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This paper aims to address a pollution-routing problem with one general period of congestion (PRP-1GPC), where the start and finish times of this period can be set freely.

In this paper, three sets of decision variables are optimized, namely, travel speeds before and after congestion and departure times on given routes, aiming to minimize total cost including green-house gas emissions, fuel consumption and driver wages. A two-phase algorithm is introduced to solve this problem. First, an adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic is used where new removal and insertion operators are developed. Second, an analysis of optimal speed before congestion is presented, and a tailored speed-and-departure-time optimization algorithm considering congestion is proposed by obtaining the best node to be served first over the congested period.

The results show that the newly developed operator of congested service-time insertion with noise is generally used more than other insertion operators. Besides, compared to the baseline methods, the proposed algorithm equipped with the new operators provides better solutions in a short time both in PRP-1GPC instances and time-dependent pollution-routing problem instances.

This paper considers a more general situation of the pollution-routing problem that allows drivers to depart before the congestion. The PRP-1GPC is better solved by the proposed algorithm, which adds operators specifically designed from the new perspective of the traveling distance, traveling time and service time during the congestion period.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of cloud computing (CC) use on collaboration and its ultimate impact on the agility of humanitarian supply chains. Further, this paper aims to analyze the moderating role of inter-organizational trust in the relationship between CC use and collaboration.

This paper provides an empirical assessment of CC use based on an interview analysis of 19 individuals from humanitarian organizations. A survey questionnaire is later used with 107 participants from US relief organizations. Partial least squares test is used to examine the relationships depicted in the conceptual model.

The results provide an account of how CC is used in a humanitarian context. Further, the results indicate that CC use has a positive and significant impact on collaboration between humanitarian organizations and their suppliers. Collaboration is found to be significantly positively associated with agility in humanitarian organizations.

No study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has empirically assessed the impact of CC use on humanitarian supply chain collaboration. This will be the first study to empirically analyze the relationships between CC use, inter-organizational trust, collaboration and agility in a humanitarian context.

This study provides a theoretically and empirically validated model depicting the relationships between CC use, collaboration, agility and inter-organizational trust in humanitarian supply chains. Humanitarian organizations can use these findings to optimize agility.

This study contributes to supply chain management research, particularly humanitarian supply chain management knowledge, by empirically examining the usefulness of CC use on collaboration and agility in the supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to research the price strategies of online knowledge payment product by considering network externality in the C2C sharing economy.

Considering the characteristics of online knowledge goods and the social network externality of consumers, this study establishes a consumer utility function. On this basis, a multistage game pricing model of online knowledge products is established based on three kinds of network price strategies under a completely competitive market structure. It also analyzes the influence of consumer social network structure and consumer utility on online knowledge product pricing and producer profit, as well as the influence of consumer quantity and discount rate on pricing strategy.

The consumer social network and consumer utility affect the pricing of online knowledge product under different price strategies. In the growth period of the platform, adopting the price discrimination strategy, the profit of producers is significantly higher than that of other price strategies, and producers should choose effective price strategies for reasonable pricing in combination with their own sales objectives.

This study enriches the literature on the pricing model of online knowledge payment product and owns a practical significance to guide the knowledge producers’ marketing strategies to increase profit.

This study aims to reveal the influencing factors of user churn behavior and explore how these factors influence user churn behavior of rural public digital cultural services (RPDCS), and then, to provide the avoidance strategies for user churn behavior of RPDCS.

Combined with the stimulus–organism–response theory and cognitive load theory, this study constructed a mixed model of user churn behavior. Data collected through online and offline questionnaire survey were tested using the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach, and finally, the authors proposed a user churn behavior model of RPDCS.

The results indicate that the environmental stimulus factors of RPDCS affected user churn behavior via user organism factors. This study suggests that administrators should pay more attention to the information demand of users and strengthen the effective supply of RPDCS. Meanwhile, it is necessary to improve the information literacy of rural users to restrain the user churn behavior and improve the effectiveness of RPDCS.

