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1 – 10 of 12Zeqian Wang, Chengjun Wang, Xiaoming Sun and Tao Feng
The role of inventors' creativity is crucial for technological innovation within enterprises. The mobility of inventors among different enterprises is a primary source for…
Abstract
Purpose
The role of inventors' creativity is crucial for technological innovation within enterprises. The mobility of inventors among different enterprises is a primary source for companies to acquire external knowledge. The mechanism of “learning-by-hiring” is widely recognized by companies. Therefore, it is important to determine how to allocate network resources to enhance the creativity of inventors when companies hire mobile inventors.
Design/methodology/approach
The study suggests an analytical framework that analyzes alterations in tie strength and structural holes resulting from the network embeddedness of mobile inventors as well as the effect of the interaction between these two variables on changes in inventor’s creativity after the mobility. In addition, this paper examines the moderating impact of cognitive richness of mobile inventors and cognitive distance between mobile inventors and new employers on the correlation between network embeddedness and creativity.
Findings
This study found that: (1) The increase of tie strength has a significant boost in creativity. (2) Increasing structural holes can significantly improve the creativity of mobile inventors. (3) When both the tie strength and the structural holes increase, the creativity of the mobile inventors significantly increases. (4) It is important to note that when there is a greater cognitive distance, stronger tie strength promotes the creativity of mobile inventors. Additionally, cognitive richness plays a significant role in moderating the relationship between changes in structural holes and the creativity of mobile inventors.
Originality/value
These findings provide theoretical guidance for firms to effectively manage mobile inventors and optimize collaborative networks within organizations.
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Xiaoming Chen and Jian Xu
The objective of this study is to investigate how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic affects firms' financial management in China's manufacturing sector. In…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this study is to investigate how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic affects firms' financial management in China's manufacturing sector. In addition, the authors analyze the changes in various financial indicators before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the authors make a cross-country comparison of the COVID-19's impact on financial management between China and Romania.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the balanced panel data of 2,272 manufacturing listed companies from 2019 to 2020, and applies the t-test method and multiple regression method.
Findings
The results show that firms' financial performance in most manufacturing sub-sectors decreased during the observed period. In addition, the authors find that equity financing, proper liquidity management and an expanded firm scale can improve firms' financial performance. The authors further compare the results with the Romanian results, and find that the negative impact of debt-to-equity ratio on firms' financial performance in Romania is greater than that in China and the positive impact of financial autonomy ratio and working capital ratios is greater in China than that in Romania.
Practical implications
The findings can help corporate managers make the best financial management decision in response to crisis.
Originality/value
This study is one of the pioneers that analyze how manufacturing companies carried out their financial management during the COVID-19 crisis in the Chinese context, and provides a cross-country analysis of corporate financial management practices in China and Romania.
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Moustafa Mohamed Nazief Haggag Kotb Kholaif, Bushra Sarwar, Ming Xiao, Milos Poliak and Guido Giovando
This study aims to explore the pandemic's opportunities for enhancing the environmental practices of the food and beverages green supply chains and its effect on the supply…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the pandemic's opportunities for enhancing the environmental practices of the food and beverages green supply chains and its effect on the supply chains' viability by exploring the relationship between fear and uncertainty of COVID-19, food and beverages green supply chain management (F&B-GSCM) and supply chains’ viability based on the two dimensions (robustness and resilience) and examine the moderating effect of innovative technology adoption like big data analysis (BDA) capabilities and blockchain technologies (BCT) on this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on a sample of 362 F&B small and medium enterprises (SMEs)’ managers in the Egyptian market for data analysis and hypothesis testing.
Findings
The empirical results show that the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic have a significant positive effect on green supply chain management (GSCM). Also, BDA moderates the relationship between fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 and GSCM. However, BCT do not moderate that relationship. Similarly, GSCM positively affects supply chain viability dimensions (robustness and resilience). In addition, F&B-GSCM significantly mediates the relationship between fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 and supply chain viability dimensions (robustness and resilience).
Practical implications
Food and beverages (F&B) managers could develop a consistent strategy for applying BCT and BDA to provide clear information and focus on their procedures to meet their stakeholders' needs during COVID-19. Governments and managers should develop a consistent strategy to apply food and beverages supply chains (F&B SCs)' green practices to achieve F&B SCs' resilience and robustness, especially during the pandemic.
Originality/value
The Egyptian F&B SCs have been linked directly with many European countries as a main source of many basic food and agriculture products, which have been affected lately by the pandemic. Based on the “social-cognitive,” “stakeholder” and “resource-based view” theories, this study sheds light on the optimistic side of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it also brings the concepts of F&B-GSCM, SC resilience, SC robustness and innovative technologies back into the light, which helps in solving F&B SC issues and helps to achieve their viability.
