Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizational climate impacts the speed of strategic change (SSC) for firms in transitional economies and whether if the effects were contingent on internal control mechanisms.

A theoretical model including five constructs is developed. The questionnaire survey is deployed to scale main constructs, including organizational climate, such as open communication and hierarchical bureaucracy, internal controls such as strategic and financial control, and SSC. The moderation regression method in five steps is employed to test all hypotheses using the survey data from the 120 sampled Chinese firms.

The findings show that open communication has a positive effect on SCC, whereas hierarchical bureaucracy has a negative effect on SSC. Furthermore, strategic control positively moderates the relationship between open communication and SSC but negatively moderates the relationship between hierarchical bureaucracy and SSC; meanwhile, financial control negatively moderates the relationship between open communication and SSC but positively moderates the relationship between hierarchical bureaucracy and SSC.

This research integrates organizational climate and internal control mechanisms into the framework of strategic change to investigate how firms achieve fast strategic change through aligning organizational climate with proper organizational control mechanisms. The findings advance the authors’ understanding of the organizational climate, internal controls, and strategic change literature, and offer valuable managerial insights for managers in situations when strategic change is of central importance in the transitional economies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of enterprise is influenced by the enterprise digital transformation. In addition, this study explains how enterprise digital transformation affects ESG performance.

The sample covers 4,646 nonfinancial companies listed on China’s A-share market from 2009 to 2021. The study adopts the fixed-effects multiple linear regression to perform the data analysis.

The study finds that enterprise digital transformation has a significant inverted U-shaped impact on ESG performance. Moderate digital transformation can improve enterprise ESG performance, whereas excessive digital transformation will bring new organizational conflicts and increase enterprise costs, which is detrimental to ESG performance. This inverted U-shaped effect is more pronounced in industrial cities, manufacturing industries and enterprises with less financing constraints and executives with financial backgrounds. Enterprise digital transformation mainly affects ESG performance by affecting the level of internal information communication and disclosure, the level of internal control and the principal-agent cost.

The government should take multiple measures to encourage enterprises to choose appropriate digital transformation based on their own production behaviors and development strategies, encourage them to innovate and upgrade their organizational management and development models in conjunction with digital transformation and guide them to use digital technology to improve ESG performance.

This study shows that irrational digital transformation cannot effectively improve the ESG performance of enterprises and promote the sustainable development of the country. Enterprises should carry out reasonable digital transformation according to their own development needs and finally improve the green and sustainable development ability of enterprises and promote the sustainable development of society.

This study examines the relationship between enterprise digital transformation and ESG performance. Different from the linear relationship between the two in previous major studies, this study proves the inverse U-shaped relationship between enterprise digital transformation and ESG performance through mathematical theoretical model derivation and empirical test. This study also explores in detail how corporate digital transformation affects ESG performance, as well as discusses heterogeneity at the city, industry and firm levels. It is proposed that enterprises should take into account their own characteristics and carry out reasonable digital transformation according to their development needs.

The purpose of this paper is to address important but unresolved questions regarding how different knowledge transfer processes and characteristics affect knowledge transfer effectiveness (KTE). This study, which draws on an integrative knowledge management framework, forces us to reconsider successful knowledge transfer within organizations.

The data for this study were obtained through an interview survey of 117 firms in China. The questionnaire was adapted from several previous studies on processes, characteristics, and effectiveness of knowledge transfer. A regression method was conducted to test all hypotheses.

The findings show that both structured and unstructured knowledge processes has positive effects on KTE. Furthermore, knowledge embeddedness and articulability differently moderate the relationship between transfer processes and effectiveness.

The paper contributes to knowledge management theory by providing an integrative framework on how organizations can facilitate KTE by conducting appropriate transfer processes aligned with differentiated knowledge characteristics. Further, this study investigates the “fit” between knowledge transfer processes and characteristics.

In this paper, the authors aim to study the relationship between hydrogen embrittlement (HE) susceptibility and cathodic current density applied on the X70 steel girth welds.

The HE susceptibility of X70 steel girth welds were investigated through slow strain rate tensile test and observed and analyzed by optical microscope and scanning electron microscope methods.

The results show that HE susceptibility of X70 girth weld was basically unchanged with increasing of ion concentration while gradually increased and maintain at a specific value with the increase of cathodic current density. As for same ion content, a dense calcareous deposit layer generated on the sample surface in soil simulation solution with Ca2+ and Mg2+ resulted a decreased HE susceptibility while the porous calcareous deposit layer resulted a increased HE susceptibility.

A logistic regression model was established to describe the correlation between HE index and the cathodic current density.