The research findings on the influencing factors of user churn behavior shed light on the user churn behavior in public digital cultural services, add new knowledge to the construction of the public cultural services system and provide empirical evidence for how to improve the utilization and effectiveness of RPDCS.

Team autonomy is thought to be important for team innovation performance. However, the theoretical basis of the relationship between team autonomy and team innovation performance is not well understood, and previous studies have found inconsistent relations between them. Based on motivated information processing in groups (MIP-G) theory, this paper aims to explain how and when team autonomy could influence team innovation performance from a new team-level perspective.

Using a two-wave, time-lagged survey design, the authors collected data from 340 members of 86 teams in China. PROCESS 3.0 for SPSS was used to test hypothesized relationships.

The results show that team autonomy is positively related to team information exchange. Team information exchange mediates the positive relationship between team autonomy and team innovation performance. Furthermore, the positive relationship between team autonomy and team information exchange is stronger with less task conflict, which runs contrary to the hypothesis. Additionally, relationship conflict does not adjust the impact of team autonomy on team information exchange.

This study provides a new perspective to explain the mechanism between team autonomy and team innovation performance at team level from the information processing approach, specifically, MIP-G theory. It also incorporates team conflicts as important contextual factors to answer the call for a wider study of boundary conditions in the team autonomy research.

The user churn (UC) of rural public digital cultural services (RPDCS) indicates that rural users no longer use RPDCS or have switched to other services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors influencing RPDCS's UC and to contribute toward bridging the rural digital divide.

Based on the stimulus-organism-response theory, this study proposes a theoretical framework to investigate the factors influencing RPDCS's user churn. A total of 120 RPDCS users were initially recruited and 90 representative participants were chosen. Data were collected from the 90 respondents and 20 follow-up interviews. To examine the proposed framework and validate the correlations between these factors and UC, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis were used. In addition, recommendations are made to avoid the UC of RPDCS to bridge the rural digital divide.

The results indicate that the UC of RPDCS was stimulated by both physical and ability divides and RPDCS ineffectiveness, resulting in increased churn rates and an exacerbated digital divide. Thus, avoiding the UC of RPDCS is an important way to bridge the rural digital divide, which includes both the physical and ability divides.

This study adds new knowledge about RPDCS and distinguishes it from previous research on public digital cultural services. In addition, the authors discuss how to avoid the UC of RPDCS, to bridge the rural digital divide.

Studies have not investigated how the International Standards Organization (ISO) 9000 quality management system (QMS) guides manufacturers’ and their partners’ creative processes in devising an innovative supply chain structure. Accordingly, this study aims to explore this subject.

A systematic literature analysis was conducted to explore how the ISO 9000 QMS might guide manufacturers’ and supply chain partners’ creative processes and the further development of an innovative supply chain organizational structure. The systematic literature analysis is divided into the following two parts: the first part collects related literature to analyze and explore based on the research questions and purpose. The second part is an association analysis. The results of the association analysis show that these related literatures are suitable for the analysis and exploration of the research questions and purpose.

This study developed an analytic framework to compare the elements of four components of the ISO 9000 QMS and the ingredients that drive creativity and innovation; the study also reviewed related publications to deeply analyze the relationship between the elements of the four components and the ingredients of creativity and innovation. The authors observed that when manufacturers and partners implement the ISO 9000 QMS, their use of the elements of the four components engages all ingredients and thereby facilitates the manufacturers’ and partners’ creative process in the development of an innovative organizational structure.

According to the results of the analysis, practitioners can understand how to improve the innovation of an organization’s supply chain from ISO 9000 QMS components. In addition, the research has resulted in developing additional research propositions concerning the relationship between the four components of the ISO 9000 QMS and ingredients that drive creativity and innovation. Based on these propositions, more research hypotheses can be further developed.

The research results prove that the ISO 9000 QMS has a positive effect on facilitating the creative process and innovation, with regard to the organizational structure, and it also provides the underlying reasons for this effect.

