition, leader competence positively moderates the association between leader humility and reverse mentoring.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to empirically examine the impact of reverse mentoring on subordinates’ turnover intentions, as well as the indirect effect of leader humility on turnover intention through reverse mentoring. Furthermore, the study sheds light on the previously under-researched boundary conditions of leader humility.

With the development of social media, live-streaming has become an indispensable marketing activity for firms, especially in China. From the initial cooperation with the influencer, firms begin to create their own live-streaming channel, namely, the brands' self-built live-streaming. The purpose of this study is to explore the process of consumer engagement in the brands' self-built live-streaming.

This research comprises two experimental studies. Study 1 examined the effect of streamer types (CEO vs. celebrity) on consumer engagement. Study 2 investigated the moderating effects of product innovativeness.

Results showed that CEO streamers could enhance consumer engagement by increasing consumers' cognitive trust, and celebrity streamers could enhance consumer engagement by increasing consumers' emotional trust. In addition, consumer engagement was higher for really new products (vs. incremental new products) in CEO streamers' (vs. celebrity streamers') live-streaming.

Compared with previous studies that focused on streamers based on the influencer marketing, this study expands the scope of research on the live-streaming ecosystem by exploring the effect of different streamer types on the brands' self-built live-streaming. By investigating consumer engagement, this study gives implications for the sustainable traffic issue in live-streaming e-commerce.