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This study aims to assess the pitting resistance of austenitic stainless steel welded joints fusion zone (FZ) with high density of inclusions before and after surface treatment, including potentiostatic pulse technique (PPT) and pickling.

The potentiodynamic polarization tests and critical pitting temperature tests were carried out for estimating pitting resistance. The PPT and pickling were performed as surface treatment. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer were used for characterize the microstructure and elemental distribution. Electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) was used to assess the portion of phases and morphology of grains.

The weld metal exhibits a higher degree of alloying compared to the base metal, and it contains d-phase and sulfur-containing inclusions. Sulfur-containing inclusions serve as initiation sites for pitting, and they diminish the pitting resistance of weld metal. Both PPT and pickling can remove sulfur-containing inclusions, but PPT causes localized dissolution of the weld metal matrix around the inclusions, while pickling does not. Because of the high density of inclusions, certain pits initiated by PPT are significantly deeper, which makes the formation of stable pitting easier. Because of the high density of inclusions, certain pits initiated by the PPT are deeper. This characteristic facilitates the progression of these initial defects into fully developed, stable pits.

Analysis of pitting initiation in shielded metal arc welding FZ with PPT and ex situ SEM tracking observation. Explanation of why the PPT surface treatment is not able to enhance the pitting resistance of stainless steel with a high inclusion density.

A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor was designed to measure the door gap of automobile bodies.

The gap sensor was designed through a combination of the sliding wedge and cantilever beam, involving a magnetic force installation and arc structure of the force transmission point. Moreover, the sliding block adopted an anti-magnetic and wear-resistant material and the temperature compensation of the two FBGs was conducted. The magnetic force and contact stress of the sensor were examined to ensure that the sensor exhibited a certain magnetic attraction force and fatigue life. The performance of the gap sensor was examined experimentally.

The sensor could measure gaps with dimensions of 5 mm to 11 mm, with a sensitivity and measurement accuracy of 150.9 pm/mm and 0.0063% F.S., respectively. Moreover, the sensor exhibited a small gap sensitivity, with a repeatability error of 0.15%, anti-creep properties and magnetic interference abilities.

The sensor is compact and easy to install, as well as use for multiple sensor locations, with a maximum size of 43 mm, a mass of 26 g and installation type of magnetic suction. It can be used for high-precision static and dynamic measurements of the door inner clearance with a resolution of 0.013 mm to improve the efficiency of internal clearance on-line analysis and assembly quality inspection.

This paper aims to mainly investigate the role of trust, which is an important informal system, in executive compensation incentives.

Using the data of Chinese A-share private enterprises from 2003 to 2014, the paper estimates the effect that trust has on executive compensation incentives.

Results indicate that trust can significantly enhance the effectiveness of executive compensation incentives. Furthermore, the better the regional trust environment in which companies are located, the more pronounced the effect is. In particular, the effect of trust on executive compensation incentives is only significant when the formal legal system is immature. As companies continue to grow and develop and the formal system becomes perfect, the role of trust weakens. The formal system, including the corporate governance mechanism and perfect legislation, then becomes the key to promoting executive compensation incentives.

This paper provides evidence of the significance of both informal and formal systems. It not only emphasises the important role that the informal system has played in “the mystery of China’s economic growth” but also supports the “ruling the country by law” strategy for the sustainable development of China’s economy.

This paper reveals the relationship between the formal and informal systems, which provides a new perspective on and empirical evidence for the determinants of executive compensation incentives, and it also finds an explanation for the rapid growth of China’s economic development.

This study examines how Confucianism, as an informal system, alleviates manager–shareholder conflicts and thus decreases managerial behavior of keeping higher levels of cash reserves. This study also investigates whether formal governance mechanisms (state ownership and institutional investors) moderate the relationship between Confucianism and cash holdings.

This study opts a sample of Chinese listed firms over the period of 2004–2015. The geographical-proximity-based method was followed to measure Confucianism, which is the distance between a firm's registered address and the national Confucianism centers.

The results indicate that Confucianism adversely influences cash holdings. The authors’ findings illustrate that Confucian culture promotes ethical behavior, and therefore, firms in a strong Confucianism environment keep a lower level of cash reserves. The authors further document that the effect of Confucianism on cash holding is weaker for state-owned firms but stronger for firms with low institutional ownership.

The findings provide implications for policymakers, academicians, and corporations. The results suggest that culture can reduce cash holdings. Especially, in emerging markets, such as China, where formal mechanisms are relatively less effective, informal institutions can serve an alternative system for alleviating adverse effects of agency conflicts.

This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, this study contributes to cash holdings literature by showing that culture (Confucianism) is negatively associated with cash holdings. Second, this study extends the incumbent literature that seeks to explore how Confucian culture influences corporate behavior. To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first study that identifies that Confucianism is associated with cash holdings.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and understand factors that influence users’ acceptance of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) collaboration tools in organizational settings.

This paper develops a research model based on the Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM). Using data collected from a field study of Google Docs, the research model and related hypotheses are tested by structural equation modeling.

