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The lubricating fluid stored in the porous matrix will spontaneously exude to supplement the lubricating film in the damaged area, thus ensuring the long-term self-lubricating function of the porous surface. To reveal the repair mechanism of oil film, it is necessary to understand the flow characteristics of oil in micropores. The purpose of this study guides the design of micropore structure to realize the rapid exudation of oil to the porous surface and the rapid repair of the lubricating film.

In this paper, cylindrical orifice, convergent orifice and divergent orifice were studied. The numerical model of lubricating oil exudation in micropores was established. The distribution characteristics of oil pressure, velocity and three-phase contact line in the process of oil exudation were investigated. The effects of different orifice shapes and orifice structure parameters on the pinning and spreading characteristics of oil droplet were analyzed. Then the internal mechanisms of oil droplet formation and spread on the orifice surface were summarized.

The results show that during the process of oil exudation, the three-phase contact line of the oil drop is pinned once at the edge of the cylindrical and convergent orifice. Compared with the three orifice structures, the inlet pressure of the oil drop is low, and the oil velocity at the pinning point is stable in the divergent orifice. Resulting in favorable oil exudation. It is easier for oil droplet to depin by appropriately reducing the wall wetting angle, increasing the aperture or controlling the wall inclination angle. Ensure the self-healing and long-lasting lubrication film of porous oil-bearing surfaces.

The effect of pore structure on the flow behavior of lubricating fluid has always been concerned. But the mechanism by which different orifice shape affect the pinning behavior of oil droplets is not yet clear, which is crucial for understanding the self-healing mechanism of oil films on porous surfaces. It is meaningful to analyze the mechanism of oil exudation and spreading on the porous surface of oil in the special orifice, to optimize the design of the orifice structure.

Orifice shape has influence on internal flow field parameters. There is no report on the influence of orifice shape on the film formation process of oil seepage and diffusion from pores. The effects of different orifice shapes and orifice structure parameters on the characteristics of oil droplet pinning and diffusion were studied.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-04-2024-0118/

Agency theory postulates that research and development (R&D) investments are subject to managerial discretion and thus may not enhance firm value as expected. The inconclusive empirical findings in the literature is a testament of that. This paper aims to investigate the interplay between board gender diversity (i.e. women on boards) and value relevance of firms’ effort to innovate as indicated by firms’ R&D investments.

Through a sample of 1,626 US-listed firms from the period 2004 to 2019, the authors examine whether board gender diversity promotes or hampers value relevance of firms’ efforts to innovate. The authors use ordinary least squares as the baseline model and address potential endogeneity through instrumental variable two-stage least square, and selection bias through Heckman selection model. Finally, the authors use the financial crisis of 2008 as a natural experiment to investigate the effect of board gender diversity during the crisis period.

The results show that board gender diversity positively moderates the relation between R&D and firm value. In times of financial crisis, R&D does not destroy firm value in firms with gender diverse board. The results are robust to measurement error, endogeneity issue, particularly simultaneity and selection bias.

The findings in this study have several practical implications. Firms that invest heavily in R&D should be mindful of gender diversity in their board recruitment strategies to enhance innovation outputs and firm value. Current and potential investors (i.e. shareholders) should take into consideration board gender diversity in their investment decision-making processes as the results show that gender diverse boards promote more effective governance, which, in turn, leads to better alignment of R&D investments with shareholder value. Regulators aiming to improve corporate governance policies should encourage gender diversity on the boards. The results align with global initiatives such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 5 on gender equality. Policymakers may use the findings in this study to advocate for more gender diverse governance structures within corporations.

This study investigates the role gender diverse boards play in creating value from firms’ R&D activities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of demand information sharing on products’ greening levels with downstream competition. Specifically, this study examine two types of green products, “development-intensive” (DI) and “marginal-cost intensive” (MI), in a two-echelon supply chain where the manufacturer produces substitutable products, and competing retailers operate in a market with uncertain demand.

The authors adopt the manufacturer-led Stackelberg game-theoretic framework and consider a multistage game. This study consider how retailers receive private signals about uncertain demand and decide whether to share this information with the manufacturer, who then decides whether to acquire this information at a certain given cost. This paper considers backward induction and Bayesian Nash equilibrium to solve the model.

The authors find that in the absence of competition, information sharing is the only equilibrium and improves the greening level under DI, whereas no-information sharing is the only equilibrium and improves the greening level under MI, an increase in downstream competition drives higher investment in greening efforts by the manufacturer in both DI and MI and the manufacturer needs to offer a payment to the retailers to obtain demand information under both simultaneous and sequential contract schemes.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining how the nature of products (margin intensive green product or development intensive green product) influences green supply chain decisions under information asymmetry and downstream competition.