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Yalan Wang, Chengjun Wang, Wei Wang and Xiaoming Sun
This study aims to investigate the influence of inventors’ abilities to acquire external knowledge, provide broad and professional knowledge and patenting output (i.e. different…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the influence of inventors’ abilities to acquire external knowledge, provide broad and professional knowledge and patenting output (i.e. different types of inventors) on the formation of structural holes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected 59,798 patents applied for and granted in the USA by 33 of the largest firms worldwide in the pharmaceutical industry between 1975 and 2014. A random-effects tobit model was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The inventors’ ability to acquire external knowledge contributes to the formation of structural holes. While inventors’ ability to provide broad knowledge positively affects the formation of structural holes, their ability to provide professional knowledge works otherwise. In addition, key inventors and industrious inventors are more likely to form structural holes than talents.
Originality/value
The results identify individual factors that affect the formation of structural holes and improve the understanding of structural hole theory. This study is unique in that most scholars have studied the consequences of structural hole formation rather than their antecedents. Studies on the origin of structural holes neglect the effect of inventors’ knowledge abilities and patenting output. By addressing this gap, this study contributes to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of structural holes. The results can guide managers in managing structural holes in accordance with inventors’ knowledge abilities and patenting outputs, which optimize the allocation of network resources.
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Dezhi Li, Huan Zhou, Shenghua Zhou, Guanying Huang, Xiaoming Ma, Yongheng Zhao, Wentao Wang and S. Thomas Ng
The study aims to pioneer an innovative approach for the evaluation of government portal websites (GPWs) by introducing an eye-tracking-based method. The research meticulously…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to pioneer an innovative approach for the evaluation of government portal websites (GPWs) by introducing an eye-tracking-based method. The research meticulously pinpoints and analyses the distinct usability issues and challenges that users encounter while navigating and interacting with GPWs.
Design/methodology/approach
This study devises an eye-tracking-based GPW usability evaluation approach, which focuses on the major functions (i.e. government information disclosure, government services and interactive responses) of GPWs. An Entropy Weighted Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (EW-TOPSIS) method is employed to process eye-tracking indicator results for deriving GPW usability results.
Findings
The proposed approach is demonstrated to assess the usability of 12 GPWs in pilot smart cities in China, and it is found that most GPWs have lower-than-average usability. GPWs with low usability require more cognitive load that exhibit increased fixation and saccade. The comparisons among the GPW usability results from (1) the eye-tracking experiment, (2) questionnaire surveys and (3) the ready-made performance evaluation report validate the effectiveness of eye-tracking-based GPW usability evaluation.
Originality/value
The work contributes to shifting the GPW usability evaluation approach from a subjective judgment paradigm to an objective paradigm, as well as provides implications for enhancing GPW usability, including improving search function, reducing website complexity and prioritizing user needs.
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Jiaping Zhang and Xiaomei Gong
The research attempts to estimate how the use of WeChat, the most popular mobile social networking application in contemporary China, affects rural household income.
Abstract
Purpose
The research attempts to estimate how the use of WeChat, the most popular mobile social networking application in contemporary China, affects rural household income.
Design/methodology/approach
Our materials are 4,552 rural samples from the Chinese General Social Survey, and a treatment effect (TE) model is employed to address the endogeneity of WeChat usage.
Findings
The results prove that WeChat usage has a statistically significant and positive correlation with rural household income. This conclusion remains robust after using alternative variables to replace the explanatory and dependent variables. Our research provides two channels through which WeChat usage boosts rural household income, namely, it can promote their off-farm employment and participation in investment activities.
Originality/value
Theoretically, the study provides several micro-evidences for understanding the impact of mobile social networks on rural household welfare. Further, our findings may shed light on the importance of digital technology applications in rural poverty alleviation for developing countries.
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Ananya Hadadi Raghavendra, Siddharth Gaurav Majhi, Arindam Mukherjee and Pradip Kumar Bala
This study aims to examine the current state of academic research pertaining to the role played by artificial intelligence (AI) in the achievement of a critical sustainable…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the current state of academic research pertaining to the role played by artificial intelligence (AI) in the achievement of a critical sustainable development goal (SDG) – poverty alleviation and describe the field’s development by identifying themes, trends, roadblocks and promising areas for the future.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analysed a corpus of 253 studies collected from the Scopus database to examine the current state of the academic literature using bibliometric methods.
Findings
This paper identifies and analyses key trends in the evolution of this domain. Further, the paper distils the extant literature to unpack the intermediary mechanisms through which AI and related technologies help tackle the critical global issue of poverty.
Research limitations/implications
The corpus of literature used for the analysis is limited to English language studies from the Scopus database. The paper contributes to the extant research on AI for social good, and more broadly to the research on the value of emerging technologies such as AI.
Practical implications
Policymakers and government agencies will get an understanding of how technological interventions such as AI can help achieve critical SDGs such as poverty alleviation (SDG-1).