Users’ confirmation with expectations positively affect their perceived usefulness and satisfaction level; Users’ perceived usefulness and satisfaction positively affect their intention to continue using such collaboration tools. Users’ prior experience with such tools and their IT skills have a moderating effect on the relationships among confirmation, perceived usefulness, satisfaction, and continuance intention.

This study identifies the theoretical foundations of user acceptance of SaaS collaboration tools in the context of mandatory adoption. This empirical study, based on an established theoretical foundation, will help the research community to gain a deeper understanding of user acceptance of cloud computing technologies, in particular, SaaS collaboration tools.

The findings of this study can provide vendors and implementing organizations with useful strategies and tactics to enhance users’ acceptance of SaaS collaboration tools.

With the increasing popularity of cloud computing technologies, there have been ongoing concerns about the effectiveness of SaaS collaboration tools in organizational settings. This study is one of the first empirical research to examine the factors influencing users’ acceptance of SaaS collaboration tools.

Supply chain management is critical since firms always confront the competition on their supply chain efficiency. This article discusses the trend in supply chain management by examining Web technologies that transform and streamline the supply chain management.

This study aims to understand the impact of users' privacy concerns on their acceptance of social networking web sites (SNWs).

This paper develops two research models, with privacy concern conceptualized either as an antecedent of acceptance intention, or as a moderator of the relationships in the technology acceptance model (TAM). Using a survey questionnaire, empirical data were collected from 428 undergraduate college students. Structured equation modeling was used to test the validity of the proposed research models.

The privacy concerns of the research respondents were found to be statistically significant. However, they did not directly affect users' acceptance of social networking web sites. Instead, privacy concerns did moderate the effects of perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use, on users' intention to continue to use SNWs.

The study identifies the theoretical foundations of privacy and privacy concerns in the context of SNWs. This empirical study, based on an established theoretical foundation, will help the research community to gain a deeper understanding of the impacts of privacy concern in the context of social networking.

The findings of this study can provide SNW operators with useful strategies and tactics to enhance users' acceptance depending on their level of privacy concern.

With the worldwide rapid growth of SNWs, there have been ongoing concerns about how users' private information is viewed or used by others. This study provides much needed empirical evidence about the impact of privacy concerns on users' acceptance of SNWs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Chinese pork reserve regulation policy fulfills its function in stabilizing market prices and simultaneously to theoretically and empirically analyze the causes leading to the failure of Chinese Government’s intervention in the market, especially in the context of asymmetric pork and hog price information transmission.

A modified Reserve-Cobweb model based on the competitive storage model developed by Muth in 1961 is employed to examine the transmission effect of hog and pork prices under the setting of Chinese Government’s pork reserve regulation policy, using the data on Chinese hog and pork prices from June 2009 to June 2015.

While the Reserve-Cobweb model provides theoretical insights, suggesting that the implementation of the government’s reserve policy tool to control price volatility actually leads to increased price volatility, the empirical results indicate that the policy induces hypercorrection and impels greater price volatility, especially in the context of existence of asymmetric price information transmission.

The Chinese Government should reduce excessive pork price intervention and instead allow the market to play its role in the hog and pork markets.

This paper develops a modified Reserve-Cobweb model based on the price transmission effect on different links within the agricultural products supply chain, which is used to empirically validate the existence of asymmetric price information transmission between pork and hog price in China.

Previous studies demonstrate that market-oriented reform has contributed significantly to China's economic growth from the efficiency-based economic view. But some argue that state-owned firms have access to policy information, scarce resources, and government support, and thus state-owned firms might foster innovation. This study tries to find out either market force or state ownership helps improve firms' R&D efficiency.

Using data from China's high-tech industry, we employed the fixed-effect stochastic frontier model and the spatial panel Han-Philips linear dynamic regression model to investigate the relationship between market-oriented reform and the dynamic evolution of R&D efficiency in both temporal and spatial dimensions. Moreover, we examined whether the relationship is affected in a state-owned economy and an industry protection environment.

The results indicate the following: (1) the R&D efficiency of China's high-tech industry has improved steadily and has converged gradually across its regions during the market-oriented reform; (2) the marketization degree is positively correlated with R&D efficiency and its regional convergence; (3) the state-owned economy and industry protection have significantly weakened the ability of market forces to shape R&D efficiency — i.e. they reduce, rather than enhance, R&D efficiency.

This investigation helps understand the drivers of R&D efficiency in transition economies, and the findings are also helpful in defining the boundaries and constraints of market forces.

In recent years, frequent volatility is deeply influencing meat industry, household lives and macroeconomics. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the volatility of Chinese meat price, and provide suggestions on stabilizing the meat market.

This paper uses (G) ARCH, (G) ARCH‐M, TARCH and EGARCH models to analyze volatility and its asymmetry of Chinese meat price.

Estimation result of (G) ARCH model shows volatility clustering of meat price. Estimation result of (G) ARCH‐M model shows high risk and low return in beef market. ARCH and EGARCH models estimation results show non‐symmetry of volatility of beef, mutton and chicken price, and volatility caused by falling price is smaller than that caused by rising price.

This paper shows that volatility of meat price can be predicted and Chinese meat market is not perfect, and special attention to the factors causing rise in meat price is necessary.