Social media is booming in the digital age, and its rich availability provides many opportunities for companies to innovate across borders. In reality, how enterprises use social media to achieve cross-border innovation also faces important challenges such as breaking path dependency.

This paper explores how social media can facilitate cross-border innovation from the perspective of strategic capability, combined with the path dependency theory and attention-based view. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrap method are adopted to test the hypotheses based on survey data provided by 173 firms in China.

The findings show a positive relationship between social media strategic capability and cross-border innovation, with path dependency playing a mediating role. In addition, two internal and external contextual factors, namely customer embeddedness and competitive pressure, play moderating roles, with customer embeddedness negatively moderating the negative relationship between social media strategic capability and path dependency and competitive pressure negatively moderating the negative relationship between path dependency and cross-border innovation.

These findings provide not only new insights into social media and cross-border innovation but also theoretical guidance on how companies can effectively use social media in practice.

This study aims to investigate the mechanical and tribological behavior of 70Mn steel with different laser re-melted textured patterns.

Laser surface re-melting (LSR) was used to manufacture various textured patterns (i.e. line, grid and mixed) on both the original and heat-treated 70Mn steel plates. The micro-hardness, microstructure, tensile strength, yield strength, elongation, coefficients of friction (COF) and worn morphologies were characterized to evaluate the impact of different textured patterns on the overall performance.

The results show that re-melted unit exhibited the highest surface hardness on the subsurface. The increase in surface hardness of the re-melted unit for the heat-treated 70Mn steel samples was much lower than that of the original ones. The re-melted textured patterns did not improve the tensile strength, yield strength and elongation of either original or heat-treated 70Mn steel samples. The re-melted textured patterns effectively reduced the average COFs of heat-treated 70Mn steel samples, but increased friction of the non-heat-treated samples.

This study provides valuable insights into enhancing the mechanical properties and tribological characteristics of 70Mn steel, particularly in the automotive, heavy machinery and high-load application sectors. These industries have stringent requirements for durability and friction control, and the findings of this research are expected to effectively extend the lifespan of mechanical components.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-11-2024-0443/

This paper aims to develop the building information modeling (BIM) investment decision model (BIDM) for Hong Kong architecture, engineering, construction and operation (AECO) industry utilization in early BIM investment decision-making. The developed BIDM is designed to assist company leaders in measuring and amending their investment decisions and BIM strategy by considering estimators [features and net positivity (NP)] and results based on BIDM.

This research is conducted using a mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative analysis. The necessary indicators were collected from literature and interviews with relevant researchers, where 545 semistructured questionnaires were distributed to selected AECO company leaders and collected by the authors. The least absolute contraction and selection operator (LASSO)-based result was conducted to help company leaders. The results of the validation test validated the model based on the LASSO method and the outcomes of the p-value test also supported the significance of BIDM.

More than 80 determinators were processed to conduct 19 main indicators for generating BIDM, and 6 significant main indicators on final BIDM. The data set of this research included 483 samples, which are categorized into 7 groups according to their role in an infrastructure project.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first LASSO-used investment decision-making model integrated with the proposal of NP in the AECO industry. The value of current knowledge is the development of BIDM, which benefits company leaders in BIM investment decision-making and commercially benefits consulting cooperators as an investment forecasting tool. BIDM will help future users make better, more dynamic investment strategies.

The rapid development of information technology, epitomized by AIGC and the metaverse, presents unprecedented challenges to techno-ethics, exposing society to significant risks and uncertainties. A systematic investigation and discussion of the construction of techno-ethical order become crucial under the paradigm of risk society theory. The selection of conditions and pathways for constructing a techno-ethical order under the risk society theory paradigm becomes an unavoidable and vital issue.

Drawing on risk society theory, this study employs scientometrics and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to empirically analyze the key factors and conditional pathways in the construction of techno-ethical order. Initially, a quantitative analysis is conducted on 1,490 thematic literature retrieved from CNKI and WoS to identify the hot topics and core concepts in techno-ethical research. Subsequently, QCA configuration analysis is applied to calculate eight evaluation indicators and their weights from the perspectives of government, society and individuals. Finally, the study explores the mechanisms of the impact of these indicators’ weights on the construction of techno-ethical order.