Social implications
The primary focus of this paper is on the role of AI-related technological interventions to achieve a significant social objective – poverty alleviation.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of a critical research domain such as AI and poverty alleviation.
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Monica Puri Sikka, Jameer Aslam Bargir and Samridhi Garg
Intense interest has been shown in creating new and effective biocide agents as a result of changes in bacterial isolates, bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics, an increase in…
Abstract
Purpose
Intense interest has been shown in creating new and effective biocide agents as a result of changes in bacterial isolates, bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics, an increase in patients with burns and wounds and the difficulty of treating infections and antimicrobial resistance. Woven, nonwoven and knitted materials are used to make dressings; however, nonwoven dressings are becoming more popular because of their softness and high absorption capacity. Additionally, textiles have excellent geometrical, physical and mechanical features including three-dimensional structure availability, air, vapor and liquid permeability, strength, extensibility, flexibility and diversity of fiber length, fineness and cross-sectional shapes. It is necessary to treat every burn according to international protocol and along with it has to focus on particular problems of patients and the best possible results.
Design/methodology/approach
The objective of this paper is to conduct a thorough examination of research pertaining to the utilization of textiles, as well as alternative materials and innovative techniques, in the context of burn wound dressings. Through a critical analysis of the findings, this study intends to provide valuable insights that can inform and guide future research endeavors in this field.
Findings
In the past years, there have been several dressings such as xeroform petrolatum gauze, silver-impregnated dressings, biological dressings, hydrocolloid dressings, polyurethane film dressings, silicon-coated nylon dressings, dressings for biosynthetic skin substitutes, hydrogel dressings, newly developed dressings, scaffold bandages, Sorbalgon wound dressing, negative pressure therapy, enzymatic debridement and high-pressure water irrigation developed for the fast healing of burn wounds.
Originality/value
This research conducts a thorough analysis of the role of textiles in modern burn wound dressings.
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Farhan Mirza and Naveed Iqbal Chaudhry
Civil service workers are valuable resources for any nation and play a crucial role in driving their country’s economic development. Per the supervisor, this research examines the…
Abstract
Purpose
Civil service workers are valuable resources for any nation and play a crucial role in driving their country’s economic development. Per the supervisor, this research examines the impact of mindfulness, proactive personality, and career competencies on employee job performance. The study also analyzes the effects of career adaptability and identity on this aspect.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the model of this study, questionnaires were administered to a sample of 500 civil service employees whose career-based knowledge and skills were measured in various cities in the province of Punjab, Pakistan.
Findings
Mindfulness and career competencies significantly impact supervisor-rated task performance, whereas a proactive personality does not substantially relate to supervisor-rated task performance. Research indicated that the two hypotheses about mediation were accepted. However, career adaptability does not play a significant role in the link between mindfulness and how well a supervisor rates task performance. Regarding moderation, career identity did not significantly moderate the relation between proactive personality and supervisor-rated task performance. However, the other two moderate hypotheses have been proven to be significant.
Research limitations/implications
The findings offer compelling support for career construction theory (CCT) in this study area by analyzing the connections related to career adaptability and identity within the framework. In the future, researchers can build on this model by adding theories like conservation of resources (COR), looking into possible moderators that might change specific pathways in this network of relationships and using longitudinal designs to find stronger causal relationships.
Originality/value
Considering the evolving workplace due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the study offers fresh perspectives on the post-COVID situation, understanding and integrating various variables. For future studies, more variables can be explored in this model with the expansion of sample size and change of context.
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Mudit Gera, Dharminder Kumar Batra and Vinod Kumar
This paper aims to understand the scholarly contributions to mobile advertising by analyzing the publishing trend from 2001 to 2022 from the documents indexed in the Scopus…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand the scholarly contributions to mobile advertising by analyzing the publishing trend from 2001 to 2022 from the documents indexed in the Scopus database.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 348 documents were selected for analysis published between 2001 and 2022. The garnered data was examined using a bibliometric domain mapping analysis technique using computer-aided software R and VOSviewer and manually exploring the articles.
Findings
The results of this study discover the most prolific authors in the mobile advertising domain and other seminal works carried out by productive researchers in the field of mobile advertising. The journals in which most instrumental research studies have been published are also identified. Moreover, the co-citation, bibliometric coupling and co-occurrence analysis of literature are also carried out to draw themes concerning mobile advertising research that have been identified and categorized.
Research limitations/implications
This research analyzed a singular, exclusive database, “Scopus,” which limited the sectoral scope of publications. Since the present research uses bibliometric analysis, these studies cannot conduct sentiment analysis of the chosen studies.
Practical implications
Marketing professionals looking after technological advancements may use this study to understand the broad scope of mobile advertising applicability across diverse domains and discuss the trade-offs that may address significant bottlenecks in mobile advertising applications.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the latest attempts in recent times to understand the research work in mobile advertising using a bibliometric domain analysis approach.
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