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the effects of electric-arc-induced ablation on the corrosion behavior of pipeline steel in neutral and high pH environments.

Electrochemical testing, an atmospheric-pressure immersion experiment and various techniques (e.g. scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) were used to examine the effects of electric-arc-induced ablation on the corrosion behavior of pipeline steel in neutral and high pH environment.

Electric-arc-induced ablation occurred preferentially in areas of inclusion. The corrosion resistance of an ablation pit was lower than that of non-ablation areas. In the neutral soil solution, general corrosion was the dominant corrosion that affected pipeline steel; the effect of ablation was small but pitting corrosion could still be induced. In a high pH environment, the samples without ablation were passivated, whereas the samples with ablation pits could not be passivated; the ablation pits were likely to develop pitting corrosion.

Electric-arc-induced ablation can reduce the corrosion resistance of pipeline steel under high-voltage direct current interference.

In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) seismic base isolation system has been studied extensively. This paper aims to propose a new 3D combined isolation bearing (3D-CIB) to mitigate the seismic response in both the horizontal and vertical directions.

The new 3D-CIB composed of laminated rubber bearing coupled with combined disk spring bearing (CDSB) was proposed. Comprehensive analysis of constitution and theoretical derivation for 3D-CIB were presented. The advantage of CDSB is that the constitution can be flexibly adjusted according to the requirements of the bearing capacity and vertical stiffness. Hence, four different combinations of CDSB were designed for the 3D-CIB and employed to isolate nuclear reactor building. A comparative study of the seismic response in terms of seismic action, acceleration floor response spectra (FRS), peak acceleration and relative displacement response was carried out.

3D-CIB can effectively reduce seismic action, FRS and peak acceleration response of the superstructure in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Overall, the horizontal isolation effectiveness of 3D-CIB was slightly influenced by vertical stiffness. The decrease in the vertical stiffness of the 3D-CIB can reduce the vertical FRS and shift the peak values to a lower frequency. The vertical peak acceleration decreased with a decrease in the vertical stiffness. The superstructure exhibited a rocking effect during the earthquake, and the decrease in the vertical stiffness may increase the rocking of the superstructure.

Although the advantage of 3D-CIB is that the vertical stiffness can be flexibly adjusted by different constitutions, the vertical stiffness should be designed by properly accounting for the balance between the isolation effectiveness and displacement response. This study of isolation effectiveness can provide the technical basis for the application of 3D-CIB into real engineering of nuclear power plants.

This paper aims to accommodate the influence of both economic policy uncertainty and geopolitical risks in the relationship between oil price and exchange-rate returns in the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries through an interaction term (EPGR).

The authors use continuous wavelet transform (CWT), wavelet coherence (WC) and partial wavelet coherence (PWC). First, the authors apply the CWT to examine the evolution of oil prices, EPGR and exchange rate returns. Second, the authors use WC to investigate the relationship between oil price and exchange rate returns (excluding EPGR). Third, the authors use PWC to account for EPGR’s impact on the oil exchange rate returns dynamics and explore partial correlations in the oil and exchange rate returns dynamics.

The empirical results generally show that EPGR is a key driver in the oil and exchange rate returns nexus.

The relevance of EPGR in influencing exchange rate volatility is confirmed by the findings. As a result, it is critical for government officials and foreign exchange investors to use EPGR as a leading indicator when establishing foreign exchange trading strategies and economic forecasts.

This study is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to apply a wavelet-based technique to account for EPGR in the relationship between oil and exchange rate returns in the BRICS countries.

The construction collapse is one of the most serious accidents since it has several attributes (e.g. accident type and consequence) and its occurrence involves various kinds of causal factors (e.g. human factors). The impact of causal factors on construction collapse accidents and the interrelationships among causal factors remain poorly explored. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to use association rule mining (ARM) for cause analysis of construction collapse accidents.

An accident analytic framework is developed to determine the accident attributes and causal factors, and then ARM is introduced as the method for data mining. The data are from 620 historical accident records on government websites of China from 2010 to 2020. Through the generated association rules, the impact of causal factors and the interrelationships among causal factors are explored.

Collapse accident is easily caused by human factors, material and machine condition and management factors. Furthermore, the results show a close interrelationship between many causal factors and construction scheme and organization. The earthwork collapse is greatly related to environmental condition and the scaffolding collapse is greatly related to material and machine condition.

This study found relevant knowledge about the key causes for different types of construction collapses. Besides, several suggestions are further provided for construction units to prevent construction collapse accidents.

This study uses data mining methods to extract knowledge about the causes of collapse accidents. The impact of causal factors on various types of construction collapse accidents and the interrelationships among causal factors are explained from historical accident data.