The analysis of factor weights and pathways indicates that the selection of pathways for constructing techno-ethical order is influenced both by the inherent development patterns of technology and societal systems and cultural values. Literature metrics analysis reveals an overall trend of sustained growth in techno-ethical research, indicating an unprecedented prosperity in this field. Alongside technological advancements, keywords related to “artificial intelligence” play a crucial role in current techno-ethical research. Configuration analysis demonstrates that conditional variables from the dimensions of government, society and individuals form a configuration pathway, influencing and synergistically impacting the overall level of techno-ethical order construction. Attention should be given to the mutual constraints and synergistic effects of factors related to technological development, societal systems and cultural values.

This study, grounded in the risk society theory paradigm, quantitatively explores the key factors and pathways of techno-ethical order construction in academic texts, expanding new perspectives, providing novel insights, establishing innovative methodologies and extending new boundaries in the field. Further enrichment of the dataset and in-depth discussions are warranted for continued advancement.

With rapid urbanization, cities are facing various ecological and environmental problems. Living in harmony with nature is more important than ever. This paper aims to evaluate the ecosystem and ecological features of Azheke village, a key component of the Hani Rice Terraces World Cultural Heritage in China. The focus is on exploring effective ways to improve the relationship between humans and the natural environment through urban design in order to create a livable and sustainable city that can promote the development of sustainable smart urban ecology design.

This study conducted a systematic literature review to answer the following research questions: (1) How does Azheke design achieve harmony between humans and nature? (2) What are the effective approaches to improve the relationship between humans and nature within urban ecosystems? (3) How can urban design learn and integrate from Azheke’s ecological features to improve the relationship between humans and nature?

Azheke sustains long-term human-nature harmony through traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and efficient natural resource use. By incorporating biophilic design and nature-based solutions from Azheke, along with biodiversity-friendly urban planning, we can boost urban ecosystem health and create unique Azheke-inspired urban designs.

This research primarily focuses on the human-nature relationship, exploring design strategies based on biodiversity without delving into the interactions between other components of urban ecosystems, such as social-cultural and economic components.

This paper provides a new perspective and strategies for developing sustainable and smart urban ecology design. These findings can provide theoretical references for urban planners, designers and decision-makers.

This study aims to investigate whether public attention influences corporate decisions on environmental disclosure, thereby revealing how society perceives and understands environmental issues and how corporations respond to these expectations.

We selected publicly listed Chinese firms as our sample. An “Environmental Disclosure Greenwashing” (EDG) Index was developed through textual analysis of their annual reports using natural language processing. Financial data were obtained from the CSMAR database, and multivariate regression was used for analysis.

The impact of public attention on EDG primarily manifests as an oversight pressure effect rather than a legitimacy incentive effect. As public attention intensifies, firms tend to adopt more substantial environmental actions instead of merely symbolic environmental disclosures. Formal regulatory frameworks might inadvertently trigger corporate EDG, but public attention can correct the adverse effects possibly introduced by formal regulations. Notably, in firms facing lower institutional pressure, the influence of public attention is more pronounced.

The evidence suggests that public attention reduces corporate EDG. These findings have significant implications for the regulation of environmental disclosures among firms in emerging economies.

The study integrates research in environmental disclosure with the concept of “greenwashing”, unveiling the limitations of the “disclosure as governance” viewpoint. It elucidates the impact of an informal external oversight mechanism (i.e. public attention) on complex corporate environmental disclosure decisions.

This study aims to conduct a dynamic analysis of consumer attitudes towards domestic brands under the influence of multiple-period opinion events, providing methodological guidance for the overall development of fast-fashion clothing brands.

This study takes the Xinjiang cotton event and ERKE donation event in 2021 as the samples and Weibo comments on the hot topic of the fact that ANTA’s total turnover exceeded NIKE’s on the 2021 Double 11 as the first and explores the process and influencing factors of consumer domestic brand attitude change through latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model.

Under the influence of multiple public opinion events, consumers’ attitudes towards domestic brands experienced changes from brand awareness and brand identification to brand loyalty. First of all, patriotism and the awareness of Chinese goods lead to consumers’ brand awareness. The social responsibility and perceived quality of the later stage will stimulate consumers’ brand identification. Finally, the matching of national pride and perceived products will promote consumers’ brand loyalty.

This study establishes a model of the evolution of consumer attitudes towards domestic brands, revealing for the first time from a dynamic perspective the factors influencing these attitudes. This study offers a novel perspective on the processes and structures of the relationship between consumers and domestic brands.