Search results

Online learning becomes a trendy format for workplace training, particularly during the pandemic. This study aims to examine the effects of a technology-assisted self-adaptive training camp on employees’ learning process and acquired knowledge, and the relationship between employees’ knowledge gained and organisational growth.

The participants were 213 pharmaceutical representatives from a global pharmaceutical business in the Asia-Pacific branch who enrolled in a 21-day professional training camp. Their knowledge gained was calculated by pre-tests and post-test scores captured from an online training system. The company’s profits gained by employees were indicated by individuals’ quarter-over-quarter growth rates. Specifically, the authors applied a series of quantitative analyses to examine the relationship between employees’ knowledge gained, learning quality and organizational growth brought by individuals.

During the online training session, employees obtained increased professional knowledge significantly. The quality of employees’ learning process was a significant predictor of their learning outcomes. In addition, a positive correlation was found between the knowledge obtained by employees and the company’s quarterly growth rates. A followed-up regression analysis indicated that the greater knowledge improvement an individual achieved, the higher quarter-to-quarter growth rate brought by the individual to the organization.

The study provides educational insights for organisations to effectively train employees’ professional competency through online learning. The investigation on the 21-day camp shows that employees received higher-quality training, resulting in increased revenues and greater workplace flexibility. The findings have implications for supporting the integration of educational technology into workplace training to boost the competency development of employees.

Multinational small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly participating in cross-border digital platforms – especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, knowledge integration (KI) has become more and more important. In fact, it has been deemed by many as the key to organizational resilience. Given this burgeoning phenomenon, this study aims to explore a path for improving the resilience of multinational SMEs. Through this process, this study also finds a relationship between the KI processes associated with adopting global digital platforms and the resiliency of local–global businesses. Hence, in part, this paper also explores the effectiveness of all these mechanisms.

This study used the stepwise regression method in Stata 16.0 to analyze the direct effects of both horizontal and vertical KI processes on the resilience of local–global businesses. Additionally, t-tests were also used to compare the differences in coefficients between the mechanisms. The sample analyzed comprised data on multinational manufacturing SMEs in the Yangtze River Delta region of China who are using global digital platforms.

The KI processes of these firms, both horizontal and vertical, positively correlate to resilience. Horizontal KI processes more efficiently increase the resilience of global businesses, whereas vertical processes more efficiently increase the resilience of local businesses.

First, this study provides insights into how multinational SMEs can improve their resilience in a crisis. In addition to adding to the knowledge of KI processes, this expands the KM literature on pandemics. Second, by creating two KI processes based on global digital platforms and discussing their influence on resilience, this research deepens the understanding of affordance in the KM literature. Third, focusing on the KI research stream, the results shed light on how KI processes might occur and how firms develop their KI processes.

Firm resilience is critical for firm survival and development. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether chief executive officer's (CEO) self-oriented perfectionism affects firm resilience by taking into consideration of the mediating role of strategic decision comprehensiveness and the moderating effect of competitive uncertainty.

This study adopts the survey method and uses two-wave survey data collected from 140 CEOs in different industries in China. The ordinary least square (OLS) regression model and path analysis are adopted to test the authors' theoretical hypotheses.

The results show that self-oriented perfectionism drives CEOs to pay attention to thoroughness and detail, which helps enhance strategic decision comprehensiveness and further facilitates firm resilience. Furthermore, the positive effect of CEO's self-oriented perfectionism on strategic decision comprehensiveness is weakened when competitive uncertainty is high.

To promote firm resilience, self-oriented perfectionism can be considered when hiring or promoting key decision-makers. When making strategic decisions, top managers need to search for adequate information, consider various factors and seek more alternative plans to improve strategic decision comprehensiveness to further facilitate firm resilience.

This study pioneers the influence of CEO's perfectionism on firm resilience and further tackles the underlying mechanism behind the influence, which contributes to extending the micro-foundation of firm resilience and enriching perfectionism literature in the strategic leadership field.

The purpose of this study is to develop new biodegradable magnesium alloy. Magnesium possesses similar mechanical properties to natural bone; it is a potential candidate for resorbable implant applications. However, in physiological conditions, the degradation rate of Mg is too high to be used as an implant material.

In this research, Zn, Sr and Ca were chosen as alloying elements; a coating was deposited on the MgZnSrCa alloy surface by means of a biomimetic technique. The corrosion rates of the uncoated and coated specimens were tested in simulated body fluid.

The hydroxyapatite coating formed on the MgZnSrCa alloy surface and the hydroxyapatite layer markedly decreased the corrosion rate of the MgZnSrCa alloy.

A homogenous hydroxyapatite coating was formed on the MgZnSrCa alloy surface by using a biomimetic coating technique. The biomimetic hydroxyapatite coating markedly reduced the corrosion rate of the MgZnSrCa alloy, and the largest decrease in wastage rate was 44 per cent.

This paper aims to develop an efficient numerical method for mid-frequency analysis of built-up structures with large convex uncertainties.

Based on the Chebyshev polynomial approximation technique, a Chebyshev convex method (CCM) combined with the hybrid finite element/statistical energy analysis (FE-SEA) framework is proposed to fulfil the purpose. In CCM, the Chebyshev polynomials for approximating the response functions of built-up structures are constructed over the uncertain domain by using the marginal intervals of convex parameters; the bounds of the response functions are calculated by applying the convex Monte–Carlo simulation to the approximate functions. A relative improvement method is introduced to evaluate the truncated order of CCM.

CCM has an advantage in accuracy over CPM when the considered order is the same. Furthermore, it is readily to consider the CCM with the higher order terms of the Chebyshev polynomials for handling the larger convex parametric uncertainty, and the truncated order can be effectively evaluated by the relative improvement method.