Using a 10,709 firm-year sample covering the 1998–2007 period, we investigate the determinants of capital structure among 1,491 ASEAN-4 (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand) emerging market firms. Building on the work of previous authors, we apply the two-step generalized method of moments (Arellano & Bond, 1991) to develop country-specific dynamic models of target leverage decisions. The right-hand variables incorporate a lagged leverage term that controls for the firms' target adjustment process and the following four explanatory variables: firm size, profitability, tangibility, and nondebt tax shields. The sign and significance of each coefficient provides evidence regarding whether the impact of the associated variable is consistent with the trade-off or pecking order theories. We find that size is negatively associated with leverage among Malaysian, Philippine, and Thai firms but positively associated among Indonesian firms. Profitability is negatively associated with leverage among Indonesian and Malaysian firms but positively associated among Philippine firms. Tangibility is negatively associated with leverage among Malaysian firms but positively associated among Philippine firms. While the impacts of size and profitability are consistent with pecking order theory, the impact of tangibility is not supportive of a specific theory. Of the four variables, size is consistently influential, while nondebt tax shields have no significant impact among firms in any country.

To cope with the severe situation of the global climate, China proposed the “30 60” dual-carbon strategic goal. Based on this background, the purpose of this paper is to investigate scientifically and reasonably the interprovincial pattern of China’s power carbon emission intensity and further explore the causes of differences on this basis.

Considering the principle of “shared but differentiated responsibilities,” this study measures the carbon emissions within the power industry from 1997 to 2019 scientifically, via the panel data of 30 provinces in China. The power carbon emission intensity is chosen as the indicator. Using the Dagum Gini coefficient to explore regional differences and their causes.

The results of this paper show that, first, China’s carbon emission intensity from the power industry overall is significantly different. From the perspective of geospatial distribution, the three regions have unbalanced characteristics. Second, according to the decomposition results of the Gini coefficient, the overall difference in power carbon emission intensity is generally expanding. The geospatial and economic development levels are examined separately. The gaps between the eastern and economically developed regions are the smallest, and the regional differences are the source of the overall disparity.

Further exploring the causes of differences on this basis is crucial for relevant departments to formulate differentiated energy conservation and emission reduction policies. This study provides direction for analyzing the green and low carbon development of China’s power industry.

As an economic indicator of green and low-carbon development, CO₂ intensity of power industry can directly reflect the dependence of economic growth on the high emission of electricity and energy. and further exploring the causes of differences on this basis is crucial for relevant departments to formulate differentiated energy conservation and emission reduction policies.

For a long time, with the rapid economic development, resulting in the unresolved contradiction between low energy efficiency and high carbon emissions. To this end, scientifically and reasonably investigating the interprovincial pattern of China’s power carbon emission intensity, and further exploring the causes of differences on this basis, is crucial for relevant departments to formulate differentiated energy conservation and emission reduction policies.

Third, considering the influence of spatial factors on the convergence of power carbon emission intensity, a variety of different spatial weight matrices are selected. Based on the β-convergence theory from both absolute and conditional perspectives, we dig deeper into the spatial convergence of electricity carbon emission intensity across the country and the three regions.

With the spread of COVID-19, governments have initiated lockdown procedures and forced organizations to switch to remote working. Employees working remotely in isolated and confined situations are experiencing great stress and uncertainty. This study aims to investigate how remote workers perform during lockdowns.

Drawing on social information processing theory, this study developed and tested hypotheses linking professional isolation, cynicism and task performance. This study was comprised of 497 remote workers in the financial industry in China.

The findings revealed that professional isolation is positively related to cynicism, and cynicism is negatively related to task performance. Cynicism mediates the relationship between professional isolation and task performance. The results indicated that psychological hardiness moderated the mediation effect of professional isolation on task performance through cynicism.

This research offers implications for managers and practitioners on reducing employees' feeling of isolation through effective communication, collaboration and support via online platforms and preventing and reducing cynicism by introducing clear organizational policy and practice to balance job demands and job resources. Meanwhile, managers can develop commitment, control and challenge components of employees' psychological hardiness to enhance job performance.

This study extends the remote working literature in a crisis situation and fills the gap in the cynicism literature by understanding the role played by cynicism for remote workers. The current study also adds to the literature by highlighting the importance of psychological hardiness for remote workers during the pandemic.