The proposed CCM combined with FE-SEA is the first endeavor to efficiently handling large convex uncertainty in mid-frequency vibro-acoustic analysis of built-up structures. It also has the potential to serve as a powerful tool for other kinds of system analysis when large convex uncertainty is involved.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new methodology, used for dynamic reliability analysis of a gear transmission system (GTS) of wind turbine (WT), which could be used for assembly decision-making of the parts with errors to improve the GTS’s performance.

This paper involves the dynamic and dynamic reliability analysis of a GTS. The history curves of dynamic responses of the parts are obtained with the developed gear-bearing coupling dynamic model considering the random errors, failure dependency and random load. Then, the surrogate models of the mean and standard deviation of responses are presented by statistics, rain flow counting method and corrected-partial least squares regression response surface method. Further, a novel dynamic reliability model based on the maximum extreme theory, a theory of sequential statistics, equivalent principles and the inverse transform theory of random variable sampling, is developed to overcome the limitations of traditional methods.

The dynamic reliability of GTS considering the different impact factors are evaluated. The proposed reliability methodology not only overcomes the limitations associated with traditional approaches but also provides good guidance to assembly the parts in a GTS to its best performance.

Instead of constant errors, this paper considers the randomness of the impact factors to develop the dynamic reliability model. Further, instead of the limitation of the normal distribution of the random parameters in the traditional method, the proposed methodology can deal with the problems with non-normal distribution parameters, which is more suitable for the real engineering problems.

This study aims to reduce the warping deformation of the stainless composite plate after removal strake by using a finite element method. A three-dimensional thermo-mechanical coupled elastic-plastic finite element model has been suggested by using ABAQUS to simulate the multi-pass hot rolling of stainless composite plate.

A three-dimensional thermo-mechanical coupled elastic-plastic finite element model has been suggested by using ABAQUS to simulate the multi-pass hot rolling of stainless composite plate. Warping deformation rules of 316L/Q345R stainless composite plate after removal strake have been analyzed. Moreover, the influences of some different rolling parameters on this deformation have been discussed.

The warping deformation just varies in the range of cladding ratio from 0.1 to 0.25. Therefore, cladding ratio does not have a great influence on warping deformation.

The results show that higher heating temperature, larger final thickness and less rolling passes are beneficial for reducing the warping deformation.

Despite mounting evidence that job insecurity triggers counterproductive work behavior (CWB), the underlying mechanism within the association in hybrid employment remains unknown. This study aims to investigate turnover intention as a mediator in the association between job insecurity and CWB, as well as the differences between permanent and contract workers concerning the effect of job insecurity on employees’ CWB.

Dyadic data were collected from 213 workers (103 contract and 110 permanent workers) and their supervisors, who were employed in one of the three branches of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, respectively, located in Hunan, Shenyang and Xinjiang.

This study found that job insecurity was positively related to CWB, in which turnover intention acted as a partial mediator. Employment status acted as a moderator between job insecurity and CWB.

First, this study extends the theoretical knowledge concerning how job insecurity activates CWB by identifying turnover intention as a mediating mechanism. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the mediating role of turnover intention in terms of job insecurity and CWB. Second, this research expands the understanding of the relation between job insecurity and CWB by investigating this link in the case of contract workers versus permanent workers. Finally, this paper aims to provide an understanding of why contract workers and permanent workers may differ in their reactions to job insecurity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore two dimensions of leadership practices (i.e. teaching and learning and sources of power) used by two exemplary principals in mainland China against a background of education reform and to identify how broader contextual factors have shaped these two dimensions of their leadership.

An exploratory case study was used that drew upon semi‐structured interviews, observations and document analysis. Interviews were conducted with two principals, six teachers from each of the two schools and a superintendent who was the supervisor of the two principals.

The findings reveal that there are some common elements in both of the leaders' practices but also some subtle differences. Both leaders emphasise teaching and learning. One sees herself as curriculum expert; the other delegate teaching responsibilities. While both uses a top down approach, one principal uses an adversarial approach and the other a more facilitative approach.

The study used a small sample size. It explored the leaders' practices in the light of broader contextual factors rather than personal factors or gender‐based factors

Given the limited empirical research conducted on female principals in mainland China, this qualitative study provides insights into two dimensions of leadership used by two exemplary principals and explains their practices in the light of critical contextual factors such as contemporary and traditional Chinese culture and the school's organisational context.

Autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is widely used in resource prospection and underwater detection due to its excellent performance. This study considers input saturation, nonlinear model uncertainties and external ocean current disturbances. The containment errors can be limited to a small neighborhood of zero in finite time by employing control strategy. The control strategy can keep errors within a certain range between the trajectory followed by AUVs and their intended targets. This can mitigate the issues of collisions and disruptions in communication which may arise from AUVs being in close proximity or excessively distant from each other.

The tracking errors are constrained. Based on the directed communication topology, a cooperative formation control algorithm for multi-AUV systems with constrained errors is designed. By using the saturation function, state observers are designed to estimate the AUV’s velocity in six degrees of freedom. A new virtual control algorithm is designed through combining backstepping technique and the tan-type barrier Lyapunov function. Neural networks are used to estimate and compensate for the nonlinear model uncertainties and external ocean current disturbances. A neural network adaptive law is designed.

The containment errors can be limited to a small neighborhood of zero in finite time so that follower AUVs can arrive at the convex hull consisting of leader AUVs within finite time. The validity of the results is indicated by simulations.

The state observers are designed to approximate the speed of the AUV and improve the accuracy of the control method. The anti-saturation function and neural network adaptive law are designed to deal with input saturation and general disturbances, respectively. It can ensure the safety and reliability of the multiple AUV systems.